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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2015 , , and : Toward Excellence in Dialogue Daniel Richard Deen

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more , please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND

SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND VIRTUE: TOWARD EXCELLENCE IN DIALOGUE

By

DANIEL RICHARD DEEN

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

2015

Daniel Richard Deen defended this dissertation on July 15, 2015. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Michael Ruse Professor Directing Dissertation

John Kelsay University Representative

Russell Dancy Committee Member

Piers Rawling Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

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Dedicated to Paul C.L. Tang

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first like to thank my committee members Russell Dancy, Piers Rawling, and John Kelsay for quickly coming together and making the completion of this project possible. I would also like to thank the department of philosophy at FSU for giving me the opportunity to enhance my philosophical training in such a congenial environment. I have fond memories of the graduate seminars and reading groups of , Michael Bishop, Russ Dancy, Al Mele, David McNaughton, Piers Rawling, and Jack Justus. All have left their intellectual fingerprints upon my work in one way or another. Perhaps more importantly, I offer a special thank you to the office staff for making sure I had all necessary administrative paperwork adequately accounted for; I owe Karen Foulke many flowers and Ben Miller and Jeff Hinzmann much bourbon! I would be remiss not to mention the wonderful cast of characters of philosophy graduate students that became friends during my at FSU. Lastly, I offer my sincerest gratitude to my advisor Michael Ruse. Without his intellectual latitude and constant encouragement, this project would not have come to completion. I am proud to have been intellectually formed through his mentorship. Apart from the people at FSU, I must give a heartfelt thank you to Dr. Jim Bachman and Dr. Jeff Mallinson at Concordia University Irvine for coming together on short notice to read through and comment on the entire manuscript. I also thank Dr. Scott Keith for ever available, pipe in hand, to decompress after a day of writing. I extend my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Rod Rosenbladt for steering me toward an academic career early in my undergraduate life and for his continual mentoring throughout my long academic journey. Likewise, I thank Dr. Paul C. L. Tang for whom this dissertation is dedicated. While he is not present to see its completion, I would not be here without his friendship. Finally, I thank my family. To my mom and stepfather for always being ready to help. To my children, whose constant smiles and pure joy at my homecomings after long days in the office empowered me to persevere. Lastly, my indefatigable wife who consciously created a domestic environment filled with constant encouragement, love, and forgiveness. Without such support I would not have made it, I love you.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... vii

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1.1 Socratic Insight ...... 2 1.2 Chapter Contents ...... 3

2. CONFLICT AS INQUIRY: ...... 7

2.1 Introduction ...... 7 2.2 ...... 8 2.2.1 Aquinas/Calvin Model ...... 8 2.2.2 Extended Aquinas/Calvin Model ...... 10 2.2.3 ...... 12 2.2.4 Taming Diversity: The Problem of Religious Pluralism ...... 14 2.3 Plantinga and Science ...... 17 2.3.1 Methodological ...... 17 2.3.2 Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism ...... 20 2.3.3 Problems with the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism ...... 24 2.4 Conflict as Inquiry: Invasive Fideism ...... 27 2.5 Concluding Remarks ...... 29

3. CONFLICT AS INQUIRY: PHILIP KITCHER ...... 30

3.1 Introduction ...... 30 3.2 ...... 31 3.2.1 Well-Ordered Science ...... 31 3.2.2 Ideal Conversation ...... 32 3.2.3 ...... 35 3.2.4 Taming Diversity: The Problem of Pluralism ...... 36 3.3 Kitcher and Religion ...... 39 3.3.1 Against Supernaturalism ...... 39 3.3.2 Orientation Model ...... 40 3.3.3 Enlightenment Argument Against Religion ...... 44 3.4 Conflict as Inquiry: Invasive Scientism ...... 47 3.5 Concluding Remarks ...... 48

4. VIRTUE AND INQUIRY ...... 50

4.1 Introduction ...... 50 4.2 Virtue ...... 51

v 4.2.1 Virtue- and Virtue-Responsibilism ...... 51 4.2.2 Form of Inquiry ...... 52 4.2.3 Plantinga, Kitcher, and ...... 54 4.3 Two Forms of Inquiry ...... 54 4.3.1 Introduction ...... 54 4.3.2 of Inquiry ...... 55 4.3.2.1 Epistemic Goals: vs. Understanding ...... 56 4.3.2.2 Successful Inquiry ...... 57 4.3.3 Virtuous Inquiry: Disciplinary Inquiry ...... 58 4.3.3.1 Plantinga and Kitcher: In Disciplinary Context ...... 61 4.3.4 Virtuous Inquiry: Interdisciplinary Inquiry ...... 63 4.3.5 Concluding Remarks ...... 66 4.4 Plantinga, Kitcher, and Intellectual Vice ...... 67 4.4.1 Introduction ...... 67 4.4.2 Plantinga's Intellectual Vices ...... 68 4.4.3 Kitcher's Intellectual Vices ...... 71 4.4.4 Concluding Remarks ...... 73 4.5 Concluding Remarks ...... 73

5. TOWARD DIALOGUE ...... 75

5.1 Introduction ...... 75 5.2 Plantinga and Kitcher: Potential Counterexample ...... 75 5.3 Response ...... 77 5.3.1 Descriptively Expansive Interdisciplinary Research ...... 77 5.3.2 Failure of Self-Reflective Interdisciplinary Research ...... 79 5.3.3 Concluding Remarks ...... 82 5.4 Michael Ruse: Science and Religion ...... 82 5.4.1 Introduction ...... 82 5.4.2 Ruse's Position ...... 83 5.4.3 of the Gaps and Interdisciplinary Research ...... 85 5.4.4 Ruse: Virtuous Interdisciplinary Research ...... 88 5.5 Concluding Remarks ...... 91

6. CONCLUSION ...... 93

6.1 Recapitulation ...... 93 6.2 Future Directions ...... 93

References ...... 95 Biographical Sketch ...... 102

vi ABSTRACT

This dissertation challenges the between science and religion promoted by philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Philip Kitcher. I analyze their conflict thesis as an epistemological disagreement about the nature of inquiry. Alvin Plantinga argues that a fideistic method of reasoning is required to make sense of science, while Philip Kitcher promotes a scientisim as the only way to make sense of religion. I argue that fideism and scientism are acceptable in a disciplinary context of inquiry. However, the investigation of the relationship between science and religion is an interdisciplinary context of inquiry where fideism and scientism instigate conflict. Therefore, conflict between science and religion is an artifact of Plantinga's and Kitcher's extension of disciplinary forms of inquiry into an interdisciplinary context. I look to the work of virtue epistemology, having identified the nature of inquiry as a primary cause of their conflict, to help distinguish disciplinary from interdisciplinary forms of inquiry. Disciplinary forms of inquiry are inquiries where intellectual faculty are more prominent than character virtues. Thus, one finds a consensus in disciplinary inquiry in how to proceed with research, e.g., Plantinga's fideism and Kitcher's scientism. Interdisciplinary research is a form of inquiry where the method of inquiry itself is in question, a form of inquiry has not been agreed to in terms of how to proceed with inquiry. Thus, intellectual character virtues take precedence to faculty virtues as agents are navigating the borders of different forms of inquiry. This distinction allows me to understand Plantinga and Kitcher as engaging in excellent disciplinary research but less-than-excellent interdisciplinary research. The dissertation concludes with showing how their work represents poor instances of interdisciplinary research, providing a positive example in the work of Michael Ruse.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Alfred North Whitehead famously quipped that all of philosophy is but a footnote to . This dissertation is a testament to Whitehead’s insight. In fact, my thesis was forged through the necessary duty of preparing lectures on the classical Socratic dialogues for freshmen students. So while my topic is contemporary, my insight is ancient, vindicating once again Whitehead’s dictum. My topic concerns the relationship between science and religion. Roughly, over the last quarter century philosophical issues between science and religion have been addressed on an as needed basis. Contemporary court cases from McLean v. Arkansas (1982) to Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover (2006) employed philosophers, directly or indirectly, in the legal battles surrounding , , and in public school science curriculum. This also meant that much of the philosophical interest in science and religion came from philosophers of science as they were called to the witness stand, testifying against the scientific status of creationism and intelligent design. In , the need for philosophy publicly to engage with the science/religion question, created space for a kind of applied philosophy of science. Specifically, the question of practical import became, “how can one demarcate good science from bad science, and science from pseudoscience?” Not surprisingly, this “ of science” was viciously attacked by traditional philosophers with charges of sloppy thinking and emotive work taking the place of sound philosophical reflection (e.g., Laudan 2009). Likewise, philosophers of religion, perhaps still living in the shadows of logical , seemed reluctant to engage in issues of science and religion. They were more content to deal with more traditional metaphysical and epistemological issues surrounding the attributes of God and the warrant of religious . Thus, the philosophers stepping into the public realm and gaining an interest in the philosophical study of science and religion faced a similar problem to that of the early proponents of applied —a hostile domestic philosophical environment. Luckily the academy is larger than the philosophy department, and at the same time traditional philosophers where blinded to the value of reflecting on science and religion, professors in religious studies, , history, and

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sociology saw value in the philosophical reflection on science and religion. Books, conferences, societies and a strong public interest in the topic kept certain philosophers interested. My project is an analysis of three philosophers who made career long efforts to engage in the philosophical discussion of science and religion. Two of the philosophers, Philip Kitcher and Alvin Plantinga, take conflict to be at the heart of philosophical views regarding science and religion, while one, Michael Ruse, argues for independence with room for dialogue. My task is to weave a path through these three figures and my analysis comes from the Socratic insight of which I previously hinted. My thesis: Philip Kitcher and Alvin Plantinga are committed to the conflict thesis in science and religion due to entrenched disciplinary forms of inquiry. Conflict between science and religion is an artifact of their conceptions of proper disciplinary inquiry. I argue, drawing on contemporary work in virtue epistemology, that their picture of inquiry is an example of irresponsible interdisciplinary inquiry. In support of my intellectual virtue theoretic form of inquiry, I will illustrate how responsibilist virtue epistemology best accounts for the excellent interdisciplinary inquiry carried out by philosopher Michael Ruse. 1.1 Socratic Insight The Socratic dialogues have always amused me and my motivation for the thesis of the current dissertation came from reading the Euthyphro, the Apology and the Meno.1 What attracted me to these particular dialogues was Socrates’ insistence on virtue and what virtue “looked like” during the course of an investigation. As I revisited these dialogues, I was struck by the fact that Socrates does not appear to be too interested in actually arriving at an answer. In fact, one might argue that it was Plato’s agenda, not Socrates, to mathematical clarity as the standard of definition. Let me illustrate using the texts of the dialogues themselves. In the Euthyphro, Socrates is on his way to court, happening upon the young theologian Euthyphro. A conversation ensues as to the nature of the term ‘piety.’ After numerous failed attempts, Euthyphro tries to evade Socratic questioning through changing the direction of conversation. Moreover, Euthyphro arrogantly accuses Socrates of shifting his arguments around like a mechanical contraption of Daedalus. In response, Socrates rightly chastises Euthyphro for laziness and disinterest in legitimate conversation (11d-e). Moving to the Apology, the dialogue recounting the trial of Socrates, we find Socrates admonishing his accusers and the jury for not properly evaluating the facts regarding his reputation. In fact, in a moving passage Socrates

1 I'm sure that other dialogues also fit my mold.

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states, “It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen; it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death. Slow and elderly as I am, I have been caught by the slower pursuer, whereas my accusers, being clever and sharp, have been caught by the quicker, wickedness. I leave you now, condemned to death by you, but they are condemned by truth to wickedness and injustice” (39b). Likewise, in the Meno, Socrates is talking with the young aristocrat Meno about the nature of virtue. Meno attempts multiple definitional moves that Socrates readily dispatches as contradictory. Meno, much like Euthyphro, attempts to evade conversation through proposing a paradox, “How will you look for it [virtue], Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?” (80d-e) At this point, the dialogue turns to the infamous slave boy example and the doctrine of recollection. However, two points seem to stand out in this section of the dialogue that may be divorced from Socrates’ metaphysical solution to the paradox. First, Socrates shows that confusion and perplexity are perfectly virtuous states of . Second, as Socrates is reflecting on the dialogue with the slave boy, he comments that it is the more courageous to work through perplexity than allow it to stop inquiry altogether (81b-86c). I take Socrates at his word when he says in the Apology that his task was to rouse Athens to virtue. While contemporary ears are primed to hear moral virtue in Socrates’ words, the Euthyphro, Apology, and Meno suggest that Socrates may have had an intellectual sense of virtue in mind. His problem with Euthyphro, Meno, and Athens was not that they were simply behaviorally immoral, that may be, but perhaps their investigative skills were lacking. Moreover, upon being shown that they did not know the things they said they knew, they tried to evade further dialogue rather than to think carefully about the and shaping their intellectual, moral, and civic lives. The interplay between intellectual, moral, and civic virtue in the early dialogues of Socrates encouraged me to think about how the Socratic picture may influence current contentious debates within the academy such as discussions, or lack thereof, surrounding science and religion. 1.2 Chapter Contents The following chapters are devoted to developing my Socratic insight. Chapters two and three serve a similar purpose. They both analyze the work of prominent philosophers promoting

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a conflict thesis between science and religion. Alvin Plantinga and Philip Kitcher locate themselves on opposite sides of the philosophical tracks. Alvin Plantinga is a philosopher of religion who has made significant contributions to the ethics of belief literature, while Philip Kitcher is a philosopher of science seriously grappling with a post-Kuhnian philosophy of science. The following two chapters will argue that Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s work within their respective fields provides a baseline from which they engage the larger issue of science and religion. In chapter two, I investigate Alvin Plantinga’s philosophy. In Plantinga’s infamous work, Warranted Christian Belief (2000), he argues for a solution to the problem of the ethics of belief that is non-evidentialist in nature. Warrant for Christian belief is a product of a properly functioning cognitive mechanism, activated by the internal instigation of the Holy , producing warranted true beliefs about God. This solution, which I call functional fideism, provides an expansion of the evidence base from which a Christian can then participate in other cognitive projects such as science. In his recent book, Where the Conflict Really Lies (2011), he makes a case for superficial and deep conflict between science and religion in relation to his functional fideism in philosophy of religion. The result of Plantinga’s investigation into the nature of science is to attack the rational core of scientific practice. The scientist has no right, according to Plantinga, to limit the theist's ability to judge science according to supernatural standards. Furthermore, scientists cannot justify their own practice sans a theistic framework. The chapter aims at making explicit the fideism driving Plantinga’s conflict thesis between science and religion. In chapter three, I turn my attention to Philip Kitcher. Philip Kitcher embodies the Kuhnian ethos of trying to account for the rational practice of science in a pluralistically value filled world. In Science in a Democratic Society (2011b), Kitcher concerns himself with a systematic treatment of the role non-epistemic values play in scientific discourse. However, the only non- epistemic values that warrant serious consideration are those that pass an epistemic test grounded in science. This solution, which I call functional scientism, allows for a systematic exclusion of traditional religion from any sort of public conversation regarding science and its future directions. Thus, Kitcher argues more recently in Life After (2014a) that traditional religion ought to be replaced by a secular . Functional scientism is the only acceptable judge of what is and is not valuable, ethical, and progressive. The result is an attack on the rational core of

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theological practice. The chapter aims at making explicit the scientism driving Kitcher’s conflict thesis between science and religion. Chapters two and three form a unified unit of analysis where the overall tension between science and religion is recognized as arising from the way one inquires into the conjunction science and religion. My aim is to illustrate that the problem between Plantinga and Kitcher is one of how to carry out successful inquiry. Both philosophers understand the interdisciplinary context in light of their disciplinary specialty and thus commit to a nonvirtuous form of inquiry, invasive fideism in the case of Plantinga and invasive scientism in the case of Kitcher. Chapter four is an exploration of how virtue epistemology may help overcome the conflict position ostensively working its way throughout Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s . Virtue epistemology takes the agent and how an agent inquires as the central unit of epistemological analysis. Thus, the doxastic , traditional epistemological concerns of belief, warrant, justification, etc., are secondary to the intellectual traits of an agent. This emphasis on an agent has developed along two pathways. On one hand, epistemic agents employ certain faculties in knowing, e.g., eyesight. On the other hand, epistemic agents exhibit certain character traits while coming to know, e.g., humility. I bring these two strands of intellectual virtue together in what I label a form of inquiry. A form of inquiry is some sort of calibration of faculty and character virtues that work together for an agent to come to . Moreover, I argue that depending on how one emphasizes the importance of faculty versus character virtues in an inquiry, one can understand the between disciplinary and interdisciplinary research. The distinction between disciplinary and interdisciplinary research allows me to argue that the works of Plantinga and Kitcher are excellent examples of disciplinary research, but poor examples of interdisciplinary inquiry. This conclusion provides problems for their strong conflict thesis, considering science and religion is a clear example of interdisciplinary inquiry. Chapter five addresses a counterexample that may be raised against my claim that Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s work is a poor example of interdisciplinary research. The counterexample simply denies that they are about an interdisciplinary project. After all, I make use of the fact that their work could be conceived as excellent specimens of disciplinary inquiry. Could one not simply categorize them as proponents of disciplinary research and leave it at that? This chapter responds by arguing that, descriptively, both Plantinga and Kitcher see themselves as engaging in a project that is larger than disciplinary inquiry. They are actively seeking to

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construct a more coherent world picture that is larger than any discipline. Moreover, one cannot interpret them as engaging virtuously in an interdisciplinary form of inquiry due to their lack of recognized limitations on inquiry. The discussion of intellectual limitations leads to the investigation of philosopher Michael Ruse and his independence-dialogue position in science and religion as a case of virtuous interdisciplinary inquiry.

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CHAPTER 2

CONFLICT AS INQUIRY: ALVIN PLANTINGA

2.1 Introduction This chapter is a case study in conflict between science and religion stemming from the terrain of . Alvin Plantinga is an accomplished philosopher of religion. His notoriety earned him the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy chair at the . His acceptance of the chair was followed by an inaugural address entitled, “Advice to Christian Philosophers” (1983), subsequently published in the journal Faith and Philosophy (1984). This address set the tone for the rest of Plantinga’s career, “In sum, we who are Christians and propose to be philosophers must not rest content with being philosophers who happen, incidentally, to be Christians; we must strive to be Christian philosophers. We must therefore pursue our projects with integrity, independence, and Christian boldness” (p. 271). Plantinga places himself within a tradition of theistic philosophers dedicated to defending and elucidating the academic respectability of theistic thought. The tradition has roots across the theistic spectrum with (d. 1204), (d. 1198), and Augustine (d. 430) historically representing Jewish, Muslim, and Christian thought respectively. A characteristic theme running through the thought of such thinkers is the inherent conflict between the theist and non-theist in their philosophical reflections about the world. Plantinga states:

According to Augustine, human history is the arena of a great struggle, a battle or contest between two profoundly opposed forces. Augustine spoke of the City of God and the Earthly City or City of the World: The Civitas Dei and the Civitas Mundi. The former is dedicated, in , to God and to the fulfillment of his will and to the accomplishment of his purposes; but the latter is dedicated to something wholly different. Augustine’s nineteenth century Dutch follower Kuyper spoke of an antithesis between belief—Christian belief— and unbelief, an antithesis that in one way or another cuts across and manifests itself in every important area of human life (2001, p. 339).2

2 It should be noted that Augustine doesn’t see conflict everywhere and that there may be opportunity for the two worlds to make common cause with each other. I raise this only as an indication that perhaps Plantinga is offering but one of a handful of interpretations of Augustine.

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This passage makes explicit that Plantinga is not playing the role of a detached philosophical mind, but one working within a very specific value structure. The conflict for Plantinga is decidedly moral in that he interprets the cognitive landscape as a cataclysmic battle between the sacred and the secular. The problem I raise against Platninga concerns the extension of his value commitment, one grounded in a fideistic Christianity, into other areas of research. I will specifically argue that such extensions may be viewed imperialistically when brought to bear on contexts that are not well-defined. The areas of interest to my dissertation are the borderlands between science and religion. These are disputed borders, with no firm consensus as to how to define either discipline. Plantinga assumes with “Christian boldness,” that he can demarcate the way inquiry ought to proceed according to the standards he develops within philosophy of religion. My aim in this section is to elucidate the independence and boldness of Plantinga’s philosophical project as it relates to his work on science and religion. I argue that his contribution to the ethics of belief literature provides a methodological baseline to understanding science (or any other discipline for that ). Thus, for Plantinga, the conflict is one of how to inquire at the intersection of science and religion. I will argue at a later juncture that his fideistic tendencies promote a certain attitude toward science that is epistemologically arrogant as well as irresponsible. 2.2 Philosophy of Religion 2.2.1 Aquinas/Calvin Model The most thorough explication of Plantinga’s ethics of belief is developed in his book- length treatment, Warranted Christian Belief (2000). The question driving Plantinga’s project in Warranted Christian Belief is what makes theistic belief generally, Christian belief specifically, rational? Can I be a rational agent while also maintaining beliefs in supernatural activity, virgin birth, and resurrection from the dead? It is an epistemological project with a decidedly moral twist as will be clear later. Plantinga’s project revolves around the development of the Aquinas Calvin Model (ACM) and its extension in the Extended Aquinas Calvin Model (EACM). I begin with the ACM and then move to the EACM. The ACM is an attempt to show that religious belief is warranted, i.e., rational. One is well within his or her epistemic rights to believe in the tenets of religion including supernatural God(s). The is that the classical conception of God—an omniscient, omnipotent, and omni- benevolent being—is not mere opinion but knowledge. In Plantinga’s language, belief in God is

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warranted. Warrant is the a belief has anchoring it to truth. A warranted belief is more than mere opinion, as it has been formed in a properly basic way (2000). A belief is properly basic just in case it arises from cognitive architecture designed to aim at truth. Thus, belief in God is properly basic if an agent finds herself believing in God according to cognitive mechanisms designed to aim at truth. If those conditions are met, then belief in God is warranted. The cognitive mechanism behind this process is the sensus divinitatus. The sensus divinitatus is a cognitive mechanism common, at least, to all humans. The mechanism is a part of our cognitive furniture regardless of whether one actually in God or not, being activated in theists, agnostics, and atheists alike. Plantinga describes it in these terms, “The sensus divinitatus is a disposition or set of dispositions to form theistic beliefs in various circumstances, in response to the sorts of conditions or stimuli that trigger the working of this sense of divinity” (2000, p. 173). For example, I gaze into the vastness of the Grand Canyon. I am left breathless, wondering in awe at the greatness of the universe. It is the sort of captured in ’s poetic “tangled bank” conclusion to the Origin of Species (1859), where no specific belief of divinity follows, but a certain awe or respect for the universe arises within our psyche. Or, upon understanding the complexities of living cells, I come to believe the world is designed. I find myself moved to form a belief in supernatural design, the sort of motivating beliefs formed by William Dembski and the Intelligent Design movement. One agent is left in awe; another forms a deistic belief. Both are due to activations of the sensus divinitatus. A key feature of this belief forming mechanism is that it does not work any differently from other mechanism of cognition. I can trust the deliverances of the sensus divinitatus in the same way that I can trust my memory or sense . This allows Plantinga to develop the of a belief that is properly basic. Properly basic beliefs are those not the product of . They are the starting points of thought, agents infer from them not to them. “[Theistic] belief is another of those starting points for thought; it too is basic in the sense that the beliefs in question are not accepted on the evidential basis of other beliefs” (p. 176). More importantly perhaps, theistic belief is properly basic with respect to warrant. Recall that warrant is that special characteristic a true belief possesses which separates it from mere true opinion or accidental knowledge. The mark of warrant is related to a belief being produced by cognitive faculties aimed at truth. Plantinga remarks:

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“On this model [ACM], our cognitive faculties have been designed and created by God; the design plan, therefore, is a design plan in the literal and paradigmatic sense. It is a blueprint or plan for our ways of functioning, and it has been developed and instituted by a conscious, intelligent agent. The purpose of the sensus divintitatus is to enable us to have true beliefs about God; when it functions properly, it ordinarily does produce true beliefs about God. These beliefs therefore meet the conditions for warrant; if the beliefs produced are strong enough, then they constitute knowledge” (p. 179).

Thus, theistic belief is rational as long as our sensus divinitatus is properly functioning. A Christian, Muslim, or Jew, is completely within their epistemic rights when believing in God if something like the sensus divinitatus is part of their cognitive architecture.3 2.2.2 Extended Aquinas/Calvin Model Plantinga’s ACM is a defense of non- due to not requiring any inference to belief. I am not forming a belief due to an argument or any evidential , but simply find myself believing in God (or other) due to the natural functioning of my mind. However, while the ACM claims to ground an intellectually respectable , it does not provide much as to the content of theism. Much like the rest of our cognitive faculties, the sensus divinitatus is rather subjective in its deliverances and rather vague, e.g., general sense of awe or a general sense of design. The deliverances of the ACM are understandable, perhaps explainable, within any number of systematic religious thought. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, as well as agnostics and atheists enjoy warrant-laden beliefs of the divine regardless of the differences between these positions. Plantinga thus extends the model to cover the “full panoply of Christian belief in all its particularity,” including, “, , Christ’s resurrection, atonement, forgiveness of sins, salvation, [and] regeneration” (p. 241). The fundamental underpinning of the extended model is a testimonial sealing of the scriptural of Christianity by the on believers through faith. When such a process occurs, the ACM is baptized the EACM, providing warrant for specifically Christian belief.

3 Note that the sensus divinitatus is a natural cognitive mechanism. All humans have it much like all humans have sense perceptions, memories, and logical/mathematical intuitions. Much of the cognitive science of religion is given over to investigating something like a sensus divinitatus (cf. Schloss & Murray 2009).

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All humans have a sensus divinitatus, but not all people are Christians. This is an obvious truth, but important for Plantinga as it undergirds the supernatural aspect of the extended model. Whereas the ACM is a natural cognitive faculty, the EACM is a supernatural process of testimony involving faith, scriptures and the Holy Spirit. Faith plays an important role in the extension of the ACM, but Plantinga’s faith is not a Kierkegaardian leap or a suspension of belief; it is a cognitive activity. Plantinga claims, “the propositional of faith is the whole magnificent scheme of salvation God has arranged” (p. 248). The important point is that Plantinga construes faith as having a propositional object, entailing a certain epistemic content. “The content of faith,” argues Plantinga, “is just the central teachings of the gospel…contained in the intersection of the great Christian creeds” (p. 248). These of the Christian message are secured through the reading of scripture. Scripture is authoritative, being inspired by God on the Christian view. Yet, more is needed than simply reading the Scriptures as many people read them without converting to Christianity. Thus, “On the model, there is both Scripture and the divine activity leading to human belief. God himself is the principle author of Scripture. Scripture is most importantly a message, a communication from God to mankind…there is also the special work of the Holy Spirit in getting us to believe, in enabling us to see the truth of what is proposed [in scripture]” (p. 251). Plantinga calls this “enabling us to see the truth” the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit, and it separates the sheep from the goats, or more precisely the ACM from the EACM. Those not having such an experience will simply not believe in the deliverances of the Christian scriptures. The internal instigation of the Holy Spirit testifies to the truth of what scripture reveals and a person finds himself or herself believing in the scriptural proclamations. Thus, the Holy Spirit acts much like the natural triggers in the general ACM for theism. While reading scripture, I simply find myself believing the deliverances as true. They are produced by a mechanism, albeit supernatural, that is designed to aim at truth. Therefore, when the Holy Spirit is active, I have warrant for the truths of Christianity. And, much like the ACM, the EACM is a source of properly basic beliefs. They are not inferential, but the basis of about Christianity, “upon reading or hearing a given teaching…the Holy Spirit teaches us, causes us to believe that that teaching is both true and comes from God. So the structure here is not: what is taught in Scripture is true; this…is taught in Scripture; therefore this is true. It is rather that, on reading or hearing a certain teaching t, one forms the belief that t, that very teaching, is true and

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from God” (p. 260). The internal instigation of the Holy Spirit seals the truth of Christianity on the hearts and of Christians allowing Plantinga to claim that Christianity, not only theism, has warrant. Christians are well within their epistemic rights forming beliefs via the testimony of scripture. 2.2.3 Fideism What follows from Plantinga’s model? How does the EACM impact the daily life of a Christian? Plantinga's fideism takes definite shape in response to such questions. It was noted that beliefs formed through a properly functioning EACM are also properly basic. This means they become the foundation of further inferences an agent makes. For instance, the propositional content of theism takes specific form as the Holy Spirit produces trust in sacred authorities such as a divinely inspired scripture. Thus, the Holy Spirit enlarges the evidence base of a believer, including the set of things that are true about the world through divine . The sensus divinitatus properly conditioned by the Holy Spirit seals the authority of scripture as a properly basic epistemic foundation, a source of further inferences. Scripture, therefore, becomes a cornerstone in the Christian’s cognitive edifice. My contention is that this move undergirds a functional fideism, ultimately driving Plantinga’s conflict thesis in science and religion. The key to Plantinga’s fideism is to understand what an evidence base is and what comprises such a base. Plantinga is not a traditional fideist, where faith is opposed to . I’ve already mentioned that he does not conceive of faith as a Kierkegaardian leap, but more of a cognitive conditioning. The Holy Spirit conditions or tutors the mind to see the truths of Christianity from scripture. Thus, the Holy Spirit provides warrant to the filling in of content; it is a faith seeking understanding. The understanding that a Christian receives due to “listening” to the EACM forms a warranted evidence base. Plantinga argues, “my evidence base is the set of beliefs I use, or to which I appeal, in conducting an inquiry” (2011, p.167). The evidence base is the background knowledge that one brings to any inquiry with which one engages. Plantinga continues, “one of the main functions of one’s evidence base, therefore, is that of evaluating possible hypotheses, evaluating them as plausible and probable or implausible and improbable” (p. 168). Therefore, a Christian’s evidence base will always include the deliverances of scripture when engaging in any given inquiry. More importantly, Plantinga is suggesting that when certain inquiries are undertaken that relate in important ways to what a Christian “knows” about the

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world due to revelation, then the Christian is within her epistemic rights to evaluate the claims against the evidence base of scripture. What does a Christian “know” about the world? What sorts of truths compose the evidence base by which a Christian is warranted to draw upon when engaging in inquiry? Plantinga is careful in Warranted Christian Belief to suggest that warrant is only appropriate to the theological beliefs of the three ecumenical creeds. However, in a section addressing the cognitive effects of sin on our noetic structures, he laments, “it [original sin] carries with it a sort of blindness, a sort of imperceptiveness, dullness, stupidity. This is a cognitive limitation that first prevents its victim from proper knowledge of God and his beauty, glory, and love; it also prevents him from seeing what is worth loving and what is worth hating, what should be sought and what should be eschewed. It therefore compromises both knowledge of fact and knowledge of value” (2001, p. 207). If sin blinds one through compromising the ability to discern true facts and appropriate values beyond theistic beliefs, then the EACM provides a scriptural base from which to repair our knowledge of facts and values. The internal instigation of the holy spirit provides not just theological rebirth, but epistemic renewal, “enabling us to see God and his love, glory, beauty, and the like with much higher resolution…. it also gives us a clearer view of our world: we now see what is most important about all the furniture of and earth…. we can even come to see, if we reflect what is most important about numbers , properties, states of affairs, and possible worlds: namely, that they really are divine or concepts” (p. 281). Plantinga’s fideism is now explicit. Plantinga warrants belief in theism non-evidentially according to the proper functioning of the sensus divinitatus. This sensus divinitatus, in turn, licenses Plantinga’s warranted Christian belief through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit authorizes the deliverances of the scriptures as properly basic beliefs. The effect is twofold. In the first instance the spirit secures the scriptures as a properly basic source of belief. Second, the content of the beliefs formed will include beliefs regarding facts and values. This package, a warranted source of belief including facts and values, is grounded in the testimony of the Holy Spirit, a decidedly supernatural experience. Moreover, this experience is required if one is to populate an evidence base with warranted Christian beliefs. Thus, while the fideism is not opposed to reason, due to the supernatural role in securing beliefs, Plantinga is committed to a functional fideism. It is now possible to understand the quote from which this chapter began

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regarding the two worlds and the two types of minds, secular and sacred. It is a problem of cognitive functioning and the conditioning or tutoring of evidence bases. Plantinga recognizes that a logical conclusion of his program is the separating of properly functioning minds from malfunctioning minds, “according to the model, it is really the unbeliever who displays epistemic malfunction; failing to believe in God is a result of some kind of dysfunction of the sensus divinitatus. The unregenerate mind is an epistemically malfunctioning mind; particularly, when the discussion turns toward theistic conversations” (2000, p. 198). Those not privy to the EACM’s effects are outright dysfunctional, the general effect being an inability properly to discourse on all things good, true, and beautiful. 2.2.4 Taming Diversity: The Problem of Religious Pluralism Before exploring how Plantinga’s fideism colors his discussion of science and religion, some general comments on Plantinga’s non-evidentialism in the ACM and EACM are in order. Earlier, I exposited what Plantinga’s contribution to that literature entailed. He develops a non- evidentialist position in which a cognitive mechanism called the sensus divinitatus works to produce belief in the divine by means no different from the way in which memories or beliefs from sense-experience are formed. I stated that these sorts of beliefs are properly basic, the foundations of facts and values and their extension through inference to other domains of inquiry. I am willing to grant Plantinga much of his argument. In fact, I take the cognitive science of religion to be doing much work validating that a mechanism much like the sensus divinitatus actually is functioning in human agents to form religious beliefs. And, I am even willing to grant that the sensus divintatus, coupled with the Holy Spirit, warrants something close to Christian belief. However, assuming the truth of Platinga’s premises, I’m not sure that one is left in a better cognitive position concerning the truth of Christianity or theism than before. The first problem is that Christianity is highly diverse. Something much like the internal instigation of the holy spirit may be operating within Christianity, but Plantinga’s model offers no way to adjudicate between different strands of belief. The model itself is named after a Catholic and a Protestant. Aquinas and Calvin interpreted the Holy Spirit’s testimony in highly antithetical ways; both can’t be correct. It may be enough that Plantinga establishes the mechanism and that the details or content of its deliverances may be filled in later between those with properly functioning ACMs and EACMs, the idea being something akin to specific

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disagreement about precise evolutionary mechanisms, while general commitment remains to the broad tenets of evolutionary . As long as the ACM has been conditioned by some extension, we can group those with enough similarity to have a conversation. For instance, Lutherans, Catholics, and Methodists have affinity enough to engage in insightful conversation, while, perhaps the Protestant and the Muslim have less in common to have fruitful dialogue and the Protestant, Muslim and atheist have nothing in common, making common cause improbable if not impossible. I claim, however, this diversity highlights a problem with the mechanism itself. In extending the ACM, Plantinga removes the structural similarity between the ACM and other cognitive mechanisms such as memory and sense . The difference is troubling enough to where caution ought be exercised in thinking of the ACM and the EACM as simply any other cognitive mechanism. The heart of my critique concerns the general calibration of one’s cognitive architecture. It isn’t clear that the sensus divinitatus of the ACM and then the internal instigation of the holy spirit of the EACM are to the same rules as other natural mechanisms such as memory and sense perception. Memory and sense perception are subject to tests external to the mechanism itself. They require training and a delicate interplay between multiple faculties. One learns to use them appropriately, constantly calibrating proper functionality against other faculties. For example, when a friend asks me what I did last night, the question may trigger my memory mechanism to deliver a properly that I was playing backgammon. The belief has warrant as it arises in the appropriate fashion and is aimed at truth. However, once the belief is present, I am constantly “checking” the belief against the deliverances of my other faculties. These are related to memory in that I recall not being inebriated. I recall who was present, and I search out those people, verifying that I was actually playing backgammon. There is a very straightforward way to verify the deliverances of my cognitive faculties. Likewise with perception, I see a blue bird in the field and trust the deliverances of my eyes until I gain further information of cognitive error. Perhaps we are in a familiar environmental façade scenario cherished by epistemologists, or perhaps my vision has deteriorated and I am not yet aware. Regardless, a straightforward way to understand my cognitive errors is available. The point of these situations is to highlight that clear avenues exist to test proper functioning. Both cases bring forward the idea that I know what it is like to be wrong about the deliverances of mechanisms such as memory and sense perception. I am not confident that a similar structural

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similarity exists with the ACM and EACM. What does it look like to be wrong about such deliverances? How does one crosscheck the deliverances of ACM/EACM against other cognitive mechanisms? The intuitive response is to suggest religious authority, whether it be religious tradition or an authoritative text. But, the fragmentation of religion generally and Christianity specifically testifies against authority as an accurate tool of calibration. The diversity of religious belief is the result of inferences from the sensus divinitatus and the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit. If Plantinga’s view is correct, then theism, , , and general transcendent belief are all the result of a properly functioning mechanism. Moreover, Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Quaker, etc. are all inferred from the properly basic deliverances of the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit. Taking the denominational example, all claim to have calibrated the ACM in various ways. Yet, all disagree with each other, sometimes vehemently. Plantinga sees the Holy Spirit as providing warrant for believing scriptural truths, but each denomination has its own “understanding” of Christianity, coloring what a Christian “knows.” Whatever calibration technique I might use to crosscheck the deliverances of the Holy Spirit do not seem to work in the same way I check the deliverances of my memory or sense perception. Furthermore, the problem gets more interesting when it is considered that Plantinga believes the EACM puts into proper perspective the rest of cognition. Recall the discussion earlier about how the EACM allows the believer to see more clearly the world around her and that, both in terms of facts and values, the unregenerate mind is dysfunctional. The implication is that somehow the EACM is supposed to be the standard by which the rest of my cognitive architecture is calibrated. It isn’t that the EACM is one mechanism amongst many that work together to provide a picture of the world around me, but that the EACM is the one mechanism bringing unified order to the rest. The ACM may be one amongst many, but its bare deliverances require recourse to its extension. The extension need not be Christian, but when it is, the testimony of the Holy Spirit provides a corrective to the ACM, extending throughout the rest of a person’s cognitive environment. However, the EACM is radically different from the rest of my architecture in its link to the supernatural. This may allow Plantinga to secure the mechanism as one independently calibrated, but then I am left with no recourse to validate its deliverances in a public way.4 Thus, Plantinga is again relying upon his functional fideism to secure that

4 What comes to mind is some sort of Wittgensteinian private language. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is only ever given to a single person at a time, and the model seems to deny the

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something like the sensus divinitatus and the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit provide accurate beliefs. The fideism is more basic than I earlier claimed as it involves the internal tutoring of cognitive mechanisms for proper functioning. If my argument is correct, then Plantinga’s functional fideism becomes a foundation of Plantinga’s thought. The redeemed mind may be different from other minds, but it isn’t clear that I can ever know it. 2.3 Plantinga and Science In earlier writings, Plantinga called for the development of a specifically Christian science. He labeled it Augustinian science “which recalls Augustine’s suggestion that serious intellectual activity in general is ordinarily in the service of a broader religious vision of the world” (1996, p. 370). The key factor to such a is that it practices science, “from an explicitly theistic or Christian point of view” (p. 369). My earlier discussion of his fideism ought to clarify how an Augustinian science may proceed. It relies on extending what a Christian “knows” about the world into an investigative context. In more recent work, Plantinga has tempered the call to construct a theistic science with more neutral challenges to secular science. It is now time to investigate these challenges in light of Plantinga’s fideism. I will start with what he calls the superficial problem. This problem is one with the characterization of science according to methodological naturalism. The superficial conflict gives way to a deeper conflict between science and religion. However, this deep problem is not one between science and religion, but science and naturalism. Thus, Plantinga turns the tables on the secularist who defends the view that science and naturalism fit hand-in-glove. These two conflicts define Plantinga’s position of conflict between science and religion and are the direct result of his fideism. I will end this chapter by making a couple of comments regarding Plantinga’s overall methodological strategy for issues in science and religion. My contention is that his fideistic inquiry is an example of non-virtuous inquiry when investigating interdisciplinary issues. 2.3.1 Methodological Naturalism An example of which Plantinga is particularly fond is evolutionary psychology, particularly in its explanations of and religious belief. I’ll take an example of each in turn. Herbert Simon has a theory of rationality that understands altruistic behavior as irrational (1990). Simon contends that , the seeking of another’s good at one’s expense, is the

possibility of ever checking its deliverances against colleagues and even other internal mechanisms of cognition.

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result of docility and bounded rationality. A person such as was therefore an irrational agent due to her ignorance of more “correct” behavior in accord with biological fitness. Her impassioned giving is due to naiveté, not religious conviction or Christian charity. Plantinga comments, “From a Christian perspective…this explanation of the behavior of Mother Teresa and other altruists is wildly off the mark—not even close enough to be a miss” (2011, p. 136).5 Likewise, when evolutionary theorists turn their attention to religious belief, they are also likely to err. David Sloan Wilson argues in Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (2002) for the adaptive benefit of religion within the context of group selection using Calvin’s Geneva as a specific test case.6 He claims that religion has a knack for organizing a population into common action. This knack for organization and collective action is a purpose or function that has been developed in response to evolutionary pressures to survive. In the same way that a heart pumps blood in order to circulate blood proximally and enhance fitness ultimately, religion binds a group together proximally and enhances fitness globally. The problem, claims Plantinga, is the nature of the ultimate function, “He [Wilson] holds that the purpose or function of and Christianity generally is to enhance fitness; a group with a religion of that sort will do well in competition with groups without any such religion. And specifically religious belief plays an important role here. The role of such belief is not to reflect , he says, but to play a part in the production of what religion produces” (2011, p. 150 original emphasis). Theistic belief, therefore, has no cognitive value. It is not reality reflecting, but fitness reflecting. This runs counter to what many theists and Christians conceive as the proper aim of religious belief, the reflection of an objectively true, albeit, supernatural reality. The aforementioned examples are an instance where Plantinga rejects the scientific explanation due to conflict with what he “knows” about the world as a Christian. Both rejections of science are the direct result of Plantinga’s tutored understanding of facts and values through the EACM. In the case of Mother Teresa, denying oneself is a factual state about Christian life. It is not something that needs to be explained “away” so to speak because it is the fact of the matter. One is expected to be altruistic, not altruistic because she is ignorant of a more

5 I wonder how Mother Teresa's confession to not know or feel God during much of her ministry (2011) would affect Plantinga's reflections. He does not address Mother Teresa's doubts in anything that I've read, but it surely must be relevant to her altruistic behavior on Plantinga's model. After all, her altruism does not seem to be motivated by a properly functioning EACM. 6 He has since expanded this work to include other and even political party alignments.

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fundamental reality. Altruism is the fundamental reality. Likewise, Wilson’s study of religion was destined to fail because he had the wrong value associated with belief, religious belief aims and values truth. Any theory that suggests the function of religious belief is otherwise is working with an improperly calibrated sense of epistemic value. Christians seek to know God because he is Truth; they do not seek God for the practical benefits of group cohesion or the evolutionary benefits of outperforming other groups in the struggle for . What allows Plantinga to consider these examples superficial is the fact that the science is unnecessarily constrained. The constraint is in the method of science. While the precise methods of science are legion, almost universally, scientists agree to a basic ground rule of methodological naturalism (Pennock 2009). Methodological naturalism (MN), according to Plantinga, limits all scientific practice (data, theory construction, theory adjudication) to naturally occurring phenomenon. Thus, it creates a functional , a functional atheism conflicting with functional fideism. It conflicts with Plantinga’s theory because Plantinga requires an evidence base that is supernaturally warranted by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. However, MN explicitly denies such a possibility, truncating the evidence base to the natural world. Why should Christians agree to play by such rules? After all, it is the unregenerate who are “blind” to proper knowledge of fact and value. Once it is understood that the ACM and EACM license understanding all facets of the world according to divine authority, then it becomes a duty to bring all one knows into an investigation. The naturalistic scientist is unjustly limiting one’s ability to investigate by seeking to limit the evidence base of Christians. Thus, a Christian is within his or her epistemic rights to reject the deliverances of Simon and Wilson due to their blindness concerning a properly enlarged evidence base, e.g., natural world plus scriptural revelation. The propositions of the scientific explanations run counter to what Plantinga believes by scriptural authority. Plantinga’s authority provides normative grounding for more than theistic belief; it extends into all inquiries. Since, on Plantinga’s account, the Christian is warranted in such philosophical extensions, a ready explanation for the conflict is available. The conflict is superficial because it is the result of different evidence bases, bases grounded in different religious and metaphysical . However, no argument is given for the presuppositions, so no reason exists to push conflict. It is simply a matter of two different perspectives on the world and conflict may be avoided in simply recognizing that fact. One doesn’t see deep conflict when misremembering events, particularly when it is known that

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memory is properly functioning; rather we agree to disagree about what happened. Why, then ought we to reject or limit the supernatural evidence base when practicing and/or judging the deliverances of science, particularly if the Holy Spirit properly conditions the sensus divinitatus? Thus, we see the extension of Plantinga’s work in the ethics of belief influencing his views in other areas of academic discourse. Plantinga is saying that a theist has the right to disregard the inferences of Simonian and Wilsonian science due to their truncated evidence bases. However, at least within Plantinga’s superficial conflict, the earlier diversity problem raises more challenges. Historically, it has been within Christendom that methodological naturalism developed (Numbers 2003). In attempting to understand the natural world, many historic and contemporary Christians have upheld methodological naturalism as an appropriate restriction on scientific practice without thinking it poses problems for their larger evidence bases, e.g. (2006) and Kenneth Miller (1999). One might add Christian philosophers of science, such as Ernan McMullin (1982) and (2003). Here again is diversity of how the EACM is supposedly influencing the way one’s overall cognitive scheme is tutored, and if something is wrong with Simon and Wilson, then something must be wrong with Collins, Miller, McMullin, and Swinburne. The diversity should at least cause Plantinga pause when considering whether he has the appropriate evidence base. Moreover, the diversity grows when it is considered that non-theists also question the ability of evolutionary psychology to account for scientific understanding. (2012) and (2010) are two philosophers far from theism who argue that evolutionary psychology has intrinsic difficulties. Are their minds working more clearly sans Holy Spirit than the theistic thinkers in agreement with evolutionary psychology? Plantinga may respond to my charges by suggesting that methodological naturalism is only symptomatic of a deeper conflict between science and religion—science and naturalism. Thus, the conflict isn’t about epistemic practice. Christians may very well be able to practice science naturalistically, but the naturalist reasonably cannot. Thus, conflict is really a conflict of dueling , supernaturalism versus naturalism. A deeper problem with science is often masked by the conversation surrounding scientific practice. The next section looks at Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. 2.3.2 Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism I ended the last section with what I claim is problem between Plantinga and science—different . I am, therefore, back at the beginning where I stated Plantinga is

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the latest in a long line of theologically-minded philosophers who see a clash between two worlds, worlds categorized by their supernatural or natural denizens. When questions of absolute existence are raised I am aesthetically drawn toward Quine’s desert landscapes (1980), an environment where Occam’s razor is more of a bulldozer dedicated to the clearing of heavenly landscapes. However, Plantinga’s work regarding Christian belief has forever thrown a monkey wrench into the treads of Occam’s bulldozer. The wrench is shaped like an argument that Plantinga affectionately entitles the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). The conclusion of the argument suggests that naturalism coupled with evolutionary theory is an incoherent position, thus turning the tables on the scientist who commits to evolutionary theory and a naturalistic . EAAN has been developed throughout Plantinga’s career.7 For my purposes, I will focus on his latest development of the argument found in, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (2011). It is his most recent formulation of the argument and the one where he directly applies it to the relationship between science and religion. The reason the EAAN is once again important is due to the fideism of the previous section. An intuitive response to Plantinga’s superficial conflict may take the form of simple recognition of differing evidence bases. After all, philosophy of science is replete with work dedicated to understanding how different evidence bases of various fact/value calibrations, influence the practice of science (eg., Dupree 1993; Kuhn 1996; Longino 1990). While Plantinga promotes the need for a specifically theistic science, he is more ambitious than simply creating philosophical space for one science amongst many. He is after the eradication of a whole species of scientific practice, the metaphysically naturalistic. One question that may be legitimately raised against Plantinga regards the ability of an evidence base to be revised in light of pluralism. It seems that an evidence base, as conceived by Plantinga, is infinitely malleable as one always has the option of “crying foul” against rival evidence bases. What assurance can Plantinga have, other than the EACM, that guarantees the Christian evidence base is appropriate versus the numerous other theistic religions and non-theistic ? Could not the naturalistically inclined scientist make a similar claim that it is the theist’s evidence base that is unjustly bloated by the authority

7 The best single source for information related to this argument is an edited book devoted to the argument entitled, Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (2002).

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of scripture? Plantinga is aware of this difficulty (c.f., 2011, pp. 183-190). However, his fideistic assurance of the EACM allows him to deflect much of the difficulties in favor of a more direct attack on science circumscribed by MN.8 MN, according to Plantinga, functions tacitly as a premise for philosophical naturalism. It requires one to practice science as if he or she is an atheist, and that is an assumption that is too much to bear for a Christian. Philosophical naturalism, unlike MN, is the outright commitment to the physical universe being all there is. Numbers, values, mankind, etc. are all natural phenomenon governed by natural processes. The supernatural does not exist. Looking back at Simonian science of rationality, Plantinga concludes, “The Christian can think of Simonian science as specifying how things look from a given perspective, how they look given a particular evidence base, an evidence base that includes only a part of the Christian evidence base…a perspective characterized by methodological naturalism” (2011, p. 189). That perspective is the perspective of the philosophical naturalist. The Christian, specifically, and the theist, generally, are correct to jettison the restraint of MN on science, developing science in their own ways according to specifically religious tenets. However, to help militate against a relativistic science via differing evidence bases, Plantinga employs the EAAN to show that philosophical naturalism is incoherent within a scientific , “Indeed, it is theism, not naturalism, that deserves to be called ‘the scientific worldview’” (p. 309). Moreover, this argument is a direct result from Plantinga’s ethics of belief literature; making use of the fact that our cognitive mechanisms must be aimed at truth seeking. Beliefs produced must be according to a design plan aimed at truth if they are to enjoy warrant, and naturalism coupled with evolutionary biology with its emphasis on fitness does not fit this requirement. Thus, naturalism as understood within an evolutionary framework must be excised. The EAAN is a four-premised argument in which Plantinga believes a de jure objection to the conjunction between evolution and naturalism. By de jure, Plantinga is suggesting that the problem is one with the rational standing of the conjunction, assuming the conjuncts are true they

8 It might be worth mentioning that Plantinga is going against much of theistic and scientific tradition when we look to the likes of Newton, Galileo, and Darwin; all were perfectly fine with theism as providing certain insights into the workings of the world. Even Darwin allowed for a theistic evidence base to make certain claims about the origin of life. Likewise, much Intelligent Design literature is given to showing how the design inference is the result of ‘good’ science, something that is playing by the rules of MN.

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self-defeat. Plantinga states, “I mean to argue that one can’t sensibly accept both naturalism and the of evolution” (2011, p. 310 emphasis added). It is Plantinga’s use of the term “sensibly” that suggests he is offering a de jure objection targeting the reliability of our cognitive faculties, the very cognitive faculties used to think about such issues. A first point to note is that this argument is only raised against the metaphysical naturalist. A theistic evolutionist, or I suppose an evolutionist that also holds to a supernatural metaphysic is not troubled as they can ground rational nature in non-naturalism. Within Christianity, this might take the form of the Imago Dei, within theism and deism, a designer God. Agnostics can find refuge in something like Thomas Nagel’s neutral (2012) or an Aristotelian prime mover. This entails that Plantinga is really pressing the charge against the evolutionary naturalist to account for the nature and content of belief. The first premise, affectionately called Darwin’s Doubt, is a premise asserting that cognitive reliability is low given the conjunction of naturalism and evolution:

(1) P(R/N&E) is low

P is the conditional probability of R (reliability of cognitive mechanisms) given N (naturalism) and E (evolutionary theory). The defense of this premise lies in the formation of the mind according to evolutionary theory. Given that the brain was formed gradually through the iterative steps of evolution and that the telos of evolution is survival and reproduction, not truth (Churchland 2005), then what is the probability of having a mind that reliably produces beliefs with true content? Plantinga believes the objective probability of such a state of affairs to be at best .5. A philosophically naturalistic position of mind requires that all brain function is the result of neural activity. Plantinga continues, “the NP [neural properties] properties of a belief are adaptive in that they cause adaptive behavior. Those NP properties also determine a content property. But as long as the NP properties are adaptive, it doesn’t matter, for survival and reproduction, what content is determined by those NP properties. It could be true content; it could be false content; it doesn’t matter” (p. 331). Premise one provides the brunt of Plantinga’s critique of naturalism and evolutionary theory. Assuming its truth, the rest of the argument follows rather quickly:

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(2) Anyone who accepts (believes) N&E and sees 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) 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 (pp. 344-45).

Thus, the philosophical naturalist who commits to evolutionary theory as the best explanation of his or her mind’s existence is in the awkward position of denying the rationality of just such a position. I am not so much interested in the standard epistemological debate surrounding this argument (c.f., Beilby 2002). My concern is what work Plantinga believes this argument does for discussion between science and religion. Assuming the argument is cogent, Plantinga has indeed offered a counterintuitive position concerning science and religion. It is not theistic religions that conflict with science, but the atheistic or philosophical naturalist that has a conflict with science. They can’t account for the reliability of their cognitive faculties according to the evolutionary story composing the scientific image of humanity. Moreover, this unreliability is the product of a commitment to a metaphysical position, i.e., philosophical naturalism. The argument elucidates in great detail Plantinga’s contention that the unregenerate mind is a dysfunctional mind. 2.3.3 Problems with the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism The last section outlined the motivation and the probabilistic structure of the EAAN. This section finds fault in how Plantinga uses the argument. Plantinga seems to view science and religion as the disjunct of naturalism or theism. His EAAN is then positive to show that naturalism has serious problems with its formulation according to current scientific belief. Thus, theism must be true. The surprising aspect of the argument is that incoherency is only generated by supplementing naturalism with the currently accepted best science regarding the nature of cognition. Thus, Plantinga moves from a passive position of casual neglect of superficial conflicts to an active critique of a central tenet close to much scientific theorizing—naturalism. This offensive has been a central component of his work for over a decade (2000; 2011). One immediate quibble deals with the appropriate disjuncts. Plantinga speaks from a theistic background, but theism is not the converse of naturalism. The converse of naturalism yields non- naturalism. Why does Plantinga immediately assume theism or even supernaturalism when

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discussing the EAAN? Non-naturalism is the logical counterpoint to naturalism, opening the door to the non-theistic philosophers mentioned earlier. These philosophers are just as adamant about the incoherency of supernaturalism and rationality, preferring the language of non- naturalistic theories. If Plantinga is concerned with showing that naturalism and evolution’s failure require a theism or supernaturalism, then he must at least address the varying non-natural theories of mind and rationality.9 Moreover, as section 2.2.2 made clear, moving beyond a bare theism to something with content requires, at least in Plantinga’s case, questionable employment of the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit. To make the theism disjunct probable, Plantinga is tacitly relying upon his functional fideism again. I will not rehearse the general problems with Plantinga’s fideism, but they are germane to any possibility of establishing theism as the appropriate disjunct. A more serious problem, I contend, exists with the intellectual character of Plantinga’s argument. Plantinga makes much use of defeaters. Defeaters are an epistemological capturing the notion that any belief I hold may, upon future inquiry, be defeated. In a sense, the previous section was a working out of whether a deliverance of the sensus divinitatus and the testimony of the Holy Spirit could ever be defeated. Defeaters come in two varieties, de jure and de facto. De jure defeaters are those that deal with the warrant of a belief, sometimes called warrant defeaters. They operate by undercutting the status a belief held in our doxastic environment; my for holding a particular belief become suspect. My belief is questionable, but not necessarily shown false. This is often due to circumstances of the environment. I see a man come out of his front door and immediately form the belief that John left his house. Later I learn that John’s twin brother is visiting. This undercuts my belief that I saw John leaving the house. It might have been John, but I can’t say for sure. I no longer have warrant for my belief, but it still may be true. This is juxtaposed with rebutting defeaters. Rebutting defeat happens when I am shown that a belief I hold is de facto false. A false belief is not something worth holding. Thus, if I persist in holding a belief shown false it must be for non- rational reasons, e.g., emotional commitment, prudential reasons, etc. Rebutting defeaters are rationality defeaters. It isn’t only that my warrant has been stripped, but that the belief cannot rationally be held as it conflicts with reality. So what type of argument is the EAAN? Plantinga

9 Plantinga does employ them in his favor to show that even non-theists question the ability for evolution to account for rationality (2011, p. 315).

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defends the claim that the EAAN provides warrant defeat. The argument deals with the sensibility of the conjunction evolution is true and naturalism is true. This being the case, Plantinga finds himself in a bit of an uncharitable position. In Warranted Christian Belief (2000), Plantinga notes that a de jure objection is parasitic upon a de facto objection. He softens the language a bit in Where the Conflict Really Lies (2011), but the implication is the same, “All rationality defeaters are warrant defeaters, the converse, of course, doesn’t hold.” (p. 166) Thus, if one has a defeat for warrant, it does not necessarily prove one has a defeater for rationality. Rationality defeat requires a rebutting defeater: a factual state of affairs that shows one’s belief is false and therefore untenable. The EAAN does not provide a rebutting defeater, but a warrant defeater. Thus, the incoherency of evolutionary theory and naturalism does not require assent to the lemma involving supernaturalism, theism, or even a non- naturalism, as my warrant defeat may itself find a defeater through modification of evolutionary theory and naturalism. What Plantinga needs is a straightforwardly factual argument against the position of naturalism or evolution. It is not within Plantinga’s area of expertise to provide rebutting defeators of evolutionary theory. Thus, he spends a bit more time investigating the metaphysics of naturalism and mind, e.g., or , providing a brief survey of how naturalism accounts for mind, truth, and propositional attitudes (2011). However, none of these arguments are of the de facto variety. Rather they are instances of how naturalistic conceptions of mind seem to lack warrant. Again, these are in the vein of other traditional philosophers of mind wanting to promote non-naturalism about mind. I can now argue for the uncharitableness of Plantinga’s position. Plantinga devoted the entire first half of Warranted Christian Belief to defending the claim that a de jure objection to theism may not be divorced from a de facto objection. If theism can be shown irrational, it is only because it would also fail factually (2000, p. 191). But, when Plantinga shifts his attention to naturalism and evolutionary theory, he doesn’t extend the same criterion. It is enough to illustrate deep conflict between science and naturalism by providing a warrant defeater. Notice, the word conflict is stronger than the language of sensibility used to discuss warrant defeat earlier. If Plantinga discharges the warrant defeat of theism due to the lack of factual defeat, then why does he not extend that same courtesy to naturalism? The conjunction of evolution and naturalism ought to be rejected in light of a warrant defeater in spite of providing no de facto evidence that evolution and naturalism do not work together. This seems rather uncharitable on Plantinga’s

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part. Moreover, the defeater language and the EAAN illustrate another problematic feature of Plantinga’s thought altogether. It may be that Plantinga does not see his argument as an instance of disjunctive syllogism due to the fact that he spent much cognitive effort articulating the ACM and EACM. The assumed truth of the ACM/EACM means that he was simply dealing with various counterexamples to his position, the primary one being naturalism and evolutionary theory. Thus, his functional fideism prevents him from seeing his uncharitable criterion, while effectively insulating the deliverances of the EACM from any de facto critiques. The very criterion that Plantinga takes to be central to rational discourse, he fails in his own work. Recall that the ACM and EACM become the standards by which all other cognitive mechanisms are calibrated. However, there is no way independently to crosscheck such a calibration with external sources or other cognitive mechanisms. Thus, one loses all ability to even conceive of a de facto objection to the rationality of theism as such beliefs may always be attributed to unregenerate minds and improperly functioning cognitive architecture. Or, if conflict arises within theism, no independent avenue exists by which to decide disputes factually. At best, one is left with warrant defeat, but warrant defeat never entails the dissolution of the opposing viewpoint. Again, without some sort of fideism securing Plantinga’s position, at best we are left with a pluralism of views. Thus, the EAAN fails at providing an avenue to push naturalism, methodological or metaphysical, out of science. It isn’t clear that Plantinga is fairly engaging in inquiry. He seems to be demanding of the opponent what he himself cannot or does not wish to provide in his own case. 2.4 Conflict as Inquiry: Invasive Fideism I am now in a position to make a few general comments about Plantinga and his general sense of conflict between science and religion. First, the conflict is functional in nature. It isn’t about specific beliefs in so much as it is about the character of inquiry. Second, all areas of conflict illustrated were in some way related to Plantinga’s fideism. Plantinga, relying on his speciality work in philosophy of religion is confident that his work may be extended fruitfully into foreign research agendas. He argues to remake scientific inquiry theistically and to ignore beliefs contrary to such an image. Thus, the conflict is actually about how to properly carry out inquiry in an interdisciplinary context. Plantinga implies that all that is acceptable within a specialty field is admissible within the interdisciplinary conversation. But why should anyone agree to this sort of implied standard? Plantinga may have provided a means to acceptable

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religious belief, but he has not shown that his work should be the standard for conversation between disciplines. This helps one to see that Plantinga is actually about two distinct fideistic projects, although he often runs them together. First, his project has an internal component. He is doing speciality work in philosophy of religion. This work is done for specialists in his field and perhaps specialists within a certain denominational lineage. Whatever the case, he is writing for a specific in-group, making liberal use of the disciplinary norms. Second, his project has a uniquely public aspect where he presents research in light of two further aims. First, he is writing to assert a theistic/Christian voice to a landscape that is highly antithetical to such investigations. He truly is developing a . Second, his work provides a theoretical guide to public interaction. One could think of his work as a handbook of practical engagement between Christianity and the secular. In this way, the epistemological and the moral projects of the ethics of belief converge in suggesting that this is how Christians ought to engage in inquiry regarding science and religion. Both projects make liberal use of Plantinga’s functional fideism. I conclude by illustrating how the more public aspect of Plantinga’s project helps bring forward his fideism out of a virtuous light into vice. In the public extension of the science and religion conversation, fideism becomes an invasive fideism. Like an invasive species, Plantinga’s fideism tends toward domination. Plantinga’s thoughts on science and religion may make perfect sense within a conversation held by theists, or more specifically those who agree with the ACM and EACM. However, such a foundation may not be appropriate in a conversation where the participants do not share that “way” of knowing. Plantinga effectively dictates the rules of how such conversation ought to proceed. His ethic is that when conflict arises, one proceeds along the lines of two warranted responses. One can either deny the conflict due to an improper allocation of evidence or one can attack the rationality of naturalistic science itself. This latter move also entails the active reconstruction of science in light of theistic belief due to the argued inconsistency of naturalistic science. However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the science and religion conversation, I argue Plantinga’s ethic of discourse is nonvirtuous. He has provided a way of conceiving the dialogue between science and religion, which cultivates epistemic vice for agents interested in such conversations.

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2.5 Concluding Remarks This section illustrated the relationship between Plantinga’s work in philosophy of religion with his conflict thesis between science and religion. The key point is that Plantinga’s fideism is viciously influencing the character of inquiry in interdisciplinary contexts. It is epistemologically irresponsible of Plantinga to allow his fideism such a role when moving into a context of deliberation that is larger than his discipline of speciality. It may be that a naturalistic science truncates the evidence base of a Christian, but that by no means licenses the Christian to remake science in its own image. If anything, it entails that we need to think carefully about the structures of such a conversation. Thus, while Plantinga has thought about the ethic of discourse, he is incorrect in concluding that revision through baptism is necessary. His invasive fideism is not good for understanding the interplay between science and religion as it fails to cultivate virtuous inquiry. Virtuous inquiry is the focus of chapter four. The next chapter is another case study in conflict. This chapter will look to the work of atheistic philosopher of science Philip Kitcher. Symmetry exists between Kitcher and Plantinga’s thought in that Kitcher will also promote epistemic vice within interdisciplinary inquiry. His viciousness stems from a scientism that demands all values entering into an ideal conversation be tutored or grounded in good science. Thus, Plantinga and others who believe religious authority has anything to say about the nature of value are excluded from discussions about science, religion, and society. However, it isn’t clear that Kitcher is warranted such an exclusion.

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CHAPTER 3

CONFLICT AS INQUIRY: PHILIP KITCHER

3.1 Introduction This chapter is a case study in conflict between science and religion. The difference with the previous chapter lies in the fact that the proponent of conflict, Philip Kitcher, sees conflict as stemming from his work in philosophy of science. Philosopher Philip Kitcher has dedicated a career to understanding the nature of science in a post-Kuhnian intellectual environment. His strength of insight has earned him the distinguished chair of Professor of Philosophy at . Kitcher’s interest in philosophy of science has periodically required reflection upon the nature of the interaction between science and religion. Unlike Plantinga who has beaten a steady drum through the course of his career, Kitcher’s position has evolved. His earliest work supported a compatibilism between evolution and faith, while offering reason to jettison creationism and intelligent design as legitimate science (1982; 2001a). More recently, he has shed any robust sense of compatibilism for outright conflict (2007) and begun a project articulating a secular replacement for faith (2014a). In this way, Kitcher is in agreement with the more forthright New Atheist movement, e.g., and , but disagrees as to the most practical approach to such a program. Kitcher tempers the stridency of the New Atheist movement, preferring the designation ‘soft atheist’ in realizing that religion has had some positive effect upon society. Thus, Kitcher’s overarching strategy is the cultivation of neutral philosophical territory where conversation is opened to discussion of common values. Thus, he locates the value question at the center of science and furthermore, the conflict between science and religion. This strategy according to Kitcher is a more humanistic approach to the problem of science and religion. But make no mistake; he shares the moral sentiments of Plantinga and the New Atheists in his position of conflict, “I’m a more insidious foe than Dennett and Dawkins. For instead of ignoring important species of religion, I want to prepare the way for their gradual disappearance” (Gutting 2014). The problem I raise with Kitcher’s program is in how he extends his notion of value from work done in the philosophy of science to further disciplines such as religion. He promotes what I call a functional scientism. While Kitcher seems more aware than Plantinga regarding the perplexity involved at the borders of specialist disciplines, his favored response is to extend only

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the values certified through proper scientific practice as legitimate. In this chapter, I will exposit Kitcher’s demarcation principle in philosophy of science and its extension into the arena of science and religion, providing a methodological baseline for much of his tension between science and religion. The effect of Kitcher’s conception of science and religion in relation to his method, i.e., his scientism, cultivates a certain epistemic arrogance and irresponsibility that is antithetical to his stated goal of promoting fruitful conversation within a landscape of pluralistic values. 3.2 Philosophy of Science 3.2.1 Well-Ordered Science Philip Kitcher argues that to understand science is to understand a socially embedded way of reasoning. In fact, he suggests that science is nothing short of the standard of public reason (2011b). However, this raises the question of how science constitutes public reason. After all, do not scientists engage in exercises of reasoning beyond the capabilities of average citizens? Richard Feynman, a quantum physicist, is reported to have stated, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” If the scientists themselves suggest that the deliverances of science, at core, are beyond rational understanding, how could it be a standard or ideal of rationality? To address this question, Kitcher locates the demarcation question in a consequentialist ethical framework. Science becomes good or bad not due entirely to proper method or paradigm, but what projects are selected for investigation. Thus, demarcation takes a decidedly ethical turn in Kitcher’s most recent work. While a unity of method may not be attainable, a unity of purpose seems feasible in a democratic society. Kitcher discusses his notion of an ethically demarcated science as well-ordered science. Well-ordered science is a normative standard for Kitcher that is dependent upon the values entering the decision process concerning the direction of scientific practice. Thus, the qualifiers “good” and “bad” in good or bad science need a little clarification. Kitcher is extending the classical debate between Popper and Kuhn concerning the designation “good” science. In terms of the former, Kitcher is not concerned with any particular unified scientific theory. In terms of the latter, he is not restricted to the nature of any current . Rather, Kitcher uses the term ‘good science’ in a practical context related to the organization, selection, and advancement of scientific projects. Good science, well-ordered science, is that which helps a person, group, or society achieve its ends. Well-ordered science is therefore good in the sense that it functions in

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such a way as to allow the attainment of specific goals. What is the goal of science? The goal of science is to attain significant truths, truths either theoretical or practical, promoting the general welfare of humanity (p. 112). Thus, Kitcher is not offering a view of science devoted to any sort of dualism between epistemic and non-epistemic values, but one that locates the primary value and motivation of science intimately with human flourishing. Kitcher captures his idea nicely in an endnote, “I see the practice of scientific inquiry as framed by the ethical project and as contributing to the further evolution of that project” (En. 5, p. 255). Thus, scientific significance is measured against a broader ethical project.10 Kitcher’s ethical project is rooted in an evolutionary explanation of altruism. We, as humans, have evolved altruistic tendencies to get along with each other, what Kitcher conceives as social technologies to further individualistic and communal life projects. One of the strategies helping bind human communities together is the conceptual development of the good life or human flourishing. The very nature of science, Kitcher argues, is intimately bound to a pluralistic ethical discussion concerning what makes life go well. Science is a powerful tool that may help or hinder the seeking of human happiness. Well-ordered science is science that not only accounts for the diversity of public aims for science, but also provides an avenue for public influence on science. Thus, Kitcher broadens the scientific discussion of demarcation beyond the specialized community of scientists and philosophers to include the society in which scientists find themselves. 3.2.2 Ideal Conversation Initially, Kitcher's program seems to magnify the problems levied against philosophers of science such as Kuhn. Opening science to the broader community seems to subject science to the vulgarity of hoi polloi, a kind of de Tocqueville tyranny of the majority. What certain groups take as important to well-being, influencing their view of significant science, is different between groups. Moreover, no guarantee can be made that communities will align with the wants and needs of scientists. Scientific may be stanched by a group with a certain understanding of human flourishing antithetical to an understanding of well-being held by a different majority.

10 Kitcher is promoting a view that aligns his work more closely with Plantinga’s interest in philosophy of religion, the ethics of belief. The classic articles anthologized associated with the genesis of the ethics of belief are W.K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” and ’ “.” Within this philosophical tradition, Kitcher reprises the role of Clifford and Plantinga represents James.

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Kitcher recognizes this problem, “judgments of significance involve a multidimensional balancing act” (p. 111), and he has a methodological solution to the problem. The solution is to promote conversation amongst all parties. Kitcher argues, “the answer is not for any single person—not even an insightful religious teacher or a clever philosopher—to determine. Individuals can make proposals, but the only authority in this arena derives from a conversation” (p. 111). To manage this pluralistic panoply, Kitcher suggests that discussants adhere to a norm of ideal discussion under mutual engagement. Well-ordered science, therefore, is science seeking significant truths according to a conversation amongst citizens and scientists under the dictates of mutual engagement. The key to a well-ordered science and the establishing of scientifically significant research is Kitcher’s notion of an ideal conversation. The conversation being ideal implies a conversation may go well or poorly depending on how well it meets certain normative criteria. Moreover, as discussed in the last section, an important aspect of Kitcher’s demarcation project is its ethical nature. The key to deciding upon scientific significance rests within a conversation constrained by mutual engagement. Mutual engagement allows Kitcher to regulate what types of value commitments enter into a discussion regarding science. I start with Kitcher’s understanding of values, and then examine how mutual engagement mutes certain values in the conversation regarding scientific significance. Kitcher sees a threefold division in the discussion of values. One begins with a broad scheme of values, which he takes “to be a set of commitments around which someone's life is organized” (p. 37). These values are the ideals a person sets for themselves in terms of what is important in life. Broad values are the background to what individuals take to be important in pursuing a worthwhile life, including differing ideas of the sacred and secular. Whatever one's broad scheme of values, certain knowledge is going to be important to understanding our place in the universe and society. The values inherent in understanding are those Kitcher calls the cognitive scheme of values, and “represent the person's commitment to the ideal of gaining knowledge and marks out the kinds of knowledge the person takes to be especially important” (p. 38). Lastly, Kitcher sees that there are different ways to apply cognitive values to particular problems the agent sees as significant. These he calls probative values and they occasion the different extensions of the cognitive and broad values to different problems needing attention. All three

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values play a role in the discussion of scientific significance and therefore a well-ordered science. An obvious problem arises in this discussion as to what is the relationship between Kitcher’s three types of values. Scientific revolutions, following Kuhn, make us aware of the different ways in which scientists deploy probative schemes of values, trading off on different epistemic values such as explanation, prediction, and fecundity in their research. However, they do seem to agree upon a general set of epistemic values, even while disagreeing as to the calibration of such values. It might be that paradigmatic revolutions are subject to arational factors, but eventually normal science returns establishing an epistemic orthodoxy. However, the relationship between broad values and cognitive values seem more problematic.11 After all, do not Intelligent Design proponents commit to a broad scheme of values that direct their cognitive values to search out design in the universe? Moreover, isn't it also the case that opponents of Intelligent Design show the movement is committed to cognitive values grounded in unwarranted broad value schemes (Pennock & Ruse 2009) or that certain broad ethical concerns12 are illegitimately influencing science (Forrest & Gross 2004; Pennock 1999)? Kitcher is not about to instantiate an anything goes approach to science (Feyerabend 1975; Kitcher 2007), so how does he secure the epistemic integrity of science in a pluralistic ethical setting? In order to circumscribe the seemingly open character of a broad value scheme, Kitcher argues that a condition of mutual engagement is enacted in any conversation regarding values. Mutual engagement is a normative ideal imposed on relevant conversations that includes both epistemic and affective conditions. Three epistemic conditions must be met if mutual engagement is to follow. First, an interlocutor cannot hold false beliefs about the natural world. Second, one must recognize the consequences for others and institutions regarding different value judgments. Third, discussants need to be able to identify the desires and wishes of those in

11 Again, Kitcher seems to have widened the influence of values in science by enlarging the group beyond the scientists to include the community with which the science is practiced. 12 An important example of this is the Wedge document. The Intelligent Design think tank in Seattle called the Discovery Institute assembled a group of thinkers to help promote Intelligent Design. Their was to promote the scientific legitimacy of Intelligent Design. However, a document was leaked to the public explicating that Intelligent Design is only the thin edge of a wedge toward complete cultural renewal according to the tenets of conservative Christianity. Intelligent Design is conceived as one component of moral reformation of the culture (c.f., Wedge Document and Forrest & Gross 2004).

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the conversation. These epistemic conditions are coupled with the affective condition of being able to sympathize with other discussants, where sympathy is understood as an ability to give equal weight in the identified desires and wishes of others. With these conditions stated, it is clear that the first epistemic condition is the norm doing the selective work for Kitcher. In an endnote, Kitcher tells us, “Ethical discussions fail to be ideal if they actually incorporate false assumptions” (en. 9, p. 251). This is problematic for Kitcher in that he believes that false beliefs generally lead to biased accounts of significance allocation and failures of sympathy toward others. Thus, false beliefs, or grounding value judgments in false foundations, create an environment where ideal conversation cannot be pursued. If ideal conversation cannot be pursued, then well-ordered science cannot be attained. If well-ordered science is not attained, then science is not functioning as well as it ought to promote well-being. Science not well- ordered is bad science. Thus, scientific reason must be the standard of public reason. 3.2.3 Scientism Kitcher’s circumscription of appropriate value allows him to promote a strong form of secular inquiry, which he argues is the standard of public reason. While good science is well- ordered science that includes Kitcher’s “balancing act” of values, the public conversation must be secular in nature. Kitcher is a strong proponent of the view that scientific reasoning is a subset of general reasoning. How a scientist reasons through her specialized problems is no different than a citizen reasoning through issues in daily life. Thus, Kitcher sees as a prerequisite of mutual engagement the establishment of public reason, a reason that must be thoroughly secular in nature. What Kitcher means by secular is protection from privileging any given value scheme, the sort of idea that Pierre Duhem had in mind when suggesting that science is methodologically neutral. Kitcher argues that much of the disputes surrounding values in science are due to misinformation about the actual science and an irrational exuberance for certain value schemes, what Kitcher calls traditions (p. 158). The problem with a tradition is in its ability to sidestep certain publicly available standards of evidence, extending supposed knowledge of consequence inappropriately. Kitcher sees the error as an ethical error and not indicative of epistemic progress. He states, “commitment to evidential standards is not a blind leap, taken once and for all, but something that evolves” (p. 159). While this blind commitment to a tradition is not necessarily religious, it is the religious that Kitcher has most in mind, claiming, “if…you are going to use your religious attitudes to run your life, if you are going to let religious doctrine

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guide you to decisions affecting the lives of others, the willingness to leap to a standard for judgment, to commit yourself in the absence of reasons, deserves ethical scrutiny” (p. 159). It is due to Kitcher’s insistent identification between public reason and scientific reason that I locate his thought within the family of scientism. However, one must be careful with the identification. It is not the sort of scientism made famous in E.O. Wilson’s classic Sociobiology (1975). It is not the case that everything may be reduced to scientific discourse. Kitcher claims that the worlds created through literature, the arts, and even religion are valuable, tapping deep human existential experience that may not be reducible to clinical observations, control groups, and/or neural firings. However, as the discussion concerning mutual engagement is meant to bring to the foreground, the only values worth considering in an ideal conversation are those meeting scientific epistemic criteria. Inspiration may come from literature, the arts, or religion, as long as the inspiration abides by the rules of scientific discourse.13 Thus, Kitcher, while escaping a strict reductionistic affiliation with scientism, suffers a similar fate to Plantinga’s fideism. It is a deeply seated functional scientism. Moreover, his scientism creates the conflict he sees between science and religion. 3.2.4 Taming Diversity: The Problem of Value Pluralism In section 3.3 I will argue that Kitcher’s scientism promotes two specific areas of conflict with religion. However, the current section is given over to providing a general critique of Kitcher’s notion of demarcation. Kitcher’s work regarding well-ordered science creatively deals with the demarcation question that captured the attention of a generation of philosophers. His solution to the problem was to out-Kuhn Kuhn, locating demarcation in the broader ethical project(s) of humans, the primary aim of which is human flourishing. Thus, demarcation becomes a community wide conversation where all sorts of values influence what makes science good or bad. Kitcher recognizes the impracticality of facilitating such a conversation and provides the notion of an ideal conversation to illustrate how a conversation about well-ordered science ought to proceed. Ideal conversation, argues Kitcher, must be constrained by a condition of mutual engagement. Mutual engagement essentially limits the conversation to those

13 In this way, Kitcher seems to be flirting with a related classical debate in traditional philosophy of science, context of discovery versus context of justification. But, again, Kitcher is more interested in the status of values, not factual or theoretical discoveries. Values may be religiously inspired, but they need to be properly vetted. Properly vetted means through the appropriate scientific process of justification.

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participants holding to a broad value scheme that has been vetted or delimited by current standards of science. Religions drawing inspiration from a transcendent source, those that ground their sense of value in an otherworldly realm, fail the terms of mutual engagement. Any extension of the broad value scheme, what Kitcher calls probative values, will violate a tacit epistemic equality condition and is therefore epistemologically unjust. If religionists are interested in contributing to the greater human ethical project, they must be tutored away from a correspondence between the transcendent, their broad values, and the extensions of such values into public discourse. It is my contention that Kitcher’s project succumbs to a similar fate to Plantinga’s. He is unable to properly delimit the diversity with which his position allows. Thus, the rejection of broad value schemes at the expense of truth is a result of bias toward Kitcher’s favored kind of broad value scheme, one properly naturalistic. Kitcher finds himself teetering upon the horns of a dilemma. Assuming that something similar to Kitcher’s position is accurate, then it is fair to inquire what grounds Kitcher’s notion of value. How is it that only science provides the appropriate foundation to a broad scheme of value? Does science itself meet Kitcher’s criterion of mutual engagement? The dilemma is exposed through the following line of thought. Kitcher wants to place the demarcation question within the context of the ethical, however the only ethical discussion he seems willing to allow is that which meets the demands of a scientific epistemology. A question that comes to mind is whether or not any ethical discussion meets the requirements of scientific scrutiny. Once we include various broad schemes of values, their probative extensions, and a diverse public into the question of scientific demarcation, can one really limit any scheme's acceptability? After all, everyone, including scientists, is committed to some broad scheme of value. If we begin to interrogate scientifically such broad schemes, we will find that all suffer from empirical underdetermination. Even the best scientific investigation into the nature of suffers from a “meager input and the torrential output” (Quine 1969a) of humans. But then, all parties to any discussion of well-ordered science fail to meet the terms of mutual engagement. Thus, the epistemic and functional conflict that Kitcher sees between science and religion can be extended to include a conflict with science itself. The norm of well-ordered science demands public discussion amongst diverse groups of broad values. However, the only groups that receive a voice are those that meet the requirements of mutual engagement.

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However, what is grounding Kitcher’s claim? Here we see the problem with Kitcher's demarcation criterion leading to a dilemma. If the principle of mutual engagement is grounded in science, then it seems circular to employ it as a demarcation of science. However, if the claim is not grounded in science, then it fails the requirement of mutual engagement due to problems of underdetermination. Kitcher’s scientism may help him ignore the dilemma, providing a firm commitment to the only properly ethical stance or value scheme being grounded in science. However, this would mean that his condition of mutual engagement is itself ultimately grounded in underdetermined truth, failing his own criterion of well-ordered science by means of mutual engagement. At this point Kitcher may simply bite the bullet, accepting the circularity while claiming it is not vicious but virtuous. In fact, his tendency toward historicism may help with such a move, since he views the ethical project, and ultimately scientific progress, as an evolving historical process. There are no set goals that ethics or science progresses toward, rather humans get better at solving problems. Ethics is a social technology driven by a practical need a progress from not a progress to (Kitcher 2014a, p. 42). The dilemma only makes sense in light of a static conception of broad values. If broad values are understood on analogy with religious authority, eternally fixed, then the dilemma has force. Its force is due to the fixity of belief. Assuming that a naturalistically conceived view of ethics is akin to the traditional philosophical picture of ethics, a progress toward a goal, then the dilemma forces us to question the evidence available for the foundation of our ethical picture. This leads to the dilemma, as it seems impossible to secure anything within the vicinity of appropriate foundations to the ethical project. However, Kitcher’s ethical project is dynamic, an evolving social technological advance to continual failures of altruism. This blunts the edge of the dilemma, as it makes no commitment to a fixed set of values. Thus, Kitcher’s position has a certain flexibility given his pragmatic naturalism. Naturalism does not commit to any absolute scheme of values, relying instead on the genealogy of value schemes to help understand where a set of values has come from. In this way, the dilemma may be avoided as one is not working toward a predetermined end point, but responding to a practical problem that may require the redefining of the previous starting point. Thus, Kitcher may admit the force of the dilemma while denying it as problematic; the ethical project requires a continual rethinking of its own foundations regardless of logical dilemmas.

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One can grant Kitcher that his naturalistic ethical base deadens the effect of my dilemma. However, it is unclear that such a response provides any motivation to jettison other ways of conceiving broad value schemes, even those grounded in a religious tradition. If Kitcher were allowed to claim his circle as virtuous, why wouldn’t a proponent of a supernatural grounding of values follow suit? After all, is not Plantinga’s picture of values inherently circular? And, would he not claim that his circle is at least as virtuous as Kitcher’s even while admitting the supernatural ground? Does it really matter if the circle is naturally or supernaturally grounded? In this way, it is unclear that Kitcher’s historicism provides any help in further promoting the naturalism over and above the supernaturalism of Plantinga. Kitcher needs a stronger argument that attempts to eliminate the supernatural from discourse. As is, the only recourse Kitcher is left with is to rely upon his functional scientism in the sense that he simply commits to the view that science has given us the best answer to date as to which value schemes are acceptable. This, however, does not inspire confidence that Kitcher is doing anything different from Plantinga. Kitcher begins with the notion of a public discussion, but in the end is required to retreat to some sort of private reflection upon what the best science means for one’s sense of value. In fact, one might see Kitcher’s position as devolving into a denominational view: not a view where the denominations are understood in response to deliverances of the Holy Spirit, but shared commitments to the deliverances of science. I am not questioning the ability of science to generate results that raise questions regarding one’s broad scheme of values and their extensions into other areas of inquiry, only that it isn’t clear Kitcher has secured science as the final arbiter of value and its extension. Feminist philosophers of science have labored to explicate how science often hides various epistemic imperialistic tendencies (Harding & O'Barr 1987; Longino 1990). While Kitcher may be friendly toward feminist philosophers of science, it isn’t clear his terms of mutual engagement allow him to admit feminist sensibilities, while excluding traditional religious sensibilities. Thus, similar to Plantinga’s fideism, Kitcher’s scientism plays a much deeper role in his thought than alluded to in the text. Knowledge of fact and value begins and ends with science, and anybody not willing to promote the program is de facto excluded. 3.3 Kitcher and Religion 3.3.1 Against Supernaturalism I noted in the beginning of this chapter that Kitcher once thought evolution and religion were compatible. His most recent writings however, find an inescapable conflict between science

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and religion. The conflict according to Kitcher splits into two paths. On one hand, there is the epistemic conflict between what we scientifically know about the world, which includes the authoritative traditions of various religions. Logically the religions of the world cannot all be true, and when we begin to investigate the traditions we discover certain empirical inadequacies within all traditions. On the other, there is a functional conflict. Religious tradition provides a practical guide to well-being. Tradition grounds a certain set of broad values that find expression in the probative value schemes used to direct or influence our cognitive values as we inquire into the world. Religious conceptions of well-being, therefore, could influence the direction of scientific research in such a way that is biased toward the well-being of persons not committed to the broad scheme of values held by religionists, e.g., biological education or stem-cell research. Thus, Kitcher argues that religion, or more specifically, commitment to a supernaturally grounded broad value structure is incompatible with a scientific understanding of the world. Therefore, Kitcher finds agreement with Plantinga that conflict occurs along two axes, the superficial and the deep. Kitcher’s superficial conflict is in the way we conceive of religion. Most discussions of science and religion assume a cognitive model of religion where we are dealing with doctrines or authoritative claims about the furniture of the universe, e.g., , Goodness, Truth, Beauty. Thus the conflict is about how to get to the predetermined end point. It is akin to Plantinga’s superficial conflict. Once it is recognized that religion is broader than beliefs, involving an orientation or outlook toward the world, conflict may be avoided. The success of such a reorientation of the science and religion landscape requires that we jettison a rooted traditional conception of religion, what Kitcher calls the Belief Model (BM). Thus, the deeper conflict between science and religion is devoted to how the various sciences have shown religious belief as a natural phenomenon, suggesting a more probabilistic naturalist position. The diversity of religious value claims and their justification is staggering. Any religiously broad scheme of values used to influence the direction of science or other public entities must answer a challenge of exclusivity. I start with the more superficial conflict of the Orientation Model before moving to Kitcher’s deeper argument against the Belief Model. 3.3.2 Orientation Model Recall that Kitcher’s demarcation principle is a demarcation of values, or more specifically the values one uses to decide upon important research projects. This is why he argues for the limitation of broad schemes that are grounded in various supernatural and non-

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natural sources; they promote a narrow conception of plausible projects. However, this raises an acute problem for the religionist as, intuitively, a value scheme is deeply constitutive of a person’s or group’s . Kitcher argues that the inappropriate merging of a broad value scheme and its epistemic extension into contexts of inquiry creates chimeric . Chimeric epistemologies are situations in which a group trusts the deliverances of certain publicly vetted facts and values while denying similarly vetted facts and values. Of course, this dichotomy of trust is often the result of a broad value scheme grounded in revealed or transcendent religion. Kitcher draws upon his work concerning ID/Creationism to illustrate. ID/Creationists deny much, although the variety is great, of the science surrounding evolutionary theory. The supposition is that despite evolutionary theory being well documented and supported across the scientific community, the scientists are simply wrong about certain foundational tenets of scientific inquiry.14 However, Kitcher argues that the very same detractors will trust the same scientists when discussing issues of genetic inheritance or disease vectoring. Kitcher accuses the ID/Creationist of picking and choosing when scientific epistemology seems to fit with a particular background or broad scheme of values. He argues:

The Deniers do not dispute the methods, procedures, and judgments typical of the sciences they understand and endorse. Those ways of certifying new ideas are perfectly appropriate in their place. They are, however, only part of an adequate view. Deniers share a different conception of knowledge: standard scientific investigations can reveal many things about the natural world, but, where they conflict with revealed religion, they cannot be trusted; for the texts of the scriptures, read as they should be, offer a higher form of evidence that cannot be overridden by our fallible inquiries…scripture trumps secular procedures (2011b, p. 157).

When the science accords with what is believed regarding a , then science is working properly. When science works against scriptural values and beliefs (or perhaps a favored broad value ethical scheme), then science must be wrong and revelational authority trumps science. Kitcher calls this the problem of chimeric epistemology, and he thinks it poses a threat to democratic decisions concerning well-ordered science.

14 A case in point is Plantinga’s disdain for the evolutionary psychology of the previous chapter.

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Kitcher’s response to this problem is to shift the frame of reference for conversations between science and religion. The root cause of chimeric epistemologies has to do with an orientation toward inquiry grounded in belief. The religionist’s belief in the authority of scripture drives him or her toward a chimeric resolution and conflict. Kitcher suggests that to help alleviate such tension, one should view religion as an orientation. The beliefs embedded in a religion are only part of the story; religion is better understood as a way of life. Thus, it is possible to bracket the nature of belief and focus upon the values religion instills. Kitcher explains, “an orientation…is a complex of psychological states—states of valuing, desires, , emotions and commitments—a complex that does not include factual beliefs, and that embodies a person’s sense of what is most significant and worthwhile in his own life and in the lives of others” (2010, p. 4). An immediate concern with Kitcher’s emphasis on orientation is in the extreme diversity available to an agent in putting one together. To counter this claim, Kitcher introduces the notion of reflective stability. The idea is that not all orientations are reflectively stable, where the orientation “survives detailed scrutiny of…life and the lives of others; when it can be upheld as a worthy for the direction of one’s transient existence. The orientation model fits a human life when the person in question has an orientation and when that orientation is reflectively stable” (p. 5). Notice his language of “worthy choice.” An orientation is only worthy when it is reflectively stable, but what does that mean? It is certainly the case that Kitcher is assuming orientations leading to chimeric epistemologies are not stable, but how? I contend that Kitcher’s scientism is in play. In Kitcher’s mind, a reflectively stable orientation helps to free conversation between science and religion long held captive to traditional epistemological concerns. In jettisoning what he calls the belief model, one can converse about common values without recourse to some form of supernatural foundation. It is the notion of an ideal conversation applied to individuals. However, when seen in this light, a similar problem afflicting ideal conversation troubles Kitcher’s reflectively stable orientation. In the first instance, it is unclear that Kitcher is writing to anybody but the most liberal of religious proponents and secularists. The removing of traditional epistemic categories from the conversation is not something that fundamentalist or moderate religious folk seem likely to agree with. On the other hand, many atheists will also find it troubling that the conversation is not about theoretical rationality but something more closely related to practical rationality. In fact, Kitcher’s position is meant to set him apart and offer soft

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critique of the New Atheist movement that is thoroughly indebted to the belief model.15 Thus, in practice, Kitcher seems to be a party of one as he attempts to redefine the terms of engagement. This, however, is not a scathing criticism against Kitcher as he may readily agree that he is simply playing maverick (Kitcher 1993) and exploring what it might look like to redefine the conversation. Success or failure is yet to be determined and in the meantime, he has added a unique contribution to the literature. Thus, I will offer a more substantial argument against Kitcher’s reflectively stable orientations. My claim is that Kitcher cannot easily separate the belief model from the orientation model. The two are intimately linked, as Kitcher’s own conception of mutual engagement makes clear. Recall that mutual engagement is tempered by an epistemic condition; discussions about the future of research in relation to human flourishing must be grounded in true beliefs. One might say that this is a very traditional picture of the belief model; true beliefs must ground a broad value scheme. But, now the question arises, how does this square with stabilizing an orientation? If reflectively stable orientations are “worthy” due to the “detailed scrutiny” of my life, wouldn’t that include an accounting of why I take certain values, aims, and goals as true? And if it does, then how can I be sure that my liberal orientation is the worthy choice while the traditional religious orientation is the one leading to chimeric epistemologies? Could it be, perhaps, that the orientation Kitcher favors is the one in need of reorientation? Maybe it is the liberal view that actually promotes chimeric epistemology, not the religious. Thus, Kitcher needs a way to understand the term ‘reflectively stable’ in order to rank or make judgments as to the stability of orientations. Much like his notion of an ideal conversation according to the principle of mutual engagement, I contend that his notion of reflectively stable requires a strong dose of scientism. The orientation model only makes sense against the backdrop of a scientific belief model. Why is an orientation leading to religiously grounded chimeric epistemologies bad, even if committed to false beliefs? The orientation may not require an account of the beliefs, but if one is to decide which orientation is worthy, then traditional epistemological work needs to be done. But, if this is the case, then the earlier problem of grounding the values within a scientific belief model continues to haunt Kitcher. If science is inexplicably committed to the belief model, and values

15 His argumentative point is that the New Atheists fail his sympathy component to mutual engagement. They simply cannot see what its like to lose a religion. Thus, their emphasis and stridency for the belief model is often alienating to genuine conversation, causing a retrenching of the faithful and the critiques of more liberal religionists.

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are only vetted against science, then it seems a pure orientation model is impossible as the orientation will always be related to some factual state of affairs explicable according to scientific method. Thus, the shift that Kitcher demands of the religionist is one that he is unwilling to make himself. For, if he were to jettison the belief model, then there would be no way for him to make his circumscription of religious value according to mutual engagement plausible. It is one that only makes sense in light of Kitcher’s functional scientism. 3.3.3 Enlightenment Argument Against Religion The last section argued that Kitcher’s notion of an orientation is unable to help alleviate stress between science and religion. This is due to the fact that an orientation cannot divorce from a belief model. Kitcher may not be as naive about this as he appears in print. This is because he does offer an argument promoting toward traditional religious claims. Thus, much like Plantinga, his orientation debate is superficial. A proper belief model allows for an easy shifting of orientation in a similar fashion to Plantinga’s internal instigation of the Holy Spirit “shifts” an evidence base. Therefore, Kitcher has an argument aimed at undermining the cogency of religious belief all together. This argument may account for the felicity with which Kitcher promotes mutual engagement as well as orientations. It also composes his second and less superficial conflict between science and religion. The argument itself is called the Enlightenment Case Against Religion (ECAR) and is composed of two parts, an evidential concern and a moral concern. Together, these two work together to form a dilemma for the religious believer. The evidential concern deals with how to characterize religion. The definition of religion is academically vexing. Much like the demarcation of science literature, no unified understanding of religion seems plausible. Religion seems to form a hodgepodge of interrelated components, epistemic, moral, sociological, cultural, practical, etc., that are easily recognizable as religion, but escape firm definition. Kitcher recognizes this problem. He narrows his investigation to only those religions that share in a conception of the transcendent, what he calls providentialist religion. Providentialist religion is intimately related to a divinity that is involved in creation and therefore responsible for the security of facts and values. Kitcher claims that providentialists, “believe that the universe has been created by a Being who has a great design, a Being who cares for his creatures, who observes the fall of every sparrow and who is especially concerned with humanity” (2007, pp. 122-23). The problem that Kitcher raises is one of symmetry between the

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world’s providentialist religions. When inquiry is turned to the truth of any given religion, one finds a perfect symmetry between the different religions. One sees a certain similarity between the different traditions, in how they are formed and transmitted as well as in their experiential or phenomenological aspects. This symmetry, according to Kitcher, makes it nearly impossible to decide which religion has correctly identified the nature of the transcendent. This puts the religionist in a bit of a bind. If one’s religion is supposed to ground a sense of being, an orientation toward life, then the plethora of options before one make such a decision impossible unless one has some sort of independent sieve by which to sift the various religious claims for truth. Kitcher realizes that the elimination of the transcendent is beyond the realm of . There is always the chance that a transcendent religion will be able to categorize its transcendent experience into a coherent view, something that defeats the symmetry problem. Thus, he presses the attack from a different angle, a moral angle. It is immoral for a person to hold and act upon religious beliefs that cannot be independently verified. In essence, when mutual engagement is violated, the breach is one of the ethical project. The faith of believers is not so much epistemologically suspect as it is in moral error. The symmetry argument makes it difficult to justify the extension of any one set of religious beliefs into public discourse. Why should any one voice take precedent over and above another? Without a decisive means to adjudicate between competing religious claims and their extensions, the best a religious agent may do is trust or put faith in his religion’s claim to superiority. But, this trust is no better or worse than any other and may be downright dangerous when difficult or high stakes cases require impartial investigation. “If you are going to use your religious attitudes to run your life,” argues Kitcher, “if you are going to let religious doctrine guide you to decisions that will affect the lives of others, then the willingness to leap without evidence, to commit yourself in the absence of reasons, deserves ethical scrutiny” (2007, p. 147). In essence, Kitcher provides a one-two combination to the belief model. Traditional religious belief is not epistemically sustainable. The symmetry thesis makes implausible the authority of any particular religion. Moreover, due to the nature of probative value schemes and their extension into the public arena, Kitcher follows the epistemic critique with a moral exhortation against fideism. But, in raising his complaint against the belief model of religion, the reflexivity problem of my general critique returns. One could admit the symmetry problem, but include one

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more ‘religion’ into its mix, the religion of science. Recall, that mutual engagement requires that no probative value scheme be grounded in false belief. Scientific epistemic criteria must ground the extension of value. However, this raises the question of whether science can ground a value scheme definitively enough to carry favor across the different scientifically respectable schemes. There is just as much diversity among scientifically respectable extensions as there is in transcendentally irresponsible schemes, providing for disingenuousness in Kitcher’s thought. When a certain decision concerning value extension is reached, how is commitment to that particular extension any different than the faithful’s commitment to their value extensions? What is the deciding factor for one rather than the other scheme? Kitcher would say it is the result of an ideal conversation and thus a consensus, but then the commitment is one akin to putting trust in a particular group’s conversation. Is this not what the religionist does as well? One might have an authoritative text, trusting the tradition to correctly exposit it in relation to the broader public situations. That game is illegitimate on grounds of failing the epistemic condition of mutual engagement, but Kitcher’s proposed solution is to trust a game that fails mutual engagement as well. The epistemic imperialism and Kitcher’s scientism seems constitutive of his argument against the belief model. It might be true that science can help better understand the religious diversity in our world, but that diversity does not provide an argument against the morality of using religion to help understand or discuss value extensions and public reason. Kitcher is as trusting, perhaps faithful, to ungrounded value extensions as is the religionist. Kitcher would object to my use of the word faith in relation to his position. He could, rightly, promote the idea that the family of intellectually respectable value extensions is not committed to faith, but practicality or prudence. Kitcher is developing a pragmatic approach to “the ethical project” and this is not something that requires anything resembling religious faith only good old-fashioned American , Dewey’s Common Faith (1934). I think this is a perfectly good response on the part of Kitcher, one that I have certain sympathies toward. However, this sort of response is an acknowledgment of the primacy of a belief model to all discussions regarding science and religion. Kitcher is essentially saying that his ground of belief is the more relevant, on pragmatic grounds, than any other. However, there is no argument given for such a decision. It is by fiat the appropriate argumentative ground and the starting place of public reason. But, this doesn’t seem any fairer to the supernatural religionist than the previous attempt at a moral critique. A pragmatic commitment to belief may not be faith, but it provides the same

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functional commitment provided by faith. It still raises a question as to how Kitcher can unilaterally dismiss a faith-based approach for a pragmatic approach. 3.4 Conflict as Inquiry: Invasive Scientism I am now in a position to make a few general remarks about Kitcher’s approach to science and religion. It should be apparent that Kitcher’s position, while ostensibly about conversation and mutual engagement, is more a fig leaf than an olive branch. Participation in the conversation between science and religion is only good, according to Kitcher, if one is willing to play by his rules of secular public reason. A first point of elucidation is in the realization that Kitcher is more interested in how inquiry is carried out. He, like Plantinga, is not specifically interested in any particular belief. Rather, he is more concerned with the character of inquiry in public contexts. Chimeric epistemologies are examples of bad inquiry and ought to be avoided. One may have private beliefs in the transcendent, but must not let those beliefs influence public discussions. And, since it is nearly impossible to sequester those beliefs from all influence on action, the religionist is dismissed from the possibility of fruitful conversation. Their method of inquiry involving religious authority is not of the right character to qualify as a worthy conversation partner. Second, I’ve brought to the surface the scientism that is motivating much of Kitcher’s thought. Kitcher’s work in philosophy of science, particularly his work in demarcation, is the baseline by which Kitcher evaluates all extensions of knowledge and values, including discussions involving the nature of religion and the direction of scientific research. In this respect, Kitcher joins Plantinga in promoting a similar but opposite aimed dual program, an internal and public project. Internally, he is doing specialist work that makes a lot of sense within the conversation of demarcation and the philosophy of science. However, this internal project he desires to make global by ensconcing it in the ethical project. This public, or moral, aspect of his project has two aims of its own. First, he is providing a thoroughly secular position in the family of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. He is not shy about suggesting that religion must go the way of the dodo, being replaced with a . Thus, his work may be seen as the development of a scientific secular humanism. Second, he is providing a handbook to a ‘soft atheist’ engagement with religion in the public sphere. His pragmatic bent is certainly in the vein of an ethics of belief. However, his ethic of belief is not in regard to faith, but what secular value ought to be. His work is more like an intellectual halfway house to encourage the faithful to test the waters of secularism. His hope is for transformation, “In the

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end…peaceful coexistence must give way to renewed argument. …Secularists envisage a broadly progressive future, not one in which religion disappears, but one in which it metamorphoses into something else” (2014a, p. 94). Thus, Kitcher’s functional scientism is an invasive scientism, both in its intended effects on others and in science’s ability to ground a flourishing life. I, however, claim that Kitcher’s functional scientism promotes non-virtuous inquiry. His error is similar to Plantinga in that his vision of the public extension of a scientifically grounded ethical project may not be appropriate in terms of interdisciplinary inquiry. It makes good sense to the scientifically initiated and their kindred nourished by the waters of scientism. But the public conversation, if tempered by Kitcher’s notion of mutual understanding, is not something that all will readily agree is the best way to characterize the conversation. Thus, Kitcher’s scientism is doing more work than intellectually possible to exclude providential religion from the conversation. Moreover, as I will argue, it promotes a certain intellectual viciousness. 3.5 Concluding Remarks This section illustrated the relationship between Kitcher’s work in the philosophy of science with his conflict thesis between science and religion. The key point is that Kitcher’s scientism is influencing the character of interdisciplinary research between science and religion in a non-virtuous manner. Kitcher’s inquiry is epistemologically irresponsible in his insistence on extending judgments according to standards within his specialty discipline to the much larger framework of science, religion, and society. While Kitcher should be applauded in his attempt to motivate a conversation regarding an ethics of discourse, he succumbs to a certain availability bias in overly relying upon his specialized work concerning science, values, and demarcation. This creates a problem similar to Plantinga in that Kitcher promotes an invasive scientism, which hinders the cultivation of dialogue between all but the most liberal forms of religion and science. Thus, I may now claim that the conflict model between science and religion from the philosophical angle is one that shares a common defect. Whether you approach the topic from the philosophy of religion or the philosophy of science, the conflict arises according to a certain availability bias. The bias is to the interlocutor’s specialty discipline and the epistemic norms governing their specialty work. The conflict arises with an irresponsible extension of those norms into contexts larger and messier than the home discipline, Kitcher’s extension of scientific

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demarcation principles and Plantinga’s fideistic evidence base into public conversations regarding science and religion. My contention is that the problem between science and religion according to current philosophical ventures has to do with the character of inquiry. The next chapter will turn to virtue epistemology and its notion of intellectual character traits governing good inquiry. I will argue that to cultivate dialogue between philosophers such as Kitcher and Plantinga, we need to reevaluate the philosophical nature of science and religion as an instance of interdisciplinary inquiry. Due to their inherent fuzzy boundaries of interdisciplinary contexts, traditional epistemic categories do not adequately map between the two disciplines. Therefore, a turn to virtue helps alleviate this formal epistemological problem allowing for a focus upon character traits that good inquirers exhibit, helping to model how good inquiry ought to proceed in the face of an underdetermined formal epistemic framework.

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CHAPTER 4

VIRTUE AND INQUIRY

4.1 Introduction The previous two chapters argued that two leading philosophical voices in the science and religion dialogue share a common commitment to conflict. I argued the structure of the conflict is related to the way inquiry ought to proceed in science and religion. Alvin Plantinga, a functional fideist, sought to reduce scientific inquiry to theological inquiry. Philip Kitcher, a proponent of functional scientism, sought to reduce theological inquiry to scientific inquiry. Thus, I claimed that both philosophers err in a similar fashion that is detrimental to future philosophical investigations regarding science and religion. The nature of the error is epistemological. It is a failure to reason virtuously at the intersection of two philosophical disciplines, philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. This raises a conundrum as I suggested that both philosophers have contributed keen intellectual insights into their respective disciplines, suggesting that, in some fashion, they are virtuous inquirers. How can an individual both be intellectually virtuous and non-virtuous at the same time? To answer this question I turn my attention toward the nature of inquiry understood through a virtue epistemological lens. This chapter’s goal is to elucidate the structure of the error made by Kitcher and Plantinga. Thus the next section will provide a brief introduction to how virtue epistemology helps overcome or redirect traditional epistemological thought by turning our attention to behaviors of the agent in a context of inquiry. This allows the virtue epistemologist to understand the nature of epistemology as a practice, a skill set that agents cultivate. Understanding epistemology as a practice means that agents set goals to accomplish. Traditionally the aim of epistemological inquiries is truth. However, I will argue that while truth is often in the vicinity of inquiry, it isn’t always the primary aim. Sometimes it makes more sense to discuss something broader than truth, such as wisdom or understanding. With this in mind, I develop a working conception of disciplinary versus interdisciplinary research. This distinction hinges upon the different roles faculty or character virtue play in an inquiry. The distinction between disciplinary and interdisciplinary research allows me to make sense of the virtuousness and viciousness of Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s inquiry into science and religion. It will be shown that Plantinga’s and

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Kitcher’s work may be virtuous as disciplinary exercises, and why they are intellectually vicious interdisciplinary inquiries. 4.2 Virtue Epistemology 4.2.1 Virtue-Reliabilism and Virtue-Responsibilsm Much of contemporary analytic epistemology is captivated by the doxastic paradigm defined as “epistemic evaluation…fundamentally concerned with evaluating beliefs and their objects, by establishing whether they are justified or by establishing whether they constitute knowledge” (Hookway 2006, p. 96). This is the epistemology famous for evil geniuses, barn façades, and clairvoyants, where the primary unit of epistemic analysis is a belief. Questions about basing , warrant, justification, knowledge and opinion, permeate the literature (Moser 2002). Belief is what needs understanding and the agent’s role in generating belief goes no further than being a brain in a vat, a receptacle of beliefs.16 The virtue epistemologist suggests a change in analytical focus. The agent is conceived not as a passive holder of beliefs, but an active reasoner, a person that exhibits certain intellectual excellences. Particular beliefs and other traditional categories of epistemic appraisal are considered secondary to a primary concern with the intellectual characteristics of an agent in a context of inquiry. So what does it mean to reason well or poorly for the virtue epistemologist? Jason Baehr notes, “sometimes the difference is attributable to a relatively mechanical factor, as when a person fails to reach the truth on account of a defective cognitive faculty, for example, poor vision, weak hearing, or a faulty memory” (2011, p. 1). This way of conceiving virtue epistemology is one interested in excellently functioning faculties and is a species of epistemic reliabilism. The direction of analysis moves away from beliefs to specific faculties needed to generate a belief. However, the traditional epistemological problems surrounding belief remain the primary motivating factor in introducing the virtues (Sosa 1980). This approach to virtue epistemology is called virtue-reliabilism (Axtell 2000) and is given over to solving traditional problems in the field of epistemology. One’s epistemic success is mechanically dependent upon various skills and capacities of the agent. Thus, as long as my eyes are functioning properly,

16 It may be suggested that reliabilism is interested in characteristics of the agent in belief formation, namely properly functioning cognitive mechanisms. As will become apparent shortly, virtue epistemology has a close relationship with virtue reliabilism, identifying virtues with excellently functioning cognitive mechanisms. Some have even argued that many reliabilists such as Alvin Plantinga are better described as virtue epistemologists (Roberts and Wood 2007).

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along with other appropriate cognitive faculties in an environment that is “normal,” I may claim there is a barn in front of me, to use a well-worn example (Moser 2002). Turning away from virtues as excellent capacities and skills, Baehr mentions a different application of virtue epistemology. “Often,” states Baehr, “the success or failure of an inquiry has a more personal source. This is due to the fact that inquiry has a robustly active dimension…it requires an exercise of certain intellectual character traits. It can require, for instance, that one engage in attentive observation, thoughtful or open-minded imagination, patient reflection, careful and thorough analysis, or fair-minded interpretation and assessment. As this suggests, inquiry makes substantial personal demands on inquirers. It demands an exercise of a range of ‘intellectual character virtues’” (2011, p. 1). According to this conception of virtue epistemology, the analogy with is stronger. An agent may behave in certain epistemic ways that are judged ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on the exercise of certain epistemic character traits. One is more concerned with the agent’s role in the process of inquiry versus the functioning of cognitive faculties and skills. Traditional epistemic concerns regarding belief are peripherally important if addressed at all, providing the discipline a sense of autonomy. Proponents of this style of virtue epistemology are called virtue-responsibilists (Axtell 2000), distinguished by their concern with epistemic character. One’s epistemic success is dependent upon how well intellectual habits have been cultivated, not any specific belief held by the agent. For example, according to the doxastic paradigm one would need to count among the irrational due to his beliefs and the evidence he gave for such beliefs, e.g., his . However, under a virtue-responsibilist reading of Aristotle, he retains his status as a paragon of rationality due to the intellectual character he exhibited in his inquiries even if his specific beliefs turned out wrong.17 4.2.2 Form of Inquiry A major research project is how virtue-reliabilism and virtue-responsibilism interrelate (Battaly 2008). One motivation for clarifying the relationship is due to the fact that both projects

17 Similarly, one can see how any given scientific investigation is helped in retaining rationality across scientific disputes if a virtue-responsibilist framework is accepted. Think of the race between Crick and Watson and Linus Pauling in the modeling of DNA. It would be difficult to say that seekers of an alternative model to DNA were irrational in their pursuit once the specific structure was discovered. Or, more currently think about the dialogue over multi-level selection in evolutionary biology.

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nicely articulate different types of knowledge. Virtue-reliabilism is often credited with furthering an understanding of low-grade knowledge, e.g., perceptual beliefs, while failing to account for epistemic activities such as science, philosophy, or history. Virtue-responsibilism, with emphasis given to intellectual character in the process of inquiry, nicely captures such high-grade knowledge as scientific, philosophical and historical, while failing to be effective in low-grade scenarios. It simply doesn’t seem necessary to involve character virtues when trying to explain my belief that a light is on in my office. Once the light switch is thrown, the belief arises naturally from my excellently functioning faculty of vision, no courage or humbleness required. While it is beyond the scope of this dissertation to add definitively to the literature on the appropriate relationship between the two styles of intellectual virtue, it is clear that some sort of relationship must follow. In fact, descriptively, the two must work together in some fashion as the virtue-reliabilist may only do her work in a context of inquiry that requires the tenets of virtue-responsibilism. The result of the work in virtue-reliabilism is not the pure deliverance of virtuous functioning faculties, but the result of a responsible inquiry. The virtue-reliabilist is talking about cognitive mechanisms in the process of defending belief against a traditional epistemological problem, but is not exercising those mechanisms in the fashion being investigated. The investigation is inherently “above” the mechanisms being examined, requiring recourse to a type of inquiry inherently different from the one being discussed. Therefore, I contend that insight might be drawn form ’s cryptic notion of a form of life. Toward the end of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein commenting on and the nature of mathematics suggested, “what has to be accepted, the given, is—so one could say— form of life” (2001, p. 192). While it is contentious what Wittgenstein meant by a form of life, it broadly dealt with how communication through language is possible. Thus, while a complete understanding of how virtue-reliabilism and virtue-responsibilism relate to each other is beyond the present work, I bring them together in a form of inquiry. A form of inquiry suggests that both aspects of intellectual virtue have something to do with the way one inquires into the world capturing the ambiguous relationship between faculty virtues, character virtues, low-order, and high-order knowledge in the process of inquiry. It is within this Wittgensteinian gloss that I make sense of Christopher Hookway’s promotion of a hierarchy of virtues. He states, “we can adopt a two-tiered picture: we would not be reliable seekers after the truth or effective solvers of theoretical problems if we did not possess specific skills and capacities…but our success also

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requires us to possess traits of character which enable us to use our skills and capacities effectively when inquiring and deliberating” (2003, pp. 187-88). 4.2.3 Planitnga, Kitcher, and Virtue Epistemology This section has investigated the basic tenets of virtue epistemology. Before continuing, I will make a few comments on how virtue epistemology relates to the previous two chapters regarding Plantinga and Kitcher. The shared conclusion of the chapters on Plantinga and Kitcher is that they are really concerned with how to inquire at the interface of science and religion. They are not so much worried about the actual deliverances of science or religion, as they both see methodological concerns within the other discipline limiting an agent’s ability to clearly reason at the intersection of science and religion. Plantinga sees a problem with Kitcher’s naturalism and Kitcher sees a problem with Plantinga’s supernaturalism. Thus, I can now claim that both Plantinga and Kitcher find conflict with the other’s form of inquiry. However, I noted that a form of inquiry has two components, faculty virtues and character virtues. This raises the question of the nature of their disagreement concerning forms of inquiry. Is it more of a faculty or character issue with Plantinga and Kitcher? This question will take more definitive shape in the next section as I argue for a conception of disciplinary versus interdisciplinary research. Currently, however, I want to make the observation that Plantinga and Kitcher seem to be more focused upon faculty virtues. Their concerns are related to the method of inquiry, with inquiry being understood as a tool used to inquire into the nature of science or religion. Thus, Plantinga views Kitcher’s restriction of mutual engagement as an unhelpful form of inquiry. Likewise, Kitcher would claim that Plantinga’s employment of the sensus divinitatus is a faulty intellectual mechanism of inquiry. They are more concerned with the structure of inquiry, arguing that the naturalism or supernaturalism of the other discipline inhibits proper inquiry. Moreover, they implicitly employ the traditional doxastic paradigm in their inquiries, where intellectual character is rarely discussed in relation to proper epistemic performance. Both present faculty based critiques that are presented in terms of traditional epistemic categories. 4.3 Two Forms of Inquiry 4.3.1 Introduction The last section noted that virtue epistemology developed along two separate trajectories, virtue-reliabilism focusing on the capacities or skills of agents and virtue-responsibilism focusing on intellectual character traits. The section concluded with a suggestion that the two

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types of virtue come together in a form of inquiry. This section is designed to help bring flesh to my concept of a form of inquiry. I begin by examining a form of inquiry’s goals and practices. What is the inquiries aim and how does one get there? I will argue that the two forms of virtue epistemology naturally align with different goals. It makes sense to talk about faculty-based virtues as aiming at truth, while character-based epistemologies tend to aim at something more like understanding. Further examination of the aims of inquiry brings to light certain differences within epistemic practice. The bringing together of faculty and character virtues with an aim toward truth or understanding allows me to make a distinction between disciplinary and interdisciplinary research based upon how the two types of virtues relate to each other. Disciplinary inquiry is promoted when a community of inquirers reaches agreement as how responsibly to inquire into a certain subset of questions. A virtuous disciplinarian is one who has been educated into a certain skill set, employing, for lack of a better word, an epistemic method for generating disciplinary truths. Character virtues are secondary to more skill-based virtues in applying a given method of inquiry. My contention is to view disciplinary as analogous to the cognitive faculties of a virtuous knower. Just as an intellectually virtuous agent employs faculties such as sight excellently, so too does a virtuous disciplinary agent employ a specific form of inquiry excellently. Interdisciplinary research by contrast is where one or more agents from different disciplines come together to investigate how their disciplines relate to one another or to a common problem. A key component of interdisciplinary research is the lack of a reliable method to accrue truth. Without a prescribed way to proceed in inquiry, character virtues are primary as the boundaries of disciplinary forms of inquiry are negotiated. 4.3.2 Nature of Inquiry A consequence of the doxastic paradigm is the narrowness of its analysis, beliefs and their justifications. Hookway argues that the recent interest in virtue epistemology reminds us of the fact that knowledge is something earned; it is the result of a practice. Hookway associates epistemic practice with the notion of inquiry, where intellectual virtues play a regulative role (2003; 2006). I suggested earlier that most traditional epistemic inquiries are talking about beliefs, knowledge, warrant, etc.; they are not actually first-order cases of said analysis. Thus, such second-order reflective analysis must be considered as an inquiry into the concept of x or the status of argument y. Hookway summarizes epistemology as practice, “to describe and explain our practice of epistemic evaluation; to investigate how far our epistemic goals are

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appropriate and how far our evaluative practice enables us to achieve our epistemic ends” (2003, p. 192). Hookway’s definition brings two aspects of inquiry to the foreground in need of more discussion. First, inquiry is always in service to some goal or end. What are the ends of inquiry? Second, the notion of epistemic practice in service to said ends needs clarification. 4.3.2.1 Epistemic Goals: Truth vs. Understanding. The intuitive and historical answer to the question of epistemic goals is truth. I investigate a certain domain in order to maximize truth and minimize falsehood. Textbook traditions point to Descartes and his meditative search for indubitable truth as exemplary of this epistemic aim. Ironically, Descartes’ emphasis on clear and distinct ideas, ideas of which truths are immediately perceivable, sowed the seeds of its own demise, as any number of ideas may be cognitively mapped to any number of normative criteria (Stich 1990). Regardless, truth remains an important desideratum of the contemporary epistemological project (Alston 2005). I previously mentioned that virtue-reliabilism is conservatively committed to traditional epistemological concerns. One of these traditional concerns includes truth. In fact John Greco, highlighting the differences between faculty and character virtue theories, concisely states, “the key idea here is not that knowledge requires responsibility in one’s conduct…but that knowledge requires responsibility for true belief. Again, to say that someone knows is to say that his believing the truth can be credited to him” (2003, p. 111 emphasis original). Thus, true belief is won when my faculties are functioning excellently and I may be given credit for forming the belief, e.g., I’m not being deceived, lucky, or manipulated. Virtue-reliabilism with its emphasis on cognitive mechanism often takes truth as a fundamental goal of their inquiries. The more traditional epistemic conversation, focused around low-grade beliefs, provides an environment conducive to seeking solutions to epistemic puzzles in terms of truth. When discussions turn toward high-grade knowledge, however, discussions of truth become strained. For instance, scientists, along with historians, are more interested in explanations while philosophers prefer wisdom. A term for such aims is “understanding,” which promotes connotations broader than mere truth. Of course, verisimilitude with truth is the convenient friction by which our understanding progresses, but it is not the primary aim of inquiry (Price 2003). Virtue epistemologists seeking autonomy from the traditional epistemic program have often argued for understanding as the primary goal (Kvanvig 2003; Riggs 2003). The results of scientific, historical, and philosophical inquiry are not individualized true beliefs, but webs of

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belief that make sense of our experience (Quine & Ullian 1970). I will not expand upon what the technical nature of this web of understanding entails. I simply follow Wilfred Sellars' classic comment about the nature of philosophical inquiry, appropriating it as an approximation of understanding. He states, “the aim of philosophy…is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term” (1962, p. 35). Without truth anchoring the epistemic enterprise, how does one protect from an anything goes mentality? Virtue-responsibilism claims that the intellectual virtues can temper the perceived cognitive chaos with its emphasis on cultivating virtuous inquirers through sound intellectual character. 4.3.2.2 Successful Inquiry. An inquiry’s aim is intimately related to the questions one asks and is considered complete when certain success conditions have been met. The success of inquiry depends on how well one answers the given questions. Answering the stated questions guiding the inquiry requires the ability to navigate certain secondary questions that facilitate the main investigative line. For instance, a main question in a biological inquiry might be to decipher whether a given trait is the product of selection pressures or some other evolutionary mechanism. But to answer this question a researcher or team of researchers must struggle with a host of secondary questions. What is good experimental design for this question? Do I have a large enough sample size? What is the relevant background literature? Am I comfortable enough with statistical analysis to recognize genuine effect versus background noise? These questions are critical to a successful inquiry. While the example is clearly a case of high-grade knowledge, similar remarks apply to low-grade cases of knowledge. If I’m looking at an oak tree in my visual field and begin to doubt its existence for some reason, my primary question involves whether my belief is true or not. However, I could rehearse some secondary questions about the experience. Did I ingest some sort of hallucinogenic drug? Did I really decide to go hiking in the forest this morning and not the desert? Did I accidentally end up at a movie set in Studios? One shared aspect of the secondary questions between the high- and low-grade cases is they are not often consciously raised. I might intentionally exert energy exploring experimental design, but my grasp of the background literature is not something with which a well-trained inquirer spends much time. This is more apparent in the low-grade cases where my visual system is already excluding all sorts of possibilities for why the tree in front of me cannot be anything but a tree. In both cases the key is a properly trained inquirer. One skillfully employs the

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research tools available, while the other employs a properly functioning visual system. Virtue- responsibilists and virtue-reliabilists would designate one, the other, or both as virtuous intellectual agents, the success condition being related to how the agent handled, consciously or not, the secondary questions involved with the inquiry. The important lesson is that secondary questions are cultivated through experience and education. Successful inquiry requires a communal aspect where one develops character virtues alongside more mechanistic capacities and habits. New graduate students are often awestruck by the felicity with which senior graduate students designate primary and secondary questions in an inquiry, driving conversations along previously unfathomable causeways. This ability to always pose the right question is the result of a cultivated intellectual character, a primary purpose of graduate school. Successful inquiry requires training and experience, which cultivates the necessary intellectual virtues, both faculty- and character-based. “Success in inquiry,” argues Hookway, “depends upon the wisdom embodied in our judgments and upon the cognitive habits and skills we have acquired through education, experience, and training” (Hookway 2003, p. 200). This ability or ‘embodied wisdom’ to judge the relevancy of questions and the pathway forward to providing solutions is where the virtues find important connection to the success of inquiry. The better one is able to recognize and address secondary questions of inquiry, the better the inquiry advances and the better the answer to the primary question overseeing the inquiry. Success therefore depends upon intellectual character as well as intellectual faculties conditioned by experience and education. The next two sections will expand the notion of successful inquiry into a conception of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research. 4.3.3 Virtuous Inquiry: Disciplinary Inquiry The remarks of the previous two sections allow for a categorization of virtuous inquiry. The success of an inquiry is intimately related to the questions raised. Any central question brings a host of secondary questions in its wake. The training one receives and how adept one is at using the received training relates to how well one will inquire. Training assumes a reality with which to be conditioned. It would be rather awkward to talk about eyesight without an eye! The community must be bound together by something with which it educates the neophyte. What binds together intellectual communities tends to be sets of questions and how to go about

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answering said questions.18 When successful answers are reliably generated, successful inquiry gets formalized and one talks about scientific, historical, or philosophical method. Thus, the community binds together around a way to inquire, a form of inquiry.19 But how does a method develop and solidify itself as the community norm? A full explanation is beyond the scope of this dissertation, but I contend that a form of inquiry develops around the way a community manages faculty and character virtues in the course of an inquiry. Let me begin with a historical example of a disciplinary norm being established and then offer a bit of commentary. Methodological Naturalism (MN), the idea that scientific investigations do not make reference to the supernatural, is considered a basic ground rule of scientific (Pennock 2009). Historically, the foundational nature of MN resulted from a conversation between and over the place of in natural explanations. As science came into its own during the intellectual revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, teleological explanations became increasingly less valuable to natural philosophy and the new science, retaining strong methodological value in natural theology (Harrison 1998; Numbers 2003). Ultimately, as scientific methods were refined, MN gained complete prominence in the fields of physical science. Pierre Duhem, a deeply conservative Catholic, perhaps codified MN as basic to physical science when frustrated with the overreaching influence of metaphysics upon physical theory. Duhem argues, “now to make physical theories depend on metaphysics is surely not the way to let them enjoy the privilege of universal … If theoretical physics is subordinated to metaphysics, the divisions separating the diverse metaphysical systems will extend into the domain of physics. A physical theory reputed to be satisfactory by the sectarians of one metaphysical school will be rejected by the partisans of another school” (Duhem 1954, quoted in Plantinga 2001). The only way to find agreement in physical theory is to agree to an intellectual moratorium in metaphysics.

18 I would be remiss not to mention the relationship my thoughts have with ’s notion of science, community, and paradigm. Kuhn, however, does not make use of the intellectual virtues of the agent to help understand inquiry. My discussion places faculty and character virtues at the center of a form of inquiry. 19 Methodological commitments can vary within a discipline as well. In traditional epistemology a split exists between and standard analytic epistemology. One thinks epistemology ought to be modeled after the natural sciences while the other claims epistemic autonomy from the sciences. This divide is even present in the virtue epistemological literature (cf. Fairweather 2014).

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The example of MN provides insight into how a disciplinary norm is established. First, a discipline is the creation of a dialogue between disciplines. The question of MN was forged in a conversation about how best to address primary and secondary questions in the investigation of nature between natural theologians and natural philosophers. Thus, the participants were trying to understand how to inquire best into nature. They were not asking questions directly related to truth but how best to attain truth within a discipline. The conversation is best characterized as a virtue-responsibilist inquiry. Success was the result of coming to agreement with how best to inquire.20 Once a consensus is achieved, MN characterized scientific practice. To see the world as a scientist is to see the world through naturalized eyes. One must train his or her faculties of inquiry to operate according to MN. Once aspects of inquiry are decided upon, they get incorporated as natural extensions of an inquiring agent. They become background methodological assumptions conditioning how inquiry is practiced. Thus, a disciplinary form of inquiry involves reliable mechanisms or methods that agents adroitly employ in seeking answers to questions. The methods one employs within a discipline become the way to practice a discipline. The methods become extensions of an inquirer’s faculties. Proper employment of a method will yield disciplinary truth in the same way that proper employment of eyesight will yield perceptual truths. Thus I contend that a disciplinary form of inquiry is one where a methodological consensus has been reached as to how to inquire into a range of questions, the method being related to an extension of an agent’s natural intellectual faculties aimed at reliably producing disciplinary truths. The agent’s intellectual character is measured by her acumen deploying intellectual faculties enhanced by a method of inquiry. More specifically, I contend that the birth of a disciplinary form of inquiry is one where faculty virtues become more prominent than character virtues in the course of inquiry. But what of the character virtues? Do they simply get jettisoned from the overall conception of inquiry at the disciplinary level? No, they do not. However, inquiry becomes so habituated that character virtues are only noticed in of radical disciplinary progress or disciplinary digression. An example of the latter is the recent

20 A further conclusion that may be drawn, but one I will not argue for, is the idea that disciplinary formation requires an interdisciplinary conversation. Russell used the same sort of argument in defending the value of philosophy against the overly practical and observable success of science, reminding the readers that science sprang out of a philosophical discussion where questions became answerable (c.f., Russell 1912, ch. 15).

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case of Harvard evolutionary psychologist Marc Hauser. Hauser received the training requisite to engaging in fruitful disciplinary enquiry. He was one of those that impressed graduate students and colleagues with his felicity in asking primary and secondary questions and applying a form of inquiry to reach answers. However, Hauser, at the discretion of graduate students none-the- less, was investigated and found guilty according to two separate investigative bodies of scientific misconduct (2010; 2012). Notice the language of scientific misconduct. The breach was intellectual, a mishandling of disciplinary forms of inquiry. He fabricated data and misrepresented experimental designs in his research. The reliability of the way to inquire was not questioned. Hauser’s eyes worked fine, so to speak, but his intellectual character was damaged. Thus, intellectual character remains important in disciplinary contexts, but usually as secondary to skills and habits of faculty virtues. To conclude this section, a disciplinary form of inquiry is one that has been forged against the backdrop of a conversation about the nature of inquiry. As interlocutors seek agreement in how inquiry ought to proceed, they formalize answers to secondary questions. This formalization is often loosely called a method. A method as I have characterized it is an extension of the cognitive faculties of an interlocutor and, on analogy with virtue-reliabilism, is something like eyesight that may be employed more or less excellently, i.e., virtuously. Virtuous inquiry is related to the skill one has in applying a form of inquiry to an appropriate domain of questions with the aim of elucidating disciplinary truths. Virtues of faculty take precedence to virtues of character in the pursuit of knowledge with success being linked with how well one functions methodologically in a context of inquiry. Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s work, under my understanding of disciplinary inquiry, may function as examples of excellent or virtuous disciplinary forms of inquiry. I briefly illustrate this claim in the following section. 4.3.3.1 Plantinga and Kitcher in Disciplinary Context. I mentioned Hookway’s quick answer to the problem of faculty- and character-based approaches to virtue epistemology by bringing them together under a broader understanding of the epistemic project, what I called a form of inquiry. This entails that one needs to understand the nature of epistemic goals and the idea of evaluative practice. Intuitively these two aspects of epistemology, goals and practices, go together. If I want to know whether there is beer in the refrigerator, I get up and check the fridge. My aim is directly related to my epistemic practice. This becomes more complicated as the inquiries become more complicated. I mentioned before the tension that might arise when

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philosophers of science and philosophers of religion turn their disciplinary form of inquiry toward the question of God’s existence. I can’t check beliefs of that nature with the same felicity I check my beliefs regarding the refrigerator’s contents. However, philosophers have developed sophisticated methodologies to check whether certain beliefs meet the standards of disciplinary forms of inquiry. In philosophy of science one finds a literature on the , and in philosophy of religion one finds a literature called the ethics of belief. Both literatures share in common a motivating aim to delimit the nature of proper method for arriving at beliefs scientific or religious. Moreover, both Philip Kitcher and Alvin Plantinga have made important contributions to establishing scientific and religious forms of inquiry. To understand science is to understand what makes it different from other academic disciplines. This search for understanding science became known as the problem of demarcation in philosophy of science, a problem with a tortured philosophical history (Popper 1998; Kuhn 1998; Laudan 2009; Pennock 2009). It is within this tortured history that Kitcher made significant contributions to the nature of scientific understanding, providing a philosophical map of the nature of science congenial to the tensions historically located between and Thomas Kuhn (1993; 2001; 2011). His work received a thorough treatment in chapter three. Here I want to emphasize the disciplinary nature of his work. Kitcher helped authenticate the boundaries of what makes science go well philosophically. His notoriety is specifically linked to the valuable work he did in constructing and elucidating the boundaries of a discipline, a form of inquiry within the philosophy of science. Thus, it becomes easier to understand that Kitcher is doing much virtuous work when inquiring into the nature of scientific practice; he has successfully helped delimit the boundaries of what and how one may inquire into scientific practice. Likewise, Alvin Plantinga has made sophisticated contributions to the philosophy of religion literature regarding the nature of religious belief. His major contribution, outlined in chapter two, is to the ethics of belief. The ethics of belief is analogous to the demarcation literature in philosophy of science in that both are investigating what is the appropriate way to know something, not scientifically in Plantinga’s case, but religiously. The ethics of belief, likewise, has a tortured philosophical history (Clifford 1999, James 1896, Plantinga 2000, Swinburne 2003). Plantinga helped map the philosophical landscape surrounding the nature of faith and what it means to believe on faith in an absence of evidence. Thus Plantinga, like Kitcher, helped

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define the contours of a particular conversation. He shaped the boundaries of a philosophical discipline, a religious form of inquiry. He was so successful that the discipline received its own name, . Again, it is not hard to understand then that Plantinga may be conceived of as intellectually virtuous, having helped shape what it means to be intellectually virtuous within a domain. Assuming the truth of my comments concerning Kitcher and Plantinga, it is safe to claim that both are responsibly inquiring within their respective fields. This is precisely because they helped develop what it might mean to employ virtues of inquiry in their fields.21 They have solidified a form of inquiry that may be relied upon to generate disciplinary truths.22 They helped define their disciplinary paradigms through cultivating a specific calibration of faculty virtues, a disciplinary form of inquiry. Thus, the fideism of Plantinga and the scientism of Kitcher is the result of disciplinary excellence. However, disciplinary excellence does not necessitate interdisciplinary excellence as I imply in section 2.4 and section 3.4 concerning the invasiveness of their fideism and scientism. Before one can understand the intellectual vices brought on by Plantinga’s fideism and Kitcher’s scientism, I need to develop a sense of interdisciplinary research. 4.3.4 Virtuous Inquiry: Interdisciplinary Inquiry Virtuous inquiry in a disciplinary context is due to an agreement regarding a form of inquiry. A form of inquiry solidifies a method that proves successful in delivering disciplinary truths. This practice is developed and cultivated amongst a community of participants. Moreover, as the questions become more defined and the methods more refined, the need actively to exercise intellectual character traits reduces as inquiring behavior becomes more habitual. One becomes accustomed to inquiring in a particular way that the implementing of character virtues seems unnecessary until an obvious breach of protocol is unearthed. What of interdisciplinary research? Hume famously responded that he overcame his skepticism through going to dinner with friends and playing backgammon in the evenings (Hume 1992). Just as Hume could not

21 This isn’t to suggest that all problems in their respective fields have been solved. Rather, they have proven that they can play exceptionally well according to the community’s rules governing inquiry. 22 Both have critics and it is too strong to suppose that they have unified their disciplines completely. But they have solidified their position in introductions to their respective fields for the immediate future.

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actually live the life of an absolute skeptic, academics cannot live the life of an absolute disciplinarian. At some point, the research a specialist undertakes is going to come into contact with a larger academy or even a civic discourse between people of different intellectual backgrounds. If disciplinary research is defined in relation to a method, what characterizes interdisciplinary research? Answering this question is the aim of the following section. Intuitively, interdisciplinary research is when two or more research methodologies come together in pursuit of a common goal. The common goal may be as broad as civic discourse or circumscribed to a particular topic such as the nature of mind. Interdisciplinary does not necessitate multiple inquirers. A single person may engage in interdisciplinary research when reading beyond his or her disciplinary boundaries. For instance, in previous chapters it was noted that when formulating their respective philosophical arguments Alvin Plantinga read some evolutionary psychology and Philip Kitcher read a few theologians. This is interdisciplinary even if it is not a multi-person inquiry. The goal is to read broadly, relating the findings of different disciplines to an inquirer’s disciplinary form of inquiry. I call this type of interdisciplinary research self-reflective interdisciplinary research (SRIR). A second form of interdisciplinary research involves a research group where one works closely with professionals in other disciplines, bringing multiple disciplinary forms of inquiry to a project. This sort of inquiry involves navigating the waters of multiple forms of inquiry in pursuit of a common epistemic goal. I call this sort of interdisciplinary research expansive interdisciplinary research (EIR). The former is more common in practice while the latter is more commonly associated with interdisciplinary research. Regardless, both projects require an agent to navigate the waters of a different discipline, particularly a disciplinary form of inquiry. It is engaging with the foreign form of inquiry that makes interdisciplinary research so difficult. New vocabularies, new facts, new values, new ways of appropriating evidence, etc., the very way to inquire at the intersection of disciplines is problematic. Consensus doesn’t exist as to a range of issues regarding primary and secondary questions. For instance, take the and our philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Philip Kitcher. In a traditional philosophical paradigm concerning belief in God as the unit of analysis, the philosopher of religion and the philosopher of science may approach the question from very different epistemic perspectives. The forms of inquiry will depend upon answers given to secondary questions in how the inquiry ought to proceed. One answer given to a secondary question is the nature of evidence. Within

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philosophy of religion, a form of inquiry has developed that does not require evidence to be given for a belief in God (Plantinga 2001; van Inwagen 2005). Belief in God’s existence is rational apart from any evidence that may be given for such a belief. According to forms of inquiry developed within the philosophy of science, this is an untenable claim on inquiry (Kitcher 2011b). Scientific beliefs say in a certain trait being selected for or against, requires evidence. If an inquirer persists in a belief contrary to the evidence, the inquirer is simply not investigating according to the scientific form of inquiry. The way to investigate the existence of God tends to depend on what priorities one gives to a form of inquiry, but it is unclear why priority should be given to any of the interlocutors when coming together in an interdisciplinary context. My claim here is not that we should withhold all judgment about an approach to the interdisciplinary problem of God’s existence. Rather, I argue that one should be cautious entering into the discussion. One's intellectual proclivities toward a way of approaching the problem are more than likely conditioned by a disciplinary availability bias as opposed to any merit of disciplinary correctness. The disciplinary availability bias suggested here is another way of understanding what I labeled invasive fideism and scientism. The primary problem of interdisciplinary research is in the lack of any definite direction to move inquiry forward. Disciplinary research has the advantage of a more-or-less agreed upon form of inquiry, but in interdisciplinary research the form of inquiry is constantly being negotiated. Recall the brief excursus surrounding the development of methodological naturalism as a primary component of contemporary scientific methodology. The conversation that led to the exclusion of supernatural explanations in the name of science was an interdisciplinary one between natural theologians and natural philosophers. The conversation helped birth a disciplinary restriction, defining what it means to practice science virtuously. But, the disciplinary restriction resulted from the give and take of an interdisciplinary inquiry conversing about how to proceed. When scientists returned to the interdisciplinary dialogue, it was not improper to lift the restriction of MN. In fact, one sees almost split personalities in a person such as Francis Bacon who strongly opposes teleology in natural science, but is positively supportive of it outside of the scientific enterprise, for instance in terms of how science ought to promote the good of society (Gaukroger 2006). Thus, from the works of Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and even Darwin, one finds teleological conversation is important at the right time and right place, just not in the disciplinary practice of science itself.

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My contention is that in the context of interdisciplinary research character virtues come to the forefront of research while disciplinary reliability virtues become less important. If my analogy of virtue-reliabilism to research methodology of the last section is correct, then I can define interdisciplinary research as that which lacks a defined form of inquiry. A community has not engaged in enough discussion to agree as to what a form of inquiry even looks like. This being the case, the insights of responsibilist virtue epistemology provide guidance. Assuming epistemology is about inquiry with science and religion a legitimate interdisciplinary inquiry, then virtue-responsibilism would suggest a focus on intellectual character virtues. Responsible inquiry is not the result of following prescribed forms of inquiry, but exercising good intellectual character as forms of inquiry are explored. Moreover, in relation to the discussion of the aims of inquiry stated earlier, interdisciplinary research does not take truth as its primary aim. Understanding seems much more attuned to the interdisciplinary inquiry as agents seek to understand how two forms of inquiry may or may not mesh together, as well as what sort of communal structure is needed to facilitate inquiry. In a sense, interdisciplinary research is akin to a return to an intellectual state-of-nature where the very structures of the inquiring community are being negotiated. Due to such intellectual chaos, one becomes aware of possible problems and limitations within disciplinary forms of inquiry. A basic tenet of interdisciplinary research is that one’s own discipline is not capable of providing all the answers. This realization and foundation of interdisciplinary inquiry is a reflection on the character of the inquiry and more at home in a virtue-responsibilist framework than reliabilist. Therefore, a more positive understanding of interdisciplinary research, compared to the negative lack of method given earlier, is characterized by an emphasis on character virtues and a limiting of reliabilist-virtues. 4.3.5 Concluding Remarks This section examined what the virtue epistemological framework of the last section suggests for understanding the nature of inquiry. I follow Hookway’s understanding of epistemology as a practice; it is something that we do. I argued that a disciplinary inquiry is defined by a form of inquiry, a communal understanding of how research ought to be done according to a method. A notion of disciplinary research, in turn, allowed for a defense of the disciplinary excellence of Plantinga and Kitcher. They helped formulate a disciplinary form of inquiry, allowing the habituation of an agent’s intellectual character. Plantinga’s functional fideism and Kitcher’s functional scientism is a result of acclimation to their respective forms of

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inquiry. This is to be expected in a disciplinary context, however, as I’ll argue in the next section, problems arise in an interdisciplinary context. The discussion of a disciplinary form of inquiry allowed the promotion of a negative of interdisciplinary inquiry as that which lacks a communally agreed upon method. More clearly my argument claims that a form of inquiry is understood according to which types of intellectual virtues are more prevalent to the inquiry. Disciplinary research emphasizes mechanical faculty type virtues and skills in employing a certain type of method, while interdisciplinary research emphasizes character type virtues as interlocutors are not bound to a definite research methodology. This way of understanding interdisciplinary research provides a foundation for a substantial critique of both Plantinga and Kitcher as exhibiting non-virtuous forms of inquiry when investigating the interaction between science and religion. Their vice results from overextending a disciplinary form of inquiry into an interdisciplinary context. Thus, when they ought to exhibit more intellectual character, they force a form of inquiry upon the investigation that is inappropriate. The final section of this chapter will examine how my framework substantiates my claim. 4.4 Plantinga, Kitcher, and Intellectual Vice 4.4.1 Introduction A central thesis of the last two chapters was the location of Plantinga and Kitcher’s conflict thesis as one specifically about the nature of inquiry. This is explicit in Kitcher with his notions of well-ordered science and scientific inquiry being the standard of inquiry generally, but also in Plantinga with his generally theistic approach to science and expanded biblical evidence base. Therefore, the conflict between the two is about how responsibly to inquire at the intersection of science and religion. Naturally, this locates inquiries concerning science and religion as interdisciplinary. My understanding of interdisciplinary research brings forward concerns with intellectual character, the sorts of issues best placed in a virtue-responsibilist’s framework. In fact, it is apparent that both Plantinga and Kitcher believe the other irresponsible in their inquiries. Kitcher denigrates the sensus divinitatus as a fig leaf for dogmatism (2014a, p. 8). This comment was in regard to Plantinga’s use of the sensus divinitatus to justify his specific claim to Christianity over and above other religious thought. Moreover, I’ve shown how deeply entrenched the sensus divinitatus is in expanding Plantinga’s analysis to science and the relationship between science and religion (section 2.3). While Kitcher attacked the mechanism of the sensus divinitatus, I argued against its foundational role within broader inquiries. Plantinga’s

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inquiry into science is a vicious inquiry, a dogmatic inquiry, because it was not carried out according to an open-mind and humbleness. Likewise, Plantinga briefly dismisses Philip Kitcher, claiming that his inquiry into the nature of religion is poor due to a certain enthymeme guiding his thought. The culprit is a naturalism that rules out the possibility of guided evolutionary thought, “a metaphysical or theological addition” (2011, p. 63) that colors all of his inquiries.23 The metaphysical/theological addition becomes an unassailable axiom of Kitcher’s thought, a dogmatic stumbling block to any conversation between people who might disagree with Kitcher. The problems with Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s inquiries manifest itself when trying to understand how disparate fields of knowledge come together. It is a problem with an interdisciplinary form of inquiry. Both Plantinga and Kitcher view the proper form of interdisciplinary inquiry as reductionistic in nature. Their notoriety within a discipline is a liability when thinking in the interdisciplinary context in that they cannot interact with the foreign discipline without redescribing the foreign in terms of the domestic. I claim that their excellent, I would say virtuous, contributions to their home discipline in establishing a disciplinary form of inquiry does not allow them to openly approach the interdisciplinary context. Instead, the attempt is to circumscribe the conjunction of “science and religion” to one or the other disciplinary form of inquiry. Thus, Plantinga attempts to reduce science to religion and Kitcher religion to science. 4.4.2 Plantinga's Intellectual Vices I’ve already noted that Plantinga’s conflict thesis is actually about how inquiry is carried out and, moreover, I claim that Plantinga’s stance on science and religion is promoting a less- than-virtuous approach to inquiry. The current section illustrates Plantinga’s less-than-excellent interdisciplinary inquiry with the intellectual vices of arrogance, sloth, and failure to promote autonomy. The first two vices are self-centered, dealing with Plantinga’s intellectual character and the third, failure of autonomy, is an other-directed vice. It is a vice that has to do with the sorts of habits the author’s work intends to promote in others. My arguments in this section credit Plantinga’s functional fideism, and thus his disciplinary proclivities, as responsible for his interdisciplinary viciousness.

23 It should be noted that Plantinga does think Kitcher the more intellectually responsible of a group including Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett antagonistic to Christianity, but also the “less venturesome” in his thought (2011, p. 55).

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Plantinga’s fideism helps to cultivate, I claim, three epistemic vices: arrogance, sloth, and a failure of autonomy. Epistemic arrogance, or the lack of humility, is seen in the way that Plantinga’s ACM and EACM assume the role of corrective or standard of properly functioning cognitive architecture. Notice that this basic tenet of Plantinga’s position drives his attention to detail in the larger context of science and religion. A theist does not need to account for the claims of evolutionary psychology, for example, because they are not even worth considering in light of the truncated evidence base of the natural scientist. Due to the proper functioning of the theistic mind, the deliverances of evolutionary psychology can be judged as true or false, good or bad, based upon the ontological status of mind alone. A theist may confidently deny the deliverances of evolutionary psychology without ever investigating the actual claims of the literature as a theistic mind is naturally, or rather supernaturally superior to other minds. Thus, a position with possible merit within a discipline, fideism, becomes a liability when extended beyond the confines of the discipline. Plantinga’s fideism breeds a certain intellectual arrogance when engaging in the larger academic and public community. A properly functioning ACM and EACM license the right to convert any discipline with which the theist comes into contact. If conversion is rejected, the theist is encouraged to reject the inquiry as illegitimate. This strategy is hardly a recipe for epistemic humility. Closely related to arrogance is the sister vice of sloth. Epistemic laziness occurs when an agent actively rejects investigation. Ironically, it is an active neglect that makes sloth a vice. Plantinga’s program offers a nice package for a theist to internalize. It provides ready answers in the form of superficial and deep conflict. As long as a theist commits to memory the dual tools of an enlarged evidence base and the EAAN, then no matter what an opponent might bring forward, the theist has a ready-made response. Thus, it makes little sense, or more likely provides minuscule motivation, to investigate the actual claims made by an interlocutor. One replaces actual thought with general of response. For instance, Plantinga’s critique of Simonian rationality relied upon what Plantinga “knows” as a Christian, grounded in the testimony of the Holy Spirit and scripture. He focused upon the notion that Christians are called to charity. However, he neglected that other important aspect of Reformed theology—humankind's sinful nature. His understanding of how Christians such as Mother Teresa ought to act, secured by his EACM, allowed him to neglect that basic tenet of Christian thought. Despite a general sense of how to act in the world, the Christian is incapable of sustaining right action. Thus, it may be that

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Simonian science is actually tapping into something truthful about human rationality being bounded and docile. However, Plantinga did not do the philosophical theological work required to make sense of Simonian science as he had a ready-made answer developed in terms of evidence bases, what I called a disciplinary availability bias. Moreover, this example highlights the diversity problem again, as depending on how one investigates the content of his or her evidence base, one may arrive at a more favorable understanding of Simonian science.24 Lastly, an inquiry that is characterized by arrogance and slothfulness is one that fails to cultivate the autonomy of individuals. Individual thinking about difficult topics is shunned in favor of “party line” responses. This is not one that is easy to see in Plantinga, as he is the one essentially defining the party. However, I view this as more directly related to education and the way Plantinga’s arguments cultivate a form of inquiry in others. Plantinga has successfully created a space in the academy for theistically minded students to find safety. It is okay to be a theist and study philosophy, science, or any other academic discipline. The trouble is that Plantinga’s work has so neatly divided the academic landscape that it does not encourage true independent thinking about issues. In this case, it is not that one actively rejects or neglects investigation, as is the case with sloth, but that one simply cannot think outside of the framework. Plantinga’s system is so neat that one cannot even see how it may be wrong, while also losing the ability to understand the possible correctness of different viewpoints. The world becomes black and white and every new or recalcitrant phenomenon becomes a challenge requiring assimilation to the system. If an agent begins to question whether some data point can be assimilated, he or she is chastised for not thinking clearly enough. Or, worse, they are thinking heretically, e.g., the Calvin College fiasco over Adam and Eve (Schneider 2010) and the continual pressures from Christian education groups regarding science education in the public school (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District 2005). These become issues not worth debating, discussing, or arguing, but litmus tests indicating how well a person internalized the program. Plantinga’s fideistic program breeds this sort of behavior in that the ACM and EACM license a rejection of naturalistic science, creating an “us versus them” mentality. Engagement with the scientific literature in a meaningful way is grounds for ridicule by the “in group.”

24 This might help explain why scientists who are also Christians such as Francis Collins and Ken Miller do not see the same conflicts with Christianity that Plantinga sees.

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4.4.3 Kitcher's Intellectual Vices I contend that Kitcher’s position on science and religion promotes the same intellectual vices as Plantinga: arrogance, sloth, and failure to cultivate autonomy. The foundation of such vicious intellectual behavior is the functional scientism that Kitcher promotes throughout his work. Epistemic arrogance is built into the terms of mutual engagement. The claim that only values grounded in an appropriately scientific framework is just as arrogant as Plantinga’s claim regarding faith and the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit. The arrogance is related to ignoring the problem of diversity, and firmly committing to one way of conceiving the foundation of value. Kitcher’s scientific value scheme is open to at least as much interpretation as Plantinga’s fideistic ground for value. I’m not suggesting that this is an insurmountable problem for Kitcher, but it should slow down the rate at which one draws firm conclusions about the impossibility of other types of systems to generate knowledge of facts and values. His pragmatism does not substantiate his claim to value superiority, including the outright denial of providentialist schemes. In a way, Kitcher’s pragmatism is a surrogate for the faith of a religionist. He is firmly committed to the belief that pragmatism plus science will solve the problems that faith has traditionally helped, perhaps pragmatically, a large percentage of the human population. This may be true. However, it is surely intellectually arrogant to assume that one’s pragmatism may supplant the pragmatic effects of faith, particularly in Kitcher’s case, where the pragmatic justification of different value extensions suffers a similar intellectual problem to Plantinga’s functional fideism. Following on the heels of the arrogance is a certain hardening of the mind, an intellectual slothfulness. Kitcher’s position implies that the supernatural religions are all of the same character when it comes to their foundational truth claims, with science showing them all to be similarly epistemically vacuous. While he is open to the possibility of the transcendent, he is optimistic and confident that the secular humanist may judge all transcendental claims false. His favorite examples from the EAAR are the Gospel claims of resurrection and the Aborigine discussions of Dream Time. The essence of his argument is that all is cultural. However, as Kitcher suggests in relation to scientific history, culture is not ALL knowledge. The world is limited in its ability to be shaped by human interaction; there is a world that pushes back upon one’s ideas. One example receiving pride of place in Kitcher’s thought is discussions of Galileo, his benefactors, and the movement of the . Kitcher has meticulously examined the

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documents surrounding Galileo and his work concluding that he was a first-rate scientist even if certain cultural concerns were at the heart of his scientific project (2014a, ch. 3).25 But, when we look into Kitcher’s work on religion, he seems not to take the best cross-section of sources for his investigations. For instance, when laying out his case against the resurrection, he only looks at the work of Elaine Pagels, Bart Erhman, and the Seminar. This is a good selection of texts, but they all happen to cohere with Kitcher’s rejection of the supernatural. He never suggests that the arguments of these theologians are part of an ongoing debate in religious studies (c.f., Bauckham 2006; Hurtado 2003; Wright 2003), or that certain philosophers have taken an interest in examining the question regarding the possibility of resurrection (Evans 1996; Swinburne 2003). Kitcher never seems to engage with views contrary to his sympathies and those of Pagels, Erhman, and the Jesus Seminar. If Kitcher's interest in Galileo were given similar investigative care to that given here, Galileo would not escape the fate of the radical social constructivists in science studies. In this instance, Kitcher is showing a certain lack of due diligence with his own argument, perhaps due to his scientism bias, that is not present in other studies he undertakes. He is helping to perpetuate a poor approach to dialogue. Recall, I suggest that an aim of his text is to provide a manual to conversation for the secular humanist. However, his argument doesn’t illustrate a virtuous commitment to understanding the nuances of different religious traditions. Moreover, his recognition that religious claims cannot be summarily dismissed seems to require careful investigation into the particulars of any given religion if he is to make good on his claim that the skeptic can remain justified in his skepticism. So, what is worse? He recognizes the need for virtuous or patient investigation, but is unwilling to follow his own mandates. Finally, the arrogance and the slothfulness come together in a failure of the educational virtue of autonomous thinking. Kitcher’s argument provides a nice package for a budding secular humanist to internalize. Religious voices may be dismissed for their failure of mutual engagement. They fail an epistemic restriction on ideal conversation due to the supernatural nature of their religious commitment. When conversations turn to public goods, the demarcation of science, and the relationship between science and religion, then a traditional religious person

25 Galileo's scientific achievements cannot simply be deconstructed into various cultural factors. Kitcher's excellent inquiry into Galileo's research helps substantiate such a view against more radical social interpretations of Galileo's work.

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is disqualified due to his or her beliefs. But this is odd. It actually turns conversation off in such a way that the secular humanist really does not need to converse with the supernaturalist. The only valuable enterprise is an attempt to convert into secular humanism. Interesting avenues of shared ethical commitment are precluded due to the nature of Kitcher’s epistemic limitation on conversation.26 Thus, creative, autonomous reflection upon the nature of science and religion, the very fertile soil that Kitcher has tilled and born fruit, is left malnourished for the next generation. The boundaries to conversation are fixed, and anybody not inquiring according to Kitcher’s rules is rejected. Thus, while Kitcher’s project is promising, it is hardly a recipe for autonomous thinking. 4.4.4 Concluding Remarks The purpose of this section was twofold. First, it was to examine how Plantinga and Kitcher may both exhibit intellectual virtues and vices depending upon the context used to examine their inquiries. The helping in establishing their disciplinary fields is key to seeing them in their disciplinary research as virtuous agents. However, when they extend beyond their disciplines, expecting their research to have impact beyond their specialties, their disciplinary virtues become liabilities. Their habitual intellectual practice within a discipline has cultivated a mind that arrogantly expands beyond what is virtuously possible. The second aim was to see how this framework helps undergird my specific claims against Plantinga and Kitcher as intellectually arrogant, slothful, and in terms of the purposes of their writings, dogmatic. What is responsible within a discipline is not necessarily responsible in an interdisciplinary context. 4.5 Concluding Remarks This chapter was designed to provide an approximation as to how virtue epistemology may help understand the nature of inquiry. Following Hookway’s conception of epistemology as practice with the virtues fundamental to regulating such practices, I developed a line of thought claiming that the two types of virtue epistemology, faculty- and character-based, can account for different levels of inquiry. While faculty- and character-based virtues are present in all forms of inquiry, one of the defining features of disciplinary research is commitment to a reliable way of

26 For example, much work has been done in the area of environmental ethics between supernatural religionists and secularists. If Kitcher is correct in his views, then the coming together of secularist and supernaturalist with the shared aim of environmentalism is somehow not well-ordered. See Grim and Tucker, Ecology and Religion (2014), for a catalogue of how traditional supernatural religions are engaging environmental issues often in step with secularists.

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producing disciplinary truths. The reliability of the method is akin to faculty-based virtues in that it is a mechanical skill that may be employed more or less well. Thus, one becomes a philosopher of religion or a philosopher of science once one has become proficient in the practices of that discipline. However, when one begins to inquire as to how his or her discipline might relate to a larger intellectual audience, an interdisciplinary context is engaged. In an interdisciplinary context, faculty virtues become less important as it is unclear exactly how one is supposed to proceed. There is no agreed upon form of inquiry. Thus, character virtues must come to the foreground as disciplinary boundaries are navigated and the form of inquiry is investigated. The lack of a form of inquiry in the interdisciplinary context allows for understanding how Plantinga and Kitcher error in their endeavors at science and religion while remaining virtuous disciplinary inquirers. The next chapter will address a potential problem with my analysis. I have argued that Plantinga and Kitcher imperialistically force a disciplinary form of inquiry into an interdisciplinary context. This seems to imply that they are contributing to an EIR sort of project by pushing the boundaries of what inquiry looks like in the interdisciplinary context. But why view their work in this fashion? I previously made use of viewing their work as excellent examples of disciplinary research. Why not view their work as an example of SRIR inquiry? This is closer to disciplinary research in that it isn't looking to expand the boundaries of inquiry. SRIR is the more standard practice of inquiring into different disciplines to elucidate further one's own specialty discipline. My response to this counterexample will motivate a conversation about what good interdisciplinary research might entail. Thus, I will conclude with the work of Michael Ruse, illustrating virtuous interdisciplinary inquiry.

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CHAPTER 5

TOWARD DIALOGUE

5.1 Introduction The last chapter presented a conception of disciplinary versus interdisciplinary research built upon insights from virtue epistemology. My basic thesis was to argue that the faculty virtues are central to a disciplinary research project as a methodology develops, enhancing an agent’s natural epistemic faculties. When one moves into an interdisciplinary context, the way to proceed in inquiry is less clear as the very method of inquiry is negotiated. Thus, character virtues such as humility and courage are required as different modes of investigation are explored in relation to how inquiry ought to proceed. The current chapter addresses a possible counterexample to my common critique of both Plantinga and Kitcher. It could be argued that I am misrepresenting Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s argumentative intent. I argued in the last chapter that their work could be considered virtuous as long as it is understood as disciplinary research. Thus, a counterexample presents itself: why argue that their work is anything other than disciplinary in nature? Moreover, if it is interdisciplinary, why not categorize it as SRIR? SRIR does not require the navigating of new forms of inquiry, but the searching out of other disciplines to help illuminate concepts within one’s own discipline. This chapter addresses these questions. I argue that Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s work cannot be understood as a pure contribution to a discipline. Both conceive of their work as larger than a disciplinary contribution. Moreover, even if their research is conceived as an example of SRIR, their work fails to be excellent due to an inability to recognize disciplinary limitations. In the second part of the chapter I will examine the work of Michael Ruse, a philosopher who locates methodological limitations as central to understanding science and religion. His work represents a positive example of interdisciplinary research. 5.2 Plantinga and Kitcher: Potential Counterexample I have argued that both Plantinga and Kitcher construe the problem of science and religion as one of inquiry. It is an epistemic problem of how to reason about the conjunction science and religion. Furthermore, they both suffer from a similar problem of extending disciplinary forms of inquiry into new domains of inquiry. Thus, Plantinga conceives the appropriate way to reason in science and religion is through the philosophy of religion, and

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likewise, Kitcher argues that philosophy of science is the appropriate foundation. I contend this way of constructing the science and religion debate is problematic; it doesn’t foster the appropriate epistemic character virtues required of interdisciplinary research. This requires the development of disciplinary versus interdisciplinary research in light of developments in virtue epistemology. The defining elements of disciplinary and interdisciplinary inquiries are due to the relationship between faculty and character epistemic virtues. Disciplinary research is characterized by a solidified research methodology.27 The methodology entrenches certain ways to inquire, ways to focus and enhance our intellectual faculties. Character virtues are of secondary importance, only recognized in cases of protocol breach or methodological reevaluation (section 4.3.3). Interdisciplinary research is recognized when character virtues are more definitive of the inquiry. In an interdisciplinary context, character virtues come to the forefront as two disciplinary forms of inquiry are brought into dialogue in pursuit of a common research agenda (section 4.3.4). Thus, I conceive of science and religion as an interdisciplinary problem due to the fact that the sciences have different disciplinary forms of inquiry from religion(s) and progress will require agreeing on how to inquire. In the discussion of interdisciplinary research, I noted that interdisciplinary research proceeds in at least one of two ways. First, there is the incorporating of the deliverances of a different discipline into the home discipline. Thus, one sees Plantinga reading evolutionary psychology with the intent of squaring it internally with philosophy of religion, likewise Philip Kitcher’s investigation of various theological sources. Second, one finds researchers from different disciplines collaborating on a project. For instance, much of the work in experimental philosophy is collaborative between philosophers and psychologists, often leading to joint publications (e.g., Machery et. al. 2004). This distinction, however, leads to a potential counterexample to the thrust of my overall argument concerning Plantinga, Kitcher, and conflict in science and religion. I argued that Plantinga and Kitcher fail to inquire virtuously due to the fact that they conceive of the interdisciplinary dialogue in terms of disciplinary restrictions. Thus, they fail to come together as collaborators, seeking instead to reduce the foreign discipline to the research methodology of the home discipline. But, why should I conceive of their work in this

27 I am not suggesting that one ever finds a universal disciplinary method, only that a consensus seems to develop around a way to approach questions and definite answers are forthcoming to disciplinary problems.

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interdisciplinary fashion? In fact, in preserving their intellectual virtuousness in the last chapter, I made the case that their disciplinary work is preeminent. Expanding on that thought, would it not be more charitable to understand their work in science and religion as the first sort of interdisciplinary research, i.e., the kind of research that seeks to understand how the deliverances of a different discipline relate to one’s own discipline, not the second sort of interdisciplinary research that requires negotiating the very form of inquiry itself? It is obvious that Plantinga and Kitcher are not coming together anytime soon to discuss the nature of interdisciplinary conversation, so why not preserve their interdisciplinary virtuousness in light of the first sort of interdisciplinary research program? More pointedly, could Plantinga and Kitcher be considered examples of virtuous SRIR inquiry? 5.3 Response My response to the proposed counterexample comes in three parts. First, descriptively, they both claim to be doing more than SRIR; their goals are larger than disciplinary elucidation. Second, even if we consider them as engaging in interdisciplinary work in the first sense, their work is not sufficiently thorough to consider it excellent. Thus, even in terms of engaging with a broader subject, Plantinga and Kitcher are examples of less-than-excellent interdisciplinary inquiry (SRIR). Therefore, whether one takes the authors’ word regarding their own research or investigates the research on its own merits, they represent poor examples of interdisciplinary research. This then leads me to ask what good interdisciplinary research might look like. To conclude this chapter, I’ll examine the work of philosopher of science, Michael Ruse. Employing my distinction between faculty and character virtues as markers of interdisciplinary research, Ruse’s work is illustrative of virtuous interdisciplinary research. 5.3.1 Descriptively Expansive Interdisciplinary Research Plantinga and Kitcher locate their own work within a much larger project than disciplinary illumination. I’ll begin with Plantinga and then move to Kitcher. Earlier, I noted Plantinga’s article, “Advice to Christian Philosophers” (section 2.1). He promotes a philosophical program that is distinctively Christian in nature, one that is not Christianity and philosophy but Christian philosophy. He tells the fictitious story of a Christian doing graduate work under the auspices of the late W.V.O. Quine. Plantinga’s tale is cautionary in that he thinks any integration of Quine’s philosophy with the commitments of the Christian community is damaging. Plantinga warns, “his [Quine’s] fundamental projects and concerns, are wholly

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different from those of the Christian community—wholly different and, indeed, antithetical to them. And the result of attempting to graft Christian thought onto his basic view of the world will be at best an unintegral pastiche; at worst it will seriously compromise, or distort, or trivialize the claims of Christian theism” (1984, p. 256). Thus, the seeds are sown for thinking through areas such as science from a Christian point of view, as his thesis in his most recent work asserts, “there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism” (2011, p. ix). Plantinga is committed to the view that a Christian philosopher must engage in all areas of philosophy and culture, attempting not only to understand contemporary trends, but also to work through them in a Christian way.28 One may argue that this feature of Plantinga’s thought is SRIR in extreme, as everything must be reduced to theistic thought. This may be true, but only reinforces my claim that Plantinga is not interested in interdisciplinary work, SRIR or EIR, in that the “reduction” is one characterized by bringing the “other” disciplines in-line with the faculty virtues inherent in Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology. Plantinga is very much concerned with something larger than disciplinary specialty, but his insistence that everything intellectual must be vetted through his favored methodology only undergirds my claim of the last chapter. His work might be excellent by disciplinary standards, a continual reapplication of his favored calibration of faculty virtues. Nevertheless, he understands his project as larger than a disciplinary investigation, a project that appears grander than SRIR. Likewise, Kitcher’s work is difficult to view as anything but descriptively interdisciplinary. His intense focus on science in the public square, public reason, and the role of science in a progressive society is a reflection of an intuition that disciplinary specialization is causing more harm than good. Recently, he published an article entitled, “Philosophy Inside Out” (2011a). In the article he defends the view that the specialization of philosophy has harmed the discipline as a whole; philosophers have focused on the trees and lost the forest, so to speak. The role of philosophy is to enlarge conversation. In the language I’ve argued for in this dissertation, philosophy is the facilitator of interdisciplinary research. He states, “Philosophy…is a synthetic discipline, one that reflects on and responds to the state of inquiry, to the state of a variety of

28 I confess that it is not altogether clear what exactly Plantinga means by this, but at least in relation to science, he means to use scripture as an evidence base to make judgments about the deliverances and practice of science.

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human social practices, and to the felt needs of individual people to make sense of the world and their place in it. Philosophers are people whose broad engagement with the condition of their age enables to facilitate individual reflection and social conversation” (p. 254). One fruit of this “inside out” philosophy is facilitating reflection amongst the religious to see the value of secular science and that one can have a valuable Life After Faith (2014a). It is also at the core of his broadening of scientific demarcation to include pluralistic value conversations, the democratization of science. Kitcher is emphatic about broadening philosophical inquiry to include a larger, interdisciplinary context. His intent is broader than any given discipline even if in practice his approach is more characterized by disciplinary faculty virtues than the requisite character virtues implicit in interdisciplinary research. In both the case of Plantinga and Kitcher it is hard to see them as descriptively promoting anything but interdisciplinary research. Moreover, their intent seems to be the promotion of projects that are not necessarily reductive in nature even if their positions culminate in an epistemic . It is hard to see their work as simple disciplinary contributions when both are open about the harms or benefits of philosophy to an individual’s understanding of a larger intellectual world. Thus, I argue that their research is not trying to fit the deliverances of a different discipline within their own, but trying to reason about how two distinct disciplines come together in a larger project, perhaps something akin to a worldview. This is more characteristic of EIR than the SRIR. Plantinga’s worry about the Christian community and Kitcher’s drive to legitimize a secular humanism is key to this understanding. They are attempting to piece together different strands of human thought into a coherent picture of the world. This requires an interdisciplinary investigation as those different strands of human thought are investigated. Moreover, seeing as the stated aim of both Plantinga and Kitcher is something at the community level, it does not make sense to restrict the discourse to the level of any particular discipline. Their stated aims are not trying to understand religion as a scientist or philosopher, or to understand science as a theologian or philosopher. They desire to understand the intersection of the disciplines in something larger such as a life or community. 5.3.2 Failure of Self-Reflective Interdisciplinary Research However, it is possible that Plantinga and Kitcher are misguided about their own intentions. Even if they see themselves as doing larger EIR sorts of inquiries, perhaps they are “really” doing something different. I have made the suggestion that their work could be

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conceived as excellent disciplinary work where the task is to filter the findings of other disciplines according to the norms of one’s speciality discipline. Could I likewise conceive of Plantinga and Kitcher as promoting SRIR, the incorporation or exploration of findings from other disciplines in relation to one’s home discipline? My contention is that if one is to conceive of their work as interdisciplinary, SRIR is the best label; they fail as virtuous intellectual exemplars.29 This failure I associate with the authors’ inability to recognize limitations with their disciplinary methods. Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s forays into other disciplines is for the explicit purposes of showing the incoherency of the other discipline. This is not in the spirit of humility, where insights of a different discipline provide thoughtful reflection upon one’s own discipline, but the polemical emphasis of a disputation where the other view or discipline is shown as folly. The first reason in favor of my argument is that both philosophers do not allow for the independence of the other discipline. When science, in the case of Plantinga, floats free of theistic metaphysics it is simply irrational. The only way to properly understand the nature of science is within a theistic metaphysical context. The recognition that there are other views is not one taken in stride, but rather instances of incoherency. Likewise with Kitcher, when religious belief floats free of naturalistic science, it is simply irrational. The only way to understand religion is according to a naturalistic metaphysics, or at least one that is practically naturalistic when discussion turns toward science, religion, and society. I previously argued the mechanics of these positions (sections 2.4 and 3.4); currently I examine the reasons why their positions fail as good interdisciplinary inquiry. The failure is related to a lack of recognition toward disciplinary limitations. Plantinga cannot allow any scientific findings that do not find pre-agreement with his native discipline to influence the direction of his disciplinary inquiries. Likewise, Kitcher cannot allow theological research to influence science unless it is prefigured by the findings of science. Thus, they are not interested in how the findings of a different discipline relate to their home discipline, but more concerned with the reduction of the foreign discipline to the domestic. This reduction is characteristic of inquiry that is not interdisciplinary in nature.

29 Thus, assuming my arguments are correct, the only virtuous work being done by Plantinga and Kitcher is that of the disciplinary variety. Their works are great examples of reductionist thought, but fail to be excellent as anything other than a disciplinary exercise. They help promote a certain dogmatism or intellectual inflexibility in seeing how to approach interdisciplinary inquiry.

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Perhaps an example will help illustrate the distinction I am making. The discipline of philosophy periodically suffers from fits of identity crisis. A recent example of this is the trend toward naturalizing philosophy, bringing philosophy more in-line with current scientific trends, versus philosophy as autonomous discipline. W.V.O. Quine is often associated with the rise to prominence of a naturalized view, claiming that the study of epistemology ought be subsumed under the field of cognitive psychology (1969). However, it was the twenty-first century that saw the rise of any systematic attempt to merge philosophy and psychology under the banner of experimental philosophy. Experimental philosophy looks to see in what fashion philosophy might be helped or hindered by conversations with social psychologists. The idea is to bring empirical tools to bear upon traditional philosophical issues, typically in moral psychology. One of the motivations toward experimental philosophy was a question about the limitations of traditional philosophical methodology, the sorting of intuitions according to (Rawls 2005). Thus, certain philosophers approached social psychologists to help quantify and test the deliverances of intuitive results from traditional philosophical thought experiments. The idea was to see how the two methodologies, philosophy and science, related or diverged from each other. Regardless of one’s proclivities to more traditional or experimental philosophy, one cannot escape the fact that disciplinary limitations were and are being discussed. While the actual practice of experimental philosophy often involves interdisciplinary research under the banner of EIR, a welcome consequence has been re-evaluating disciplinary boundaries. Renegotiating or self-reflection upon one’s own discipline is a mark of SRIR sorts of inquiries, where the foreign disciplines impact the practice and thought of a domestic discipline. A central conversation piece within experimental philosophy, often in the form of critique, is the limitations of philosophical and scientific methodology within the philosophical discipline itself (cf. Williamson 2008). This recognition of limitations in methodology is what I claim is missing from Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s presentation of science and religion. For Plantinga or Kitcher, the method is secure, imperialistically crossing disciplinary boundaries. There is only one way to proceed, theologically or scientifically. Thus, even in the case of interdisciplinary research of SRIR status, their look into the foreign disciplines is more akin to polemical dispute rather than interdisciplinary inquiry resulting in disciplinary self-reflection.

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5.3.3 Concluding Remarks The last section aimed to provide reasons for the following two conclusions. First, taken at face value, Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s work are more than a disciplinary contribution to the literature. Descriptively their works are understood as a contribution to EIR, a contribution intended as how to inquire into science and religion. It is conceived as interdisciplinary due to their concern for the relevant communities and their desire to influence the direction of inquiries regarding science and religion. Thus, they do not perceive their work as one along the lines of a disciplinary contribution, but as an interdisciplinary contribution; their works are to be read broadly. My second conclusion is that if their work is understood as an interdisciplinary work, the best fit is of the SRIR sort where foreign disciplines are investigated in relation to a domestic discipline. However, their work fails to be exemplary, as it never provides reason for being cautious with disciplinary expansion. A sense of disciplinary limitation is lacking in both Plantinga and Kitcher as they engage with interdisciplinary sources. The home discipline is sacrosanct while the foreign discipline requires reduction into the tenets of the home discipline. The next section of this chapter will look into this notion of limitation, its relationship to virtuous inquiry, and the example of Michael Ruse. 5.4 Michael Ruse: Science and Religion 5.4.1 Introduction Ruse is first and foremost a historian and philosopher of science, particularly the biological sciences. It is important to note, therefore, that his home discipline is that of philosophy of science, where he understands metaphor to be a key concept in understanding science. Metaphors make scientific advancement possible, while delimiting the range of scientifically possible answers. Such a conclusion is the result of a philosophical life spent in observation of the sciences.30 In fact, Ruse likens himself to a scientist in his approach to philosophy. He states, “My approach to philosophy is that of the naturalist. My interest in limits does not belie my belief that the highest form of knowledge is scientific knowledge. I want to make my philosophy as much like science as possible. Where the scientist takes the physical world…as his or her datum, I take science as my datum” (2010, p. 9). Three aspects of this quote

30 Ruse’s career spent in observation of the sciences has earned him an endowed chair in philosophy much like Plantinga and Kitcher. He is the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University.

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are important. First, Ruse is a naturalist. Second, he has a high respect for science as the “highest form of knowledge.” Third, he recognizes that science has certain limitations. Such philosophical cards laid upon the table would seem to put Ruse on team Kitcher, leaving Plantinga to fend for himself. And, for the most part, particularly when discussions turn toward creationism/ID in public classrooms, this is the case. However, notice the third observation about limitations. My last section suggested that Kitcher and Plantinga both fail to recognize legitimate limitations upon their favored course of inquiry. This hinders their interdisciplinary inquiries in both the SRIR and EIR varieties. It is in such work on limitations that Ruse succeeds in providing an example of virtuous inquiry where Plantinga and Kitcher fail. 5.4.2 Ruse's Position Ruse, again much like Kitcher, develops a Kuhnian line of thought when discussing the nature of science. Whereas Kitcher focuses his work on the communal structure of scientific inquiry, Ruse develops thought along the lines of a paradigm. Paradigms are the iconic Kuhnian notion that science, normal science, works toward the solution of puzzles according to predefined research methodologies and assumptions. Ruse’s contribution to this conversation is to examine how the notion of metaphor entangles itself with the daily operations of normal science. Ruse understands science as “a dance, an interplay between the given and the found, the subjective and the objective, the mind-directing and the direct mind” (2010, p. 21-22). The task of the scientist is to build models, pictures of reality that can then be tested against an empirical world. Models are constructions used to help understand our experience of the world, and Ruse likens the models to that of metaphors. In fact, the models scientists build are replete with metaphor. Ruse argues, “science uses metaphor—natural selection, continental drift, force, work, attraction, charm, genetic code, Oedipus complex—to structure experience and to build models of understanding. Nature does not literally select; magnets do not literally attract one another; the genes are not truly written in code—but it suits us to think of them in these ways, because then we can make discoveries” (p. 21). A consequence of the deep-seated reliance of metaphor in science is that limitations are brought forward as well as heuristics to discovery. A metaphor helps aid understanding, but it also provides limitations on what can be known about the world. Ruse illustrates this thesis through plotting the shift in metaphor from ancient Greece to contemporary science. The move was from a root metaphor of organism to machine. The Greeks viewed the universe as a giant

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organism, while the scientific revolution of the renaissance and enlightenment moved to a more mechanical world as a machine metaphor. Remembering that science is a dance, “the ‘world as machine’ is not something discovered, something given us by nature. It is something we create in conjunction with nature. How far it applies, what exactly it implies and answers, what it rules out of discourse, how it is to be stretched or not, are matters for negotiation” (p. 52). For Ruse this negotiation as to the powers and limits of a metaphor guiding our thought is key to understanding the science and religion relationship. Ruse provides four examples (though he admits that this number is fluid) as to how a metaphor might limit science and allow terrain for religion (and philosophy) to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary discussion with the sciences. First, Ruse argues that the ultimate philosophical question, ‘why is there something rather than nothing’, is a meaningful question and one forever beyond the machine metaphor. The machine, or the world/universe, is given. It is assumed to be present such that one can investigate its innards and questions of its origin are not required when looking into its workings. One might want to know why the machine exists, but that is a question of a different sort from any science is equipped to handle. Second, Ruse notes that morality raises questions at the limit of scientific inquiry. Science can tell us about the emotional reactions to phenomena in the world and perhaps why those reactions are ‘good’ for our species, but foundational justification will always be beyond scientific argumentation as the moral emotions are bound up in the machine. Third is the problem of consciousness. Ruse argues that science has made decent strides into learning about the phenomenon surrounding consciousness, such as , but that ultimately deciding the problem of consciousness moves one from science to philosophy. Much like morality, science simply can’t definitively decide what the nature of consciousness is as our own minds are limited. It is something akin to an intellectual pot calling the kettle black. Fourth, Ruse claims that purpose, ultimate in life, is something beyond science. Ruse has not escaped philosophical critique in his position on limitations. Philosopher David Wisdo has argued that Ruse is promoting a certain God of the Gaps (GOG) argument and that religion is being subordinated to science (2011). In response, Ruse (2011) claims that Wisdo is failing to understand the power of metaphor at the center of scientific practice and that while Ruse does promote an overall independence position in science and religion, room exists for

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dialogue between the two fields when limits are reached. Moreover, I propose that my discussion of interdisciplinary research provides a further response to Wisdo’s argument. 5.4.3 God of the Gaps and Interdisciplinary Research Wisdo argues that Ruse finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. He argues, “on the one hand, he rightly wants to guard against any attempt to define the domain of science by appealing to principles that might smack of demarcation criteria. On the other hand, he wants to avoid at all costs the appearance of a ‘God of the gaps’ argument” (2011, p. 648). Wisdo claims that Ruse’s work forces the GOG trajectory. “If what the Christian today assumes to be beyond the scope of science might turn out to be mainline science tomorrow,” Wisdo claims, “then today’s article of faith might become the conclusion of tomorrow’s ‘God of the gaps’ argument” (p. 648). The pattern of inquiry known as GOG consists in elucidating a very difficult or unusual phenomenon in the natural world that seems unable to be accounted for in terms of current natural science, e.g., Behe’s bacterial flagellum (Behe 1996; Ruse 2001, p. 122), and then positing God as the explanation for what is not explained. Informal reasoning views this pattern as an argument from ignorance, but it has proven very rhetorically and emotionally fruitful in creationist and intelligent design literature. Wisdo notes that Ruse’s examples of limitations are those where science has no definite answer, allowing for theological speculation at the very gaps Ruse denies others. Ruse’s response is to re-highlight the deep-seated reliance of metaphor at the center of scientific knowledge. Viewing the universe as a machine is not simply going to limit science, but provide categorical limitations on what science may pronounce upon, “there are certain questions that science simply cannot answer” (Ruse 2011, p. 662). It may be that the questions Ruse singled out as illustrative of his thesis turn out not to be the right sorts of questions that are forever beyond the scope of science. But in the case of a question such as ‘why is there something rather than nothing,' he has given philosophical argument as to why such a question is meaningful and beyond science (c.f., Ruse 2010). The gap is closed due to philosophical reasoning. I will argue that understanding Ruse’s work in the context of interdisciplinary research helps to bolster his stated defense, while also providing resources to argue that Wisdo’s dilemma is a false dichotomy. First, I strengthen Ruse’s response. Recall that Ruse is a philosopher of science locating him closer to the scientific than the religious. Moreover, his major research contributions are to the

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history and philosophy of science (1979; 1996; 2013). And his interest in the demarcation or limits of science means that he is fundamentally dealing with science first, then religion. The title of his recent book on science and spirituality reveals as much, Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science (2010). This indicates to me that he is doing the sort of work captured by my SRIR distinction. Ruse’s central focus on metaphor and limitations within scientific inquiry is the product of years of reflection upon the scientific disciplines. Thus, while he is interested in religion, his primary motivation is to, “ask about the nature of science and about its limits” (p. 7). One aspect of SRIR inquiry is reading broadly while reflecting upon the nature of one’s own discipline. This requires virtues of intellectual character as perceived faults in the other discipline’s methods (discrepancies of faculty virtues) and content are neglected in favor of disciplinary self-reflection. Ruse’s continual emphasis on the limitations of science, while exploring the thought of theologians is indicative of a SRIR inquiry.31 In contradistinction to Plantinga and Kitcher, Ruse avoids their intellectual arrogance by not beginning from a position of disciplinary superiority. Beginning with and continually emphasizing limitation is an act of intellectual humility. But Ruse is not a philosophical theologian; he is a philosopher of science. Thus he is more interested in understanding the nature of science versus the nature of religion. This starting point of intellectual humility undercuts Wisdo’s critique of a gap style argument due to the fact that it leaves various possibilities open as to what may fill in the gaps. Ruse is not suggesting that any definite answer be given, but that scientific methodology, limitations and all, seems unable definitively to close the gap. The humility is in the fact that a larger conversation is possible, perhaps even necessary. Notice how Plantinga or Kitcher would presumably solve this problem of scientific limitation. Plantinga would suggest that the gap is there due to an inadequate evidential base from which to draw conclusions. Once faith has properly adjusted the cognitive mechanisms, the gaps disappear due to the faith-backed reasons one can give for the gap. Likewise, Kitcher might recognize the limitations of science while committing to the belief that science will eventually develop to the point of being able to close any gap. In an odd move of agreement with Plantinga, Kitcher is suggesting that once one has his or her scientific eyes

31 This isn’t to say that Ruse is not critical of theology and theological methodology. Only that he cultivated certain habits that allow him to criticize when appropriate, recognizing that local critique of specific theologians and philosophers of religion does not undermine the value of the entire discipline.

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adjusted, the gap disappears. Both Plantinga and Kitcher assume that the gap is not a real gap and dissolution follows from their respective methods of inquiry. Faculty virtues come to the forefront as the solution to the problem, prohibiting any possibility of an interdisciplinary inquiry. Ruse, however, is insistent that methods are limited and while one might disagree as to what propositions are at the limit of scientific investigation, one must exhibit a certain intellectual character allowing for the recognition of actual limitations to inquiry. Therefore, I contend that an emphasis on interdisciplinary research, emphasizing character virtues against faculty virtues, strengthens Ruse’s response to Wisdo’s GOG critique. Second, an interdisciplinary perspective allows for an undermining of the very dichotomy itself. Wisdo’s dilemma makes sense if one is working from a position of traditional with its emphasis on the doxastic paradigm. One horn of the dilemma is associated with the classic problem of demarcation in philosophy of science. Wisdo argues that demarcation is unacceptable. It would require an a priori limitation on which questions are answerable or unanswerable to science. Wisdo, rightly, closes the demarcation pathway to Ruse, “there is no magic recipe to distinguish once and for all those questions within the province of science from those that are beyond its limits because those questions are always changing” (2011, p. 647-48). Thus, Wisdo argues that Ruse is committed to the GOG approach that I dealt with previously. However, if one assumes a virtue epistemological context of inquiry, then the appropriate lemmas are not demarcation or GOG. Both of those concepts are heavily geared toward an understanding of faculty virtues as they deal with methodological concerns of reasoning. Instead, the appropriate lemmas to understanding are faculty versus character virtues. If one traverses down the faculty virtues route, then it is natural to ask Wisdo’s questions. Notice, however, that this means that one is not engaging in interdisciplinary research so much as disciplinary research. Faculty virtues are the domain of disciplinary method and Wisdo’s critique seems to be methodological in nature. But, if one traverses down the character virtue route, then questions of demarcation and GOG lose their bite, as the nature of interdisciplinary research is to negotiate forms of inquiry at the limits of disciplines. This is why the character virtues come forward as inquirers either seek the limits of their own discipline or come together to negotiate a form of inquiry in EIR investigations. I have argued that Ruse’s focus upon limitations is indicative of SRIR inquiry and thus inherently bound up with character virtues such as humility. Viewing Ruse’s work as an example of interdisciplinary research entails that he can outright avoid

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Wisdo’s dilemma by focusing on the character virtues making inquiry possible instead of the faculty virtues of method. A move to understanding the dilemma as one of faculty versus character virtues does not lead to methodological problems, but possibilities, which I take to be a central moral of Ruse’s work. 5.4.4 Ruse: Virtuous Interdisciplinary Research At this point a few comments on Ruse’s work as interdisciplinary research are in order. I’ve already argued that it is best to conceive of Ruse’s work as an instance of SRIR. His work is more structured around the limitations of inquiry, what one cannot know, allowing him to speculate on how different disciplines such as science and religion might relate to each other. Understanding Ruse’s work in this context, it is beneficial to see how it differs from that of Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s in terms of intellectual character virtues. I mentioned earlier that if Kitcher and Plantinga are understood as interdisciplinary inquiry, then SRIR best describes their work. However, I argued that their work is not excellent examples of the distinction as their lack of emphasis on limitation produced a rather arrogant and slothful approach to inquiry. I will now briefly examine how Ruse’s inherent humility at the beginning of his inquiry exhibits a more virtuous interdisciplinary inquiry. I end this section by commenting on how Ruse’s work relates to EIR interdisciplinary research. I have already claimed that Ruse’s emphasis on disciplinary limitations cultivates a certain humility in his broader discussion concerning how religious propositions relate to a scientific worldview. A consequence of the disciplinary humility is the care Ruse takes to understand the view of other positions. Ruse makes copious reference to theologians liberal and conservative, ancient and modern, in an effort to avoid misunderstanding the foreign discipline.32 It sometimes appears that Ruse is doing more philosophical theology than history or philosophy of science. The detail with which Ruse strives to understand the other discipline, namely theology, before looking into how their positions might relate to science is evidence of an honest search for answers. Ruse is not using sound bites from the foreign discipline, but lets the discipline speak as a discipline, or at least the representatives of the discipline speak for themselves. Take, for instance, the topic of sin. Exploring a theistic view of human nature, Ruse argues:

32 See Ruse 2001 and 2010 for examples.

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“as a Darwinian, I would argue that we are a mélange of the altruistic and the selfish—we have to be altruistic in order to be social, but we have to look after ourselves, and our genes are always on the lookout for the main chance (Ruse 2001)…Christians are obviously not unaware of our propensity to sin. Saint Paul…is pretty hot on the topic. ‘For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do’ (Romans 7:14-15) (2010, p. 213).

Ruse then correctly identifies the biblical passage’s relation to concepts of sin, original and actual, identifying two strands of Christian thought. Ruse continues, “my suspicion is that…there is something of a division among Christians today on this issue. Some look to a particular act or acts; others are more inclined to note that this is all part of human nature as given to us by biology and culture. These latter would accept the secular arguments entirely but want to put them in a theological context” (p. 213). When you put this in contradistinction to Plantinga’s dealing with Simonian science earlier, the interdisciplinary nature of Ruse’s thought is readily apparent. Plantinga dismisses the findings of evolutionary psychology due to the nature of the science without consideration of how the findings may actually bolster traditional Christian understandings of fallen humanity. Ruse develops a possible line of dialogue while Plantinga simply rejects. In an ironic twist, Ruse engages in more thoughtful theological reflection than Plantinga! Ruse’s investigation shows industriousness where Plantinga reflects laziness. Likewise with Kitcher, Ruse spends a section investigating the nature of in relation to a scientific worldview. Kitcher dismisses the miraculous out of hand as that which is beyond knowing. While Ruse agrees with Kitcher that miracles do not belong in the scientific investigation of the universe, there is nothing stopping the Christian from understanding miraculous phenomena in light of science. In fact, he develops two lines of possible thought on miracles, the Augustinian and the Aquinian. One, Augustine, understands miracles to be more existential than physical. They are highly unusual events that do not necessarily break laws of nature (2010, p. 205). The second, due to Aquinas, takes seriously the fact that God could break , but does not routinely behave in such fashion, “normally, the world works by law, but our salvation required that God intervene in His creation” (p. 206). Ruse goes on to comment that this order of grace understanding of is fundamentally associated with the resurrection of Jesus, warning against making too much of the

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order of grace. He states, “the Christian miracles are not trying to do the work of science…they are about something entirely different, and they are simply laid across the world of science” (p. 207). Again, Ruse illustrates thoroughness while Kitcher reflects laziness. But what of EIR investigations? Ruse, much like Plantinga and Kitcher sees his work as broader than an SRIR inquiry. In both Can A Darwinian Be A Christian (2001) and Science and Spirituality (2010), Ruse argues for dissolution of the conflict thesis. While his stated view is independence, in that science is dealing with particular questions and religion is dealing with others, he recognizes that there is a place for dialogue between the two disciplines. Ruse’s work allows for negotiation as to how inquiry may proceed. This is a natural result of recognizing the limitations of his domestic discipline. One way to view his forays into philosophical theology is as invitation for theologians to think through the issues in new ways. Much as he is willing to admit the limitations of his discipline, he is inviting the religious to explore their own disciplines in light of scientific advance. Rather than prescribing a way to think about the relationship ala Plantinga and Kitcher, he is encouraging an inquirer to autonomous thinking. He is challenging the participants engaged in reflecting upon science and religion to further dialogue. Therefore, while his work may not be EIR, it is foundational to any sort of EIR inquiry. He is not pioneering any new form of inquiry, but voicing the Socratic plea to disciplinary self-reflection, making a broader dialogue possible. Moreover, understanding Ruse’s work as an example of SRIR, providing space for an EIR inquiry, generates a response to Wisdo’s second argument against Ruse. Recall that Wisdo claimed that Ruse's work subordinates religion to science in that religion may only participate in a conversation when science doesn't have answers. It is a worry of religion always being a second-class citizen. But, once the interdisciplinary form of inquiry is adopted, then Ruse's subordination is benign. Religion is subordinate as it relates to Ruse’s central concern in understanding the limits of science. Ruse is not, despite his forays into philosophical theology, undertaking an EIR project. The subordination is only in light of a direction of analysis, from science to spirituality. Ruse is not a philosopher of religion. He begins with science and moves to religion. He shares this characteristic with Kitcher and one finds the opposite direction of analysis with Plantinga. Plantinga starts with philosophy of religion before moving into philosophy of science. The difference is that Ruse provides an industrious and humble example of an SRIR inquiry, where Kitcher and Plantinga exhibit arrogance and sloth. Ruse has created

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space, for example in the foundations of morality and perhaps civic duty, where an EIR inquiry could take place. In discussions concerning public morality, we see where Ruse’s approach provides the foundation for a more virtuous interdisciplinary conversation about the direction of science over and against Kitcher. Kitcher’s public discussion of science and religion requires recognition that traditional theological positions are intellectually untenable and thus may not be brought forward when discussing future scientific research. Thus, as I’ve argued earlier, autonomous thought is not promoted but replaced with a disciplinary security, a method for how the conversation must dogmatically proceed. Notice how different the way forward is under Ruse’s position. Ruse does not rule out of the conversation a person who holds “obviously” false beliefs. In fact, it is left open what sorts of contributions could be made in an interdisciplinary inquiry once scientific and theological borders are transcended. Ruse, responding to Wisdo, calls this the fuzziness of his own position (p. 667). The fuzziness, and difference between Ruse and Kitcher, is that the future inquiry is not delimited by a necessary methodology. The fuzziness is a result of the borders of an interdisciplinary conversation still in negotiation. Thus, Ruse is positively promoting autonomous thinking as scholars may freely enter the conversation, shaping the future direction of inquiry in terms of science and religion, without worry that a certain route forward has already been mapped, e.g., Plantinga’s fideism or Kitcher’s scientism. 5.5 Concluding Remarks This chapter has been an exploration of a potential counterexample to the main argument of the last chapter. The counterexample claims that I am misreading Plantinga and Kitcher as promoting interdisciplinary research of the second type (EIR). Rather, it is more natural to view their work as an example of SRIR. I suggested two responses to this counterexample. In the first case, it goes against the way they view their own work. Both philosophers locate their thinking as in some way educative of a larger population of thinkers than philosophers of religion or philosophers of science. Second, even if it is granted that their work is an example of SRIR, their work is less-than-excellent (less-than-virtuous). Thus, I conclude that regardless of how their work is conceived, it is non-virtuous example of interdisciplinary research. The second half of the chapter was devoted to providing a positive example of interdisciplinary research. I applied my model to the work of historian and philosopher of science Michael Ruse. I argued that his work is a virtuous example of SRIR due to its taking serious the notion of limitations of inquiry. His notion of limits allows for the possibility of an

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environment where interdisciplinary inquiry of the second variety can happen. Moreover, applying my disciplinary versus interdisciplinary distinction in terms of faculty versus character virtues provides a response to criticism of Ruse’s position, while highlighting Ruse’s epistemic virtues against Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s epistemic vices in the philosophical investigation of science and religion.

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CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

6.1 Recapitulation

This dissertation has argued that the conflict thesis of Alvin Plantinga and Philip Kitcher is an artifact of their disciplinary methods of inquiry. Neither has taken seriously the interdisciplinary nature of science and religion, therefore suffering from a certain disciplinary availability bias in their inquiries into science and religion. It was argued that their disciplinary excellence habituated a respective fideism (Plantinga) and a scientism (Kitcher) in their approach to science and religion. Their intellectual viciousness results from an irresponsible expansion of a disciplinary form of inquiry into the interdisciplinary context. Plantinga’s and Kitcher’s failure to recognize limitations in their disciplines is a liability when attention is given over to understanding the relationship between science and religion. Disciplinary availability bias inhibits an investigation into the nature of how an interdisciplinary inquiry may proceed. Plantinga and Kitcher attempt to reduce the foreign discipline to the domestic discipline, but this strategy is not conducive to virtuous interdisciplinary research where character virtues such as humility, industriousness, and autonomy are required. Thus, it is possible to conceive of Plantinga and Kitcher as providing good examples of disciplinary research, but failing as exemplars of interdisciplinary inquiry. The failure of Plantinga and Kitcher to illustrate virtuous interdisciplinary research is put into contradistinction with philosopher Michael Ruse who brings forward character virtues, distinctive of excellent interdisciplinary inquiry, when turning attention to science and religion. 6.2 Future Directions This dissertation has specifically focused upon the work of Alvin Plantinga, Philip Kitcher, and Michael Ruse, emphasizing their views on science and religion. However, the thesis is larger than science and religion, dealing with the treacherous waters of interdisciplinary research. Thus, a natural outgrowth of this dissertation is an exploration of specific calibrations of faculty versus character virtues in disciplinary research and the loosening of such calibrations in the interdisciplinary context. How exactly do the different types of virtues relate to one another and what does it descriptively look like in disciplines such as science and religion? Furthermore, as I stated in an earlier chapter, virtue epistemology and the relationship between

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faculty and character virtues has implications for the debates internal to philosophy as philosophy deals with the naturalistic turn. In one sense, the naturalistic turn within philosophy creates a similar tension to that exhibited between Plantinga and Kitcher in the more public discussion of science and religion. How might virtue epistemology generally and an investigation of virtuous interdisciplinary inquiries specifically help such tension? Also, with the drive to interdisciplinary research in the larger academy, one would think that reflections upon the nature of interdisciplinary research would be common. However, a quick search of the literature returns much to be desired in terms of coming to agreement as to what interdisciplinary research actually entails. One way to see this dissertation is as an initial foray into the field of understanding interdisciplinary studies, using science and religion as a test case. However, science and religion is but one of many test cases available and the lack of intellectual energy devoted to the nature of interdisciplinary research is larger than science and religion. Therefore, I see this dissertation as inviting conversation as to how interdisciplinary research may proceed and what roles the intellectual virtues, both faculty and character, might play in such larger inquiries. In this fashion, the dissertation has come full circle to the Socratic insight from the introduction. While the way forward in establishing an interdisciplinary form of inquiry is murky, intellectual character is in high demand and one may find encouragement in Whitehead’s footnote. Socrates: “I do not insist that my argument is right in all other respects, but I would contend at all costs in both word and deed as far as I could that we will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it” (86b-c).

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Daniel Richard Deen was born May 5, 1979, in West Covina, CA. He holds a B.A. in Theological Studies from Concordia University Irvine, a M.A. in Philosophy from California State University Long Beach, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Florida State University. His primary research interests are philosophy of science, virtue epistemology, and the relationship between science and religion, where he is a strong proponent of the dialogue model.

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