In this post, I questioned the following argument.
1) Something must be eternal.
2) Matter cannot possibly be eternal.
3) Therefore, at least some spirit must be eternal.
I noted that the move from 2) to 3) rests on an assumed dichotomy, namely, that reality is solely comprised of matter and spirit. But if this assumption is false or can be doubted, then 3) simply doesn't follow from 2). I also considered some potential responses that the Gangadeanians might have and suggested their limitations. I also discussed how the Gangadeanian might suggest that a 3rd substance that is non-conscious (non spiritual), non-extended (immaterial), and causally efficacious substance was inconceivable--like a circle square. I then pointed out some worries with such a position. For one, I just think it's perfectly conceivable and so to insist that it isn't conceivable doesn't serve as a response to someone like me. But here's something I didn't consider at the time that I think is more important to the larger theme of my blog. This move, claiming that such a third substance is inconceivable, should be in tension with Gangadean's views about the illegitimacy of intuitions for knowledge and rational belief formation. Why? Because to make the claim that something is inconceivable, (like a circle-square, or a non conscious, non extended, causally efficacious substance) is to make a claim grounded in an intuition. When someone says a circle-square is a contradiction, you either "see it" as such, or not. There's no sound argument that gets you there. It's immediate. You just think about what it means to be a circle and you think about what it means to be a square and you immediately see that there is a contradiction of terms or you don't. But it isn't a sound argument that makes it apparent. And so it is with the claim that a non-conscious, non-extended, causally efficacious third substance is inconceivable. In other words, if the Gangadean makes the claim that such a third substance is a logical impossibility, one need only ask the Gangadeanian how he knows this with absolute certainty. What argument can they offer you that doesn't beg the question or rest on other premises that depend on intuitions? So it just isn't an open move for the Gangadeanians, on pain of inconsistency.
I always thought the problem lied in the definition of matter and spirit. Matter is extended and Spirit is not-extended. I am unsure of what that really means. To me, if you are "extended", you are extended in something (some plain of being), is this place where matter is extended a third, unaccounted substance?
ReplyDeleteYeah there is a lot of unclarity in much of Gangdean's work. I think 'extended' (and thus 'non-extended') are just primitive notions that are not analyzed any further for Gangadean. Of course, lots of other thinkers do the same. The difference is, the latter group doesn't seek the kind of certainty that Gangadean claims to have about his theories. So I'm not sure it's internally consistent for Gangadean to help himself to such primitives. Thanks for the comment.
DeleteAs for whether the notion of a thing being extended presupposes something like space (the plane upon which a thing is extended)--I really don't know what Gangadean's official position is on it. I have only spoken to one Gangadeanian about this directly and they argued that space was nothing but a relation between objects. But they never bothered to explain whether such a relation is a kind of being or not. Nor did they explain what it means to be 'between' objects (i.e., to analyze space by appeal to the idea of 'being between' doesn't really clarify matters at all since one will want to know what it means for something to stand between two things).
DeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI am also a former Gangadeanean and attendee of Westminster Fellowship. I have only glanced at your blog, and am interested in reading more. I read this short entry, and have had some thoughts of my own on this subject.
Way back when I took Gangadean's PHI 101, I asked why there couldn't be a third substance. Gangadean's reply was (I am paraphrasing a bit) that it would be a substance that would not be extended and not be conscious, but would be something else. We can't conceive of anything else that isn't a property or relation, etc. of something extended or something conscious, therefore this third substance can't exist.
My problem with this argument is that the limits of our power to conceive things are not necessarily the limits of what can exist. Just because I can not say anything positive about this third substance in terms of what it essentially is does not mean this third substance is logically/conceptually impossible. Thomas Nagel has a good chapter on this in his book "The View from Nowhere" called "Thought and Reality." Further, we can say at least two things about this third substance: a) It is a substance; and b) Extension and Consciousness are properties of this substance.
Hello and thanks for the comment! I agree with you that inconceivability doesn't entail impossibility, just as conceivability doesn't entail possibility.
DeleteGangadeanians say something like, "what can't be thought can't be", but your point is that this isn't obvious and that it needs to be argued for.
Now it seems to me that Gangadean first needs to get much clearer on what he means by "what can't be thought." 'Can't' is a modal notion and like other modals, it admits to various kinds (e.g., prudential, deontic, nomological, metaphysical/logical). We need first to know whether he thinks that we can't in the broadly logical/metaphysical sense, think of a non-conscious, non extended third substance. Or whether he thinks it's simply nomologically not possible, for instance, due to the physical laws as they relate to human psychology. Of course, the latter claim is too weak to support his metaphysical conclusion that such a substance can't possible exist. By the same token, the former is simply too strong of a claim to motivate let alone prove. And even if he could prove it somehow, as you point out, there's still a question about how it connects to supporting the metaphysical claim.
I don't see how he could possibly even begin motivating either of the two claims without appeal to his own intuitions. Moreover, even if he could somehow manage to show that in some sense, we can't think of a third substance, again, as you say, that doesn't entail anything about what is possible in mind-independent reality. I suspect that he might try to use a transcendental argument (or at least what he intuitive takes to be a transcendental argument) to say that if what is inconceivable could be, skepticism wins, but that too is far from obvious.
Moreover, there's the epistemic problem about how he can know (with certainty) what is conceivable/inconceivable sans appeal to intuition. After all, can't we be mistaken about what is conceivable? What Gangadean needs to say is that "it seems to me that a third substance is inconceivable" but of course that doesn't establish that it is in fact, inconceivable in either sense as discussed above. Indeed what we judge to be conceivable/inconceivable seems to depend in part on what concepts we have as well as our mental capacities. Plausibly, adults and very young children will differ dramatically concerning what they judge as being conceivable or not. The contrast is probably even starker if we compare say what a professional philosopher or particle physicist finds conceivable vs. what an ordinary 5-year old does. Thanks!
Oh and by the way. Welcome to the blog!
DeleteWould you at all be interested in writing something about your experiences at WF or about what it was that lead you to leave and/or what that process was like? If so, please email me at reasoniidoubt at gmail dot com.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteLong time no talk. I never bothered to check back and see if you had responded! Thanks for the response. I will have to read it again and think about it. But yes, somehow Gangadean has to give a better proof than simply "Can you think of what this third substance would be?" I, myself, don't like the idea of neutral monism (third substance that is 'neutral' between matter and spirit). I would like to think that if we can prove matter is not eternal, then that proves God exists. The thought that matter is not eternal, and yet it was caused by some mysterious third substance, makes me sick. And yet at this moment in time, I can not give a LOGICAL reason why not.
As for writing about my experiences, I'm not willing to do that for the moment. However, if you want my thoughts on Gangadean's philosophy, I could write something up and send that to you. When it comes to my experiences, suffice it to say I got out in a comparatively painless way- compared to you and others I know.
Thanks for checking back in. I'm always open to receiving submissions, so please do send something my way.
DeleteAs to the substance of your comment: you mentioned that it makes you sick to think that a third substance might account for all that there is (both physical and spiritual). I wanted to address that at least in part.
I think there is plenty of room, as it concerns being rational, for one to believe with confidence that matter is not eternal (though I think rational minds can disagree, too). This is even if it can't proven in the way that Gangadean claims. We don't need that kind of proof to form rational beliefs--or even to gain knowledge. One just needs to give up on the view that rational belief and knowledge require infallibility or certainty.
At least for me, the discomfort I started to feel when I started entertaining doubts while I was still part of the church, was largely due to my having been inculcated by subtly confused Gangadeanian arguments (and vocabulary) which lead to my adopting a fundamental presupposition that epistemic certainty was necessary for rational beliefs and knowledge. Now that I'm removed from that culture, I not only see it as an assumption, but also a wrong-headed one. I now embrace the fact that philosophical arguments don't provide one with absolute certainty. At the end of the day, every theory seems to have problems as well as virtues, and we just have to do our best to go with the ones that have more virtues than vices when compared to the alternatives.
For me, sometimes that means agreeing even with Gangadean's conclusions (or more broadly, theistic conclusions), even if I accept them for very different reasons than Gangadean.
p.s. So even if it's logically possible that a third substance accounts for both matter and "spirit/minds," that possibility might be negligible because there aren't sufficient positive reasons to believe in them--or because it might be more parsimonious to go with two substances rather than three while accounting for all the data. The point is that this is a move that is open to you and me, but not Gangadean since he raises the bar for rational beliefs so high.
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