Youtube Discussion

In a recent post, among other things, I presented the case that Gangadean's argument (given towards the end of this talk) for why the human soul could not possibly be eternal, is unsound. At least two of the premises are unproven, and one of them is outright false. It seems a discussion in the comments of that video has begun, and Anderson is playing defense. I want to note just a few things.

The very top comment as of now, is by a person named "Samuel." It's very likely to be a long time member of Westminster Fellowship (Gangadean's church). But you wouldn't know that from the comment. Frequently Gangadeanians, who are members of the church, will post positive reviews (including amazon book reviews and google reviews of the church), without disclosing that they are card carrying members. Maybe this isn't technically lying, but I find something disingenuous about the practice. That's part of the reason why I disclose some details about my personal dealings with Gangadean and his people in the introduction of this blog.

Secondly, I noticed that when Spencer (who reads this blog) presented a version of my criticism of Gangadean's argument (that the human soul is not possibly eternal), Anderson doesn't defend the original argument. To do so would be to defend the truth of the premise that I attacked (namely, premise 3 of the original argument which states that an eternal being would necessarily be all-knowing).  Instead he defends the conclusion. Anderson wonders whether an eternal being must have the greatest amount of power. That suggests that Gangadean's argument as it is is defecient. Anderson's hints at an entirely different argument which purports to make a connection between eternal existence and power (rather than knowledge). That's to concede my original point that Gangadean's argument is unsound because at least one of the premises is false.

Of course, it's not enough for Anderson to ask questions as he frequently does. He needs to present the arguments since he's on the side that is making substantive claims that he can definitively prove that God exists (among others). So the question then becomes can Anderson/Gangadean provide a proof for the claim that "necessarily, if X is eternal, then X is the highest power"? I suspect this is the most promising approach in attempting to patch Gangadean's shoddy argument and we'll have to wait to hear what they come up with, assuming that they do--I wouldn't hold my breathe though.

Wherever that conversation leads, I think there's a non trivial gain that we've made, if my analysis so far is right. The payoff is this: Gangadean has been presenting an argument (for many years, if not decades) with an obvious flaw. And that means he's either known about it, but ignored it in which case he's been dishonest ("bearing false witness" as he would put it) or he's not known about it and he's shown a rather large lapse in philosophical judgment (and this for many years!). Like I said, the mistake is a rather obvious one. In the case of the latter, this is a symptom of a larger problem--Gangadean's way of doing philosophy, the isolation, the intellectual incest (bouncing ideas off of only those that are under your authority), is bound to lead to problems. Neither is this an isolated incident---if you poke around my blog, you'll see that there are a plethora of problems with Gangadean's arguments, and many of them are the result of rather elementary mistakes in reasoning.

Finally, I noticed that Anderson gets lost at some point in the conversation. After one relevant question (noted above), he somehow finds it pertinent to raise the following questions.

1. Can we know anything outside of our experiences?
2. What does the coppolla 'I' in my construal of Gangadean's original argument refers to?

(I'm omitting 3 because that was addressed above).

also,

4. Does memory lapse affect my ability to know if I am eternal?
5. Do I have to know everything in order to know anything?
6. Can we know that 'a is a' outside of experience?

Sometimes in conversing with a Gangadeanian, I feel like I'm speaking with a bot that would fail the turing test. These are simply the wrong sorts of questions--it's as if Anderson is trying to change the subject. This smells an awful lot like a red-herring (sorry, I couldn't resist). My point (and what I take to be Spencer's) is not about whether we can know anything, neither is it about whether or not empiricism is true. In fact, my answer to Anderson's questions about whether we can know anything beyond our experiences (including that 'a is a'), even if memory lapses are possible, is an emphatic, YES!! The irony is that as I have argued before, Anderson and Gangadean, if they are going to be consistent in demanding proof, should probably answer, with an emphatic, NO! (Don't forget we think of the nature of knowledge or define 'knowledge' in very different ways). In any case, none of this is germane to whether or not Gangadean's argument for why any human soul is not eternal, is unsound. It's unsound and Anderson seems to admit this much. Let's move on and talk about whether it can be fixed by way of a sub-proof for the contentious premise(s) or not. 

Finally, just in case you're curious, I'm not claiming that the human soul is in fact, eternal--I take that to be an incredible claim (of course, I don't pretend I can prove that it's false nor do I believe I need to). So that's not what my recent line of criticisms is about. I'm merely pointing out that this is yet another case where Gangadean fails to prove one of his most fundamental claims despite claiming that he can and should do so (i.e., it's among the "most basic things" which he takes to be clear to reason).

A Gangadeanian on the Problem of Evil: An ironic problem for the ironic solution.

Here's another video from the Gangadeanian organization called the Clarity Fund in which one of their own (Greg Malloy) presents Gangadean's theodicy (a purported answer to the problem of evil). As you can see in Anderson's introduction, this talk was part of a series at ASU west, where they invite outside speakers. I find it peculiar (and perhaps in bad faith) that Anderson invited Malloy to give the talk because he believes precisely all of the same things that Anderson does --and this by no accident! Malloy is both a student of Gangadean (Anderson's mentor) as well as Anderson himself--and they all belong to the questionable religious organization called Westminster Fellowship. Further, Malloy is basically reading out of Gangadean's book (which Anderson frequently does in his own courses) as opposed to presenting any of his own ideas. As such, Anderson might has well given the talk himself--that would have at least been more honest. I wonder if this is a frequent occurrence and if so, there's probably a conflict of interest.

Anyway, on to the substance. I've tackled the Gangadeanian "answer" to problem of evil before, so some of what I will have to say will be a recapitulation, but this video has again made the related issues salient. Malloy is attempting to provide an answer to the question, "if God is perfectly good and powerful, then whence is there evil?" He faults common theistic responses like the free will theodicy. I won't rehearse those here except to point out that he seems to be leaving out more sophisticated versions of the free will accounts like that of Alvin Plantinga who aims only to show that it is logically possible that God and evil co-exist (that is to say, there's no contradiction between the two states of affairs). Of course, as with any philosophical argument, there are problems, but it isn't obvious that the problems are in the end, decisive despite how Malloy and Gangadean before him present things.

As to Malloy's presentation of Gangadean's theodicy: there is a lot of hand-waviness going on from the start. "The good for a thing is said to be in accordance with the nature of a thing." "The nature of humans is to be rational." "Thus, Evil (moral evil) is contrary to the nature of a rational being which is not knowing God (what is clear and most basic)." There are no arguments given in this presentation for each of these very weighty premises. On several occasions, I've noted that Gangadean is far too quick in taking for granted his claim that the good for humans is to know that God exists.  I keep laboring this point because it plays such an essential role in many of his arguments and his theodicy in particular. If he hasn't proven beyond all doubt that the core moral evil is not knowing that God exists, then his theodicy is a non-starter. How does he argue that good for humans is to know that God exists? Well, he depends on more controversial and unproven claims. For instance, that knowledge of God is knowledge of the "most basic." And that humans are essentially rational beings which just means they are the sorts of beings that ought to know what is most basic. And of course the big whopper, that God's existence is clear to reason. If any of these claims is not proven, then the theodicy is simply a non-starter (more on this point below).

Malloy presents the idea that moral evil has a particular purpose which justifies God in creating the world so that it inevitably would have such evil in it. What is that purpose? It's an intellectual good that only some of creation gets to reap, namely, revelation of God's nature, in particular, his divine justice and mercy. But Malloy (and Gangadean) fails to take care in appreciating just how contentious this is. It's far from trivial that God is in fact morally justified in permitting things like the holocaust just so some of his creation can have true beliefs about his nature. That sounds outright monstrous. Neither is it trivial that God who is all knowing and all powerful, couldn't have come up with a different way to reveal his attributes to his creation. Gangadean must maintain that it's logically impossible for God to reveal his divine attributes to his creatures without creating the conditions for moral evil and that seems like an incredible claim. For one thing, why can't God reveal facts to his creation, directly (either by creating us differently or by making such knowledge innate)? Further, there doesn't have to be evil for us to know how God *would* deal with it---we could come to know counterfactuals about what God would do in certain situations--and that would also count as knowledge about God's nature (i.e., information about the dispositions of a being is important information about that being). You might think that knowledge of what a being actually does is somehow more valuable than what a being would do, but is this difference enough to outweigh all the harms that come from all the countless instances of moral evil that we actually find in our world? An affirmative answer is also far from trivial. Moreover, as the philosopher David Lewis once wondered about, couldn't God have placed us in "playpens" so that the evils we commit are ones that do not bring about harms? For instance, it seems possible for God to have enabled Stalin to think evil thoughts and have evil desires, without also enabling him to exterminate 20 million people. The problems amplify when we incorporate Gangadean's committment to Calvinism, which includes the doctrine of limited atonement (only some receive the revelation that comes at the cost of all the moral evil in the world).

To sum up then, Gangadean's/Malloy's God permits moral evil which leads to countless harms/victims, so that only some people get to realize some intellectual goods, namely knowledge of some of God's attributes. Somehow this is supposed to be a satisfying answer to the question, how can a perfectly good, all powerful being permit moral evil? Where the theodicy flounders is that it doesn't present an argument (let alone a proof) for the essential claim that this revelation, which only some enjoy,  justifies God in permitting moral evil (as well as the harms that follow).  As I've argued before, Ganagdean's book does no better in this respect--he asks rhetorically, "is it worth it?" And then takes for granted what the bible says about the matter which is question begging in the current context. Likewise, the theodicy fails to provide an argument for why God could not have achieved his end of revealing himself, without moral evil or at least without the harms that follow from moral evil in our world. Notice that God isn't supposed to be limited by the laws of nature or the causal regularities we find in our world--so for Gangadean's theodicy to have a leg to stand on, he's got to prove to us that it's logically or metaphysically impossible for God to reveal his nature without moral evil and the attendant harms that (as a matter of causal regularities) follow. A very tall order indeed.

Let me close by saying something about Gangadean's so called "ironic solution" to the problem of evil. Here is the argument.

The Ironic Solution:

(1) Because of all the evil in the world, I cannot see how it can be said that God is all good and powerful.  

(2) Because of all the unbelief in the world, I cannot see how it can be said that God is all good and powerful.   

(3) Because of all the unbelief in me, I cannot see how it can be said that God is all good and all powerful.  

(4) Because I have neglected and avoided the use of reason, I cannot see what is clear about God. 

Where's the irony? Well, the thought seems to be that if you assume (1), then it follows that (4), but since (4) is supposed to be an absurdity that gives you reason to deny (1). I hinted above that the argument takes many liberties about the nature of good, about what is clear and the like. Here's Gangadean's own words on the matter (lifted from his book).

The solution to the problem of evil has certain assumptions...that there is a clear general revelation that only some is eternal, that God the creator exists. It assumes clarity and inexcusability (113). 

The problem that I noted before is that it's clearly question begging in the current context. The problem of evil is a problem that aims to show that God cannot exist insofar as evil does (i.e., that there's a contradiction or tension between the thesis that evil exists and that God exists). But as Gangadean notes, this argument assumes that (among other things) "it's clear to reason that God exists." In other words, that there is a watertight proof for the existence of God so that it's impossible for God not to exist. That's just what (4) says. Of course, that's the very thing at issue! It's no good to answer the problem of evil with an argument that presupposes that it's clear to reason that God exists. If it's clear to reason that God exists, according to Gangadean that means it's impossible for God not to exist. But of course, the theist can't legitimately help herself to this claim because that's the very thing under dispute! In fact, if we allow Gangadean this assumption, then there really is no problem of evil or any other problem against theism, rendering the "ironic solution" entirely superfluous. Ironically, we now have a reductio against the purported reductio--an ironic problem for the ironic solution.

Gangadean at Grand Canyon University, Part 3

This is the last part of my series on Gangadean's recent talk. If you want to get to the "juicy stuff," I'd suggest you skip down to points 12 and 13 where I discuss how his argument that the human soul is not eternal is bad, and also that his argument for why natural evil is not inherent in creation, leads to serious difficulties for his worldview. Of course, I think all of the other points are important, too, but they may not be of interest to all my readers.

9. At around 51:00, Gangadean cites "common ground" as a source of unity within the church. What is supposed to be the content of common ground? I spoke about this some in my last post (Part 2, point 6), but I'll develop my thoughts on the matter a bit further.

a. Reason as the laws of thought. 

b. Integrity/concern for consistency.

c. Rational presuppositionalism (as the method of critical thinking). 

d. The principle of clarity (that the basic things about god, man, good and evil are clear to reason) and the need for clarity in connection to inexcusability. 

Gangadean will often cite differences concerning a. through d. as grounds for discontinuing discussions with his disputants. The trouble is, Gangadean doesn't seem open to the possibility that he may be mistaken about what is required for intelligible discussions. In place of tight arguments that such common ground of this particular sort must be in place for conversations to make sense, he merely presupposes a number of principles (more on this below). But I'll shed light on some of these and suggest why they are no good. 

As it concerns "reason as the laws of thought," I don't disagree that for instance, 'a is a' (the law of identity)--that's just saying a thing is what it is (and not something else). The same with the law of contradiction, and excluded middle (although I'm a bit more hesitant about this one due to problems of vagueness as well as the conditional form of excluded middle). Gangadeanians often have the mistaken view that I deny the so called, "laws of the thought." Now, I don't necessarily agree with the further identity claim that Gangadean makes---that reason is to be identified with the laws of thought--but that's because I don't quite understand what it means or even what the point of that is supposed to be. Still, I affirm the rather trivial metaphysical claim that a thing is what it is, and that two contradictory statements or propositions can't both be true. Where Gangadean and I differ is in what each of us professes as the reasons for believing these claims and the certainty with which we affirm them. For Gangadean these are so called "self-attesting" and "self-evident" principles and as such can be known with absolute certainty (such that one can't possibly be mistaken in believing them because they can't possible be other than true). In contrast, I don't really know whether or not a proposition can be "self-evident" or "self-attesting" (or how one goes about coming to know that something is), unless all we mean by that is that it strikes us as rather obvious.

Sometimes I'm tempted by the thought that there's a sense in which we must assume some propositions if we're going to do any amount of theorizing. That's because every argument needs premises or starting points. Some philosophers think something like this is right and speak of some claims as "axiomiatic" or i"ndispensible", but none of them are after certainty or clarity to begin with and Gangadean likes the eschew talk of axioms in this regard. The reason I mention the last bit is because there's something unsatisfying about counting a proposition as true simply because it serves our aims/purposes in theorizing or arguing. The natural question is why the fact that something must be assumed if we are to say present any arguments makes the former true. How would we go about proving a thing like this? And it feels an awful like a pragmatic reason to believe something is true (because it's suits our needs/goals/purposes) as opposed to a truth-relevant reason. Finally, I underlined 'assume' above because we can further fuss about what we mean by the word. Does assuming in the relevant sense amount to believing (and if so, to what degree)? Or does it mean simply holding fixed for the purposes of a particular line of inquiry?

When I've pressed Gangadeanian in the past about how they know when something is self-attesting or self-evident (and thus maximally clear to reason), they've responded that such propositions have a peculiar property--they make questioning possible. And that's similar to what I've just talked about (it's something like "transcendental reasoning"). I pointed out in my last post (point 6) that this seems to merely push the problem back a step because we now need for Gangadean to tell us how we know (with certainty) when a proposition makes questioning possible. After all, it seems logically possible that Gangadean and his clan are merely mistaken about their judgments in this respect so that what they believe makes questioning possible only appears to them to be that way. I think an appeal to intuition or common sense at this point is unavoidable and thus a problem for Gangadean's entire worldview. But there's more. As I hinted at above, we need an argument for why "a proposition makes questioning possible" entails that "it can't be questioned" and "it is true." Here again, I think Gangadean is banking on intuitions or common sense--but we shouldn't let him get away with that given his professed standards for clarity at the basic level.

Returning again to the point that Gangadean and I agree on say the law of identity, but disagree about the reasons for which we accept it and the certainty with which we do: I don't understand why I need to affirm these principles ("the laws of thought") with absolute certainty in the first place. I don't find myself questioning their veracity, but I also wouldn't take the following bet if an evil demon offered it to me: If i'm wrong about their truth, then everyone I know dies a grueling slow death and if I'm right, I get a quarter. So I can't say in sincerity that I'm absolutely certain (nor can I just make myself certain of them as if belief is within our voluntary control). Gangadean on the other hand, would be forced to take such a bet, since by his lights, it's literally impossible for him to be wrong about them (or for him to gain any more evidence of either their truth or falsity).

Do these differences between our positions matter upon final analysis? Depends who you ask. Gangadean and his followers certainly seem to think so although again, it's possible that they don't quite understand my position. Does it matter for whether we can have intelligible conversations? I don't see how---but again, Gangadean seems to think so (though he is without an argument for why that is). Does it matter for unity within the church? Once again, I don't see why or how--this is something in need of an argument and I'm skeptical that one will be forthcoming.

As to the last item on the list of "common ground principles" i.e., the principle of clarity, I wrote quite a bit about problems with the twin principles of clarity and inexcusability in part 1 of this series, so I won't rehearse those considerations here. Instead, we can again ask whether it matters for unity within the church or whether it can be grounds for exclusion either from the church or from intelligible conversation/engagement. Gangadean takes it for granted that the answer to both questions is, yes. But again, I simply don't see why. Notice that what he's resting his claim on is the following. That agreement on the most basic things will yield agreement on the less basic---and he's taking his doctrine of clarity as among the more basic. One thing to note is that even if it's true that by agreeing on the more basic, we will agree on the less basic (which I doubt), that doesn't rule out the possibility of coming to agreement on the less basic, another way. After all, Gangadean isn't claiming "if and only if we agree on the more basic, we will agree on the less basic."

Returning again to our disagreement about how certain we must be about say the laws of thought: I've also noted in the past that Gangadean thinks of this whole idea of clarity in a very special way. He thinks that for some proposition to be clear, is for it to be knowable with absolute certainty. It's a status reserved for those claims, which you couldn't possibly be wrong/mistaken about. But again, why must some things have this status in the first place? What if we can't have that kind of certainty about anything? What is supposed to follow from that? What's the downside? Gangadean usually argues that if we can't be absolutely certain about anything, then we can't know anything (skepticism). And that sounds really bad since knowledge is a desirable thing. Or else he tells you that there's no point in having discussions. But as I've noted before, what he doesn't tell you at this juncture is that he's assuming (without argument) that knowledge requires absolute certainty/clarity and that conversations are intelligible only if we have certainty. Neither of these very substantive claims is obvious. Nor can I see how he would argue that they are "self-attesting" or "self-evident." So it's yet another Gangadeanian article of faith. Once we are careful in drawing out some of Gangadean's presuppositions, we see that there is no necessary obstacle to disunity within the church, from those that fail to agree with the claim that we can be absolutely certain about some claims (principle of clarity).

10. At 53:00, Gangadean starts to talk about various passages in the bible like the first three chapters of Genesis. He'll also talk about the preface to the gospel of John (where the world/logos is said to be God and with God). I want to make a very general point that I've been hinting at throughout this series. Gangadean, like anyone approaching the text, is interpreting it. If you know about the many disputes that exist within the church you'll know that there are many ways to interpret a particular passage--though I'm not at all suggesting that "anything goes." I think there are better and worse interpretations and that we have to consider the reasons for and against interpreting a passage one way over another and make our best judgments. Strangely, Gangadean often presents his interpretations of scripture as ultimately authoritative and if you press him on it, he'll actually tell you that the "correct interpretations" are clear to reason (though I've also heard mixed reports from other Gangadeanians--one in particular, once told me that we can't expect to know what the bible says, with the same clarity as we can of basic things). That is to say, once the more basic stuff from reason alone is in place, you can via "good and necessary consequences" (deductive inference) figure out how to interpret special revelation (the bible). I recall once sitting in on a discussion session that Gangadean held (then called Logos Seminary) where he interpreted a particular passage one way and it wasn't obvious to many of us that that was the only way despite what he insisted--but he refused to move on until certain persons professed full agreement. I say all of this to provide one place to push back in your interactions with Gangadeanians when in the context of theological/hermeneutical discussions. Don't let them simply take liberties to interpret any given passage to fit their philosophical needs---instead ask them for decisive arguments for why the particular interpretation they provide is the only suitable one (also, can they rule out the possibility that there's an interpretation which none of us has yet to consider?). If they concede that we can't know with certainty what the text says, then that opens the door for questioning believers for instance, need certainty about other "more basic" matters.

11.  At 54:00, Gangadean starts to talk about the "historic Christian faith" or sometimes what he speaks of as "historic Christianity." If you've encountered Gangadeanians, they are quick to bring up this notion and it does a great deal of work in their defense of their worldview. Gangadean sums up historic Christianity as reflected in the major creeds as many Christians, do. But he also importantly takes the Westminster Confession of faith as the "high water mark" of historic Christianity. Now reformed presbyterians tend to love the Westminster Confession of faith (because it has a strong Calvinist bent), but to say that it best reflects Christianity is a very substantive claim for which we need an argument. So we shouldn't let him or any Gangadeanian get away with merely asserting that this is so--again he needs to prove that this is so which is going to involve proving lots and lots of reformed interpretations of scripture. This last point made me think that during my many years under Gangadean's ministry, I never once learned how to prove these things--and I doubt any other Gangadeanians did, either. Instead, we were taught merely to agree with the claim that the WF confession of faith had got it all right. It would seem that fideism (as Gangadean defines it) is quite rampant in his church.

Q&A

12. At 1:09:00, a member of the audience asks Gangadean to explain "how the [human] soul is not eternal." Here's the basic argument Gangadean gives.

(1) I have one thought after another.
(2) If (1) and my soul were eternal, then I would be eternal in time.
(3) If I were eternal in time, then I would be all knowing.
(4) I am not all knowing.
(5) So, I am not eternal in time.

This is a bad argument. For one thing, Gangadean had better not help himself to the first premise on pain of violating his own principles. To reiterate, he's after clarity/certainty! In which case, he can't appeal to the common sense of the questioner (as he does in giving his answer). So what would a proof of premise (1) look like? I'm not sure it's possible to give a proof of the temporal ordering of thoughts. I know that Gangadeanians are with Kant in thinking that the reality of time is something of a transcendental (it's a precondition for the possibility of experience). But even granting this, it's of no help. Notice--I'm not asking how we know that there's such a thing as time. I'm asking how we can know (with absolute certainty) when particular phenomena (our thoughts) are ordered in time. Again, I think this is something that is ultimately going to have to resolve into an appeal to common sense or intuition which is no good for Gangadean's worldview.

More importantly, premise (3) is false. There's no contradiction in thinking of a being like me who exists eternally within time, but who fails to have all knowledge. As I've pointed out before, it's possible that I'm unmotivated to gain knowledge so that no matter how much time I have, I don't grow in knowledge (let alone the full extent of it)--this is because gaining knowledge takes work--it's a process and not something that merely happens to us! Another possibility is that I lose knowledge even as I gain it. For example, since knowledge entails belief, if I lose a belief that I once had, then I don't have it as a piece of knowledge. And there are lots of ways that a person might lose their beliefs in the pertinent sense. One might simply forget the proposition, for one thing. Or one might encounter misleading evidence which makes one doubt what one previously believed. In either case, one can lose knowledge by losing the relevant belief. As such, eternal existence within time doesn't entail omniscience by any stretch of the imagination.

Finally, if there are an infinite number of propositions, then it seems impossible to know them all regardless of how long you've been around--at least by successive addition. Regardless of how long you've been picking apples, if the set of apples in the universe were infinite, it's literally impossible for you to ever run out of apples to pick which means you won't ever have the set of all the apples. So the mere fact that you don't have all the apples, doesn't entail that you haven't been around eternally within time. It just means you can't get exhaust an infinite set in that way. The same with knowledge of an infinite number of propositions.

The upshot is that at least two of the five premises is questionable in which case the argument is unsound hence, it's not clear to reason that the (human) soul is not eternal.

13. At 1:10:00, an audience member asked Gangadean to clarify his claim that while spiritual death is inherent in sin (not seeking, not knowing what is clear), physical death was imposed later as a call back from sin. As Gangadean notes, the relevant issue here is the problem of natural evil.  He first presents what he deems a "general revelation argument that physical death was not original in creation." Basically it's the Humean argument from evil which goes like this.

Humean Argument:

(1) If God is all powerful, then he could prevent natural evil.
(2) If God is all good, then he would prevent natural evil.
(3) If God could and would, then he must have prevented natural evil.
(4) Hence, he did prevent natural evil.

Most theists don't take this argument to be sound (I'll say more about that later). But, strangely, Gangadean, here takes it to be sound--i.e,. he takes it as proof that physical death/natural evil is not inherent in creation (though Hume intended it to be an argument against God's existence because he thought premise (4) to be false). But what he fails to appreciate is that taking that line is bad news for his view in that it proves too much. To see why note how the premises seem no less true if you replace each instance of 'natural evil' with 'moral evil.' This seems then to suggest that Gangadean would have to (on pain of inconsistency) deny that moral evil was inherent in creation. Maybe that's not so bad in itself because Gangadean might say that while natural evil isn't inherent in creation, the potential for it is inherent. But this won't quite work out because he's a soft-determinist meaning he thinks that every event is the necessary result of prior causes and that means the sin committed by Adam and Eve was determined by temporally prior facts about the creation event including how God created Adam and Eve. So, Gangadean cannot (on pain of inconsistency) hide behind the subterfuge of mere "potential to sin"--because it does violence to Gangadean's views about how every event is causally determined by prior causes which ultimately start with the creation event by God. That is, on Gangadean's view it can't be that God created Adam and Eve to have an equal probability of sinning and not sinning. If he did, according to Gangadean, this would undermine the very notion of God as creator and ruler as well as the notion of causality. So what really should stand in for 'natural evil' is not 'the potential for moral evil,' but rather something like 'the conditions sufficient for bringing about moral evil' or 'the conditions that guarantee the existence of moral evil.' Once we replace each occurrence of 'natural evil' with what I have suggested, we get a serious problem for Gangadean's position. This is because these new premises seem no less true than their counterparts in the original argument (so that if one accepts the Humean argument as sound as Gangadean does, then one ought to accept this new argument as sound). Consider:

Argument II:

(1)' If God is all powerful, then he could prevent the initial conditions which guarantee the presence  of moral evil from ever obtaining.
(2)' If God is all good, then he would prevent the conditions which guarantee the presence of moral evil from ever obtaining.
(3)' If God could and would, then he must...
(4) Hence, he did prevent the initial conditions which guarantee the presence of moral evil conditions from ever obtaining.

If this argument is sound (as it should be according to Gangadean), then we have a serious problem for his worldview because it would entail that there is actually no moral evil in the world. The conclusion (4)' is in obvious tension with his views about human free will (compatibilism/soft-determinism) and the divine providence of God and so consistency demands that he deny this argument is sound. The rub is that in trying to deny any of the premises, it seems like he'll end up supplying us reasons to deny the analogue premises of the original Hume-inspired argument which he affirms. And that threatens his proof for why physical evil is not original in creation.

Not only that but we can run the very same kind of argument about natural evil. Not only did God, on Gangadean's view create the initial conditions which guaranteed that there would be moral evil, but given what he thinks about the relationship between moral evil and natural evil, he also created the initial conditions which guaranteed the presence of physical/natural evil. So we can create yet another equally problematic argument for Gangadean by replacing each appearance of 'moral evil' with 'natural evil' in argument II.

As I said most theists will deny premise (2) of the Humean argument and thus consistency would have them deny the analogues in the other versions. They have the resources to do so because they think that God might have morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil as well as the initial conditions which bring about evil. Of course, if you're a free will theodicist, then you are likely to assume a libertarian theory of free will, in which case you don't believe that God is ultimately the cause of evil because humans have a special kind of self-sufficiency. But none of these resources are available for Gangadean and so what I'm arguing is that there's a unique problem for his worldview. This is because he takes the Humean argument to be sound and is also committed to a form of determinism (soft) about events.

14. Gangadean then presents his theodicy. And I have a series of posts dedicated to raising problems for his theodicy (I charge that it's really bad and it's even question begging against the atheist).

Gangadean at Grand Canyon University, Part 2

The is part 2 of the series on Gangadean's recent lecture at GCU.

4. Humans as distinct from non-humans on the basis of being rational. Most of us believe that there's something special about humans. Arguably, it's rationality--although one needn't define 'rationality' the way that Gangadean does. But I don't know how a thing like this can be proven. Remember, Gangadean calls us all to a standard of proof--we can't just take for granted what seems to be right, or agreeable, or common sensical. We need proof because belief without proof is fideism according to Gangadean. As far as I know, Gangadean never actually presents a proof for the claim that humans are by definition, rational animals (particularly, 'rational' as he defines it).

5. Around the 40 minute mark, he talks about the moral law (the ten commandments). His claim here is that this is a source of unity, because the ten commandments (in some form) are derivable from reason alone. But he never explains how we get to each of them via the use of our reason alone. Neither in his book nor in this talk. For instance, just how can one deduce from reason alone that one ought to keep the Sabbath day holy or that you should not commit adultery? It's one thing to proclaim that these are clear to reason, and another thing to show that this is so. Furthermore, what right does Gangadean have to help himself to the particular reading (which to no surprise fits his own philosophical committments) of the various passages he cites?  How does he know (with certainty) that Moses was speaking of knowing the moral law via reason as opposed to say via intuition or divine revelation. The passages are ambiguous at best. Here's the relevant passage from Deuteronomy 30.

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

Gangadean would like you to believe that what Moses is without a doubt saying here is that the moral law is deducible via valid rules of inference, from "basic things." That would fit nicely with Gangdean's worldview at large. But while that could be what Moses is saying, the reading is far from forced on us. So Gangadean owes us an argument--just why we should pick up his interpretation?

6. Gangadean complains that Thomas Jefferson took too much to heart the common sense realism of Thomas Reid. And what he means by that is that Jefferson took too much to be "self-evident". Gangadean grants that there are some self-evident truths, but that for instance, God's existence is not among them. The problem of course is that this puts the onus of proof on Gangadean to show us how we are to distinguish between the self-evident and the non-self-evident. He's inclined to fall into talk of transcendentals---what is self-evident is that which makes the very act of questioning possible--so that it cannot be questioned. But I wonder how we to know when a thing makes the very act of questioning possible? Is it not possible that a claim merely seems to us to make questioning possible, without actually be so? I'm not sure how an argument that this is impossible would even start. From my past conversations with Gangadeanians they essentially claim that we "just know" when something makes questioning possible and this sounds an awful lot like knowing by way of intuition, but when I press this point, they merely insist that "it's different" somehow.

7. At the 50 minute mark, Gangadean claims that rational presuppositionalism is the most consistent system. But as I've argued throughout this blog, that is far from true. Gangadean's approach often suffers the same problems (and worse) of other approaches--it's just Gangadeanians seem to have a big blindspot when it comes to critically examining their own basic beliefs.

8. At 1:05:45, Gangadean speaks of repentance in connection to restoration of the world/culture. He cites, the words of Christ, "Repent for the kingdom of God is near." Then he makes the claim that the what we are to repent of (according to his reading of Jesus' words) is "root sin" which according to Gangadean is not seeking and not understanding what is clear about God.

As I noted in part 1 (point 1 and 2), Gangadean's God is quite the monster. He makes it (metaphysically?) impossible for some of his creatures to know him (creates them in an unregenerated state and leaves them that way), and yet according to Gangadean demands of them to repent for not knowing what is clear. It seems to me that Gangadean's God is the one that needs to repent.

One certainly shouldn't take for granted Gangadean's interpretation of Christ's words, here. Whether it is in accordance with scripture that there is a difference between "root sin" and "fruit sin" as Gangadean likes to claim is something that needs to be argued for. Gangadeanians will likely claim that "thinking presuppositionally" will show us that there is such a distinction, but I've yet to hear anything resembling a proof in this regard. There's a more general point here--often Gangadean interprets scripture in a way that suits his worldview--but we need not follow him in this and should not without sufficient proof on his part that his way is the only rational way to interpret the relevant text.

In the next and final installment of my comments on Ganagadean's lecture, we'll get into the question and answer session of the talk. Among other things, Gangadean presents his argument for how we can know that a (human) soul is not eternal--and I think it's a pretty crappy argument, so stay tuned!

Gangadean at Grand Canyon University, Part 1

Recently, I watched a lecture given by Gangadean at GCU. I started to write a reaction post to it, where I criticize many of his remarks, but it started to get very long. In an effort to be a bit more accessible, I've decided to make it into a series of posts--hopefully that will make things a bit easier to digest.  I'll add some rough time stamps to each of my comments, intended to correspond to Gangadean's talk. Here is Part 1.

1. Starting at minute 13:00, Gangadean cites as a sort of proof-text for his twin doctrines ("Clarity of General Revelation" and the "inexcusability of unbelief") Romans 1:20. Of course, what he glosses over entirely is the fact that what Gangadean means by 'clearly knowable' and 'without excuse' is something very technical and highly idiosyncratic (i.e., he stipulates the definitions). As I've argued before, there's no reason given for why we should think the author of the cited text (presumably Paul) is using the words 'inexcusable' or 'clearly' in the way that Gangadean does. For all we know, Paul's words could be tracking a more ordinary notion of 'without excuse' and 'clear' (e.g., it's clear to me that my neighbor is a minded being, even though I can't prove, by way of a deductive argument that this is so and it's inexcusable for me to think otherwise). But that's just what Gangadean needs if this is to serve as a proof-text for his philosophical views. If Gangadean doesn't mean to use it as a proof text, then the question is why should the church care about clarity and inexcusability in the first place?

Further, as I've argued before, Gangadean is a Calvinist and believes that God has predestined, those he will regenerate (so as to be able to know that God exists) and those he will leave in the unregenerated state. And the unregenerated are doomed--it's literally impossible for them (barring a divine act) to see what is clear about God. So at the end of the day, not only do the unregenerated have about the best excuse possible (God, you made me so that I couldn't possibly know you!), but it renders the issue of clarity rather moot. Who cares if God's existence is clear to reason, if it still remains metaphysically impossible for some people to know that God exists?

Gangadeanians have a ready response to this worry, but it's no good because it equivocates on the word 'excuse'. They are apt to say that the unregenerated will never complain to God, "why have you made me this way (as an unbeliever) so that I can't know that you exist?" The point here is supposed to be that it's unintelligible for the unregenerated to do so, because that would assume they knew that God exists, which would entail they have been regenerated. But this is neither here nor there. The question is about inexcusability--i.e., whether non believers have got a legitimate excuse for their unbelief. Or to put it another way, the issue is whether it is consistent with divine justice and goodness, that unbelievers are held morally responsible for their unbelief given that they cannot believe in God without an act of divine providence. If they have an excuse for their unbelief, then it wouldn't be fair or in accordance with divine justice or goodness to say relegate them to hell or spiritual death or whatever. Here's where the equivocation occurs. There's an important difference between the two statements.

(1) Agent A is not in a position to actually cite a particular excuse for her unbelief.  

(2) There is no condition which excuses A's unbelief.  

(1) is true of the unregenerated, but (2) is not. What's more, only (2) matters for whether or not God can justly/fairly destine unbelievers to spiritual death for all eternity for failing to believe that He exists. An analogy may be helpful at this point. Suppose that a person in the middle ages had a neurological condition from birth, which caused them to hit persons at random--it's basically like a tick and entirely involuntary. Is she morally responsible for hitting her neighbor on a particular occasion, if caused by her condition to do so? The clear answer seems to be, no. Why? Because the fact of her neurological condition which makes such acts involuntary is an excusing condition. However, suppose that there is some reason precluding her from ever citing such a reason in defense of her action. Maybe she lives in a time where the idea of neurological conditions determining behavior is hard to imagine so that she's not in a position to know that she suffers in this way. In this case, she's in no position to cite the fact that she's got a neurological condition as an excuse. The fact of the condition remains of course, but it's beyond her ken. But that doesn't mean she hasn't got an excuse. Facts about what a person can cite as an excuse and facts about what reasons there are that excuse her come apart. So when a Gangadeanian answers my expressed worry by citing that the unregenerated will never actually cite God's predeterimining on pain of unintelligibility, they simply miss the mark by conflating (1) and (2). The unregenerated have an excuse in the sense of (2) and that's what matters to whether or not it's fair or just of God to hold them morally responsible for unbelief.


2. Relatedly, at around 15:00, Gangadean tell us that "it is clear that God exists" entails that anyone of "ordinary intellectual development" and "average intelligence" can know that God exists. He speaks about how just a little reflection yields the claim that the sun for instance, cannot be eternal.  Again this connects back to inexcusability. If spiritual death (Gangadean's version of hell) is the result of not knowing that God exists, then it has to be clear, insofar as God is good/just/fair. The question to ask then is whether the fact that all people of ordinary intellectual development and average intellingence can know God exists, is enough to make it fair/just/good for God to hold unbeliever responsible for unbelief. Well, that going to be depend largely on what we mean by 'can' in the current context. The words can, and could, roughly map onto the notion of possibility. As such can/could are ambiguous. Consider the following.

a) Surrendra can raise his hand.
b) Surrendra can grow to hate philosophy.
c) Surrendra can become a billionaire.
d) Surrendra can perform miracles.
e) Surrendra can bench press 185 lbs.
f) Surrendra can win the gold medal in the next olympics in speed skating.
g) Surrendra can sprout wings and fly.

There's a sense in which each of these is true because 'can' (possibility) comes in many flavors. That's why philosophers speak of not only of what is logically possible, but also of metaphysical, causal, nomological, deontic, bouletic, possibilities (to name a few). Now the important point here is that even though there is a sense in which a)---g) are all true, it doesn't seem like it would be just/good/fair of God to hold Surrendra responsible for each of these states of affairs. Even though there's a sense in which any person could/can become a millionaire, it doesn't make sense that God would hold us all responsible if we fail to become a millionaires. Now what should we say about the idea that all persons can come to know God? Well, it's unclear because Gangadean hasn't told us exactly which sense of 'can' or 'possible' he's got in mind. Once he's done that, then we can ask whether it would be fair/good/just that God holds all persons responsible for unbelief--then we can assess whether unbelievers have an excuse. One thing is clear, mere logical possibility won't do--these are far too inclusive. To reiterate, it wouldn't be fair/or just for God to hold Surrendra responsible for failing to win Gold in the upcoming olympics, even though it's logically possible that Surrendra do so. In which case, Surrendra would have an excuse for failing to win the olympics namely, that mere logically possibility of doing so is simply not enough.

Anderson in his book makes remarks that might be construed as an answer to this problem.  He suggests that 'can' is of a conditional sort which depends on one's desires so that "All persons can know what is clear" amounts to, "If any person wants to know what is clear, then they can." Of course, this is no good because he uses 'can' on both sides of the analysis and that's the very term we want to shed light on! So I think what he meant to say is that "I can know that God exists" amounts to something like, "If I want to know what is clear, then I will." In other words, one's desire to know what is clear is sufficient for knowing what is clear. But this analysis is false. The desire to know what is clear isn't by itself sufficient to know what is clear because knowledge requires forming beliefs on the basis of good reasons. It's a process that is not identical with forming a desire! It isn't as if people get zapped with knowledge as soon as they form the desire to know the truth. The other problem has already been mentioned above. Given their commitment to Calvinism, it's ultimately up to God whether or not each person wants to know what is clear (according to Gangadean, we're all created in total depravity and God chooses who will want to know what is clear, and who won't).  And as I stated above, that means unbelievers have a monster of an excuse for their unbelief.

Not only does this analysis seem unhelpful for the reasons I've just cited, but it still leaves us wondering what the relevant sense of 'can' in "all persons can know that God exists' is. Since per Anderson's analysis, the only thing thats preventing an unbeliever from knowing God (what is clear) is their desire, then we need to ask whether a person can have a different desire. Again we're faced with the question, what sense of 'can' had Anderson got in mind? As we've just seen, for Gangadeanians like Anderson, it requires an act of God according to the for the unregenerate's desires to change (for them to go from wanting not to know what is clear to wanting to know what is clear). The will cite that if this were not so, then humans would be blank slates and there would be no causal story to tell about their actions. So short of being self-created, if we are contingent for our existence on God, and if there are causal connections between our actions and our beings, then we've got to start with something like a basic desire (or set of desires) which God creates us with. And we can't just up and change such desires at will--that is, we can't change whether or not we want to know what is clear--that's up to God. But now it seems like it's metaphysically impossible for the unregenerate to see what is clear (to know that God exists)--because the only way they can is if they want to and the only way they will want to is if God changes their hearts/minds. If this is right, then again we have to ask, what does it matter that it's "clear"? The unregenerate in their current state cannot know what is clear. So the principle of clarity seems problematic on many grounds.

3. Starting around the 30:00 mark, Gangadean starts to talk about the unity of the faith and the unity of the spirit within the church. It's difficult to take him seriously when he speaks of the importance of unity--of any sort within the church. His ministry, his teachings are largely responsible for much division among families, friends, and this among fellow Christians!

He then speaks about his so called, rational presuppositionalism. He makes a strange claim: if we agree with what is more basic, we will (not just can) agree with what is less basic. But of course, he doesn't provide an argument for this claim. The emphasis on 'will' over 'can' is fairly new, and makes his contention even stronger. And it's simply false because there's no such entailment. That is to say, it's logically possible for two persons to agree on basic claims without agreeing on less basic claims.

He then goes on to talk about 'a is a' and 'not both a and non-a at the same time in the same respect'. But there's a huge lacuna between agreeing about these things to agreeing about whether there is anything unethical about transgenderism, for instance.

I've got 6 or 7 more critiques of the lecture, so I will likely add at least 2 more posts to this series.

Anderson on Externalism (about moral knowledge).

Anderson has added another post to his blog. This time he presents a conversation about how we know what is good (vs. evil).

At the start of the dialogue that he presents the philosophical question seems to be the following.

Can someone do the right thing without knowing what is the right thing? 

The Tim character maintains an affirmative answer, but Socrates cross-examines him. Socrates wonders if Tim (or anybody for that matter) could be mistaken about what they believe is the right thing. This is sloppy (Anderson is frequently philosophically sloppy). Here's what I mean. In raising the very question, "can someone do the right thing without knowing what the right thing is?" you're supposing there is a right thing. The asker of this question and the one being questioned (call them the evaluators) had better have it as common ground (for the purposes of the discussion) that there is at least something that is the right thing to do. Otherwise, the question just doesn't make sense. Once we've fixed on something like that, for instance, that donating money to a reputable charity is the right thing, then we can ask of a third-party say, Billy-Bob, whether he could in theory donate to charity (so as to do the right thing) while not being aware that it is the right thing to do. And the answer to that question is an obvious, yes. Now, it might not count in Billy-Bob's favor that he has done the right thing, because maybe he did it by accident or because he mistakenly thought it would do harm to the recipient. That is to say, there's a separate question about whether a person who does the right thing (without knowing what is the right thing) is in some way worthy of admiration. But that's an entirely distinct matter.

So, Tim answers affirmatively that a person (say Billy-Bob) could, in principle, do what is right without himself (Billy-Bob) knowing what is right. Okay, so far so good. But then it doesn't really make sense that Anderson's Socrates in turn asks Tim whether he (Tim) might be mistaken about his beliefs concerning what is right. It doesn't make sense for two reasons. As noted above, where Tim and Soc (the evaluators) are talking about whether or not a person could do the right thing without knowing what is right, they are presupposing that there is a right thing to do and that they (Tim and Soc) know that this is so. Again, without this assumption, the question at the start becomes unintelligible (i.e., "can someone do what is right without knowing what is right?" presupposes as common ground that there is at least something we--the people having this conversation--can take for granted as right.) So it makes no sense or at least is moving into a very separate line of inquiry for Soc. to ask Tim whether he knows what's right or whether he could be wrong about what is right.

But the second and perhaps more substantive problem with Soc. line of questioning is that it shows nothing. Tim can have it both ways. That is, Tim can consistently believe that 1) people sometimes disagree and are sometimes wrong about what they believe to be right and 2) people do what is right without knowing what is right. There's nothing incompatible about the conjunction of 1) and 2). The problem that Anderson seems to be trying to get at is based on a confusion about the subject matter of the conversation.

What I suspect Anderson is trying to get at is that there are metaethical theories (in this case concerning moral epistemology) about how we know what is right. And on one family of views, we know by way of intuition (aptly named "intuitionism"). And yes there is a worry that there will be disputes that go unresolved or that if intuitionism is true, there isn't an independent way for us to verify when our intuitions are correct.

I want to say two things about this. First, this point is irrelevant to the very opening question that Tim and Soc. are supposed to be addressing. That question isn't at all about how a person like Billy-Bob can know that something is right. In fact, the question asks us to assume that a third party is ignorant (doesn't know) of what is right. So this metaethical stuff is really orthogonal.

The other thing is that every metaethical view has difficulties. Anderson and Gangadean have a very naive way of doing philosophy. They suspect that if any theory has any problems, then it is a bad theory--not worth accepting or believing. But that standard is both ignorant and entirely unfair and where consistently held, leads to skepticism.

It's important to keep in mind at this point that Anderson (and Gangadean) have their own metaethical views about how we can know what is right or good. What Anderson and Gangadean either fail to see or are just being dishonest about is that their own view also has serious problems. In fact, I will argue that a version of the very problem which Anderson intends to point out for Tim's view (the intuitionist view) exists for Anderson and Gangdean's view about how we know what is right/good!

On Anderson's view, right is a function of the good. So the right thing to do is to do what is good and the good for a thing is entailed by the nature of that thing. The problem of course is this. How do we know what the nature of a thing is? Well, according to Gangadean, we have some mysterious ability to grasp the essences of things--that's just what it is to "have" a concept. What's important here is that there is a standard of correctness. My particular concept of a chair might fail to reflect the essences of chairs and in that way it would be a concept gone awry (maybe Gangadeanians would rather say that in such a case I don't have a concept of a chair, properly). However, they choose to characterize what is going on when say I've got a concept of knowledge that differs dramatically from the concept of knowledge that Gangdaean has, so that one of us has got it wrong, a problem looms. Let me express this by way of a conversation.

Soc. How do you propose that we know what is good?

Andy. You can just reflect on the nature of things and good (for a thing) is according to the nature of a thing.

Soc. But might you be mistaken about the nature of a thing? After all, people disagree about the nature of humans, the nature of right, or even the nature of knowledge, for instance. So how do you determine which belief of yours about natures is correct and which is incorrect?

Andy. Think transcendentally. If we assume that we cannot know the nature of things, then thought and talk are not possible. But thought and talk are possible so, we can know the nature of things.

Soc. You're being thick headed and cutting things with a butcher knife when what you need is a razor blade. Let's suppose what you have said is true--all that gives me is a very general claim that for some natures, we can know them. That doesn't tell me which of my beliefs about the nature of things in particular, is in fact, correct. Here's an analogy. I want to find a good babysitter for my children and ask you what criteria I should use to distinguish the good from the bad. You respond with, "well, it must be the case that we can know that some are good and others are bad." You will not have answered my question in the least.

Andy. Okay, we can distinguish our correct beliefs about the nature of things from our incorrect ones by thinking presuppositionally--from the less basic to the more basic via good and necessary consequences.

Soc. You tire me with your vague pronouncements. Must I really do all the work? Show me exactly how "thinking presuppositionally" answers my particular question. What about presuppositional thinking brings you to your definition of 'man' as 'rational animal' or even your own definition of 'rational'? I don't see how thinking basically gets us there.

And while you're at it, how do you know when you're actually thinking presuppositionally as opposed to falsely believing that you're thinking presuppositionally? After all, it seems possible that you might be mistaken. Relatedly, how do you identify something as more basic vs. less basic? What method do you use to adjudicate disputes about what is more basic. And whatever is that method, Andy, do tell me how you know that this method is to be trusted or authoritative.

Andy. It's just obvious--if you just think about the nature of man, you will discover him to be a rational animal.

Soc. So in other words, it's something like an immediate apprehension which you can't prove.

Andy. Yes, at the very basic level, we have immediate knowledge of things.

Soc.  But could in theory be mistaken about even those judgments, right? You might be mistaken about what the essence of a human is (after all, people disagree, so somebody has got to be wrong). If so, then you're no better off than Tim (the intuitionist). You're calling it something else, but basically you're resting your case on an intuition which you can't independently verify as reporting to you truth. And if you're tempted to just flat-footedly respond that you simply can't be mistaken about the claim that the essence of humans is to be rational, then I wonder why Tim can't do the same about some of his own beliefs about what is right or about the reliability of his moral intuitions? Either way, your view suffers all the same problems as Tim's, it just took a little work to see that. All of this is starting to smell like "knowledge without proof" which is what you were riding Tim about.

Soc. Oh and before I go, notice you didn't answer a number of my questions about what method or faculty you use to determine that you are in fact, thinking presuppositionally (or determining something to be more basic than another)---and about how you know that you're not mistaken!

Anderson on Reason and Faith.

I happened across Owen Anderson's blog, Renewal Philosophy. In a recent post, he speaks briefly of the relationship between faith and reason. At the start, in speaking about the question of interest (what is reason?) he writes,

I am asking for a definition of “reason” in itself, not reason as defined by how it is used by some humans. Just like we might define “good,” or “real,” in themselves rather than giving examples of good or real things.

As is, this is sloppy. This is running two things together--although they are certainly related in important ways. On the one hand, he seems to be asking about what reason is in itself (a metaphysical question about the very nature of reason), but on the other, he speaks of definitions which is a property of words/expressions. A chair (the concrete object) doesn't have a definition, but 'chair' (the word) may have a definition. To conflate the linguistic with the metaphysical is to make a category mistake. So what he should really be saying is either

(i) I am asking for a definition of 'reason' (the single quotes indicate we're talking about the word/expression as opposed to using it).  

or 

(ii) I am asking for a theory of reason (note we're not talking about words or concepts here, we're talking about something presumably non-linguistic and its very nature). 

This isn't just me being pedantic, either. There's a deep methodological issue at stake and one that Gangadeanians commonly gloss over. I've been in many a conversations with them where I question how they know that their definitions are the correct ones. To that, the response is sometimes basically, "I don't care what the word means, I'm interesting in the nature of things not words." The problem here is that we just can't do philosophy without getting into the meaning of expressions. This is because arguments are expressed via words/expressions. First-order propositional logic (the one that gives us rules like modus ponens and modus tollens) is also known as "sentential logic" (i.e., the logic of sentences). We draw inferences from words that express propositions. So suppose Anderson wants to talk about the nature of reason (so as to adopt (ii) above), the question is whether he can shun (i). And that just seems silly. He's using the word 'reason' in order to talk about reason in itself and he wants you to come along for the ride which requires that you understand the word he is using and the manner in which he is using it (remember their mantra "meaning is more basic than truth"? Gangadean claims that you can't know whether a statement is true, without first knowing what it means!). This is abstract meta-philosophical stuff (philosophy about philosophy). And I've never been able to get any Gangadeanians to appreciate the issues, here--though academic philosophers deal in this stuff quite regularly. But the payoff is this: insofar as we express ideas/concepts via a language (as opposed to say, telepathically) in order to do philosophy, or analysis (it's called "conceptual" analysis, for a reason), we are going to have to get into definitions.

So let's assume that before we can talk about the very nature of reason, we need to figure out what the word 'reason' even means. Anderson says he wants a definition, but doesn't care about how "some" people define it. This raises an important methodological point--just whose definition should we go with? I've written on this a lot so I won't rehearse those considerations here. The slight of hand on the part of Anderson and Gangadean here is that they are being linguistic chauvinists. Without ever being explicit, and without argument, they simply assume their definition of a word like 'reason' in order to provide an analysis of reason. They never tell you this of course, and sometimes I think they just haven't been reflective enough to realize that this is just what they are doing. But basically this is what they are asking you to do when they give their spiel: "look we're just going to ignore what *some people define as 'reason', but here's our definition---and you should just take it on blind faith." Again I've hammered this point more than once before as it concerns the meaning of other important key terms like 'knowledge,' 'eternal,' 'infinite,' 'good,' evil,' 'God,' 'matter,' 'spirit,' and the like.  As I noted the importance of the meaning of words is that we evaluate many deductive inferences and ultimately arguments (as either valid or not) based on what the words mean (arguments are presented via sentences which are comprised of words/expressions). So there's a lot at stake. 

My point is that we shouldn't just take it on faith because really what they are claiming (tacitly) is that the definitions which they attach to these words are the correct ones---it's what the words mean in  English. But they do this without any arguments. But as I've mentioned before, if you want to argue that a word means X, then you had better do some empirical work to see how people use the words in the language in question. That's why Anderson's line here is so suspect. 

My point then is is that the above quote about dismissing how "some people use the word reason" should equally apply to the way that Anderson and Gangadean use the word. In other words, this is just another instance of where Anderson proposes a standard which he applies to others, but fails to apply to his own theory---it's intellectual hypocrisy. 

The Intellectual Hubris of Ending Discussions.

Lately, I've been thinking about the common practice of Gangdeanians to effectively end conversations with those with whom they fundamentally disagree. I've been wondering of the psychology involved in such a process--which is also epistemically informative. The express reason that Gangadeanians cite is that some of us are in effect, denying reason or some basic truths which are necessary for intelligible conversations. That is, further discussion, at some point, according to Gangadeanians is pointless. There are some things that we must affirm, if discussions are to have a point or even to be intelligible.

I've noted before that there might be something to this--that is, I don't necessarily disagree. But Gangadeanians play fast and loose with the term 'affirm' in this connection. To affirm a proposition, by their lights, is to in some suitable sense, fully convinced that it is true and to believe for the reasons which make it a guaranteed truth (excepting of course, when we get into their shady realm of "self-attesting" truths). But as I've pointed out elsewhere, the term 'affirm' is ambiguous in English. You might for instance, assume a claim to be true for the purposes of a discussion or investigation (as when a scientists assumes a hypothesis to be true, to see what might follow). Philosophers are no strangers to this approach--we assume, entertain, or imagine, or suppose premises all of the time in order to see what might follow from them in terms of logical implications and beyond. That's the heart of a reductio ad abusrdum for instance! None of this requires that the one affirming is certain or believes or knows (in the Gangadeanian sense) the proposition in question. So at the very least Gangadeanians do great violence to the semantics of 'affirm'. Maybe they've got some technical notion in mind---but the question is why we should follow them in adopting that special dictionary of theirs. 

The payoff is that discussions can indeed be purposeful, elucidating, instructive and the like even if we don't affirm (in the Gangadeanian sense) the basic beliefs of the Gangadeanians. At the very least, they haven't shown us that this contention is false. 

Moving beyond this fairly elementary oversight in reasoning, I started thinking about what it takes to truly understand or know what your ideological opponent believes. The fact is, there's a real problem of self-knowledge---not everything we know or believe is transparent to us. We can be fooled into thinking we believe one thing while actually believing the opposite---and I think even Gangadeanians need to grant this since they believe in such a phenomenon as "self-deception." How much more then for the beliefs that others hold. Of course, it's one thing if we're talking about very mundane beliefs. There's something of a presumption of truth when it comes to human testimony: we assume the words of others are innocent unless we have reason to think otherwise. So when I tell you that I really like sushi, then you should (in terms of epistemic rationality) believe that I like sushi. But what happens when it comes to beliefs concerning philosophical theories? I think things get much more complicated. The opacity problem that I sighted above is much more serious in this context, I think, because philosophical theories can get quite involved and convoluted. There is so much room for misunderstanding what the other person actually believes, what their views entail and what doesn't follow from their commitments and the like. I'm reminded of this quite frequently in doing philosophy. It's quite easy to, in subtle ways, misconstrue the views of another when you're playing the game of raising criticisms, even if you do so in good faith. 

It's no surprise then that philosophers frequently discuss their work with others. Before I invest too much work in a project, if I'm arguing against another philosopher, I will try to reach out to them to see if I've really understood their views, and also to see if they've got a ready response to what I am about to say. When I find a surprising view (for instance, one that seems strange or false to me) I try my best to understand why they believe what they believe---because I suspect there will be at least some considerations that lead them there that aren't entirely crazy. And sometimes, the process teaches me that I've got it all wrong and have made a mistake (big surprise, right?!). We are fallible beings. We make mistakes in reasoning, even those of us that do philosophy for a living. This is particularly the case when the material in question is very involved, depends on subtle distinctions and has many conceptual moving parts. 

So what does this have to do with the Gangadeanians? I highly doubt that they could in felicity say that they really understand where I stand on matters. What is more, based on conversations I have had with Gangadeanians, they frequently misconstrue my positions---often conflating them with nearby views in order to push over strawmen. Philosophy is hard. Knowing and understanding what someone believes about say the nature of knowledge, epistemic normativity and the like is really really hard. It takes a lot of work. It takes patience and a lot of back and forth and some humility. 

But Gangadean and his kin are frequently so quick to dismiss their critics (to end conversations) that I think there is a good chance they simply misunderstand them. I had a few conversations with Gangadean for instance, and he frequently misrepresented my views back to me, and yet still had the audacity to tell me just where we disagreed and why we couldn't continue to talk. A similar thing happened with me and some other Gangadeanians--ones that had at one time been among my friends. They simply didn't put the requisite time and effort in to really understand where I was coming from and what it was that I really believed. Instead, I suspect they simply took Gangadean at his word---and trusted that he charitably characterized my positions. Furthermore, I've been informed by multiple sources that Gangadeanians effectively ignore my arguments (and are dissuaded from reading my blog) on the basis of what their church deems as my questionable moral character. Of course that's nothing more than an ad hominem. 

I think this approach is regrettable, but more importantly it suggest some important vices. How confident they must be in their ability to understand and diagnose what another believes, to quickly cut-off dialogue and to ignore criticisms. That doesn't speak of intellectual integrity. It doesn't show a commitment to getting to the truth. No, it suggests unsubtle thinking, overinflated confidence, fear and ignorance.  

I was thinking about the asymmetry of my response in comparison to that of the Gangadeanians. And one thing I realized is that it has always been that Gangadeanians end conversations/contact. First it was Gangadean, who, after spending just a few hours talking with me, decided there was no more room for discussion because he diagnosed me as a full blooded skeptic. Then it was some of my former friends who strangely seemed to sparsely read my blog, but never bothered to talk to me about its substantive contents and instead kept arguing with me about my motivations for keeping the blog, or what they perceived as the "harsh" tone with which I wrote. Strangely, they too, one day decided in the end, that on the basis of core philosophical disagreements, we could no longer be friends. But in each case, it was their doing... I remained committed to continuing dialogue, to getting clearer on the source of our disagreements, and to understand their views, but these were clearly not shared values.

If I end conversation/relationship with you because we disagree (particularly, on complicated matters), then I close myself off from ever learning that I was mistaken. True, the chances of my error might be small depending on the context (for instance, I'm fairly confident that I understand the core of Gangadean's views because I spent years studying them), but that doesn't mean it should be dismissed outright. To have integrity on intellectual matters, to seek the truth in part, involves a commitment to not only understanding our own views or even the views that feel comfortable for us, but also to understand those views that differ from ours. It is unlikely to be realized within echo-chambers or by hiding from our critics.