The Gangadeanian Evasion

In his latest, Anderson remarks,

This is another good example of why we aren't able to assess the argument. We can't assess the argument because we don't agree on whether the laws of thought are also laws of being (ontological). You don't know if "eternal" is "non-eternal" in reality. And now you've repeated your claim that you can't know if the laws of thought apply outside of your experience ("reality beyond our experience," or your "epistemic horizons"). What is "eternal" is outside of your experience. Therefore, you won't be able to know about what is eternal due to this epistemic horizon. You won't be able to assess arguments about what is eternal. This isn't a matter of who shoulders the burden of proof. It is a matter of whether there is sufficient common ground to have mutual understanding to proceed. As I noted above, it is a loaded question to maintain these limitations and yet ask for an argument.

Spencer basically requested that Anderson show that reason (as the laws of thought) is ontological. As I stated before, "accepting that the laws of thought are ontological" is Gangadean-speak for accepting that we can know at least some very basic things about the world "out there" (mind-independent reality)--namely things like, "a thing is what it is"--in virtue of just thinking alone. Anderson here, is arguing that if Spencer doesn't "agree" that reason is ontological, then they have no basis to evaluate arguments (and thus no reason to continue talking).

It's very important at this juncture to emphasize where it seems Spencer and I part ways, as well as where Anderson/Gangadean and I both agree and disagree. I agree with Anderson/Gangadean that reason is ontological and Spencer seems to be calling this into question. Importantly, where Gangadean/Anderson and I diverge is on the matter of how it is that we know a thing like this and whether or not we can be absolutely certain of it. I know such things on the basis of an intuition (non inferentially)--it just strikes me as obviously true, which is bad according to Gangadean. I'm not sure how they get can consistently affirm such claims without the employment of intuitions at some level. I suspect they think that there's some sort of reductio--that if you assume reason is not ontological, while inquiring into reality by way of reason, then you're just obviously stuck in some sort of contradiction or absurdity. But how they know that it is in fact an absurdity without an appeal to a non-inferential judgment (aka intuition) is beyond me. Maybe team-Gangadean just doesn't know what the word 'intuition' means and that's where the worldview got off on the wrong foot.

At any rate, this is why I've never denied the claim that for example, 'a thing is what it is'. Remember, the only thing I've repeatedly called into question is how Ganagdeanians can consistently decry the use of intuitions while requiring a high standard of knowledge (via either deductive proof or "self-attesting" principles) and at the same time claim to know with certainty that reason is ontological (among other things). My claim is that if you adopt their epistemic standards consistently you will land yourself in an extreme kind of skepticism. I worry that most Gangadeanians just aren't being careful enough in understanding my views so that they conflate my asking them to show how they know something on the one hand, with my denying that thing on the other. Clearly, these two come apart. (E.g, Gangadeanians frequently ask fellow Theists to prove that God exists, but that doesn't entail that Gangadeanians deny God's existence!)

So with these considerations in mind, it should be apparent that Anderson's move above, of citing the lack of common ground to evaluate arguments, won't work in relation to any of my objections. That is to say, I believe (and even take myself to know) that reason is ontological and yet I still find Gangadean's arguments really terrible. Now the curious thing is that, Gangadean actually ended discussions with me years ago citing that we didn't have enough common ground. So what gives?

Well, Gangadean was just not thinking clearly during our interactions. Frequently, he would try to get me to "admit" that I denied the laws of thought. Just as frequently, I would point out how I didn't deny the laws of thought and that he was missing the point of my concerns. Instead I was merely calling into question whether we could (rationally) be absolutely certain that they were true as Gangadean was insisting (I also questioned whether we needed to be certain). And he really struggled to keep these two things apart (maybe he didn't want to?) as did other Gangadeanians with whom I spoke. Hence, he ultimately dismissed me from the conversation citing that we didn't have enough "common ground." Of course, that's false. As I've already pointed out on more than one occasion, even if I don't think we can have (or need) the kind of Gangadeanian certainty about basic things, I can (with consistency) believe or even know the very same things, because neither belief nor knowledge requires Gangadeanian certainty in the first place (at the very least they haven't proven otherwise). So that means I can affirm basic distinctions, have knowledge, meaning, and of course, intelligible philosophical debates about reality. In other words, we had plenty of common ground, Gangadean was just being hasty and small-minded. So, he discontinued discussions with me on the basis of a pretty glaring mistake. Gangadean had this weird hang up that we had to go further--not only must we agree that 'a is a' (and the like) if we are to have intelligible discussions, but we also had to agree that we could be absolutely certain that 'a is a' by way of reason. Did he ever argue for this further point? Of course not--it was nothing more than a strange bias.

My theory is that at some point, Gangadean and some of his followers may have begun to figure out that my position is more nuanced than they had initially appreciated. Perhaps they finally see that they can't justifiably cite the lack of common ground as a reason to avoid engaging with me, as Anderson is attempting to do with Spencer and as Gangadean once mistakenly did with me. My objections all grant the laws of thought, and that reason is ontological because I believe those things (even if I don't agree that we can have or even need Gangadeanian certainty concerning them). So what can they do? Sadly, they can't answer my objections head on (at least they've given me no reason to believe that they can). The answers are simply not there. To attempt to do so would only reveal that Gangadean's life work has been predicated on a series of rather basic mistakes. So they resort to discrediting me personally and engage with only those dissenters that they can exclude from the conversation by the standard Gangadeanian move of citing the lack of common ground.

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Postscript: I should add that I'm not suggesting that Anderson's latest "response" to Spencer is all that good either. It really is a kind of red-herring. If the question to Anderson is, how do you justify the claim that an eternal mind (in time) is necessarily omniscient? Anderson hasn't answered that.  One way to frame the question is that it's one about the internal consistency of Anderson's worldview--since he and Gangadean themselves require rational justification for all of their own beliefs (unless they count as so called "self-attesting" principles), we can read Spencer as asking whether Anderson can show that this belief (that an eternal mind in time is necessarily omnisicient) is rationally justifiable working from his own assumptions. Framed in those terms the common ground required seems very minimal and I don't see why they must agree that reason is ontological. If they grant certain basic rules of inference and the meaning of certain sentences and expressions like 'eternal' and 'omnsicient', they should be able to determine whether or not Anderson can provide a reason for his belief which coheres suitable within his own worldview. Anderson might have a point that there's something absurd about positively denying that reason gets us to mind-independent reality in the course of a philosophical debate (insofar as it's about mind-independent reality), but that's just a different discussion altogether. My point is that one can accept that reason is ontological and raise Spencer's worries ( I'm the one that originally raised the worry) because nothing about the objection hinges on the denial of reason being "ontological." We are now 25 comments in and still without an answer. Evasion indeed.

Here's a thought for Anderson: post your answer to the challenge in the comments so that other people following the conversation can benefit, even if you don't think Spencer can.

Important Distinctions about Attitudes.

For those still following the Youtube exchange, I noticed Anderson has posted a couple of new responses (yet still no answer to the original question!). He seems to be a bit confused. For one thing, Anderson appears to be conflating things I've said with those that Spencer has said in the exchange. Case in point: Spencer talks about things "beyond (Gangadean's) epistemic horizon" and Anderson keeps using that phrase. But he's entirely missed Spencer's original point. I take it that the original point is captured in this quote from Spencer.

Also, Gangadean seems to be unjustly assuming that no facts exist beyond his epistemic horizon. If his soul were eternal in time, it could still be the case that a set of undiscoverable facts exist, given his epistemic limitations. Donald Rumsfeld famously called such facts "unknown unknowns".

The point there is just that there are some things that we don't or can't know. For some reason Anderson keeps trying to force a non-sequitur, here as if a kind of extreme skepticism should follow if what Spencer says here is true. But everyone should grant that there are some things that we don't/can't know (e.g., the current position of every electron in the universe). And the reason that Anderson seems to think skepticism follows from "there are some things we don't/can't know" is that he somehow takes this to entail that "reason is not ontological." But I just don't see the connection.

Anderson writes,

We still aren't in agreement if we can even assess arguments. If reason isn't ontological, reason doesn't apply to being, then it won't matter whether there is or is not a contradiction because perhaps there are contradictions in reality. I think reason is ontological. As I understand it you aren't sure one way or the other. So you aren't saying it isn't, but you also aren't saying it is. Perhaps the eternal is non-eternal and you've reached your epistemic horizons.

Again, I think that he's getting his wires crossed. He seems to be picking up on the point that I (not Spencer) raised about doubting or calling into question the proposition that some things are clear/certain in the way that Gangadean defines 'clear' or 'certain'. And then he's gone on to talk about whether or not reason is ontological (rather than about the principle of clarity). Spencer's original claim doesn't call either of those into question. Maybe Anderson is confusing his quantifiers here and reading "there are some things we can't know" with "everything is such that we can't know it."

Still, I want to address Anderson's remarks head-on because I think they'll be instructive and will help those unfortunate souls still attempting to follow the rather confusing conversation on Youtube. To do so, let's imagine he's talking to someone like me, someone that is unsure that the principle of clarity is true, and likewise uncertain that reason is ontological. What I want to explore is whether or not being unsure that reason is ontological entails that one cannot meaningfully evaluate any arguments or make basic distinctions as he seems to charge above. This is just another iteration of the standard Gangadeanian, boogeyman approach which I spoke about here---if you deny that we can be certain of basic things, then something absurd follows.

I'll use the proposition that "reason is ontological" as our target claim. To say "reason is ontological" is just a fancy way of saying that, at least sometimes, our beliefs reflect reality (the way the world is). To say that one is not certain or has doubts concerning it, is not the same as outright denying the claim or affirming the opposite. So if I say that I am not certain that reason is ontological, what I'd be saying is that I'm not certain that our beliefs ever accurately reflect reality. Now it turns out that there is more than one way to not be sure that something is the case. I'll enumerate three. 

1) No belief: I might have no opinion whatsoever about some issue--say because I've never even thought about it. If I have no opinion about whether or not reason is ontological (for example), then I'm not certain that it is.  

2) Indifference: I could believe that it is equally likely that reason is ontological and that it isn't. That's not quite the same as the above state because at least I have some sort of attitude towards the proposition, but it's one of ambivalence. We might model this by saying that I assign .5 to the proposition that reason is ontological and .5 to the proposition that it isn't, for example. Again, if I'm in this state (i.e., I think it's a toss up) regarding a proposition, then I'm not certain that it's true. 

3) Uncertain Belief: But there's a third way. I could believe that reason is ontological, without being absolutely certain that it is. For instance, I might believe that reason is ontological but also that it's at least possible that I'm wrong, even though unlikely (perhaps even very unlikely). One way to describe my state is that I believe that it is more likely than not (perhaps, vastly so) that reason is ontological. If you want to model this in terms of probabilities, then my belief here in the proposition that reason is ontological is going to be any value that is greater than .5, but less than 1 (it might even be very close to 1). In fact, most of our beliefs are going to fall into this category.

I think Anderson is trying to force someone like me (and perhaps Spencer) to say that their view about reason being ontological, is akin to the state of indifference described in 2). That's perhaps because in Anderson's mind, if you are thoroughly ambivalent about whether or not your beliefs ever reflect reality, then I guess consistency demands that you adopt the same ambivalence in your beliefs about basic distinctions (being vs. non-being). This in turn is supposed to be absurd and hence grounds to accept wholeheartedly that reason is ontological (or deny your original ambivalence). I don't see how that follows, but I won't press the point, here. We can grant Anderson that questionable inference and still resist his main approach. The main takeaway here is that 3) describes a manner in which one can have it both ways. One can be less than sure (unsure) that reason is ontological, believe that it is, and thus have every basis to draw basic distinctions, evaluate arguments, and whatever other activity that the Gangdeanians take to be important, as I've already argued here.

My most recent posts and memes have been circling a set of related distinctions which Gangadeanians like Anderson have not taken sufficient care to track.

Morpheus recently taught us that

A person can (consistently) be less than sure that P, without believing that P is false.  

A person can (consistently) doubt that we can be certain that P, without believing that P is false. 

The "think about it" dude taught us that

A person can (consistently) doubt that anything is clear to reason, while taking themselves to know all kinds of things (i.e, skepticism isn't rationally required for those that call into question the principle of clarity). 

And now we can add to our list:

A person can (consistently) be less than sure that P, while believing (even, confidently) that P. 

Anderson Youtube Convo Update

The saga on Youtube continues. But a philosophical discussion it has yet to become. Anderson writes,

By way of contrast, we needn't be involved in using insults or dishonesty. "Sloppy" and "lazy" are unnecessary insults. "Cult" is used because he is being dishonest about events behind anonymity. "Cult" has a specific meaning and does not apply to historic Christianity. So it doesn't follow that if he is right about our views being false then we are a cult. That would just mean that historic Christianity (as summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith) is false. It is an insulting term being used dishonestly and shuts down conversation. Much of what needs to be addressed is private and cannot be replied to on a public blog To say we won't engage with him because we don't have an answer, as opposed to because of his own behavior, is a perfect example of the dishonesty. 

I hope you can see why your involving yourself with a source exhibiting such behavior is much more problematic than simply saying you think we are incorrect. You can come up with objections yourself without citing that kind of source. I'm not interested in having a proxy discussion with him through you. His private conduct toward me and others, and continued use of insults, is the reason I don't interact with him in public spaces.  

If you want to address the question of "what is eternal?" in good faith can we agree not to engage in that kind of behavior?

Calling Gangadeanian arguments/reasoning sloppy or lazy, hardly strikes me as insulting in the first place--its a colorful way of conveying the idea that the arguments are unsophisticated, imprecise, and bad. If you really think these words count as insults then you've lead a sheltered life. It's also a bit rich for the Gangadeanians, given the way they have treated me and others, to expect that I would in turn be so careful of what adjectives I use to spare their feelings. In the end, if they want to hide behind the fact that I've used words like, "sloppy" and "lazy," as a way of rationalizing why they are not dealing with my philosophical objections, that's on them. At least, Anderson's list of what counts as an insult seems to have narrowed from his initial one.

Further, Anderson claims that I'm not only being insulting in using the term "cult" (I believe I've done this only once) to refer to his church, but also dishonest. On the contrary, I maintain that I'm being sincere. All I mean when I apply that label to Gangadean/Anderson's church is that it has many of the bad-making features of paradigmatic cults and I know many others that agree. How do you decide when something is a cult? You start with paradigms (e.g., Scientology) and then when you see a family resemblance (to a significant degree), you apply the label. I'm sure members that belong to what most of us would refer to as a cults, would likewise find the term insulting, but the label is no less apt (let alone, dishonest) just because of that fact. Of course, Anderson may ultimately disagree with my evaluations, but to call me dishonest in my usage of the term seems to be insinuating that I'm attempting to mislead my readers with malintent. That couldn't be further from the truth. I genuinely believe Westminster Fellowship is a religious cult--maybe I'll add a post in the near future detailing why.

The portions of Anderson's most recent comment, which I put in bold, are interesting. To the first: Anderson again alleges that I'm being dishonest in suggesting the possibility that Anderson and other Gangadeanians actually don't have answers to my challenges, and that's the reason they won't engage. I may have said something of this nature in some of my posts. But again I'm not being dishonest. It's a hypothesis which is supported by several pieces of evidence.

First, it stems from my personal interactions with Gangadean, Anderson and some others, as well as, the interactions of others that I know. Even before I made this blog public, I encountered the very sort of evasion techniques that I suspect are being employed now in the Youtube exchange. It was very frequently, "I've got the answer to your challenge, but (for some reason) I won't just come out and tell you what it is. First, we have to get the basic things in place. But trust me, I've got the answers..." (One possible exception can be seen here. Unfortunately, Anderson in attempting to answer me directly, when Gangadean refused, presented me a terrible argument, and the exchange is not entirely free from evasive manuevers). If you really have the answers, why not just state them, and see if your opponent finds them plausible? You might be pleasantly surprised that they do and then you can move on! But if you find that there's disagreement, you can easily work backwards to show how your "answer" follows from more basic commitments. In turn you can then shift to talk about those more basic issues. It's not hard. In contrast, when you merely dangle the promise of an answer, without ever stating what that answer is, it looks suspect. It looks like you're buying yourself more time. To date there are 19 comments between Spencer and Anderson, but not a single one provides us with Anderson's "answer" to the original objection. There's a list of related issues, a bunch of counter-questions, a few promises that Anderson has got an answer, and then a disproportionate number of comments about me as the source of the original objection, my personal/moral character, and even Spencer's affiliation with me. That, too is suggestive. But there's more. Gangadeanians have a history of "ending discussions" with people with whom they disagree on grounds that they "deny reason." And this "diagnosis" frequently emerges in the process of "getting the more basic things in place." What this means is that it's frequently the case that the Gangadeanians fail to present the purported response (which they swear they have) to the challenges.

Finally, I've presented my objections and they seem to me (and a number of other philosophers with whom I've spoken) correct such that in some cases there seems no way that Gangadean can address them while remaining consistent to his other commitments. Relatedly, Gangadean and Anderson are claiming to have proven all kinds of substantive views which virtually no living philosopher would say can even in principle be proven. So, what I'm contending is that when we consider all of these facts together, the most plausible explanation is that the Gangadeanians are simply finding ways of evading difficult objections. That's why he and his people refuse to answer my challenges head on and hide behind this noise about slander and insults. In fact, I suspect this is in part, how Gangadean has managed to influence his followers for so long despite having really bad arguments. Basically, find some way to avoid addressing the difficult issues, and disqualify from conversations, those who continue to press you on them. Again, Anderson might disagree with me here, (and he could easily settle the matter by just answering an objection directly), but then it would be more appropriate to say he believes that I'm wrong as opposed to accusing me of being dishonest. I'm not trying to pull a fast one on anybody.

Finally, Anderson also made mention of my "private conduct towards him and others" as yet another reason why he refuses to interact with me in public. I assure you there's no scandalous story about why we no longer speak, at least on my end. I won't post the details on this blog because I don't want to stoop to that level, but if you want to know more about what happened between Anderson and me, just shoot me an email--I'm happy to share. Fortunately, I've still got the email where Anderson told me exactly why he didn't want to interact with me any longer so there will be less room for him to manipulate the narrative.

As for my "private conduct towards others," I have no idea what he's talking about. Since he's accusing me of personal misconduct with other Gangadeanians, I hope he can offer some sort of evidence that I misbehaved, otherwise he's the one being dishonest. All of my interactions with other Gangadeanians stopped either because Gangadean directed most of the congregation not to speak with me or in the case of my "close friends," they decided that we had no basis for a friendship in virtue of the fact that I maintain this blog and I (allegedly) deny what is clear to reason--there's no more to the story.

A Gangadeanian merely *thinks* that the principle of Clarity is true, but can't show that it is?

In a comment on my last post, Spencer directed me to the following talk given by a long time Gangadeanian, Kelly Fitzsimmons-Burton entitled, "What is Christian Philosophy?" As Spencer notes, Kelly says the following at the 26:49 mark.

"I am still learning... so what I'm going to say is that I *think* this is true...that there's this principle of clarity, that is, uh, part of philosophy--somethings are clear--and it's part of scripture. That part I'm not willing to let go of. But what I am willing to let go of is that I've gotten to clarity and I can show it to you...but I'm not willing to let go of this principle of clarity."

Kelly has been under Gangadean's direct instruction for decades. Somehow though, according to what she says here, she isn't in a position to prove that the principle of clarity (that some things are clear) is true. The essence of my last post about Gangadean's failure to show that we need clarity is pertinent---because the standard way that he tries to prove the principle of clarity is by purporting to show that if it's false, absurdities like skepticism and nihilism are sure to follow. Instead, Kelly seems to be saying that she simply chooses to assume that the principle is true. In other words, it's an article of faith. I don't have issues with philosophers assuming principles that they can't prove in general. We all gotta start somewhere--and any non-Gangadeanian philosopher is happy to admit this much. But for a Gangadeanian to do so is, quite surprising. Indeed this is what I've been trying to point out all along--that despite Gangadean's pronouncements (and criticisms of other philosophers for appealing to unproven principles), he, too must start with some basic articles of faith. Of course, Kelly hasn't said that Ganagdean himself is unable to prove the principle of clarity--but how strange for him to be able to do so, while someone under decades of his instruction, is unable. Surely, the proof can't be that complicated or hidden from his own followers--particularly, those that are as learned as Kelly.

I wonder if this means that Kelly isn't able to show that God's existence is clear to reason? Or what about the so called "laws of thought?" This would follow because if she could show anything to be clear, then she would have shown that the principle of clarity is true--that some things are clear to reason. Maybe she meant that she can't prove that some things must be clear vs. some things are clear. This would mean she misspoke because she explicitly says the principle of clarity is that some things are clear. Morever, since Gangadean rests his entire worldview on the necessity (rather than the actuality) of clarity, I don't see how that would help, either. So, I am not without some confusion.

There's a part of me that really appreciates this level of honesty from Kelly, though--at least if we take what she says at face value. I've never heard such a thing from a Gangadeanian (this isn't a jab--I'm being sincere about my experiences). Undoubtedly, the Ganagdeanians will find a way to explain this away--they will probably say that I'm misunderstanding or misconstruing what she has said, or that she simply misspoke although it's more likely that they'll just remain silent. Maybe they'll even cite the fact that she stated that she can't prove a conjunction (that the principle is "part of philosophy and scripture") so as to retain the principle in relation to at least one, but not both domains---although I think that would not help very much. One thing they won't provide is a proof that the principle of clarity is true. A tip of the hat to Spencer for bringing this to quote to my attention.

p.s. I've downloaded the file to my computer, just in case the link suddenly goes dead.

If we don't need Clarity, then Gangadeanian's worldview is bust.

If you're like me, you just don't get why we need clarity (as Gangadean defines it) at the basic level, or any level for that matter. Now here's a conditional that even Gangadeanians will agree with.

If we don't need clarity, then the Gangadeanian philosophy is a non-starter. 

What is more, Gangadeanians are the ones claiming that we need clarity to begin with, so I think it's reasonable for us to expect some sort of argument. And since Gangadean requires that we show how our most basic assumptions are clear to reason, he ought also to agree with the following stronger conditional.

If Gangadean fails to show that it is clear that we need clarity, then the Gangadeanian philosophy is a non-starter. 

Gangadean has a few boogeymen up his sleeve which he says follow from the lack of clarity--that's essentially his case for the need for clarity. On his view, if we assume that there is no clarity, then certain absurdities (intuitively) follow. So, goes the argument, our working assumption (the lack of clarity) must be false. Here are the two big alleged absurdities.

1) Skepticism: in its extreme form is the view that we can't know anything. Gangadean claims that if the basic things are not clear, then we cannot have knowledge (i.e,. skepticism follows). In fact, on the very first page of his book, he seems to identify skepticism with the denial of the proposition that some things are clear.

I've said it numerous times that there's not actually an argument where we need one most. Why should we think that knowledge requires clarity at the basic level, in the first place? So Gangadean has failed to show that we need clarity to avoid skepticism because he's failed to show that knowledge requires clarity/certainty.

Interestingly, in his book (pg. 35), he merely presupposes a particular analysis of knowledge (a version of the justified true belief theory of knowledge). After presenting the three conditions of the Justified True Belief analysis, he writes,

"These three conditions are said to be necessary and sufficient for knowledge" (35, emphasis mine). 

Of course the natural questions are: Said by whom? And more importantly: Why should we take their word for it? What I found interesting is that he adds in a footnote (1) that this is in accordance with the theory of knowledge attributed to Plato in the Theatatus and the Meno. So basically, it's Plato's theory of knowledge (on a particular interepration) and Gangadean just takes for granted that Plato was correct. That's no good especially when virtually all living philosophers disagree with the Justified True Belief analysis of knowledge! We should expect him to use reason to settle this dispute about what knowledge is between him and the rest of us. (This is why I keep pressing the Gangadeanians for an actual defense of their theory of knowledge as opposed to a statement of it).

As a side note: I was just listening to a talk given by a Gangadeanian named Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton on "What is Knowledge?"  At the 25:12 mark, she talks about the need for "certainty." Her remarks were reminiscent of my last personal conversation with Gangadean. She (undoubtedly following Gangadean) says that at some point we can't get around the need for certainty. Then she says something about an alternative--where one might propose to believe things to various degrees of confidence (i.e., assign probabilities to propositions that are less than certain). Of course, we can model certainty with probabilities, too, so this is a bit imprecise (I daresay, sloppy). But I think what she meant to say was that even someone who thinks we should only assign probabilities that are less than 1 (or more than 0) to propositions can't get around the need for certainty at some point. And then she makes the very same egregious error that Gangadean once made with me. She states that a person can only form probability judgments over propositions if there is some standard of probability of which they are certain. But I have no idea what rationally justifies that last bit. Why can't a thoroughgoing probabilist consistently assign less than 1 (or more than zero) to propositions, including propositions about which probabilities they ought to assign and the very proposition that they ought to assign probabilities instead of being certain? I've pointed out before that there is nothing inconsistent or self-referentially absurd about this. But I welcome any Gangadeanian to provide an argument showing otherwise.

2) Nihilism/meaninglessness: Gangadean also writes, on the first page of his book,

"Consistently held, skepticism leads to nihilism--the loss of all meaning." 

But as we've just seen, he hasn't shown that we need clarity in order to avoid skepticism. In which case, the lack of clarity need not lead to nihilism. But maybe there's a different way to argue from the lack of clarity to nihilism. Here's how that usually goes.

Without clarity at the basic level, basic distinctions between "being and non-being, eternal and non-eternal, good and evil," collapse. And we need such basic distinctions not to collapse in order to have meaning. 

Unfortunately, this is no better. What does it mean that basic distinctions "collapse" in the relevant sense? And why should we worry ourselves of such collapsing? Well I hardly think Gangadean is making a metaphysical point. That would make him out to be an idiot. That is, he surely isn't saying "if I see no way of telling apart an oak tree from an elm tree, then there is no difference." He doesn't buy into that kind of idealism. Hence, he must be making an epistemological claim--that's what he must mean by basic distinctions "collapsing." Something like, if we can't be certain of anything, then we can't make basic distinctions like distinguishing between being and non-being. But while this is a tad better, it still falls short. This is no different than what I pointed out about Anderson's recent mistake.

The only thing that I can see that follows about basic distinctions from "nothing is clear" is that "basic distinctions are also not clear." That follows trivially. If we cannot be absolutely certain of anything, then it follows that we likewise can't be absolutely certain that there's a distinction between being and non-being. But that's very different from saying we can't (consistently) make basic distinctions. There's a gap to close here between being absolutely certain about a distinction on the one hand, and being able to make or draw the distinction, to use the distinctions in your reasoning, to form rational beliefs based on those distinctions and even to believe that for instance, 'a is not, non-a'.

Perhaps we couldn't have meaning if we were in no rational position to make, draw, or use basic distinctions in our lives. I could see how that might affect one's ability to make decisions, form beliefs and the like which would perhaps threaten one's ability to have meaning. But I see no reason to think that we have to be certain of basic distinctions if we are to have meaning--which is Gangadean's claim.

In fact, we can be less than certain of these distinctions and rationally (and consistently) make them in thinking about the world. And the fact that I can't have certainty that being is different from non-being doesn't entail that I can't be rational in believing that there's a difference. Just like it doesn't entail that I can't draw/make them for reasoning about what to do. In fact, on many theories of knowledge, I can even know that there's a difference between being and non-being (for example) without being certain that there is. Insofar as I can (consistently) do all of these things in relation to basic distinctions, there's no threat of nihilism. So I can see no need for clarity on grounds of the threat of nihilism. Again, we are desperate need of arguments.

Either prove that we can't rationally make or draw or use or believe in basic distinctions without being absolutely certain of the distinctions or else prove that meaningless somehow follows despite our being able to make, draw, use and believe in basic distinctions.

For good measure: there's yet another way we may construe what Gangadean means when he threatens the collapsing of basic distinctions. Perhaps the claim is through and through metaphysical. Something like,

If there is not a (metaphysical) distinction between being and non-being, then no meaning is possible. 

This is a bit better, I suppose, maybe if there really is no difference between something and nothing, then nihilism follows. First, this is still shy of anything resembling an argument--it's a stand alone claim. More significantly, the problem with this reading is that it's entirely disconnected from the principle of clarity which is an epistemological thesis. Someone like me is not denying that there are no distinctions (metaphysically speaking). Instead, I'm calling into doubt that we can (rationally) be sure of/certain of such distinctions (and whether we need to be) which is an epistemological issue. So this reading of what Gangadean might be up again seems to offer no help in the current context.

I started out by presenting a conditional that even Gangadean himself would agree with (or at least consistency would require that of him).

If Gangadean fails to show that it is clear that we need clarity, then the Gangadeanian philosophy is a non-starter. 

And I've argued that the antecedent is true. He has yet to prove that either skepticism or nihilism follows from the lack of clarity. That means (by way of logical inference) that the consequent must be true. The Gangadeanian worldview is a non-starter. 

ps: I should add that in speaking with Christians, Gangadean sometimes connects the need for clarity to inexcusability, the controversial theological doctrine that all persons are held responsible by God for unbelief. But keep in mind that that approach isn't going to work in the context of the present challenges because he would need to presuppose certain parts of Christian theism (e.g., the theological doctrine of inexcusability) to argue for the need for clarity which is putting the cart in front of the horse. 

Picking on the Gangadeanians?

There are many philosophers and even theologians with whom I disagree. There are lots of questionable ideas out there. A former friend of mine, and current Gangadeanian, once complained to me about keeping this blog while not having a similar blog about others with whom I disagree. Besides the fact that this is analogous to asking a person why they ever specialize in any particular field (my time and energy is limited, just like yours), he wasn't appreciating how, from my vantage point, the Gangadeanians are particularly worrisome.

It's not simply the fact that Gangadean makes outlandish claims qua philosopher/theologian though it's certainly a concern. For example, he thinks he's solved the Gettier problem (or answered all Gettier style counterexamples to the JTB account of knowledge) within a few paragraphs while somehow, epistemologists over the last 40 or so years have collectively failed (nevermind, that he only considers Gettier's original cases and ignores the more difficult ones). Relatedly, he thinks he's proven the one correct theory of knowledge. He even thinks he's answered the external world skeptic, head on! He claims to have proven that substance dualism is true (and thus all other theories of mind/consciouness are false) in a quick argument. He's claims to have proven that matter can't possibly be eternal and ultimately that the God of Christian theism (as a personal spiritual being with attributes like justice, mercy, intelligence, free will and the like) exists to the extent that any and all atheists/agnostics are simply denying reason (and "without excuse") for not believing that God exists. What is more, he's proven that Christianity (and in particular, his reformed brand) is the one true belief system, so that any non-Christian is being irrational. He thinks he's proven that compatibilism about free will and moral responsibility is true and that libertarian theories are clearly false. He claims to have solved the problem(s) of evil for theism (again a problem that Christian philosophers have grappled with for centuries). He's even gone so far as to claim that he's proven that the bible is the inspired word of God, by way of deductive inferences! Even the ten commandments can be deduced by reason alone and so that he's proven that the correct first-order theory in ethics is a kind of Christian natural law/teleological account--i.e., the ongoing debates within both metaethics and normative ethics are essentially a fool's errand, because he can prove his theory of right, good and value in an watertight fashion so that believing anything contrary would be the result of denying reason. He even claims to have the one true method or system by which many of the philosophical disagreements and theological disputes that make up professional philosophy and theology, respectively, can be solved (rational presuppositionalism). If we would all just think of the less basic in light of the more basic, we would all come to agree on many of the former. All of this and much more simply by starting with "affirming" the laws of thought as true and ontological. A thing is what it is. A thing is what is it is and not the opposite. A thing is either X or ~X---there's no in between. These trivialities + reasoning from the armchair, he maintains, can give you absolute certainty about various metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and religious claims. All of us, the countless professional philosophers living today and throughout all of history, and the vast majority of theologians both living and dead, have all somehow missed it despite all of the time and effort put into figuring it all out. We all missed it despite it being so clear.  We missed how to think critically--so that we merely have the appearance of doing so, but we've ultimately failed to have integrity, to think consistently about our basic assumptions, in short, we've (the VAST majority of philosophers and theologians, academics, as well as, humanity at large) neglected, avoided, resisted and denied reason. Anybody (at least the "regenerated" of us) could have figured it all out. But we didn't. Fortunately, Gangadean alone, somehow, got it. This young student of philosophy in Arizona, he somehow managed to get the truth that all of us have been missing and continue to miss, and then dedicated the rest of his life to developing it. The method, the arguments, the truth. He is in effect, the most reasonable (non-divine) person, to have ever lived. I find all of this simply incredible. I just can't imagine what is going on in the mind of a person that believes this about themselves and about all others. Of course, I don't leave it at my incredulity--I give you arguments. This blog, to date, has 112 published posts, many of which are dedicated to showing where his arguments go wrong. But my worries aren't just about how wild Gangadean and Anderson's views are, since again, I've encountered lots of incredible claims (though not quite to this extent) in my time as a philosopher. Let me explain.

Most of the other philosophers/theologians with whom I disagree, are not in the business of proselytizing in the manner that the Gangadeanians are. They aren't on college campuses trying to add members to their church by approaching undergraduates with little to no prior background in philosophy with specious reasoning. They aren't claiming that anybody that disagrees with them about "basic things" is denying reason itself. Gangadeanians believe that it's their God-given calling to teach Gangadean's philosophy and theology (the principle of clarity and related doctrines) at schools, which to them is tantamount to taking the gospel message (as they see it) to the world or to "make disciples of all nations." More importantly, neither is it the case that the other philosophers/theologians with whom I disagree are doing the sort of harm that Gangadean's church has a history of causing. Lot's of families have been divided, and friendships severed over the years, because of Gangadean's teachings and the practices of his church. If you believe that anyone that disagrees with you about the so called "basic things" are being irrational, and desire not to seek the truth, which is tantamount to being a fundamentally immoral person (because sin, according to Gangadean is rooted in not seeking what is clear), then this is going to incline you to treat such persons in certain ways. Over the several years that I've kept this blog, I have received emails from a number of persons who have a family member(s) or friend(s) that attends Gangdean's church and all of them have reported some amount of damage that has occurred to the relationship as a result. It's a pattern. Relatedly, some of these persons are concerned over the well-being of the younger children (with whom they are also related) that attend the church in virtue of the parents being Gangadeanians. Not only am I concerned about such cases, but I'm also concerned about the fate of some of the current Gangadeanians, that will, like me, come to question the worldview--their's is a difficult and painful road ahead. To be convinced that the basic things are "clear to reason" and that they need to be only to find that things aren't. That's part of why I single out the Gangadeanians and perhaps also why I may seem indignant at times. They aren't just throwing around bad ideas. They aren't just being dishonest, intellectually. They are hurting people.

Just another Anderson update.

Anderson's latest reply includes the following.

In my own case I'm ok with some formulations of externalism. And some forms of fallibilism seem to be restatements of the doctrine of total depravity and thus potentially have Calvinist origins! One of the things my first book was about is precisely this point of how the fall affects us in our pursuit of knowledge.

None of this is meant to be a "cheap apologetic ploy" to label you as someone who "denies reason." It seems to be just the opposite given how you began the conversation quoting someone who regularly uses insults. The same points and questions can be made without sinking to that level. Using terms like cult, ilk, Gangadeaneans, lazy, sloppy, is public on that blog and something you can see for yourself. By associating with that and not asking him to make the same points without sinking so low you've shaped how your question is heard. It is too bad and maybe it can be reversed by you noting it as a problem now that it has been more specifically brought to your attention. But your affiliation with that behavior does shape how you and I interact until you distance yourself from it.

In the first part, he's speaking to the fact that he thinks Spencer misrepresented him as an infallibilist/internalist/foundationalist about knowledge/justification. And I gave reasons why he fits squarely in the infallibilist/internalist camp, last time. But here, he's saying that he finds fallibilism and externalism okay, in some forms. Interestingly, he hedges with "in my own case". So maybe he and Gangadean actually disagree about some basic things? I find that hard to accept since Gangadean is so much about how we must agree on the more basic things if we are to agree on the less basic. Hopefully, he explains in more detail what he means by "some formulations of externalism" as well as "some forms of fallibilism." My guess is that he's going to have to play fast and loose with the term to make it work. And again, I can't make sense of his various posts disparaging externalists views for core features which all externalist views share (that we can either be justified by facts that we aren't in a position to verify as true, or that we can know things for which we have no justification)! The ironic twist is that I do think, ultimately, at the most basic level, he's going to have to be an externalist (as I pointed out in this post) about some things and the problem for him and Gangadean will then be whether they have a principled way of distinguishing between what they deem "acceptable" forms of externalism vs. the "bad" forms.

I have some suspicions about what he might say about fallibilism based on my conversations with him in the past. Back in the day, he and I had chatted about a controversial theory called epistemic contextualism, which is the view that the word 'knowledge' might be ambiguous so that it in some way picks out various kinds of justificatory statuses (or more accurately: is associated with varying truth conditions, depending on the context of utterance). Anderson then suggested to me that at the basic level we need knowledge that entails certainty/clarity, but that perhaps, at less basic levels, maybe we don't. So that could be what he is up to when he says that he's okay with some forms of fallibilism. But I don't see the relevance here, which makes me think again this is all red-herring. The challenges that Spencer was bringing up and that I've been bringing up concern our epistemic situation in relation to propositions which Gangadean (and Anderson) take to be among the most basic. So, if this is all Anderson means by "being okay with some forms of fallibilism," it's of no help and he's needlessly muddying the pool. Does he or does he not accept that we can only know the most basic things if we form our beliefs about them in a manner which guarantees their truth? If he does, then he's an infallibilist in the relevant sense. In other words, all I mean in representing Anderson or Gangadean as infallilists about knowledge is that they are so about at least the most basic things---and that's really all I focus on in this blog (e.g., their arguments for God, the Good, the problem of evil, GR to SR, etc). When dealing with the Gangadeanians, you have to work hard at not getting distracted by such smoke screens, but it can get tiring.

Additionally, in the above quote, Anderson charges that I have insulted him and other Gangadeanians. Indeed, he even takes my coining of the term 'Gangadeanian' to be an insult. Originally he charged me with slander and now he's shifted to talking about insults. Many of the terms he cites are just not insults, but Anderson has a history of being overly sensitive. There used to be an online exchange between him and the reformed theologian, James Anderson that ended with Owen being offended by the tone of the conversation. James Anderson's last reply, as I recall, was one of disbelief--something like, "really?!?" Unfortunately, Owen has since deleted that exchange. And the facebook convo that Owen and I had also ended that way--where I was accused of being "antagonistic" for essentially pressing him on his "answers".

Some of the terms he finds insulting are just ridiculous. 'Gangadeanian' merely marks out people who follow the teachings of Gangadean. It isn't meant to be pejorative anymore than 'Aristotelian,' 'Cartesian,' 'Thomist,' 'Augustinean' and the like. Likewise, when I speak of Gangadean and his "ilk," that's just a VERY common way that philosophers speak of people who belong to position--also not pejorative.

Admittedly, a few of the things I've said can be taken as pejorative. I do sometimes refer to Anderson or Gangadean's thinking/arguments as unsophisticated, lazy, sloppy and the like.  Sometimes, calling a spade a spade amounts to saying negative things. I could replace these words with euphemisms, I guess. Maybe it would have been nicer to replace 'sloppy' with 'not-careful' or 'unsophisticated' with 'imprecise'--although, I doubt that these would have been more amenable to Anderson. (Interestingly, he doesn't find Spencer's accusation that he's using a "cheap apologetic ploy," likewise, insulting). But I also don't feel like I'm under any obligation to cater to the feelings of the Gangadeanians. In fact, I find it crazy that Anderson would have the audacity to demand this kind of niceness from me. After all, he's the guy that once falsely accused me of stalking him and even filed an official complaint with the police and university--I have yet to hear an apology from him regarding this. And yet here he is complaining about how I'm not being nice enough with my words--talk about straining at gnats and swallowing camels!

In a similar vein, recently, I referred to Gangadean's church a fundamentalist religious cult. I stand by it. If you saw some of the emails I've received over the years from family members that have been hurt by the church, or if you know of the history that Gangadean's church has of hurting people, breaking up relationships, "the rule of silence" that it institutes over women in the congregation, the fact that there is no room to really question the few that are in a position of authority, then again you will see this as an instance of calling a spade a spade.

Finally, we can argue at length about what particular words I should have used to get across the idea that the philosophy done by Anderson and Gangadean is really bad, or we can argue about whether or not I have an obligation to be nicer in my writings. I'd be happy to talk about that. But let's not lose sight of the most important issues. It isn't about whether I've been mean. Maybe I'm a great big jerk of a person. It simply doesn't matter. It's about whether Gangadean's/Anderson's arguments ultimately, work. It's about whether Gangadean/Anderson can prove that God exists, and show that we must have clarity at the basic level, and also about whether they have impeccable arguments proving that we can be absolutely certain of basic things. So, if you're a Gangadeanian reading this, you can think whatever you want about my moral character, but that's not the right sort of reason to avoid dealing with my objections, insofar as you're after the truth. 

Anderson's Misattributions of alleged misrepresentations.

I'm glad to see that the conversation between Spencer and Owen Anderson, on YouTube continues.  Unfortunately, Anderson's remarks are only getting worse. In his latest installment, he writes,

I don't agree with most of the claims you [Spencer] make in your post about what I supposedly think. You'd like people to be charitable about your views so do the same. I don't think that doubting p means you believe not p. Or that only deductive proof is permissible. Or that people only use the word "knowledge" to mean certainty. Or that I'm affirming an "infallibilist internalist foundationalist" view here. Or that I'm requiring "high epistemic standards" here. Or that we must prove the laws of thought. Or that we can only dialogue if you agree with me about everything. 

Much of these misrepresentations most likely trace to your original source that you quoted. Whether or not your source sometimes says something true isn't the problem. It is his regular use of insults and misrepresentations that is the problem.

Another jab at me and one that's quite unfair and mistaken (are you starting to see a pattern?) Now there are a couple of these which I have attributed to Anderson/Gangadean (and for good reason), but the majority of these are not --although they have a surface-level similarity to ways I've represented the Gangdeanian worldview.

[As a side note, I have to admit this is a rather strange phenomena we're dealing with. It's almost like a complicated (perhaps iterated) version of a Strawman. Misrepresent how my opponent represents my view, as a way of debunking his challenges].

Anderson is charging that I am responsible for misrepresentations allegedly made by Spencer in the conversation. There are two parts to this charge. First, that Spencer has misrepresented/misattributed views to Anderson. I'll let Spencer deal with those, himself. The second charge is that these alleged misrepresentations are likely my fault. In the first place, I don't control what the people who read my blog come to believe. But more importantly, if you look at the content of most of the alleged misattributions, you don't find them on this blog. The ones which you do find are attributed to Gangadean/Anderson for good reason (because of their own words)! That is to say, I have good reason to think they aren't misrepresentations.

Let's start with a list of the alleged misrepresenations for which Anderson claims I'm responsible.

A. Doubting {that we can have certainty} that P entails believing that ~P.
B. Only deductive proof is {rationally} permissible.
C. People only use the word 'knowledge' to mean "certainty".
D. Infallibilist/Foundationalist/Internalism about justification/knowledge is true.
E. Rationality requires "high epistemic standards."
F. We must prove the laws of thought.
G. Intelligible dialogue is possible only if "you agree with [Anderson] about everything."

Let's first deal with D and E.

D. Have I attributed infallibilism + foundationalism + internalism to Anderson/Gangdean? 

Short answer, no.

Longer answer: I do think Gangadean/Anderson are infallibilists and internalists, but I haven't called them foundationalists concerning knowledge/justification. They argue that to know that P, you have to be in a position to "show that P is true"--that's internalism (also see Anderson's challenges to externalism--note if you're not an externalist, then you're an internalist). They also think that knowledge requires certainty or maximal justification. To see why I have attributed this view to them first consider how it is that Gangadean argues that denying clarity at the basic level leads to skepticism (the view that knowledge is not possible). Secondly, consider his remarks about fideism/blind faith, which on his view is tantamount to "belief without proof." Unless Anderson wants to say that we can come to know things via blind faith, he's going to have to bite the bullet here and own up to his infallibilism about knowledge (i.e, the view that we can't know things by forming beliefs via fallible means). The only reason that Anderson doesn't fall into the category of "foundationalist" in terms of his *express views is that he doesn't buy into the whole idea that some beliefs are "basic" (so he claims). I think he does, without knowing that he does. But I'm willing to grant that there are some disagreements between him and many foundationalists (though I don't actually think they will turn out to be substantive).

E. Have I attributed to Anderson the view that Rationality requires high standards? 

Well, duh. But if "the need for clarity" is not a high epistemic standard, then I don't know what is.

A. Have I attributed to Anderson the view that doubting {that we can have certainty} that P entails believing that ~P. 

Short answer: Yes! That was the point of one of my memes. But I did this only because of his own words!

Long answer: Anderson in his most recent remarks is now saying that "doubting P doesn't entail believing the opposite (~P)." In other words, he's now saying that he believes the following to be consistent: a person isn't certain that the law of identity is true, and yet she believes it is true. Awesome! It's my view that these are compatible, too! But then why did Anderson originally write the following?

But if one of the persons involved isn’t sure that ‘a’ is ‘a,’ then they won’t be able to go to that next step. They wouldn’t be able to affirm if a word is a word, what they are thinking is what they are thinking, their question is a question, a word is a word, a mind is a mind, eternal is eternal, a reply is a reply, or an argument is an argument (Emphasis mine).

As long as believing something is a way of affirming it, his latest comment is simply contradicting this passage. He can't have it both ways. Now I admitted last time that there was wiggle room, but it comes at a cost. Much hangs on what Anderson originally meant by 'affirm'. Maybe to affirm something on his view is to be certain of it. That does violence to English, but whatever. He can use the expression however he chooses (as long as he's not claiming that's what it means in English). But as I've already argued, if we replace 'affirm' with 'being certain,' the cost for Anderson is that the above passage fails to raise any problem for someone like me who questions whether we can (rationally) be certain of things like law of identity. In other words, all the above passage says when we swap out the relevant expressions is that someone who isn't certain, in the Gangadeanian sense, that the law of identity is true, likewise can't be certain (again in the Gangadeanian sense) that "a word is a word..." And as I said last time, so what? Who cares? Nothing important follows from that. So Anderson can pick his poison. Either he did commit himself to conflating, "doubting that we can be certain that P, with believing the opposite" or his remarks have no bite as a criticism against my position.

Note, for good measure he also wrote the following which is further evidence that he actually was conflating "doubting that P (or doubting that we can have certainty about P)" with "believing not-P".

Many have told me they are surprised to see that a skeptic will go so far as to think 'a' is 'a' is fallible. We can watch and see if a skeptic can also have integrity with that profession. What would it look like to be consistent with saying each word in my sentence or question does not mean what it means? (Emphasis mine).

Moving on to the others.

B. Have I attributed to Anderson the view that only deductive proof is [rationally] permissible? 

Nope. Again, I have said that Gangadean claims (in his book) that belief without proof = fideism. And insofar as fideism is (rationally) impermissible, it seems to follow that on Gangadean's view, deductive proof (as a way of coming to form beliefs) is the only rationally permissible way. But I have also noted, numerous times, that Gangadean also appeals to "self-attesting" or "self-evident" truths--which he thinks we can know with certainty (so presumably, believe rationally). These aren't arrived at via deductive proof, on the Gangadeanian worldview. So B. is not an error that can be traced back to me even though there's a hint of something in the neighborhood in my blogs.


C. Have I ever said that the Gangadeanians (or Anderson), believes that people only use the word 'knowledge' to mean certainty? 

Not at all. I've suggested that the Gangadeanians simply don't care how most people use the word 'knowledge'. Instead, they come up with their own definition or concept. And I've been waiting for them to explain why anybody should care about attaining some gerrymandered thing (which Gangadean calls 'knowledge') that was cooked up from Gangadean's armchair. Shame on Anderson for trying to peg this equally cooked up misrepresentation on me.

F. Have I argued that Anderson believes we must prove the laws of thought? 

Note quite. I've said that the Gangadeanian view is that the laws of thought are clear to reason. And that things that are clear to reason are either provable or "self-evident/self-attesting." That's a disjunction--with two parts.

G. Have I said that Anderson requires agreement about everything as a requisite for [intelligible] dialogue?

The hyperbole is what gets this one in trouble. Yes, I have claimed that Gangadean requires (full) agreement on *basic* things, if intelligible discussion is to continue. I know this because he told me it, first hand. Now, is that the same as saying, "Gangadean believes that we must agree on *everything*, if dialogue is to continue?" Hardly. Again, shame on Anderson for trying to attribute this alleged misrepresentation to me. He's grasping at straws... and it's just starting to get a bit sad.

Finally, Anderson also adds,

"Like clarifying "bachelor," once we do this with "eternal" the contradiction is there, but it was there the whole time. If someone says "I don't see how a married bachelor is a contradiction, the burden is on you, all your work is ahead of you," or they say "I don't see why eternal means not temporal, the burden is on you, all your work is ahead of you," they haven't understood the words being used."

As I've noted before, what's missing here is any sort of reason given for why we should think Anderson and other Gangadeanians have got the definition of 'eternal' (or even 'bachelor') correct. But to understand this challenge and why it only threatens the Gangadeanian worldview you have to get the following distinctions in mind.

1. Asking how someone that is after clarity/certainty can consistently claim to know (with certainty) that a word in a given language has a particular definition. 

2. Asking whether we can know (on a non-Gangadeanian definition) what the definition of any word is. 

3. Asking whether a particular definition of a word is correct.

I'm pressing Anderson on 1. but not 2, nor 3. On my view we can depend on commonsense, empirical observations of how people use words in conversation, and appeal to intuitions to figure out what a word means in a given language. We can even just begin with tentative (in principle, revisable) assumptive or presumptive definitions. None of this gives you certainty of the Gangadeanian sort, but that's alright for me, because I don't demand anything like clarity at the basic level (or at any level) to begin with. But these options are simply not open to the Gangadeanians like Anderson.

Here's what's at stake with this issue. For Anderson to be able to say to an objector "if you don't see that eternal means not temporal, you have to show otherwise" we have to presume Anderson's belief about what the words (in a given language) mean are true. More importantly, that he's in a position to know (with certainty) what they mean. That's because this isn't an argument or rational defense of a claim, it's basically table pounding combined with burden-shifting. And if Anderson is permitted to do this in this context, he needs to tell us why it's unacceptable in other contexts. For instance, why isn't it acceptable for a theist to respond to an atheist asking for a reason to believe that God exists with, "look, if you don't believe that God exists, then you need to prove that he doesn't." True, one claim is about the definition of words and the other is about what exists, but the bottom line is that they are both claims, nonetheless. It's possible to be mistaken about what exists and it's likewise possible to be mistaken about what a word means.

Think about it...

This has been one of my many challenges for the Gangadeanians. How do they know what knowledge is? In particular, how do they know that knowledge requires clarity/certainty? Is it by way of a sound argument? Is it self-attesting or self-evident? Does their theory of knowledge need to be presupposed in order to question anything? Hardly...(hint, it's Gangadean's intuition). 

Morpheus gets it

Gangadeanians could really benefit from this very simple distinction as I pointed out in my last post. 

Anderson's Latest Response: where it goes wrong.

The discussion in the comments of the youtube video of Gangadean's talk, continues. In fact, Anderson recently posted a longish response on his blog. He mentions me and I suspect much of what he writes is meant to be directed at me. As he notes, the video is getting an uptick in views, which I agree is a good thing. Even some bad ideas can benefit the listeners because in diagnosing where arguments go wrong, we learn something true. I wanted to comment on some of what I take to be directed towards me. Anderson writes,

But if one of the persons involved isn’t sure that ‘a’ is ‘a,’ then they won’t be able to go to that next step. They wouldn’t be able to affirm if a word is a word, what they are thinking is what they are thinking, their question is a question, a word is a word, a mind is a mind, eternal is eternal, a reply is a reply, or an argument is an argument (Emphasis mine).

The reason that this stands out to me is that a number of Gangadeanians with whom I've spoken have lodged some version of this "challenge" to me over the years. Truth be told, I'm starting to grow tired of this bit. Regardless of how many times this has been repeated, the only thing it achieves is that it displays ignorance, a lack of integrity as well as the absence of care that Gangadeanians like Anderson show in engaging with critical ideas. The reason that I placed 'sure' and 'affirm' in bold is that all of the force of the above passage fades once we place into focus the fact that there are at least two definitions or senses of those terms. Let me explain. 

The point about being sure or unsure about something like the law of identity (that a is a) in the context of my debate with Gangadean concerns whether some things (like the law of identity) are "clear to reason." Now, there's a perfectly ordinary notion of clear just as there is a perfectly ordinary notion of "being sure/unsure of something" in the English language. I'm sure of lots of things and unsure of a lot, too. I'm sure that I've got two hands. I'm sure that I'm typing on a computer at this very moment. I'm sure that I woke up next to my partner this morning (as opposed to a convincing facsimile). I'm sure that kicking infants for fun is wrong. I'm sure of my date of birth as well as my place of birth (despite not having been able to verify those things first-hand). What is more, I take myself to be rational in being sure about these things. But the sense of sure or certain that is common to many of these ordinary beliefs, is not the sense that Anderson or Gangadean are interested in. They stipulate a rather technical and idiosyncratic notion of what it means to be sure, certain, or when some proposition is clear. In other words, each of these notions or expressions means something very special for Anderson and Gangadean that doesn't do justice to the way people ordinarily use the words (including other philosophers). Once we keep this in mind, that there are at least two different definitions of 'sure' and 'unsure' (and the aforementioned cognates), and we keep these distinct, we see that Anderson's comment loses all of its bite as a challenge for my position. The long and short of it is this: what seems crazy and bizarre to most people is for someone to be unsure of something so mundane as the law of identity. Or to think that we can't be certain that "a thing is what it is." But that's only when we think of those notions (unsure and certain) in the ordinary sense. Once we swap out those ordinary notions with what Gangadean and Anderson have in mind, the purported absurdity that's supposed to be obvious in Anderson's quote, goes away. Basically, when I say I'm not sure or certain that the law of identity is true, what I'm really saying is that I'm not sure (or certain) in the way that Gangadean and Anderson require.  

So how is it that they are using the offending words or concepts? Well, some proposition is clear according to Gangdean if and only if, it's impossible (in the strongest sense) for it to be false. But the natural question then is how do we know when something couldn't possibly be false? On the Gangadeanian worldview there is only one of two ways. 

(i) We know it via a sound, (and non-question begging) deductive proof which demonstrates by the rules of logical inference, that the claim in question is (necessarily) true. 

(ii) We determine that it is self-attesting or self-evident (which is to say the claim in question makes questioning possible). 

So, to reiterate, when I say that I am not sure that 'a is a' or that it isn't clear that it is so, what I'm questioning/doubting is that 'a is a' can satisfy either (i) or (ii). Given how 'a is a' is supposed to be transcendental, every proof is going to presuppose the law is true for Gangadean, so (i) just won't apply on pain of circularity. So why am I doubtful that the law of identity can satisfy (ii)? Well, because I'm not sure that the expressions, "self-attesting" or "self-evident" (again in the way that Gangadean employs them) have any meaning to begin with (again, what Thomas Jefferson meant by 'self-evident' is not necessarily what Gangadean means by it). What is more, as I've said repeatedly, Ganagdean owes us a theory about how we can determine or know when something "makes questioning possible." Not only that, but he also needs to explain what "makes questioning possible" has to do with truth. 

Anderson is claiming above, that in questioning or being unsure that 'a is a,' one cannot (consistently) affirm "if a word is a word, what they are thinking is what they are thinking, their question is a question, a word is a word, a mind is a mind, eternal is eternal..." And that certainly sounds like a crazy consequence. But once we disambiguate between the very special notion of unsure that Anderson/Gangadean are inclined to employ, from the more ordinary notion, this seemingly absurd consequence simply doesn't follow. Just because I don't think that 'a is a' can be proven without begging the question, or just because I call into question Gangadean's blanket assertions that "some claims are true because they make questioning possible or are self-attesting/evident" doesn't entail that I can't consistently and in the same breathe, affirm that a word is a word, a mind a mind, and the like. At the very least, Anderson has failed to show how this follows. 

For good measure, you'll see that I also made bold the word 'affirm'. That's because we might worry that Anderson/Gangadean are playing the same game (failing to flag that they have a technical notion in mind that differs from the ordinary sense) with that word as well. And that's going to make a difference to whether, the consequences that Anderson purports, actually follow as well as whether we should worry if they do follow. Does it follow that if I am unsure or uncertain that the law of identity (as an exceptionless law) is true, that consistency then demands that I not affirm "a word is a word, a mind a mind"? The quick answer is, no. This is the case on either definition of "sure/unsure". The only way it might follow is if by 'affirm' Anderson means, "accept as certain." So then we can recapitulate Anderson's remarks in this way. 

But if one of the persons involved isn’t sure that ‘a’ is ‘a,’ then they won’t be able to go to that next step. They wouldn’t be able to be sure that a word is a word, what they are thinking is what they are thinking, their question is a question, a word is a word, a mind is a mind, eternal is eternal, a reply is a reply, or an argument is an argument. 

But now the purported absurdity of "my position" disappears. So what, if a person that isn't sure that 'a is a' also cannot be sure that "a word is a word, or mind a mind?" They can consistently eschew certainty altogether. What's wrong with that? They can still come to form rational beliefs, come to know things, neither of which requires certainty. For some reason, Anderson and Gangadean have a difficult time with the idea that we just don't need the kind of certainty that they are after, in the first place. They try to make it seem like all sorts of absurdities will follow without clarity/certainty, but they don't do so by honest argument. Instead, they just say that it is so, equivocate on key terms and try to pump the intuitions of their naive followers. I have yet to see anything resembling a sound argument for why we need certainty/clarity (or why we have to be "sure" in the Gangadeanian sense) at any level.

In fact, I think this response to Anderson's remarks works on either of the definitions of 'sure' or 'certain,' but it's significantly stronger on the Gangadeanian definition of those terms because his concepts are so ridiculous. That is, it's harder to care about the kind of technical certainty that Gangadean claims is so crucial and important to knowledge, thought and dialogue.

One more thing. Anderson also writes, 

Many have told me they are surprised to see that a skeptic will go so far as to think ‘a’ is ‘a’ is fallible. We can watch and see if a skeptic can also have integrity with that profession. What would it look like to be consistent with saying each word in my sentence or question does not mean what it means? If you would like to discuss this with me, or why an eternal mind would have infinite knowledge and not be subject to memory loss or decay, follow my blog as I will update it.

This is likely a jab at me, but again it's a misguided one. In the first place, it's making a category mistake. The fallibilist about knowledge maintains that we can know things via fallible means/reasons. That is, our justification is the sort of thing that is fallible or infallible, and not the proposition in question. Propositions aren't the sorts of things that can be fallible or infallible (they can be true or false, have intentional content). Further, I'm no skeptic--it's only because Anderson defines knowledge in a special way (so that it requires certainty), that anyone that is even doubtful that certainty is possible turns out to be a skeptic. As if that weren't enough, Anderson is also making a rather egregious error by conflating two different facts and he should know better. 

(A) Someone doubts/questions that 'a is a' is clear to reason in the special way that Gangadean conceives of "clear to reason."  

(B) Someone affirms that the law of identity is positively false (so that a sentence does not mean what it means). 

(A) and (B) are very different states of affairs, but he's running them together--he should know better. Not only because of the points concerning the definitions that we've just discussed, but also because to doubt that we can be certain of a proposition is not the same as affirming the opposite of the proposition (the conflation here is quite serious because he's opposing "belief that not-P" with "doubt about whether or not we can be certain that P"). If you come to me and say that we can be absolutely certain that it will rain tomorrow. and I doubt that such certainty about whether or not it will rain tomorrow is felicitous, that doesn't commit me to the position that it will not rain tomorrow. That's a non sequitur. In a similar vein, a subject can even doubt that P, without believing that P is false. Suppose you come to me and tell me that you are 100% certain that it will rain tomorrow. I can doubt or question whether it will rain tomorrow, without positively affirming that it will not rain (the difference here is between doubt that P and believing that ~P). What I doubt is that we can have Ganagdeanian certainty, which is not the same as believing or affirming that the law of identity is false. 

We can apply the same diagnosis for Anderson's other remarks in his latest response. He says that his recent dialogue with Spencer has shown us where questioning becomes incoherent. But again, Anderson is simply presupposing rather than showing that we need certainty (in the Gangadeanian sense) of basic things in order for questioning to be coherent either because he's running together (A) and (B), or because he's defining 'affirm' in a strange and unmotivated way, such that in order to affirm anything we have to be certain (in the Gangadeanian manner) at the basic level. 

Finally, I noticed that Anderson accuses me of "regularly slandering" him and other Gangadeanians. He suggests that Spencer has been referring to my stuff and given that I regularly slander Anderson and others, there's a question about Spencer's motives. That's a strange worry to have. What does my moral character have to do with Spencer's motives in carrying out a dialogue and more importantly, whether the objections are good ones or not? The connection is tenuous at best. What is more, I'm thinking that Anderson's use of 'slander' also departs from ordinary language. That is, unless of course, pointing out problems in a person's bad philosophical ideas, and discussing worrisome features/practices of a fundamentalist religious cult to which they belong, counts as slander. I suspect falsely accusing someone of slander is closer to slandering than anything I've done. 

Update on Youtube discussion

I just wanted to add a few notes about the discussion that has started on the comments section of Gangadean's lecture on youtube, between Spencer Hawkins (a reader of this blog) and Owen Anderson. There are lots of things in the conversation that are irrelevant to my challenge. For instance, I think we can know lots of things beyond our experience--because I'm no empiricism to begin with.

The central issue that I've been concerned with is whether the following argument, which Gangadean presented in the Q&A of the talk, is sound.

Gangadean's Original Argument

(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.

I suggested that premise (1) needs an argument. More precisely, I don't see how a Gangadeanian can consistently claim to know (with certainty) that (1) is true. How do you know that one thought occurs after another if not in an immediate sort of way (sans proof or argument)? But I also suggested that the purported entailment in (3) is no good. It's possible for a being (say a mind/soul) to be eternal in time, without being all knowing. For example, an eternal mind might forget, might not care to know about everything, might stop believing some propositions that they once knew.

Spencer included this argument and a few others to which Anderson has been responding in the comments. Initially Anderson seemed to address my worry about the truth of (3) by tacitly conceding my point. I say this because he started asking about whether eternality entailed "being the highest power." So instead of defending the purported connected between eternal existence and omniscience as is featured in Gangadean's original argument, he suggested we would do well to think about whether "X is eternal' entails 'X is the highest power.' And as I noted in a previous post, that may be worth considering, but that's to present a different argument.  Far from providing us a reason to accept (3) it hints at a new argument. Something like the following.

(1)' If X is eternal, then X is the highest power. 
(2)' No soul like mine is the highest power.
(3)' So no soul like mine is eternal.

I think this is a better argument because it doesn't have the problematic premise (3), but it shares a different deficiency as the original--at least for the Gangadeanian who is after "clarity." Premise (2)' is the one that I would ask Anderson to prove. Just as I'm doubtful that the Gangadeanian can prove (in the strong sense) that our thoughts are ordered in time, I doubt they can prove that the self or any human soul for that matter is not the highest power. I should qualify this last bit. I doubt they can prove it without helping themselves to at least one more controversial premise. At some point, it's going to bottom out with an appeal to common sense claim, intuition or the mere historical/sociological fact that most people don't doubt things like that. If you're wondering why I am using "soul like mine" as opposed to "human soul" I want to hedge off the far too quick response that a Gangadeanian might be inclined to give which is to stipulate a definition of 'human' which includes a 'non-eternal' being. If we're really going to seek clarity and critically analyze our most basic assumptions, then we can't help ourselves to even the very mundane fact that each of us is human (as well as what that amounts to)--i.e, each of these things needs a separate argument.

Anderson in a followup comment then doubled-down and insisted that Gangadean's original argument was indeed sound. I've been trying to make sense of this. He writes,

Premise 3 is true if the finite and temporal self (the reader or audience, as you say) cannot also be eternal being. If the finite self has other limitations, like not seeking or incorrigible memory lapse, this only strengthens the premise (Emphasis mine).

Recall that Gangadean's original argument was about whether we can determine that the questioner's  soul were not eternal. And there, Gangadean suggested that we should think about what would follow (regarding the being's body of knowledge) if an eternal mind/soul like ours was in time (temporal). But here, Anderson has shifted to talking about what would follow for a finite being in time. That leaves us with at least two different interpretive paths from which to choose. And much  depends on what Anderson thinks is the relationship between 'eternal/non-eternal' and 'finite/infinite'.

On one reading, Anderson is assuming that 'finite' is interchangeable with 'not-eternal'. This is a contentious use of the terms, but it's also question begging. If the question is, "how can we determine that a soul like ours is not eternal in time?", then an answer that a finite (where this means "non-eternal") self cannot be eternal is assuming what needs to be proven. It's essentially responding with, "we can know that a soul like ours is not eternal, because it's not eternal." That's arguing in a circle if anything is.

On the other reading, which takes a certain amount of guess work, Anderson is not using "finite" as synonymous with "not-eternal" but is presupposing that there's an entailment relation of the following sort.

(For any X), if X is finite, then X is not eternal. 

That is to say that finitude of a thing entails that it is not-eternal. This is perhaps the more charitable reading of what Anderson is up to, but his lazy style of communicating requires some work to get here. The real issue is whether or not Anderson can demonstrate that this entailment holds as opposed to merely presupposing it. In fact, I think he should first define how he's using 'finite' and 'infinite.' For instance, is 'finite' synonymous with 'limited' or 'imperfect'? He should also in some suitable sense defend his definitions (more on this below) for the sake of "clarity." Once he's made good on that, then we need the argument for why 'X is finite' entails that 'X is not eternal'. 

Additionally, in his last reply to Spencer (on a slightly different topic) Anderson makes the following curious claim.

So we don't make subjective "conceivability" the standard, and we clarify ahead of time if the persons in the discussion are committed to 'a' is 'a.'

Anderson and other Gangadeanians often throw around 'subjective' and 'objective' but I worry that they play fast and loose with the notions. If there is an intelligible sense of "conceivability' which is in some sense objective, I'd be curious how it differs from the so called, "subjective" sense. And how does one determine when something is objectively conceivable vs. subjectively (vs. merely appearing to one to be that way!)? I'm genuinely curious.

Finally, Anderson also talks about the need for getting clear on the meaning of words like "bachelor" in an effort to evaluate the truth of 'there are no married bachelors'. And I'd like to know what the process is by which one gets "clearer" on the meaning of expressions. Further, can Anderson prove that this process (whatever it turns out to be) is veridical? Note how my question is analogous to his frequent complaints against externalists about knowledge/justification and intuitionists (those who believe we can know some things on the basis of intuition). I suspect that he's going to have to take either one of those routes himself to justify his claim that he knows the meaning of certain expressions. Tying all of this together---the definitional points are relevant because, as I mentioned earlier, not only does he need to defend the claim that 'X is finite entails that X is not-eternal' he's going to need to tell us what he means by 'finite/infinite' and also tell us why his definitions are correct.