Radical Skepticism: On "Questioning" the Law of Identity

Owen Anderson has posted a new lecture in which he characterizes "radical skepticism" as a self-referentially absurd position. What is a radical skeptic on his view? It's someone that questions the very source of questioning or uses reason to question reason. Accordingly, Anderson rhetorically asks the following questions.

Can you question the very source of questioning?  

Can you use reason to question reason?  

Based on many of his recent remarks, Anderson seems think that I am one such radical skeptic. If this is so, then he's seriously mistaken based on a very basic conflation that I've pointed out repeatedly on this blog. On the off chance that he doesn't think I'm a radical skeptic and this lecture isn't aimed at challenging my view, it still brings up an important distinction worth discussing. That's because un-nuanced thinking could easily get one to think that my challenges to Gangadeanism make me out to be a "radical skeptic." But as I will explain, I'm no radical skeptic (in fact, as I've said on numerous occasions, I'm no skeptic at all).

It's interesting to note that Anderson believes that he can have "clarity" on the very "source" or "preconditions" of the activity of "questioning." Of course, he doesn't tell us how he has achieved such certainty about the very "source" or "preconditions" of questioning (hint, it's his intuition). But I'll be ignoring that for the purposes of this article even though the list of things the Gangadeanians take on intuition seems to be growing by the day.

So, what according to Anderson, are the preconditions of questioning? Well, at least the law of identity (that a is a), which on his view (in addition to the other Aristotelian laws) is "reason itself."

Thus the immediate point in posing his rhetorical questions is this: if you question the law of identity, you are questioning the very "source" or "preconditions" of the activity of questioning. Or in other words, you are using reason to question reason.

That alone won't do to drive his main upshot home because he's making the further claim that questioning the very preconditions of questioning is somehow self-referentially absurd. That's the big payoff, here. But is it in fact, self-referentially absurd to question the very source of questioning? Or to use reason to question reason? (My guess is that some of you had the intuition that there is something self-referentially absurd about it and some of you didn't).

I submit that it depends in part on what is going on when we question something and what sort of doxastic attitude you adopt (if any) in doing so. That is to say, we run into an issue of how best to model what is happening when a subject questions the truth of a proposition. This is something that Anderson simply glosses over.

For the time being I'm going to restrict my focus to whether or not my core disagreements or criticisms count as an instance of "questioning" say, the law of identity in the relevant sense. In fact, I'll argue that if you think of my views as self-referentially absurd, you've made a serious mistake. But in a future post, I'll do more to put pressure on what I think is a far too quick move on Anderson's part when he goes from, "S questions the very things that makes questioning possible" to "thus, S has a self-referentially absurd set of attitudes" (the same is true of "S uses reason to question reason" to "thus, S's attitudes are self-referentially absurd) The devil will be in the details and what exactly we mean by "uses" and "questions".

A natural place to begin then is in reviewing my position on the "principle of clarity". As I've said repeatedly, I believe that "a is a". In fact, I even take myself to know it. That means there are some things that I claim to know. That entails that on my view knowledge is possible. This fact alone should be enough to see that I shouldn't be classified as a skeptic (because a skeptic claims that knowledge is impossible). So where exactly do I disagree with the Gangadeanians? Well, I basically have no more to say on the matter.

The Gangadeanians say more and claim that I need to affirm more. By their lights, not only should I believe (or take myself to know) that the law of identity is true, I have to further affirm that it is "clear to reason" or that it is knowable to all who seek, or that it's impossible for me to be wrong about some things like the law of identity. That's precisely where our fundamental difference lies. I simply don't see any point in making these additional claims about the so-called "laws of thought." It's enough for me that I know them and that I don't need to worry about arguing for them, in any philosophical discourse. That's why I've said that I'm agnostic about whether or not for example, the law of identity (or anything for that matter), is "clear to reason". Importantly, I'm not agnostic about the law of identity itself. I'm only agnostic about whether or not the law of identity is clear to reason. And until the Gangadeanians can convince me that I'm missing out on something vital or valuable in my agnosticism about the clarity of basic things, that'll remain my position.

Now for the big question. Does my position(s) as described above, regarding the law of identity, count as "questioning" the law of identity? Not unless we allow that one can believe something all the while questioning its truth. That sounds like a bad piece of English. But that's just what Anderson's model of questioning would have to be, if he wants, with a straight face, to peg me as one who questions the law of identity or reason itself. And if he's willing to stretch the concept of questioning that far, (so that one can question in the same breathe, what one believes to be true) it becomes hard to see how he can say that there's something self-referentially absurd about my position. Apparently, on this picture that's just what the activity or stance of questioning permits!

Suppose now that we turn to a different and more plausible model of questioning. Say that "questioning" that P as Anderson is using the word precludes belief in P. That is, suppose that you count as questioning the law of identity only if you don't also believe that "a is a" within the same context. If so, then to question the law of identity, you can't believe that the law of identity is true (otherwise you won't count as questioning it). That is, you won't count as questioning whether or not it will rain, if you already believe that it will rain. The problem with this model in relation to my views should be obvious. I simply don't count as "questioning" the law of identity or reason for that matter on this account of questioning because I believe that "a is a". In which case I don't count as a radical skeptic and there's nothing self-referentially absurd about my views of which to speak.

So the upshot is this, in light of my belief that "a is a", I either I count as questioning the law of identity or I don't. The only manner in which I do count as questioning depends on a defunct and umotivated account of questioning which is actually compatible with belief. But on such a view there's no self-referential absurdity of which to speak. On the other hand, a more plausible account of questioning, which renders questioning incompatible with belief in the thing being questioned, simply fails to capture my views on the law of identity (because I believe that a is a). Either way (and there's no third option), there's nothing self-referentially absurd about my position.

One point of annoyance is that this post is entirely unnecessary.  As I've complained before, Anderson and company make very basic conflations which get them into trouble and suggests a lack of subtle thinking on their part. Despite how many times I've explained it, they can't seem to understand that I believe and take myself to know that "a is a". I just don't commit myself to the further claim that it is somehow "clear to reason" that this is so. In other words,

We don't disagree over whether or not  a is a.  (I'm not agnostic). 

We disagree over whether or not it is clear to reason that a is a. (I'm agnostic). 

The Gangadeanians are getting caught up in a false dichotomy. On their picture, either you affirm that it is clear to reason that a is a or else you believe that it's not the case that a is a. These two things aren't even contradictories!!!

What they don't consider is that someone can be agnostic about whether it is clear to reason that a is a and still believe (and even know) that a is a.

Anderson on Fideism and The Status of Other Christians.

Anderson has a new article on his blog entitled, "What is Fideism?". It looks like some of my recent posts are pushing the Gangadeanians to refine their positions. Otherwise, it's a remarkable coincidence.  One game that I've seen the Gangdeanians, in particular Anderson play is that in the face of objections to their express views, they will claim that their views have been misunderstood or misrepresented. Of course, it's possible that this is true, but some suspicion is in order when this is a very frequent response and particularly, when we can cite their own words to support our original characterization of their views.

Anderson in his latest work is saying that fideism is not opposed to proof, but rather to understanding and meaning. But that does violence to this passage from Gangadean's book.

What's worse, it does violence to Anderson's own published words.

It's fine if they want to revise their position in light of what their critics have pointed out, but at least come out and say that's what you're doing as opposed to acting like that was your view all along. Of course, it might be very troubling to their followers if Gangadean ever had to revise a position in light of his critics--it would show that he isn't exempt from mistakes.

Anderson then proceeds to talk about whether everyone must have a "starting point"--namely, accepting things that are not themselves proven. He writes,

 No, not all starting points are fideism. Some starting points need proof and some are inescapable....One can’t prove the very means of proof without relying on those means. This isn’t fideism. One cannot question if questioning is possible without becoming self-referentially absurd.  That “a is a” or “a is not non-a” are the source of proof and doubt and therefore cannot be proven or doubted. 

But as I've already addressed here there are at least two problems here. One, how does one come to know when something "makes questioning possible?" Or when something is self-referentially absurd?" Or that "a is a are the source of proof and doubt and therefore cannot be proven?" I don't see how anyone could prove a thing like that. So it must be on the basis of some sort of immediate judgment. But how does this judgment fare any better than an appeal to intuition (indeed it just is an intuition in my book)? If Anderson thinks that 'a is a' makes questioning possible, and another person plainly doesn't see it, how can Anderson settle that dispute without giving a flat-footed response or "table pounding," as he puts it? [Importantly, I'm not here calling into question that "a is a" or that "a is a is required in some sense to present proofs" I'm merely pointing out that at the end of the day, their worldview rests on immediate judgments/intuitions].

Secondly, I noted how Gangadean tells us that you can accept something immediately or as self-evident if its denial is self-contradictory in an immediate way. Again, there is room for disagreement here on what counts as "immediately-self contradictory" and no way to "objectively" settle such disputes beyond mere table pounding. What is more, there's a troubling kind of relativity when it comes to which claims are such that denying them = immediately self-contradictory (as opposed to requiring a number of steps to be contradictory). It depends on your vocabulary, your definitions, your conceptual framework. Read this for more details.


Finally, Anderson ends his article with the following Q&A.

Q3: Are you saying that someone is not a Christian if they can’t prove with certainty that God exists?

Reply: No, not at all. This question could be about how we define “Christian,” or about what is “justification,” or what is “sanctification.”  It seems that being a Christian is usually defined as believing certain things. For instance, that God the Creator exists, that I have sinned against God, that this sin requires redemption and that this redemption is only achieved through the atoning work of Christ.

...That’s a significant number of things knowable by the light of nature. It doesn’t say that one must know these and give proof in order to be a Christian. That is more like asking “do I have to know these things?”  Instead, it is saying “we get to know these things.” They are knowable.

Anderson goes on to distinguish between justification and sanctification. He claims that people can be justified (so as to count as "Christians" in a sense) even if they don't count as knowing that God exists (among other things).

Of course, I never stated that the Gangadeanians think that other people aren't Christians if they aren't able to rehearse Gangadean's proof. What I said was that they don't count as knowing the basic tenets of Christianity. So it seems I've accurately portrayed their view. Again, perhaps it's a remarkable coincidence that someone is emailing Anderson about issues that I've been writing about, recently. But I think either Anderson is following my blog, or some of my readers are emailing him. Either way, there's been a mistake if anyone thinks that I was attributing to Ganagdeanians the view that other professing believers are not Christians. I meant what I said that they view other professing believers as failing to know that God exists and a number of other central tenets of the faith.

Still, there's trouble for Anderson and company. It is also their express view that eternal life = knowing God. That's part of what they call the "doxological focus" of their church. That is, it isn't their view that mere true belief in God = eternal life. It's knowledge. In fact, they cite John 17:3 ("Now this is eternal life, that they might know you) as a proof text for this doctrine.

So they can spin it however they like, add distinctions like "justification" vs. "sanctification" until the cows come home. But insofar as they make knowing God dependent on being able to produce Gangadean's proof, and inasmuch as they equate eternal life with knowing God, they are committed to the view that most Christians don't have eternal life.

In fact, they also equate spiritual death with the failure to know (or see) what is clear to reason. If it's clear to reason that God exists and the vast majority of Christians fail to know that God exists, then what should the Gangadeanians say about the state of most Christians? Aren't they spiritually dead in some important sense on this view? So I'll leave it to the Gangadeanians to work out whether, as they see things, it's fine that other professing Christians are "justified" while being spiritually dead and failing to have eternal life.

On Gangadeanian Slander

As I mentioned before, Anderson recently accused me of slander for referring to his church as a religious cult and for calling his reasoning and arguments (not him) sloppy, lazy, or messy. He even suggested that my usage of the term "Gangadeanian" was an insult and as we saw here, he suggesting that I was dishonest, and insinuated that my personal conduct (with him and others at his church) was in some way morally problematic. He even went so far as to falsely accuse me to ASU police of stalking/harassing him and never bothered to apologize even though there was obviously no real evidence of any stalking/harassing on my part. 

Further, as we saw in this tweet, Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton, instead of engaging with any of my arguments, dismisses me as a troll. (I don't know who this Jacob A. Alee fellow is, but he seems to agree with his friend as if he knows anything about me). There's more. I have recently learned that Burton has gone so far as to author a document that has been passed around entitled, "A History of Trolling." In it, she attempts to expose my identity and then again refers to me as a troll in addition to making several false accusations aimed at attacking my character. So, despite all their efforts to play the victim in all of this, it would seem that the Gangadeanians are the ones that are doing the slandering and insulting. Here's the relevant excerpt from Burton's "A History of Trolling" document, (I have redacted the names--of course, "J" refers to me). 

22. S connects with J who takes the “Debunking” website from E from here to here and here and continues to troll to this day. J loves to troll Owen and slander those who go to WF church. J wants to remain anonymous, but in the name of truth and in pursuing justice in my case, I cannot continue to remain silent. His bogus website has harmed my reputation and those of many others, such as Owen, who are concerned to think critically...Philosophy ought to be done by argument and counter argument, but both J and S have undermined the very possibility of argument so that resort to personal attack is all that is left to them. There is a lack of integrity in J and S's unwillingness to live with the consequences of their positions. They engage in sophistry not philosophy. 

Many of Burton's statements are inaccurate, but this certainly feeds into their narrative as perpetual victims. What's interesting is that at the time that this document was authored, I hadn't even mentioned Burton in my blog. She wasn't even on my radar (though in recent days I've added her name to my intro post). So when she speaks of my "damaging her reputation" at best she can claim that my philosophical critiques of the arguments from Anderson and Gangadean have affected her insofar as she presents the very same arguments in her own work and talks. 

And there's a philosophically substantive inaccuracy to flag. I'm not undermining "the very possibility of argument." I just disagree with Burton's unsupported principle that we must have "clarity/certainty of basic things" in order for us to engage in meaningful philosophical discussions. 

Now to the factual inaccuracies. 

First, I didn't take over the "debunking Gangadean Website". In fact, I distanced myself from it in this post. The only part that she has got right is that I took over the facebook page from the original author and changed the nature of it so that it's merely a place where I update my blog posts. 

Furthermore, I don't "love to troll Owen" or "slander members of their church." To say that I "resort to personal attacks" as opposed to doing philosophy via "argument and counterargument" is simply ridiculous. This blog is largely about where I think the Gangadeanian arguments go wrong, with the occasional commentary about what I think are harmful outworkings of their worldview in practice. I've got well over a 100 articles where I present philosophical challenges. It's the Gangadeanians that refuse to provide counterarguments. Clearly, they are the ones resorting to personal attacks as this document makes evident. How they can seriously think of themselves as renewers of philosophy, retrievers of knowledge, and as Christ followers working towards "unity of the faith," despite such conduct is beyond me. 

Finally, the word "troll" is too easily thrown around by Burton and company. When you play too fast and loose with a term, when you stretch it too far, it loses it's meaning. The word is supposed to be inherently pejorative. But there's nothing inherently bad about a person that continues to challenge what they view to be very bad arguments and a harmful worldview. Yes, I won't go away. Yes, I'm probably very annoying to the Gangadeanians because I'm actively working to stop the further spread of their bad ideas. That doesn't make me a troll in any meaningful sense of the word. I keep writing and speaking out in an effort to shed light, out of a concern for truth and public well-being (particularly that of the unsuspecting young students who might get exposed to Gangadeanism). 

This morning I was listening to a podcast featuring a philosopher named Regina Rini who works on stuff related to social media and public discourse. She gives us what I think is a good characterization of a troll and talks about how people are often too quick to dismiss their interlocutors as such. She says, 

We all know internet trolls are out there. We know that there are people out in social media solely to cause grief. They don't actually believe the things they're saying. They don't actually care about the arguments they are having. They are just picking things that they know will make people upset and deliberately antagonizing people and it's just fun for them...

It makes perfect sense to dismiss people that fit this bill from serious discussions. It's a waste of time to talk to such persons because they pursue talk in bad faith as opposed to substantive discourse. But I don't see how anyone could honestly put me in that category. Look at my posts. It's all about trying to get to the bottom of things---things that I take very seriously and that I think are worth discussing. Interestingly, it's the Gangadeanians that are refusing to present counterarguments and resorting to ad hominems.

Regina Rini goes on to add,

I think a lot of times when there's an argument on twitter, facebook or what not, and someone says "Go away troll! Don't feed the trolls" the person they are calling a troll might not be a troll. We don't know, often. But it's easier to just dismiss someone you disagree with as a troll rather than engage with their arguments. And once you make that move-- conceptualizing the person as a troll, as somebody whose motivations are just to make you mad--they don't really mean what they are saying-- then obviously you can't take seriously what they are saying as equal participant in moral debate

Clear to Reason: What is it?

I've been talking a lot about whether we need for some things to be clear, or whether the Gangadeanians have shown us that some things are in fact, clear to reason. But here, I want to spend a little time focusing on what it means for the Gangadeanians that something is "clear to reason" to begin with.

It turns out that precise definitions are not easy to find from the Ganagdeanians who are quick to throw around the expression. (An interesting sociological note: I'm around philosophers more often than not and not one of them ever talks about things being "clear to reason.") As I've noted before, Gangadean says that to show that something (a proposition) is clear to reason is to show by way of proof that it couldn't possibly be false and to overcome common objections to it. That's about showing what is clear. But what is it for something to be clear? What's confusing is that if we remove the word "show" from the above account, we get that a proposition is clear if it couldn't possibly be false. But that would be a strange account of the clarity of a proposition. All and only necessary truths are such that they couldn't possibly be false. That would mean "clear" would be something like "necessarily true." But not every necessary truth is clear to reason, because not every necessary truth is readily knowable to all who seek (which is really what Gangadean wants out of clarity). For example, that water is H20, seems to be a necessary truth, but it's not like anybody could have deduced it from general revelation. It was discovered fairly recently with respect to world history and by way of empirical observation. No clarity about clarity yet.

That lead me to Anderson's first book, "Reason and Worldviews." Unfortunately, he actually forgoes a straight definition and gives us what he takes to be paradigm examples. He writes,

Throughout this book the term 'clarity' has been used, often in connection to 'reason'. What is clear, is clear to reason and therefore is objectively clear, as opposed to being personally/subjectively clear. The best way to define 'clarity' is to give an example: it is clear that 'a' is not 'non-a'. This is maximal clarity...

Of course, to say that something is clear just in case it's objectively clear, isn't to provide a particularly helpful definition because it uses the very word we'd like defined. But this example isn't entirely useless. Recall that Gangadean claims that God's existence is clear to reason. And what he means by that it is that is readily knowable to all (or at least those of average intelligence--according to that lecture on Youtube). How is it readily knowable? There's a proof that anybody could have come up with if only they were using reason consistently (yes that's a radical claim in itself). The point to stress is that there's a proof here--and on Gangadean's view, God's existence is clear because this argument/proof is in some way readily accessible to all. But as Anderson notes above, it's also supposed to be clear to reason that "a is not-non a" which is to say that propositions about basic distinctions, and the so-called laws of thought are apparently clear to reason, too. If you've been around these parts for a while you know that the Gangadeanians don't actually give an argument or proof for the claim that 'a is not-non-a' (the law of non contradiction). So God's existence is clear to reason dependent on the accessibility of a sound proof, but other things are clear to reason without such a proof being readily available. So, what's going on?

My puzzlement had me poking around one of the Gangadeanian websites, and I ran into this recent post by Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton. Of note is the following passage.

By reason is meant the laws of thought. It is self-evident that we think, and it is self-evident that there are laws of thought. Reason in itself is the laws of thought. These laws include Identity: a is a; Non-contradiction: not both a and non-a; and Excluded middle: either a or non-a.  We use reason to form concepts, judgments, and arguments. We use it to test for meaning. We use it to interpret all of our experiences. And we use it to construct a coherent world and life view (Emphasis added). 

For something to be "self-evident" is for it to be ascertained immediately. It isn't known via any sort of argument or inference. Interestingly--you don't find Burton's claims in particular (that it's self evident that there are laws of thought or that it's self-evident that we think) in Gangadean's book, Philosophical Foundation. But he does speak of self-evident truths in the following passage.

Reason has been misused as a source of truth. Certain convictions are treated as self-evident to reason, and foundational, requiring no further need for defense. Descartes' cogito ergo sum is said to be self-evident every time it is thought. Thomas Jefferson took it as self-evident that all men are created equal. These views may be true, but the question is, are they self-evident? Are alternatives immediately self-contradictory?...Or do they require at least a few steps in reasoning to show they are contradictory? (21). 

So, Gangadean believes that there are such things as self-evident truths. That is to say, things we know (that are clear to reason) immediately and not by way of any inference, or proof. As I've argued before, this is actually to allow that we can know some things via intuitions, which would be problematic for their worldview given how they claim to avoid intuitions. However, what the above passage also aims to do is to provide us with a criteria of distinguishing the legitimately self-evident from the pseudo-self-evident. Whatever it is immediately self-contradictory to deny = self-evident. (And presumably, what is self-evident is clear to reason but without the need for proof). The importance of this for Gangadean should be obvious. Anyone can easily claim that any proposition is self-evident, in which case, we would get "clarity" on the cheap (God's existence could be self-evident!) If there was no principled means of distinguishing between self-evident truths and merely those that people claim to be self-evident, appeals to self-evident truths would be no different than appeals to intuitions, which Gangadean is keen to avoid. (Note I think that ultimately intuitions must play a role in Ganagdean's worldview. That's because I see no way of getting around the idea that one immediately and non-inferentially apprehends when something is a contradiction as opposed to reasoning to it--which means one knows that a proposition is contradictory by way of intuition--but I'm setting this aside for now). So this criteria for self-evidency is crucial for Gangadean's worldview. It's basically a way for Gangadean not having to prove every bit of his worldview while managing to avoid the charge of fideism and intuition mongering which he finds unacceptable in others and skepticism and nihilism entailing. Does it work? Unfortunately, no.

If the litmus test of a self-evident claim is that it is immediately contradictory, then the natural question to ask is how we are to determine when something is immediately contradictory (as opposed to merely seeming to us that it is) vs. requiring "at least a few steps in reasoning to show they are contradictory." Again intuitions are unavoidable here (you either see something as immediately self-contractory or not--and this isn't by way of arguments). But we're setting that aside for the time being.

Instead I want to focus on the matter of conceptual or definitional disputes. Importantly, what strikes ones as immediately self-contradictory or not will depend largely on the conceptual vocabulary one adopts or one's background beliefs about the nature of things. And if there are disputes about what is immediately self-contradictory or not or if what counts as immediately self-contradictory is to some extent relative, Gangadean's purported test of self-evidency is of no use in which case appealing to "self-evident" truths fares no better than appeals to intuition.

Here's what I mean. If I define knowledge as entailing certainty/clarity, then to claim that I know that knowledge is not possible is to express something immediately contradictory. That's because it amounts to saying, "I'm certain that certainty is not possible." Likewise, if knowledge entails clarity, the very statement, "knowledge does not entail clarity" would be immediately self-contradictory because it would amount to saying that "knowledge is not knowledge." But if I define or conceive of knowledge as not entailing certainty, there is no such contradictions to be found. So what counts as immediately-self contradictory (as opposed to requiring multiple steps to show as contradictory) depends on one's concepts or definitions.

We can now appreciate just how important the dispute between the Gangadeanians and me over who has got the right theory of knowledge ends up being for the welfare of Gangadean's worldview. Not only do I submit that knowledge does not entail clarity, my claim is that they will be unable to prove that their theory of knowledge is the correct one over and above alternative accounts without begging the question. Importantly, neither is it self-evident that their theory of knowledge is correct according to Gangadean's own test of self-evidency because it's not immediately self-contradictory to deny that knowledge entails certainty (unless of course Gangadean is allowed to beg the question against me).

This is just one example and the point generalizes to other concepts over which philosophers have disputed (e.g., free will, eternality, epistemic justification, infinitude, justice, good, God, etc).  For instance, some philosophers and theologians define God as a necessary being. On such a conception, to say that God does not exist is to express a contradiction because it amounts to saying that a being who could not fail to exist, fails to exist. That's an immediate self-contradiction. But if you don't conceive of God in that way, then there is no such self-contradiction. So there's a kind of conceptual relativity at play which poses a serious problem for Gangadean's proposed test for self-evidency. What counts as self-evident can vary from person to person in much the same way that intuitions can from person to person.

It's also important to note that the burden of proof at this point is asymmetrical between team Gangadean and me. I am not the one claiming that we can have clarity or that we must have it. Neither am I the one purporting to be able to settle any and all disputes by way of rational presuppositional (note conceptual disputes are disputes). And I'm certainly not aiming to provide a sure-fire test of what makes a claim legitimately self-evidently true. Focusing again on the conflict over theories of knowledge, it is Ganagdean's claim that we need clarity (to avoid skepticism) that is driving him to adopt the theory of knowledge in which knowledge requires clarity/certainty. That being the case, they should be able to show why their theory is correct (on independent grounds) and how the purported test for self-evidency can get around this problem of disputes over concepts and definitions more generally. Another way to make this point about the burden of proof: if it turns out that we've got competing theories of knowledge (or justification, free will, moral responsibility, eternality, God, justice, mercy, good) and no principled way to choose the correct one with certainty/clarity, then that's enough to undermine Gangadean's search for clarity. It's their job to show why we aren't fated to this result.

A quick revisit of the Youtube Convo.

A reader reached out to me letting me know that some Gangadeanians continued the Youtube convo between Anderson and Spencer, to which they attempted to respond. However, this reader (writing under the pseudonym, Hank M and wishing to remain anonymous) alleges that his/her two followup comments, which were submitted a week ago, never showed up.

I've stated several times that the Gangadeanians have trouble keeping basic distinctions straight--for all their talk of clarity and reason, it's a bit ironic. I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but the latest comments do a fine job of illustrating just what I mean--straight from the horses mouth (sorry, I'll stop horsing around).

Both G.A. Goodrich and Samuel are making the same errors that Anderson, Gangadean, and Burton have made repeatedly. As Goodrich's first comment illustrates, he seems to think that if someone allows for the mere possibility that any of their beliefs are mistaken, that makes intelligible dialogue impossible. But how does that follow? As I've pointed out in the past, that's not something that's true by definition--so they've got some explaining to do. As Spencer stated clearly in his exchange with Anderson, he affirms that reason is ontological (or that 'a is a') even if he doesn't claim that he couldn't possibly be mistaken about it. What team-Gangadean has failed to do is to explain just why merely believing (even to a high degree) that an argument is not the same as a non-argument is not enough for a meaningful philosophical dialogue to continue.

You can see the same kind of mistake in Samuel's comment that Spencer is "unable to distinguish between a and non-a." Again, you can believe something even while you think it's at least possible for you to be mistaken about it. We do this all of the time! And if someone like Spencer believes that "a is distinct from non-a", then why are they unable to distinguish between them? In fact, to believe that "a is distinct from non-a" is a way of distinguishing between the two. So Samuel's comment is trivially, false.

Fortunately, any reader with enough patience can look through the comments and see that contrary to what Anderson and Goodrich insist, there was never a sound proof given for Anderson's claim that "if there is no clarity at the basic level, then intelligible conversation is impossible." As I noted before, the closest thing to an "argument" was Anderson's statement that "if nothing is clear, then perhaps an argument is a non-argument." But just like Goodrich after him, Anderson never actually showed us why the mere possibility that an argument is a non-argument would thereby make all intelligible dialogue (or the evaluations of arguments), impossible. As long as someone believes that an argument is not a non-argument, that sound is not non-sound, and the like, it makes perfect sense for them to talk and evaluate an argument. Since Anderson and company are claiming we need more (i.e., clarity), they owe us an argument.

I'm not sure why Hank M's comments were not posted by the moderator. Perhaps the latter got busy, or perhaps they assumed that I was the one commenting. At any rate, Hank M basically asked Goodrich for the proof again, pointing out that his snarky remark lacked Anderson's alleged proof. He also pressed Samuel to explain just why he thought Spencer was unable to distinguish between 'a and non-a'--both fine points.

Drawing out some implications: Why Other Christians Should Care and Why they are a Cult.

I've been telling my students this term that good philosophy involves considering a claim or set of claims (whether the premise of an argument or a conclusion) and carefully drawing out implications that might not otherwise be obvious to a casual observing, by connecting it/them to other propositions. It is sometimes the case that what a person argues for, or what they take for granted, by itself seems harmless or germane. What makes philosophy so interesting is that one can, on the basis of valid rules of inference, sometimes show that something surprising or unexpected follows from an otherwise seemingly innocuous claim or set of claims.

I've been thinking lately about the Gangadeanians ramping up their public appearances and how they occupy instructor and headmaster positions among many of the valley schools (both secondary and post-secondary). If I'm right that they believe such implausible things which they ultimately use to harm people and divide believers, how is it that they seem to be gaining momentum at least by some measures? And why aren't there more people speaking out against them in public? I should note that I've spoken to persons who are actually afraid to speak out against them in public which is troubling in its own right. Setting those persons aside, one explanation is that they have gotten better with how they present things and what it is that they set forth. That is to say, they tend to avoid talking about some of the natural corrollaries of their views which I think many people, in particular, Christians would take serious offense to--and more importantly I think Christians would think to be false and heretical. It takes a bit of work to connect the dots though and so I want to do a bit of that in this article.

In his book Philosophical Foundation, Gangadean writes,

If one knows what is clear one should be able to show what is clear and be able to overcome commonly held objections to what is clear...To show what is clear requires giving a sound argument (valid inference and true premises) (4). 

First, a quibble. Why does he say that you have to be able to overcome commonly held objections to what is clear, if you are to count as knowing what is clear. That feels awfully arbitrary. What counts as a "common" objection? My best guess is that it's the popularity of the objections otherwise, I have no clue what he could mean. But then why musn't a person care about unpopular objections? Does popularity entail correctness? Unpopularity incorrectness? This is bizarre. I don't get why the popularity of an objection should matter to whether you count has knowing. What is more, an objection may be popular relative to one group, but not another just as the popularity of an objection can shift depending on the time period.

Setting that quibble aside, what Gangadean is saying is this: if you aren't able to give a sound argument for something or are unable to overcome commonly held objections to it, then you don't count as knowing it. Now ask yourself, how many claims can you, by way of argument, prove in this sense? Remember to show that something is clear, is to show that you couldn't possibly be wrong about it---that it's impossible that the thing believed is false. I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find many things which you believe (and take yourself to know) to fall into this category.

Now it turns out that the Gangadeanians take themselves to know all kinds of things and so they take themselves to be able to prove as many claims (and to overcome commonly held objections to them). Here's a list of just some.

• That God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

• That Good for a man = spiritual life = to know basic things about God, man, good and evil. 

• That we are body soul unities (i.e., substance dualism is true). 

• That Matter couldn't possibly be eternal. 

• That the bible in its entirety is the word of God (or special revelation) and has been faithfully transmitted and preserved by God. 

• That we are not in a Matrix like scenario (that there is a mind-independent- external world i.e., external world skepticism is false). 

• That no other religion is the way to God (i.e., Jesus is the only way to God/salvation). 

• That Calvinism (TULIP) is true. 

• That postmillenialism is true. 

• That compatibilism (or soft determinism) concerning free will and moral responsibility is true. 

• That the Westminster Confession of Faith and the longer and shorter catechisms = the most faithful respresentation to date of Christianity. 

• That Christians ought not to use any instruments or sing anything, but Psalms in corporate worship services. 

• That the church ought to baptize infants belonging to parents of believers. 

• That women are to remain silent during worship services because men have a special duty to instruct their wives and daughters at home. 

• That young earth Creationism is true.

This is just a sample of the things they take themselves to know, which means that they can produce a series of sound arguments which have as their conclusions each of these things and that they can overcome "commonly held objections." Some of these concern interpretations of what the bible says--and yes, they think they can prove that their interpretations are not possibly incorrect. Now the thing to note about this list is that some of these are commonly held beliefs among Christians and some (the bulk of them) are hotly contested among Christians. As to this latter group, I suspect that many Christians will find it incredible that the Gangadeanians claim to be able to show that the opposite of them is impossible---that the Gangadeanians claim that they couldn't possibly be wrong concerning the truth of Calvinism for instance seems just wild.

Let's set those claims aside. Let's focus on the mere claim that God exists and that the bible is the word of God. Remember, according to Gangadean, if you aren't able to prove that the opposite of these claims is impossible, and aren't able to overcome commonly held objections to them, you don't count as knowing those things. This by itself, means that the vast majority of Christians who believes these things count as failing to know them. That's because by all accounts, most Christians don't come to believe that God exists or that the bible is the word of God by way of philosophical arguments, let alone being able to "show" or demonstrate such an argument.

But it's even worse than that. Even if a Christian believes that God (as conceived by classical theism) exists on the basis of a philosophical argument and is able to rehearse such an argument, that won't cut it either. It must be a sound argument. It must be an argument that definitively shows that it's impossible for God (as conceived) to not exist. Now Christian philosophy has a rich history. There are lots of theistic arguments produced and refined by Christian philosophers over the years. Do these count as proofs according to Gangadean? Nope. That's why he wrote his book. That's why he started a church that sets itself apart from others. As he sees things, none of the classical or contemporary arguments are sound and he and Anderson spend time in their works showing why the most common theistic arguments simply fail to show that it's impossible for God not to exist (or that it's clear that God exists). That's the main premise of Owen Anderson's book, the Clarity of God's existence! On the other hand, Gangadean claims that he's got The proof of God's existence and all the items on the above list and more!

Pulling these things together, we get the following corollary. According to the Gangadeanians, the vast majority of Christians fail to know that God exists. It's only those that know Gangadean's purported proof for God's existence, agree that it is sound, and are able to produce it (while overcoming commonly held objections) that count as knowing that God exists. On a very liberal estimate I would say that's about 200 or so people in the world. To be sure, they grant that people believe that God exists, but belief is not knowledge. The same is true of the proposition that the bible is the inspired word of God. The vast majority of people either don't know of Gangadean's proof or find it unsound--in that case, according to the Gangadeanians, the vast majority of Christians don't count as knowing that the bible is the word of God. The same is true of anything on the above list and more! In some cases, since some of the things enumerated above are contentious, you might think that that is a good thing. But if you read between the lines a bit, you should find such a view problematic for any Christian not in agreement with the Gangadeanians. That you don't know that the bible is the word of God (because you aren't able to rehearse Gangadean's argument for that claim) entails that you don't know that Jesus died for your sins! In other words, if we take Gangadean's express standard of knowledge, there is utter and widespread ignorance among Christians. Of course, by their lights, the ignorance also affects non-Christians equally.

Anderson finds it offensive that I have referred to his church as a cult. But is it really in line with orthodoxy, that the vast majority of Christians (save the 200 or so that may have bought into and are able to rehearse Gangadean's arguments) don't know that Christianity is true, that God exists, that Jesus died for their sins and that the bible is the inspired word of God? Hardly. What is more, it is Gangadean's view that failing to know what is "clear" is spiritual death. So, if by his lights, most Christians don't know that God exists, and that is among the clearest of things to be known, most Christians are in a kind of spiritual death. Further, Gangadean claims that spiritual death is inherent in not seeking to know--that's because Gangadean thinks his arguments are so obvious, so attainable, that anybody that was seeking to know, would know and agree. The root of sin for Gangadean is not seeking to know what is clear to reason. In fact, the only reason that anybody failed to come up with his proofs, or fails to agree that they are sound is if they are in some important sense failing to seek to know the truth, with integrity. So not only is there widespread ignorance of the core tenets of the Christian faith within the church, there's widespread spiritual death and widespread failure to seek the truth.

Now I should add something here. If you ask a Gangadeanian whether they believe other Christians (those that are unaware or unable to rehearse their proof for God's existence for example or those that know it, but disagree that it is sound) are "saved" or among the chosen ones, they will answer in the affirmative. I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense and might actually be an inconsistency in their worldview since they equate knowledge of God with spiritual life, not mere true belief. What was commonly said within the inner circle was that such Christians would be saved by the "skin of their teeth" (as one that barely escapes the fire by the mercy of God: see 1 Corinthians 3:15).

The sociological harm is this. They keep teaching, at least the views that entail all of these implications as "historic Christianity" a clever moniker intended to convey something like "the proper set of doctrines that represent the gospel." They teach this in several charter schools across the valley to unsuspecting middle school and high school students. They teach it across several community college campuses (in religious studies and philosophy courses) and even at Arizona State University-West. They also take it upon themselves to preach to their friends and family members who are often fellow Christians. When people don't respond to their arguments, or find them unsound, they consider them as neglecting, avoiding, resisting or denying reason. [Quote: "There is no rational justification for failure to know what is clear. One has to neglect, avoid, resist, deny reason in order to fail to see what is clear (Gangadean 4)."] Or if one of their own starts to question the soundness of their arguments, they disassociate from them as having no basis for a true friendship.

Perhaps now my readers (in particular the Christian ones) can better appreciate why I think their definition or theory of knowledge (in conjunction with the need for clarity-knowledge) is largely where they go wrong. If either we accept that knowledge doesn't require being able to demonstrate or produce Gangadean's proof (or any perfectly airtight proof), then it's possible that lots of people know that God is. And is it that surprising if God, according to Christian theism, can make his existence known in a multitude of ways and not limited to a single proof? Alternatively, if we allow that knowledge of the Gangadeanian isn't valuable to the faith, then we aren't forced to bite this huge caliber of a bullet that the Gangadeanian's are committed to biting--maybe (though unlikely) they've got the right theory of knowledge, but it turns out that knowledge that such knowledge is so hard to come by for the rest of us, that it isn't even worth worrying about. Either way is bad for the Gangadeanian worldview. Either knowledge doesn't require clarity or it does, but there's nothing valuable about that kind of knowledge to begin with. They can pick their poison.

The public talks, the books, the lectures they give in their classrooms (both secondary and post-secondary) and the like are ultimately on their view a way to bring people into the truth---which is to buy into Gangadean's arguments. So despite their best efforts to soften their approach, to be more crafty in their rhetoric, make no mistake---they believe that the vast majority of Christians are severely mistaken and ignorant---they might have gotten to a lucky true belief, but they don't have knowledge of the core elements of their faith.

Burton on What is Reason: On Gangadean's "First Principles"

Burton has a new article up entitled, "What is Reason?" There she makes the standard Gangadeanian claim that Reason is the laws of thought. I stress both 'claim' and 'is' here for a reason. As to the former, it's a claim in that it's truth-evaluable--meaning we can inquire into whether or not it's true and what reasons we might have for believing that it is. Secondly, there's an identity claim being made. What is being said is that Reason by its very nature is the law of identity, the law of excluded middle and the law of contradiction. So when we're inquiring into whether this Gangadanian slogan is true, we're asking whether we have sufficient reason to believe in their particular claim about the  nature of Reason. What is behind this identity claim? I'm not entirely sure. People use the word 'reason' in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it refers to a faculty, sometimes a process (as when you reason from P to Q), sometimes a justification or basis for a belief (as in, "the reason I believe P is R"). But the Gangadeanians seem to be thinking of Reason as a set of laws "governing" thought and that strikes me as peculiar. Why should anybody agree with this way of carving reality? The upshot: we shouldn't just let them take this proposal on faith. Instead we should ask them to rationally justify the proposal that Reason is the laws of thought.

======Skip this part if you don't want to get caught up in the weeds======

But there's more to question. What makes the "laws of thought" laws according to the Gangadeanians is that they hold without exception--which sort of follows from the identity claim. What they have in mind is that wherever there is a thought occurring, there is also the instantiation of what they call the laws of thought. You can't have thought without such an instantiation. In other words, all possible thought will by necessity instantiate or presuppose say, the law of identity (a is a). But what exactly does that mean? It's hard to say. They insist that anybody that is being intellectual honest will agree with it, but honestly, it's not very clear what it is that we are supposed to agree with. Just why a person that disagrees or fails to agree (note these are different doxastic states) is denying Reason is beyond me. I suspect that when we get to this level of abstraction, the Gangadeanians are prone to slippage. This is because presuppositions are more complicated than it would at first appear. People or epistemic subjects frequently presuppose a proposition in believing another or in arguing for another. In that sense of the word, to presuppose is to instance a kind of mental activity where you assume one thing to believe or argue for another. Let's call that the personal-sense of presupposition. Of course, two parties engaged in a debate can together presuppose a proposition too--if they take it for granted, or decide not to call it into question. And there are complexities here. To presuppose that 'a is a' in this sense need not be an "all or nothing," "one and done" affair. Two parties of a discussion might say that for the purposes of a particular discussion, they will not call into question some claim. That's a way for them to presuppose it. Thus presuppositions in this sense don't require belief or knowledge. Again if two people decide that for the purposes of a given talk, they are not going to call into question some claim, then they presuppose its truth without assenting to its truth. And what I've pointed out before is that contra what the Gangadeanians claim, meaningful discussions can occur even when two people don't come to fully endorse as true and exceptionless 'a is a'--as long as they assume it (decide not to call it into question).

On the other hand, there seems to be a more abstract, non-personal kind of presupposition which I think the Gangadeanians generally have in mind when they talk about all thought "presupposing the law of identity." I suspect they'd be inclined to say that every possible instance of thought *logically* depends on or presupposes the law of identity. That doesn't depend on any subject actually believing the law of identity or even deciding to assume it is true. But here again, it gets a bit difficult to understand what that's supposed to mean. Do you honestly have a strong grasp of what I've just said? Suppose that one thinks about this and finds not enough of a grasp of the ideas in order to honestly give assent. Does that make one intellectually dishonest? It is another Gangadeanian slogan that you can't agree/disagree (though you can be agnostic and fail to agree!) with a claim until you know what it means. Perhaps the Gangadeanians need to develop and communicate their fundamental ideas with more precision before accusing everyone else of being inconsistent or lacking integrity.

===============================

Now even tabling these concerns, one might wonder how it is that the Gangadeanians come to "clarity" about the very nature of thought itself. Remember, by their lights, to know that something is clear to Reason, one must be able to show that it is by way of a sound proof which requires being able to show that the opposite is not possible. How can one show that the opposite is not possible when it comes to the claim that all possible thought presupposes the law of identity? Another way of making the point: if according to the Gangadeanians, Reason is the laws of thought, so that thought is not possible without say, the exceptionless truth of the law of identity, then to know what Reason is, is to know about the very nature of thought. But in all sincerity I wonder how one comes to achieve "clarity" about the nature of thought (which is to know about all possible thought--including perhaps the nature of God's thoughts, or the thoughts of angels, inasmuch as they have thoughts). What doesn't seem like a promising approach for the Gangadeanians here is to rest their case on their reflections about their own thoughts because that's a very small sample. Their claim isn't that all the thoughts that they themselves have considered presuppose the laws of identity. It's that all thoughts, period presuppose it. Can they prove it or show that the opposite is not possible? If not, what can they do while remaining true to their other committments? (Note it's not just an issue of hasty generalization, but also of why we should trust whatever reflections they have over their sample as veridical).

This brings us to Burton's latest article. In particular, she writes,

These laws are first principles and are assumed any time we think. They cannot be proven, but are the basis for any further proof. 

So her claim here is that there is no possibility of proving the law of identity as an exceptionless law of thought. That should be a red flag. I take it that she claims to know that the laws of thought are true, and so that means she's violated Gangadean's constraint that one can know a proposition only if, one is able to demonstrate or prove that it is true (which involves demonstrating that the opposite is not possible). What that means is that Gangadean allows that for at least some claims, we can know them without being able to prove them (or rule out even the possibility that they are false).

When someone starts to make exceptions to their own rules, the natural question to raise is whether the exceptions are principled or whether there's a worry of arbitrariness. If Gangadean is allowed to rest his case on what he claims are "first principles" that are unapologetically unproven, then why can't others (whom they are quick to criticize) proliferate principles that are also unproven and simply claim that no proof is required "because they make proof possible?"

The natural response from team Gangadean will be that they have a non-arbitrarily way to restrict what can rationally be taken for granted as a first principle. Namely, all and only that which makes proof (or thought) possible. But you should see why this is of no help in the current context. It only brings us back to what I've discussed above. We need only ask how it is that the Gangadeanians know (clearly) that the so called "laws of thought" make proof/thought possible. Again, employing their own theory of knowledge, to know a thing like this is to be able to demonstrate it by way of a sound argument. So, either they need to be able to prove that the law of identity makes proof or thought possible (i.e., that it is presupposed in all possible thought and proof) or else it's another first principle with no basis, taken on faith or intuition or something equally as problematic from the point of view of the Gangadeanians.

Remember that the reason Gangadean claims that we need his method (rational presuppositionalism) and clarity at the basic level is that he thinks we need to be able to rationally settle any and all disputes. (That's why he thinks it must be clear that God exists, if it isn't clear, then there's no way to objectively settle the dispute between theists and atheists and that's a serious problem). But what if someone sincerely disagrees with Gangadean about the laws of thought or Reason itself? What if they simply don't agree that all possible thought presupposes the law of identity? How can Gangadean rationally settle such a dispute? To invoke "first principles" which can't be proven at this point isn't to rationally settle any dispute. It's nothing more than saying to your opponent, "you're just wrong."

To be sure: I'm not saying I don't believe that 'a is a'. I'm not saying I don't know that 'a is a'. I'm not saying I don't think proof is possible. I'm merely pointing out that at the end of the day, the Gangadeanians rest their whole worldview on immediate judgments which aren't proven. That's what I tried to get Gangadean to see years ago to no avail. Since they like to criticize others for believing things without proof they need to figure out a way to harmonize this practice with the fact that they, too, ultimately depend on unproven (indeed, by Burton's admission, unprovable) assumptions. Otherwise they're just being hypocritical. And it seems like their approach is to invoke the claim that what they presuppose is the very laws of thought, which makes thinking possible. But again this is just another claim that might be true or false. Hence, we can ask the Gangadeanians about this further claim itself, whether it is something they know, whether it is provable, or whether it, too, makes proof or thought possible? Of course the claim that the law of identity makes thought possible, isn't a claim that itself makes thought possible--after all, it's a claim about what makes thought possible! So it must be provable then or else taken on faith or intuition or something of the sort--something problematic for the Gangadeanians.

Fetishizing Clarity: disambiguating key terms.

Quick note: I've been spending an awful lot of time talking about knowledge and clarity in relation to the Gangadeanians. Part of the reason is that I think the cluster of related issues is the most fundamental of their worldview. Without it, they will have a hard time justifying why they have chosen to set themselves apart from the church at large. Without it, they will be hard pressed to explain why it is that they have pushed family members, former friends, former members (like myself) out of their fold. But it's also the case that this set of issues is among the more difficult to really understand. So I'm working on coming up with different angles in presenting the material in question. Ultimately, I hope to have a kind of master article which pulls all of this stuff which is covered in many of my articles together. I'm not only trying to be comprehensive, but I'm also figuring out how best to present the material for future projects that I have going on in the background. So bear with me and feel free to leave me feedback! Okay now for the substantive stuff...

This post has two parts. The first is my claim that the Gangadeanians have a strange fetish--a fetish for clarity of basic propositions. Not only that, but they are arguing that every human should share the same fetish. They believe that we all as rational animals, need clarity of basic things. So if you, like me, just don't see what all the fuss is about, then according to the Gangadeanians, you're being intellectually dishonest, self-referentially absurd, or denying reason in some important sense. The second is to try and introduce new terms as a way of disambiguating things. When people use the same words in importantly different ways, it helps to give the ideas behind them different labels and that's just what I think we should do with respect to 'skepticism,' 'knowledge,' 'nihilism,' and 'discussions.'

Just what is this clarity of which they speak? As I've noted before, it's not just what that word means when we (qua non-philosophers) use it. And it's not the feeling of full confidence. That's a psychological state. As best as I can tell, clarity is a property of propositions (e.g., that God exists). For some proposition to be clear is for there to be a sound argument which shows that the opposite is logically or metaphysically impossible. Now what gets tricky is that the Gangadeanians also relate clarity to knowledge and knowledge is not a property of propositions. Particular people know or don't know things.  Hence according to the Gangdeanians, a particular S knows that P only if S is able to show (prove) that the opposite of P is not possible (more on this below). That should be enough defining for now--let's get back to the question, must some things be clear to reason?

How does one go about showing that one denies reason insofar as they deny the need for clarity. Note the thesis that somethings must be clear is not the same as the claim that some thing are (actually) clear. To be sure, the two are related on at least one reading of 'must'. If we think that 'must' here means 'necessarily' so that the Gangadeanians are claiming that necessarily, some things are clear, then that entails that some things are actually clear. Just like 'necessarily, water is wet' entails that 'in actuality, water is wet.' (I won't bother you with how philosophers model such things in terms of possible world semantics, but feel free to ask if you like). But the entailment doesn't go in the other direction so the two claims are not equivalent. Generally, it's harder to prove a claim about what is necessarily the case than it is to prove a claim about what is actually the case because the former is logically stronger. So when the Gangadeanians try to prove that some things must be clear, they have their work cut out for them.

I started this post with a mention of a clarity-fetish and I've gone on to talking about proofs in relation to the thesis that necessarily, some things are clear. What's the relationship? Well, the way that the Gangadeanians try to prove that some things must be clear, is to appeal to what they think will logically follow if nothing is clear. As I've noted here and here, they argue that under the assumption that nothing is clear, we wouldn't be able to (coherently) do some stuff. What kind of stuff, exactly? This matters a whole lot. If they had merely shown that without clarity at the basic level, we couldn't coherently eat moon pies, or juggle 3 balls with one hand, or get a degree in art history, then they will not have proven much. That's because it isn't obvious that we all ought to care to achieve those things to begin with.

The Gangdaeanians claim that without clarity at the basic level (including clarity over basic distinctions), meaningful thought and talk are not possible. Sometimes they exploit this principle to stop a conversation by pointing out that their interlocutor can't coherently evaluate an argument because they don't agree that there is clarity at the basic level (because presumably, being able to evaluate an argument requires clarity of basic distinctions). I've already argued that they merely assert all of this (see the two links above). We haven't yet heard a non-circular or non-flat-footed response given for the thesis that without clarity, meaningful thought and talk are not possible. The mere possibility that an argument is a non-argument doesn't preclude one from believing (even to a high degree) that an argument is an argument rather than a non-argument. And if you believe to a high degree that 'a is a', there's nothing preventing you from evaluating arguments, coherently making distinctions, forming beliefs, and even coming to know things.

Tabling those considerations for now, there's another concern here. Suppose we grant the Gangdaeanians their contentious claim that we can't have intelligible/meaningful thought or talk without clarity at the basic level. I contend that even granting them this dubious and unsupported claim, there's still a question about why we should care about intelligible/meaningful thought or talk in the sense that they are using those expressions.  That is to say, maybe we can't have whatever kind of intelligible thought or talk they have in mind, but insofar as their notion of meaningful thought and talk is idiosyncratic, maybe we just need not worry ourselves about it. If it turns out to be like more like juggling, majoring in art history, or eating moon pies, then we need not be bothered even if we can't have it. Some people like them and other people don't. But it's not like we can demonstrate that all rational persons must desire or care about those very things.

To appreciate this worry I propose that we disambiguate some key expressions.

Here are some standard terms that philosophers at large frequently use and which are important for our purposes.

Skepticism: the view that knowledge is not possible.
Nihilism: the view that there is no meaning in the world.

Philosophers also engage in meaningful discussions regularly as a way of getting to some true picture of the world or at least to a close approximation. Outside of the Gangadeanians, I know of no philosopher that thinks we need certainty or clarity at the basic level or at any level in order for our discussions to have a point, or to be intelligible, or meaningful.

The thing is the Gangadeanians use these same common terms, but as recent posts and conversations have shown us, they seem to mean different things by these terms than the rest of us. That complicates matters and I suspect they do this on purpose as a way of deceiving their listeners. Think of a trojan horse from Greek mythology. During the Trojan war, legend has it that the people of Troy were presented with what looked to be a harmless wooden horse. Unfortunately, for them only after they accepted it within their walls did they learn that it hid a Trojan army. The Gangadaenians do this with words--hoping their listeners will agree to their arguments by using plain terms, without being upfront about how what they mean by those words is actually different in important ways from common parlance or even regular philosopher-speak. Then bad arguments which hinge on the Gangadeanian definitions are used to fight off objections. As such I think it's important from the start to think of the Gangdeanians as having their own lexicon. To make this explicit I want to introduce new labels which I'll try to start incorporating in my discussions.

Clarity-Skepticism: the view that knowledge which entails clarity, is not possible.
Clarity-Nihilism: the view that the sort of meaning which requires clarity is not possible.
Clarity-Requiring-Discussions: A special kind of dialogue that requires clarity at the basic level in order to be intelligible.

The three are intimately related for the Gangadeanians. Clarity-requiring-discussions seem to have a very particular point--it's dialogue aimed at getting to epistemic certainty. That's why they seem to think that if you don't have clarity at the basic level, there's no point in talking or thinking and that the very possibility of coherent discussion are impossible. And I think the picture of the relationship between the three is something like this: you start with basic claims which you know with absolute certainty, and then you proceed in having these certainty-requiring discussions in order to get more certainty--that way, you avoid clarity-skepticism and clarity-nihilism.

As you see, the two sets of terms appear to get at very different ideas. What follows from the possibility that some things are not clear is not skepticism or nihilism per se, but rather clarity-skepticism and clarity-nihilism. And it's not that no meaningful or intelligible dialogue is possible without clarity at the basic level, but rather only a special kind of discussion--the kind that requires epistemic certainty in the first place i.e., the kind that aims at clarity. 

Anderson's recent remarks about "retrieving knowledge" suggests that he would disagree with what I've said. He would say that the "correct" or "true definition" of knowledge just entails certainty and so skepticism (as the view that knowledge is not possible) just is clarity-skepticism as I've labeled it. I think he'd go so far as to say that philosophers (who don't think you need clarity for knowledge) have changed the definition of knowledge in an objectionable way. But the question is, can he prove so much? Can he use rational presuppositionalism and show that his definition is correct and that the rest of us philosophers have got it wrong? I highly doubt it.

Alternatively, we have a value question before us. Should we care at all if clarity-skepticism follows from our assumptions? Or what about clarity-nihilism? Furthermore, should we care at all if we can't have the kinds of discussions that Gangadean et al. insist we can't have if we don't have clarity at the basic level (i.e., certainty-requiring-discussions)? I don't see why. If we can have intelligible discussion, avoid skepticism and nihilism all without "clarity" at the basic level, then we need not worry ourselves with avoiding clarity-skepticism, clarity-nihilism and clarity-requiring-discussions. If the Gangadeanians are insisting that we'd be missing out on something important, they should explain what that is.

Keep in mind that I was kicked out of their church not because I didn't believe that 'a is a'. I was kicked out because I wouldn't agree with the claim that it's impossible for us to be wrong about 'a is a'. In fact, I was even willing to say, we need not bother ourselves with calling into question trivialities like 'a is a'. That is to say, my view was that we should just assume it or presume it to be true and move on with our lives. But that just wasn't enough for Gangadean. This is what I mean by fetishizing clarity.

Fact Checking the Gangadeanians on Twitter.

My ventures into twitter have been interesting. So far, Anderson and Burton while refusing to talk to me (which would require actually doing philosophy) have opted to talk about me by way of ridicule and to dismiss me as a troll.

I guess, by their lights, this is a suitable way for professors and professing Christians to behave. I'd rather spend my time on substantive issues. 

What I find striking and what I hope you see is how they have misrepresented my views. I suspect that the Gangadeanians by in large are ignorant of what my views actually are because they are likely instructed by Gangadean not to read my blog. Instead I suspect they receive the "cliffs notes" version from the likes of Burton and Anderson. Given how Burton and Anderson are in the business of creating caricatures of my views, this is a sad state of affairs. 

Fact Check:

Anderson tweets that I deny that we can know that a is a (i.e., a triviality). That's wrong. I know that a is a. I think you do, too. I think we know lots and lots of things. Where Anderson and I differ is on what counts as knowing. He assumes (without argument) that knowing something requires that you are able to show that the opposite is not even possible. That is to say, for you to count as knowing that you have hands, you need to be able to rehearse, among other things, Gangadean's proof of the external world. Anybody that isn't able to do so won't count as knowing they have hands. I say, there are things you know which you aren't able to prove in that manner. That doesn't entail that I deny knowledge. Instead quite the opposite is true. I affirm that we know all kinds of things--in fact, much more than Anderson allows. I just think that Anderson's theory of knowledge is a bad one and at the very least something he needs to prove as correct.

Anderson's, "incorrigible memory lapses" comment is meant to be a jab at me, as is Burton's statement that she can't remember. Again this is predicated on a misrepresentation of my views. I once argued that the possibility that our memory isn't reliable is not something we can rule out by way of any proof. We needn't bother ourselves with the details. What matters is what I took to be the moral of that argument. I wasn't saying that skepticism wins just because it's remotely possible that our memory (which we depend on in evaluating an argument to store content) is unreliable. Instead, my claim was that the rational response is to rely on our memory presumptively--that is, to suppose that it is innocent until proven guilty. And I was trying to show Gangadean that he, too relied on such a presumption unless he could somehow prove all the occasions in which his memory couldn't possibly fail him. In turn the point was to see if such a presumption was compatible with his views concerning what it takes to know things (clearly).

Burton tweets that I don't think proofs are possible. Wrong again. I think that many of the arguments which the Gangadeanians claim to be proofs are unsound. But that's not the same as saying no proof is possible. Does Burton think that Gangadeanian "proofs" are the only "proofs" that there are so that if their arguments fail, no arguments can possibly succeed? Burton needs to mind her quantifiers. The claim that some purported proofs fail is not the same as saying that all purported proofs must fail. Again, this is a very simple distinction that a professor who purports to be retrieving knowledge and renewing philosophy should be able to keep straight.

Anderson also represents my view as positively believing that we can't have certainty that 'a is a'. That's sort of a half truth. It's correct only if by 'certain' we mean just what the Gangadeanians mean by it. It's wrong if by 'certain' he means what the rest of us mean by it. So Anderson is trading on an ambiguity which they themselves have created. I'm certain that 'a is a,' but I don't pretend to be able to prove that a is a or to be able to show that the opposite is impossible. I don't think you can (or even need to) prove such trivialities. More importantly, I argue that the Gangadeanian's have offered no such proof.

Finally, what is this bit about "Ad populum"? Anderson seems to be claiming that I have appealed to the fact that philosophers disagree with them about something and that that was proof that the Gangadeanians were wrong. My best guess is that he's referring to my challenge to his theory of knowledge. I have said many times before that most philosophers disagree with their account of what counts as knowing. But that's not an ad populum if you understand the upshot of my observation. I'm not arguing, "because the majority of philosophers disagree with Anderson's theory of knowledge, therefore, it is wrong." Instead I'm merely pointing out that there is disagreement over which theory of knowledge is correct and so the Gangadeanians can't just take for granted that they have a monopoly on the concept or term. Since the Gangadeanians claim that Rational Presuppositionalism can settle all disputes, they had better explain how they can settle this dispute about what is the nature of knowledge. 

I'm a Troll!

Only one day of actually using my Twitter and I've already been called a troll by Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton. I guess it's much easier for the Gangadeanians to play the name-calling game, than it is to answer my objections. Not a good look.

She's also playing fast as loose with the term troll.

I have never tried to contact or talk to Burton and she's only recently come up on this blog (and now my twitter post) because of her new book and because of the recent talks she's given. As you can see for yourself, all of remarks concerning her concern the philosophical content of her arguments. That hardly makes me a troll. By her definition of the word, Socrates was trolling hard.

Twitter Account

I've decided to start using my twitter. There's a link to it on the side-bar of this blog. Feel free to follow!

The need for Renewing Philosophy? Retrieving Knowledge?

On his blog, Anderson is promoting Kelly Fitzsimmons-Burton's new book entitled Retrieving Knowledge: A Socratic Response to Skepticism. I'll try to get a copy and provided there is any new content, will aim to present a review. The brief remarks provided by Anderson are interesting and helpful in understanding where I anticipate the book will go wrong. He writes,

...In this book she looks at the idea of knowledge in early Greek philosophy and its connection to the logos.  Contemporary philosophers have attempted to get around problems in defining knowledge by weakening the definition to something that does not include certainty.  Dr. Burton begins her study by picking up with the Socratic problem of distinguishing between true opinion and knowledge.  Weaker contemporary definitions of knowledge still fall under “true belief.”

Anderson's claim here is strange. He says that contemporary philosophers have "attempted to get around problems in defining knowledge by weakening the definition to something that does not include certainty." He's acting as if knowledge in its "truest definition" entails certainty and that the rest of us philosophers have fudged on that definition in an unmotivated way. (I add the bit about "unmotivated way" because philosophers indeed have tried out various definitions, but only because thinking carefully about knowledge has moved them to do so.) What's missing in Anderson's remarks is an argument for why anybody should grant Anderson his claim that he's got the right definition to begin with. I've called the Gangadeanians Semantic Chauvinists before and I hope you can see why. They purport to have got the right definitions basically out of thin air without ever defending their definitions against those that disagree, nor the method by which they purport to come by them. 

I'm also not quite sure what to make of Anderson's further claim that "weaker contemporary definitions of knowledge" fall under "true belief." It's supposed to be a criticism of contemporary (non Gangadeanian accounts) of knowledge. But since on nearly all accounts of knowledge, including Gangadean's, knowledge entails belief, I don't think he's saying that "weaker contemporary definitions of knowledge entail true beliefs." (That is to say, he doesn't seem to be saying that on contemporary accounts, 'S knows that P', entails that 'S believes P and P is true'). So what I think he means here is that on weaker contemporary definitions of knowledge, knowledge turns out no different than a mere true belief. That is, they aren't distinguishable. But if that's what he's saying, then he's just plain wrong. On every contemporary account of knowledge that I've ever encountered, and all of the ones that have gained any currency, 'knowledge' is not co-extensive with 'true belief.' For instance, take reliabilist accounts: on such views, knowledge is a special kind of true belief--one that is the result of a reliable faculty (e.g. perception). The very fact that it's a special kind of true belief rather than any old true belief means that on such a theory, knowledge is not the same as mere true belief. Or consider the many conditions which are intended to get around Gettier counterexamples like sensitivity or safety accounts. We don't need to get into the technical details here. What each kind of theory aims to do is provide the extra ingredient, which when combined with a justified true belief turns it into a bit of knowledge. If knowledge was just a true belief on such accounts, that wouldn't make a lick of sense. There has also been considerable interest lately in virtue epistemology accounts like responsibilism--again, knowledge is a special kind of true belief (those gained by epistemically responsible agents) on such views rather than mere true belief. Even on Williamson's knowledge-first epistemology which treats knowledge as a primitive notion (unanalyzable), it isn't equivalent to true beliefs. After all, Williamson isn't arguing that mere true-beliefs should be treated as primitives in epistemology. So what Anderson has said about contemporary theories of knowledge is just plain, wrong. 

He goes on to add,  

Socrates asks us to consider what is necessary to have knowledge.  When we know we have a belief, it is true, and we can show or give an account (a logos) of why it is true.  In this way, Socrates tells us that knowledge is permanent where true opinion is not.  When we have a true opinion and are questioned on it we are unable to explain why it is true and it slips away from us.  But when we actually have knowledge we are able to give this account and it is still with us, it is permanent and unmoving.

What Anderson is saying here is that Fitzsimmon-Burton's Socrates proposes an account of knowledge and we should just assume he's got it right. This feels like an appeal to authority or perhaps something worse since Socrates might not even count as an authority in the pertinent sense. I mean, isn't it possible that Socrates has got it wrong? He doesn't own the domain of concepts or language. And you have lots of philosophers disagreeing with Socrates. Despite what Anderson would like to do, he can't rationally just wave his hands around and take it for granted that the rest of us have got it wrong. That would be to fail his own epistemic standards of proof which he's quick to hold the rest of us to. 

And why shouldn't we think it's Gangadean, Anderson and Burton's Socrates who are "redefining knowledge" in an incorrect manner? As I've pointed out, their way, consistently held, leads to skepticism. It's a great irony that the Gangadeanians purport to be renewing philosophy (i.e., saving it from the mess that the rest of us philosophers have made of it) all the while failing to avoid very basic mistakes in reasoning. I say there's no need to retrieve knowledge--let's just ignore bad theories of knowledge, regardless of who they come from.