Philosophers And Belief In God

[Calm]

A friend brought this blog to my attention elsewhere and I immediately thought of Mark (mfb):
 
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/trust-experts.html
 

PhilPapers recently conducted a survey of opinion among academic philosophers….Here’s how all respondents from the survey’s “target faculty” answered when asked where they stand on the question of God’s existence:

ALL RESPONDENTS:

Accept or lean toward atheism 72.8%
Accept or lean toward theism 14.6%
Other 12.5%

And here’s how the results came out for respondents in two key subdisciplines:

RESPONDENTS SPECIALIZING IN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION:

Accept or lean toward theism 72.3%
Accept or lean toward atheism 19.1%
Other 8.5%

RESPONDENTS SPECIALIZING IN MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY:

Accept or lean toward atheism 41.1%
Accept or lean toward theism 29.4%
Other 29.4%

. . . . .

Now, what do these results mean? You can be sure that some atheists will read the latter two sets of results as evidence only that many people who believe in God for non-philosophical reasons have flooded into philosophy of religion and medieval studies. And they will read the former results as evidence that philosophers who don’t enter the field with a religious ax to grind are more likely to be atheists.

But of course there is another obvious way to interpret the results in question – as clear evidence that those philosophers who have actually studied the arguments for theism in depth, and thus understand them the best – as philosophers of religion and medieval specialists naturally would – are far more likely to conclude that theism is true, or at least to be less certain that atheism is true, than other philosophers are. And if that’s what the experts on the subject think, then what the “all respondents” data shows is that most academic philosophers have a degree of confidence in atheism that is rationally unwarranted.

 

 

[The Nehor]

It surprises me that anyone in academic philosophy can believe there is no God. They studied philosophy and somehow got a job. I mean, if that isn't a miracle what is?

[3DOP]

A friend brought this blog to my attention elsewhere and I immediately thought of Mark (mfb):

 

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/trust-experts.html

 

 

 

Hmmm. I have his blog as one of my bookmarks that I seldom visit though I should. Why do I not visit those I agree with more often? Interestingly, Dan Peterson brought him to to my attention a few years ago. Feser is very Thomistic. All the stuff I have said that bukowski dismisses, as respectfully as he thinks he can, as nonsense? I guarantee you this guy will defend nature, essence, and being.

[mfbukowski]

Hmmm. I have his blog as one of my bookmarks that I seldom visit though I should. Why do I not visit those I agree with more often? Interestingly, Dan Peterson brought him to to my attention a few years ago. Feser is very Thomistic. All the stuff I have said that bukowski dismisses, as respectfully as he thinks he can, as nonsense? I guarantee you this guy will defend nature, essence, and being.

As you suppose I don't like Feser.  He may attempt to defend it, but not successfully in my opinion.

 

We LDS need to change our understanding of these matters from sectarian philosophies like Feser's.

[mfbukowski]

It surprises me that anyone in academic philosophy can believe there is no God. They studied philosophy and somehow got a job. I mean, if that isn't a miracle what is?

The fact is, it is a very political field. I have always had too big a mouth to be politically correct and never wanted to teach the same old stuff over and over so I never even tried; also I studied Wittgenstein who believed that he came up with a method which solves all philosophical problems, and I believed him.  I still do.

 

To me, the purpose of philosophy is to put itself out of business by helping everyone realize that the alleged problems are just confusions, and once the confusions are understood as such, they go away in a puff of smoke and mirrors, as linguistic confusions.  A true philosopher in my book should be more like a therapist teaching how resolve problems rather than rehashing their histories thereby perpetuating the errors.

[mfbukowski]

A friend brought this blog to my attention elsewhere and I immediately thought of Mark (mfb):

 

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/trust-experts.html

 

Well as usual, I disagree with Feser.

 

He is really too stuck on a concept of "truth" which he cannot even defend, but that is for another day's discussion.  But even here, that last sentence talking about what is or is not "rationally warranted" displays his prejudice on the matter.

 

I think it is a very foolish idea to think that philosophers, who are in the business of digging out ambiguities and linguistic nuances, to classify themselves in categories not of their own making.   I mean think about it.

 

What does it mean to "accept Atheism"?  "I accept that among all the things that don't exist, god is one of them- except obviously the concept exists or this sentence would make no sense, so what are we talking about anyway, so in a sense God exists but not in some other sense, depending on what you might mean by "exists" anyway"

 

If you think that the concept of God is irrelevant to your life, does that make you an "agnostic"?  Why didn't they ask about those who believe or don't believe in Bigfoot, UFO's or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

 

In my experience, one does not get a job at BYU or Georgetown, Fordham or Notre Dame if one is an atheist.  Pretty much. one must support the party line, whatever it is.  And if you are an overt theist, you may not be able to get a job at many secular universities.  So I am sure a lot of the responses are colored by issues like that.

 

In short, I am inclined to disagree with Feser and go with what one would expect about the results, as he says here

Now, what do these results mean? You can be sure that some atheists will read the latter two sets of results as evidence only that many people who believe in God for non-philosophical reasons have flooded into philosophy of religion and medieval studies. And they will read the former results as evidence that philosophers who don’t enter the field with a religious ax to grind are more likely to be atheists.

Yep, that's what I think

 

Incidentally also, I think EVERYONE has an "axe to grind" when one gets into philosophy.  There is some issue in your life- some conflict- that you want to study.

Now this part:

 

But of course there is another obvious way to interpret the results in question – as clear evidence that those philosophers who have actually studied the arguments for theism in depth, and thus understand them the best – as philosophers of religion and medieval specialists naturally would – are far more likely to conclude that theism is true, or at least to be less certain that atheism is true, than other philosophers are. And if that’s what the experts on the subject think, then what the “all respondents” data shows is that most academic philosophers have a degree of confidence in atheism that is rationally unwarranted.

Clearly incorrect in my opinion.

 

The argument itself, presuming that "Theism is true" and can be shown to be such by argumentation, is itself a theistic position.  He is actually begging the question of theism by even phrasing his comment this way.

 

And the truth is there are NO "arguments for theism" in anything BUT medieval philosophy, or modifications of medieval philosophy.  So one would not ordinarily study them unless one was interested them in the first place, and therefore medieval philosophy.

 

Phrenology was a study of the skull popular in the 19th century, which supposedly would allow one to predict personality traits by carefully measuring the bumps on one's head.

 

To me Feser's argument, applied to phrenology, would go something like this:

 

"But of course there is another obvious way to interpret the results in question – as clear evidence that those phrenologists who have actually studied the arguments for phrenology in depth, and thus understand them the best – as trained phrenologists naturally would – are far more likely to conclude that phrenology is true, or at least to be less certain that other views are true, than others who study personality are. And if that’s what the experts on the subject think, then what the “all respondents” data shows is that most academic phrenologists have a degree of confidence in anti-phrenology that is rationally unwarranted."

 

I just don't find that to be a particularly convincing argument.