On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 06:09:40 GMT, mooreffoc <"<m"@mooreffoc.com>>
wrote:
>
>You go first. 
Anscombe's sounds shorter. Maybe she will mention some
>page numbers, or phrases, so I'll know where to look for differences.
>
I have tried to recapitulate the first 3 pages of Anscombe's reply to
Lewis below. It is a little time consuming to do all of this, so I
thought I should go ahead and post part of my labors before completing
the task. Hopefully, this is giving you the sort of information you
want. If not, I can modify my method for the latter part of her
reply: still 4 more pages of that to cover.
Also, I have abbreviated Lewis and Anscombe to L. and A. where I could
do so without ambiguity. Anscombe does italicize some words and I
have I try to show where by placing '_' before and after those words.
Her 'reply':
Anscombe states that she is not going to deal with L.'s description of
naturalism or the claim that one must either believe it or be a
supernaturalist.
Instead, she is going to focus on the argument itself: "the hypothesis
that human thought can be fully explained as the product of
non-rational causes is inconsistent with a belief in the validity of
reason."
One of the examples of an irrational cause invalidating reason that L.
gave was that we are 'less impressed by a man's gloomy views if we
know he is suffering from a bad liver attack.' Anscombe points out
that it is because we know from experience that people with liver
attacks are more likely to take a gloomy view on matters that we
dismiss such views.
She mentions other things one usually thinks of as 'irrational
causes': passion, self-interest, obstinate adherence to the views of a
party or school with which one is connected, etc. Other things like
tumors on the brain, tuberculosis, arthritis, should not (she says) be
included in that list. They are really conditions which know to 'go
with irrational beliefs or attitudes with sufficient regularity for us
to call them their causes.'
Then she discusses L.'s example of the man afraid of black dogs. Is
that in the original edition? I don't see it in the updated version
of Miracles. A's basic response to this is that when the man give his
reason for being afraid, we can discount it as groundless because our
knowledge of dogs shows it is irrational to be afraid of dogs because
of their color. So it can be described as an irrational cause along
with the other examples given above..
Then A. remarks on L.'s equation of 'irrational cause' with
'non-rational cause'. This, she says, leads him to think that if
reason could be accounted for by such 'non-rational causes' then it
would be shown as invalid as accounted for by 'irrational causes.'
Anscombe thinks this conclusion a result of L.'s confusion over the
concepts of "reason", "cause" and "explanation".
Before addressing those 'confusions', she deals with the validity of
reason. To quote:
"You can talk about the validity of a _piece_ of reasoning, and
sometimes about the validity of a _kind_ of reasoning; but if you say
you believe in the validity of reasoning itself, what do you mean?"
She then points out that we have rules in place for deciding whether
or not a reason is valid: for invalid reasoning, to show how the
conclusion does not follow from the premises; for valid reasoning, to
elucidate the form of the argument. Then she asks how the claim that
human thought is the product of natural causes could destroy this
distinction between valid and invalid reasoning. Surely, she says,
you could still use the same explanations to point out why a
particular piece of reasoning is valid or invalid. Then she gives one
possible reply L. could make: "Though I should of course know which
arguments to _call_ valid, or which I should have _called_ valid, I
should not now feel any confidence that they were _really_ valid."
Anscombe responds to this reply by asking what L. could mean by
"really valid." To quote her: "What meaning of 'valid' has been taken
away from you by the naturalistic hypothesis? What _can_ you mean by
'valid' beyond what would be indicated by the explanation you would
give for distinguishing between valid and invalid, and what in the
naturalistic hypothesis prevents that explanation from being given and
from meaning what it does?"
James
--
"They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap."
Fit the Fifth of The Hunting of the Snark<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
>> Stay informed about: Anscombe's critique of Lewis' argument 
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