The Logical Atheist

[Despite what scientists and philosophers have believed since Descartes, Aristotelian] final causes are really neither so egregious nor so absurd as one might suppose. Of course, what has always been assumed to be wrong with them is that since a final (from the Latin, finis ) cause connotes an end or goal or purpose, to introduce final causes into nature and to suggest that such causes are among the necessary conditions even of the purely physical changes that take place in nature, is to conceive of such changes as if they were comparable to the purposive actions of human beings. And that is patently absurd: the wind doesn't blow, nor does water flow down hill, nor does fire burn, not do physical bodies move, for a purpose. So enough of that! Still, rather than being carried away by diatribes, let us look for a moment at the facts, so as to see not merely what Aristotle thought final causes are, but also how they function in an Aristotelian scheme of things.... [T]he moment we stop...

But why should we believe that coherence tracks truth? Well, when I consider my beliefs from the inside, I do not need to be shown that coherence tracks truth. The beliefs I am starting with are beliefs that I already take to be truth (that is what it means to say that these are my beliefs); and so the beliefs dialectically established from these starting-points I will also take to be true. Of course, I may eventually come to ask how it is that coherence tracks truth. But here I am asking for an explanation of a recognized fact, not for proof of something in question. (I am trying to move from mere [knowledge] to [understanding].) And I will no doubt have, on the basis of my current beliefs themselves, sufficient grounds for accepting such-and-such an explanation. For example, my beliefs tell me that I am being supplied with reasonably accurate perceptual organs, reasonably reliable belief-formation mechanisms, and an environment of other knowers interacting in a truth-tracking manner...

Surely, [Bertrand] Russell could scarcely have denied that the world which he believed in as a philosopher [i.e., a world of sense-data rather than material objects] was hardly the world which he lived in as a human being. Thus imagine Russell shaking hands with a friend, or haranguing a mass meeting in condemnation of the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Doubtless in such circumstances he might have stuck to his philosophical conviction that any statements he might make concerning the people and things in the immediate situation confronting him were reducible by definitions-in-use to statements only about sense data and not about people and things at all. Yet no less doubtless would it appear that even Russell could hardly have been so committed to his own philosophy as to assume in his attitudes and behavior, even if not in his thoughts, that the people and things that he was having to do with were but so many groupings and series of sense data. --Henry B. Veatch, Aristotle: A C...

What is it that Aristotle has to say philosophically that is so decidedly worth listening to, and particularly now? The answer is so elementary as to seem, initially, either question-begging or implausible. It is simply that, on the basis of our common sense, most of us would take to be the case what Aristotle in his philosophy straightforwardly affirms actually is the case. To put it another way, Aristotle is,  par excellence , the philosopher of common sense. Unfortunately, the term common sense  has become so hackneyed as to be comparatively uninformative. In an Aristotelian context it could even be misleading, since there the expression common sense  has become a standard translation of one of Aristotle's own technical terms in his psychology. Perhaps, then one might do better to fall back upon one of Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted pronouncements that accurately sums up what is both the consistent and persistent thrust of Aristotle's philosophy. It is Lincoln's remark...

Aristotle (385-323 BCE) Atheists properly balk at the question Why are we here?  because unless this is a request for a description of human reproduction, the question implies that a transcendent intelligence placed us here for a reason--a most flagrant case of question-begging. On the other hand, Aristotle and his fellow Greek philosophers had a notion that human beings, as creatures with a nature significantly different from other living and nonliving things, had a proper way of to live appropriate to that nature; that is, a function. He used the term final cause  in this respect,  by which he meant the ultimate end, or telos , toward which a thing tends under normal circumstances precisely because it is the kind of thing it is.  Think of the relationship between an acorn and oak tree, though unlike a human being, an acorn does not act to fulfill its function. Think further of the relationship between the eye and sight. These are not evidences of intelligent design...

Aristotle identifies the distinctively human capacity for reason and speech as the basis of our being naturally political animals, for it enables us to pursue our goals through discussion with one another. Moreover, Aristotle famously regards logos , reason or speech, as the essential trait around which a flourishing human life must be organized. This, it seems, is why Aristotle regards it as an essential component of a truly human life to deal with others politically , i.e., through reason and discourse–i.e., as conversation partners. But such an ideal creates a strong presumption  against the use of force, and in favor of relying on persuasion as far as possible.... To deal with others by force is to act in a subhuman manner, like a beast of prey; we live a more human life (and therefore, in Aristotelian terms, a better life) to the extent that our relations with other people embody reason and persuasion rather than coercion. Therefore, the need to avoid the besti...

 [W]hy should we believe that it is our flourishing [and all it implies about treating others justly] rather than our bare survival that serves as our natural end and so constitutes our self-interest?... [O]n an Aristotelian conception of rationality, one may legitimately take the fact that a goal of flourishing coheres better than a goal of bare survival with our other moral beliefs as a sufficient (though defeasible) justification for believing that flourishing rather than bare survival is our natural end.... [Philosophers such as J. L. Mackie and Ayn Rand] would no doubt object strenuously to the idea of using premises about value to derive conclusions about human nature. But for the Aristotelian, once gain, the growth of knowledge is not a matter of rigid hierarchies but of networks of mutual adjustment, and no privileged class of beliefs holds absolute veto power over beliefs of another class. Hence, we are justified in taking the greater moral appeal of flourishing survival a...

Atheist call-in show hosts like to glibly dismiss some theistic callers as guilty of using the  argumentum ad populum ; that's the claim that a proposition must be true because lots of people believe it to be true. This is considered an informal fallacy  and a fallacy of relevance rather than a formal, or logical, fallacy. But is it really a fallacy? It depends, as we'll see. I'll say right at the top that no less a thinker than Aristotle held that our knowledge is and should be chock full of endoxa , which is Greek for reputable beliefs that almost all people hold without having personally confirmed them. Oops, by dropping Aristotle's name, did I just commit the fallacy of the argument from authority  ( argumentum ab auctoritate ) ? We'll see. When I said above that "it depends," part of what I meant is that it depends on how we phrase the alleged fallacy. "That most everyone believes X is true proves that X is true" is clearly fallacious. But h...

Here's more from Auburn University philosopher Roderick T. Long ( Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand ) on coherentism and reflective equilibration . The point of all this is to show that we can rationally construct reality-based systems of belief that do not require infallibility. Aristotle thus appears to be counseling two steps. First, pursue a coherentist strategy for discovering first principles, by provisionally accepting all the beliefs that initially seem true or plausible to us (including, but not limited to, our perceptual beliefs) as defeasibly justified, and then try to see which candidates for first principles best cohere with our total set of beliefs in wide reflective equilibrium. Second, once the first principles have been thus identified, pursue a foundationalist strategy for demonstrating and thus explaining the truth of our initial beliefs (or some of them) by deriving them from these first principles. The things well-known to us are genuinely known but not ...

Theists have a field day whenever they think a prominent atheist has found God. With glee they point to the last-line reference to God in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History   of Time , or they take a line from Richard Dawkins out of context, or they recite the suspicious story of Antony Flew's alleged late-in-life, dementia-plagued conversion either to deism or Christianity. But as far as the God question goes, these story, even if true, do not matter. They have no bearing whatsoever on whether God exists.  People can have many justifications for calling themselves atheists, some good and some bad, but no reasonable atheist holds his position because someone else, -- someone "special" -- holds it. So an atheist's conversion to theism per se would mean nothing. The only thing that could possibly matter would be the new theist's justification for his conversion. It's the argument, not the person, that counts. I've yet to hear of an atheist-turned-theist...

It's a mistake to think that if God does not exist, then neither does morality. This is one of the worst legacies of supernaturalism. I'll start by pointing out that it's simply counterintuitive to think, with Dostoyevsky, that "if God does not exist everything is permitted." Yes, I'm appealing to intuition here, but I mean nothing mystical by that word. Call it common sense. Most of us grow up with a sense of how we should treat others and ourselves . Sometimes it's called the moral compass. Adam Smith and David Hume, two of the great Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, spoke favorably of our "moral sentiments," fellow-feeling, sympathy , and the like. None of that requires a supernatural supreme being. (Before Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations  he wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments , which he revised until the time of death.) In a previous post I pointed out, using a quotation from Bertrand Russell , that attributing morality to God presents mor...

As a general matter, I accept the idea that he who proposes -- X is true (and thus ought to believed) -- has the burden of proof. But I am not troubled by the idea that propositions of the form X is not true (and ought not to be believed )   -- also require support. Drawing a hard line against this is a mistake. You may not be able to demonstrate a negative proposition  directly --  say, I did not commit a particular murder -- but you can demonstrate it indirectly by showing that a contradictory positive proposition is true -- I was somewhere else at the time . Proof that the earth is round is proof that the earth is not flat. Why can't I demonstrate that the supernatural God does not exist by showing that it is impossible? It seems to me that any negative proposition can be restated in a positive way. The negative claim God does not exist  corresponds to the positive Spinoza-ish claim that the natural world is eternal, self-sufficient, the source of all ex...

If the word  dogma  denotes a set of first principles that cannot be questioned, then not all dogmas are bad. For good or ill, the word is a pejorative for many people, although it's all right for some religious folks. But atheists ought to realize they have a dogma too. No, not in the sense that the theists think. The atheists's dogma is -- or should be -- logic. The laws of logic -- Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle -- are first principles that cannot be questioned -- without question-begging. Any argument against them would have to employ them if it was to qualify as an argument. (This is true of the senses also. You have to use sensory evidence in trying to make a case against sensory evidence.) Therefore, the laws are self-evident axioms, which means they cannot be rationally questioned. It also means they cannot be proved because they are what make the idea proof  coherent and possible. Any attempt to show that these laws -- A is A; nothing can be both...