I don't see anything too controversial in the first few pages. A fairly standard discussion of knowledge and belief. Some hereabouts will perhaps not be able to follow the bits about necessity.

I'd draw attention to what is for me a key aspect of the Theaetetus, found in the last few lines:

SOCRATES: But how utterly foolish, when we are asking what is knowledge, that the reply should only be, right opinion with knowledge of difference or of anything! And so, Theaetetus, knowledge is neither sensation nor true opinion, nor yet definition and explanation accompanying and added to true opinion?
THEAETETUS: I suppose not.
SOCRATES: And are you still in labour and travail, my dear friend, or have you brought all that you have to say about knowledge to the birth?
THEAETETUS: I am sure, Socrates, that you have elicited from me a good deal more than ever was in me.
SOCRATES: And does not my art show that you have brought forth wind, and that the offspring of your brain are not worth bringing up?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: But if, Theaetetus, you should ever conceive afresh, you will be all the better for the present investigation, and if not, you will be soberer and humbler and gentler to other men, and will be too modest to fancy that you know what you do not know. These are the limits of my art; I can no further go, nor do I know aught of the things which great and famous men know or have known in this or former ages. The office of a midwife I, like my mother, have received from God; she delivered women, I deliver men; but they must be young and noble and fair.
And now I have to go to the porch of the King Archon, where I am to meet Meletus and his indictment. To-morrow morning, Theodorus, I shall hope to see you again at this place.

I read this as a modest rejection of the justified true belief definition of knowledge. Socrates is saying that it is the best we could do, and yet it is nought but flatus.

Worth quoting is this:

In this paper I want to address the general epistemological problem of the nature of knowledge, certainty, and belief. But I want to take, as a focus for discussion one particular topic of belief, namely belief in God. I want to consider how far such belief is reasonable. As a text on which to hang the discussion I will take Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion. (Bantam 2006; henceforth GD) I find myself in agreement with perhaps 90% of what Dawkins says, and I shall have little to say about the areas of our agreement. But because of the 10% difference between us I end up in quite a different position with regard to the rationality of religion.

So Dawkins is our target. This is becoming a habit.

A necessary being is one that exists in all possible worlds. So defined, a necessary being must exist in our world, the actual world. Our world would not exist unless it were possible; so if God exists in every possible world, he must exist in ours.

... so the conclusion is that God does not exist in every possible world...

But next is the first real disagreement I have with Kenny. Possible World semantics strikes me as a useful grammar; it irons out the wrinkles in what we mean when we talk of possibilities and necessities. I must say I do not follow his objection - "Kant was right to insist that whether there is something in reality answering to a concept of mine cannot itself be part of my concept" - I gather it's to do with differentiating the actual world amongst possible worlds, but I don't see it.

And so to Aquinas’ fifth. Here it is:

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

Kenny's response is to question the very notion that god might have a mind at all similar to our own: "It is not just that we do not, and cannot, know what goes in God’s mind; it is that we cannot really ascribe a mind to a God at all".

I think this an excellent point.

The distinction between purpose and design stands; a heart has a purpose but not a design, and hence there is no need for a designer.

Good essay. Many points to discuss, but I'll start with one of yours:

I read this as a modest rejection of the justified true belief definition of knowledge. Socrates is saying that it is the best we could do, and yet it is nought but flatus. — Banno

But what then to make of this?

The office of a midwife I, like my mother, have received from God; she delivered women, I deliver men; but they must be young and noble and fair.

So - I take this to be an allusion to the 'second birth' that signifies the attainment of wisdom. This was, of course, later melded with the Biblical principle of 'born again', but it is an idea found in many cultures other than Christian; for example, Brahmin priests wear a sacred thread which indicates their status as 'twice born'. Here, Socrates is questioning what is taken for knowledge by the good, the great and the just. Again, Socrates is saying that true virtue resides in modesty, sobriety, humility, gentleness - which again was one of the reasons that the Greek-speaking Christian world considered Socrates 'Christian before Christ'. Not, obviously, because he conformed to Christian dogma - there wasn't any! - but because of his embodiment of such virtues, and his valuation of them as more important than knowledge.

//ps// Pierre Grimes//

Dawkins is our target. — Banno

Dawkins makes himself a target. After all, he’s the author of a best-selling book arguing that God is a delusion.

Thomas Nagel touches on a similar point in his review:

We can observe DNA and see how it works. But the problem that originally prompted the argument from design—the overwhelming improbability of such a thing coming into existence by chance, simply through the purposeless laws of physics— remains just as real for this case. Yet this time we cannot replace 'chance' with 'natural selection'. Dawkins recognizes the problem, but his response to it is pure hand-waving.

First, he says it only had to happen once. Next, he says that there are, at a conservative estimate, a billion billion planets in the universe with life-friendly physical and chemical environments like ours. So all we have to suppose is that the probability of something like DNA forming under such conditions, given the laws of physics, is not much less than one in a billion billion. And he points out, invoking the so-called anthropic principle, that even if it happened on only one planet, it is no accident that we are able to observe it, since the appearance of life is a condition of our existence.

Dawkins is not a chemist or a physicist. Neither am I, but general expositions of research on the origin of life indicate that no one has a theory that would support anything remotely near such a high probability as one in a billion billion. Naturally there is speculation about possible non-biological chemical precursors of DNA or RNA. But at this point the origin of life remains, in light of what is known about the huge size, the extreme specificity, and the exquisite functional precision of the genetic material, a mystery—an event that could not have occurred by chance and to which no significant probability can be assigned on the basis of what we know of the laws of physics and chemistry. Yet we know that it happened.

That is why the argument from design is still alive, and why scientists who find the conclusion of that argument unacceptable feel there must be a purely physical explanation of why the origin of life is not as physically improbable as it seems. Dawkins invokes the possibility that there are vastly many universes besides this one, thus giving chance many more opportunities to create life; but this is just a desperate device to avoid the demand for a real explanation. — Thomas Nagel, The Fear of Religion, review of The God Delusion, New Republic, 23 Oct 2006

Personally, I feel that the the argument that ‘there might be many universes other than this one’ is ludicrously crass, coming from someone whose main argument is that ‘there is no evidence for a divine intelligence’. Natural theology will respond that the Universe itself is evidence, and I think that is certainly supported by the so-called ‘anthropic principle’. To try and rebut this observation with reference to ‘many possible “other” universes’, for which there can be no evidence even in principle, seems to me an exercise in bad faith.

Curious...was it Socrates or Plato who had this penchant? Or both.

Socrates, as depicted by Plato. But I can’t help but think the image of ‘midwife’ is not mere coincidence.

And - question - when he mentions ‘Meletus’ indictment’, this is what resulted in his condemnation, was it not? My knowledge of the dialogues is very sketchy, but if this is what it was, then in some ways, this passage is like a preamble to the Apology.

At p.387 Kenny offers three things that might not be explainable by evolution.

The first of these is language. Since language is essentially a social phenomena, how could it be the result of a mutation present in an individual? I don't find this convincing; mutations after all spread into one's decedents, and hence there are communities with certain characteristics. But it is an interesting use of the private language argument.

The second is the origin of life. Yep, chemistry, not evolution. The third, the origin of the universe. Here I agree with you, , as does Kenny; if our question is "why is there a universe?" then "Because there is a multiverse" is as bad an answer as "god did it".

Meletus’ indictment — Wayfarer

Yeah - that's right; these events took place the night before the trial. But I understand that the Apology was written before the Theaetetus.

Correct me if I'm mistaken.

The first of these is language. Since language is essentially a social phenomena, how could it be the result of a mutation present in an individual? I don't find this convincing; mutations after all spread into one's decedents, and hence there are communities with certain characteristics. But it is an interesting use of the private language argument. — Banno

Chomsky has some interesting things to say on that.

Correct me if I'm mistaken. — Banno

No, as I say, my knowledge is sketchy, but even if it was written later, it still serves as pre-amble.

The anthropic principle.
At the top of p. 389 there's some curious stuff differentiating metaphysical necessity from epistemological necessity. There's a SEP article on the topic: Varieties of Modality:

...there is also a family of modal concepts that are clearly epistemological. These are the notions we employ when we say things like ‘Fred must have stolen the book (the evidence shows conclusively that he did it),’ or ‘Mary cannot be in London (she would have called me).’ These modal utterances seem to make claims about what the available evidence shows, or about which scenarios can be ruled out on the basis of the evidence. More formally, we can say that a proposition P is epistemically necessary for an agent A just in case the empirical evidence A possesses and ideal reasoning (i.e., reasoning unrestricted by cognitive limitations) are sufficient to rule out ∼P. This notion of epistemic necessity is agent-relative: one and the same claim can be epistemically necessary for one agent, but not for another agent with less empirical evidence.

We know that the world is suitable for human life. The Anthropic Principle, according to Kenny, moves from this to the metaphysical necessity that some world will be suitable for life. The anthropic principle is hence fallacious, or it is mere metaphysical speculation.

I'm going to go over that again, for my own satisfaction. The anthropic argument is posited as an answer to the question of why the world is so suitable for life. The argument is that there are innumerable ways in which the world might have been but we find ourselves as a matter of fact in a world that is suitable; and points out that we could not have found ourselves in any other sort of world, because any other sort of world would not have produced us... Because we are in a suitable world, it is not just possible but necessary that there must be such suitable worlds.

Put thus, the argument is not so convincing.

Well, only Wayfarer has had a go. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Well, only Wayfarer has had a go. Disappointing, but not surprising. — Banno

I feel unqualified. Though I wished the people who are also more knowledgeable about this would join in. It'd be a learning experience and fun to read.

But much of the article is straight forward. Take:

It is important for human beings to strike the right balance in belief. One can err by believing too much or believing too little. The person who believes too much suffers from the vice of credulity; the person who believes too little is guilty of excessive incredulity or scepticism. If you believe too much your mind will be cluttered with many falsehoods; if you believe too little you will be deprived of much valuable information. Let us call the virtue which stands in the middle between scepticism and credulity the virtue of rationality.

The conclusion Kenny is working towards is agnosticism. But with this piece, from the second page, he seems to be assuming the virtue of the middle path between credulity and scepticism - to be assuming agnosticism.

SO arguably the article is an exercise in question begging; he assumes his conclusion. But isn't it reasonable to seek this middle ground, rather than to believe without warrant?

Or this: A true belief that P is not sufficient to constitute knowledge that P. (p.383)

Is that so?

It is important for human beings to strike the right balance in belief. One can err by believing too much or believing too little. The person who believes too much suffers from the vice of credulity; the person who believes too little is guilty of excessive incredulity or scepticism. If you believe too much your mind will be cluttered with many falsehoods; if you believe too little you will be deprived of much valuable information. Let us call the virtue which stands in the middle between scepticism and credulity the virtue of rationality.


The conclusion Kenny is working towards is agnosticism. But with this piece, from the second page, he seems to be assuming the virtue of the middle path between credulity and scepticism - to be assuming agnosticism.

SO arguably the article is an exercise in question begging; he assumes his conclusion. But isn't it reasonable to seek this middle ground, rather than to believe without warrant? — Banno

I read the article and found nothing much there to disagree with, other than the way Kenny frames believing too much and believing too little. No one believes "too little" and lives to tell the tale. Skepticism rightly understood, just is agnosticism; it says regarding a question "I don't know for sure one way or the other".

I think too much is made of belief. Many things we take ourselves to know are not things we take ourselves merely to believe, but things we take ourselves to perceive. Of course the skeptical question 'But have I been in some way deceived about what I think I see, hear, and so on?' (by an evil demon, mad scientist, etc.) is always possible, but such questions are not, and cannot be, in my view, enlightening. This is because we know only things within the context of our perceptual experience and the conceptual judgements that are inherent in, and entailed by, that experience. Nothing can ever be known "outside" that context, so radically skeptical questions are merely intellectual indulgences; the engine is turning, but the transmission is disengaged.

Agnosticism is rightly adopted in situations where I cannot see what is happening. Religious faith is not, (or should not be) understood to be an example of believing some empirical proposition without sufficient empirical evidence; it is a choice (hopefully a choice!) to believe in "something" that transcends our realm of perceptual experience. The problems arise when definite attributes of that "something" are dogmatically professed.

I read the article and found nothing much there to disagree with, — Janus

So do you think faith a reasonable state of mind?

...since St Thomas Aquinas there has been a traditional Christian teaching that while some truths are not attainable by pure reason, no revealed doctrines are contrary to reason and faith is itself a reasonable frame of mind.

So do you think faith a reasonable state of mind? — Banno

Yes, provided it doesn't mistake itself for knowledge.

So to the notion of faith, which I take to be the core of the new material in the article.

Knowledge is justified, true and believed. This provides three dimensions on which Kenny can hang his definition.

Looking first at the dimension of belief, a theist believes, an atheist disbelieves and an agnostic does neither. On the dimension of truth, a proposition can be either true or false, with no middle ground.

Now if we add the dimension of justification or warrant, we find faith as unwarranted belief - whether true or false.

You disagree with Kenny, then, in that he thinks faith an evil:

Some years ago I expressed an opinion similar to Dawkins complaint. “Faith” I wrote “is not, as theologians have claimed, a virtue, but a vice, unless a number of conditions can be fulfilled. One of them is that the existence of God can be rationally justified outside faith. Secondly, whatever are the historical events which are pointed to as constituting the divine revelation must be independently established as historically certain.” (What is Faith, OUP, 1992, 57)

Looking first at the dimension of belief, a theist believes, an atheist disbelieves and an agnostic does neither. On the dimension of truth, a proposition can be either true or false, with no middle ground. — Banno

Firstly, I think this is wrongly framed. A theist believes, an atheist believes; they just believe different (contrary) things. An agnostic does not believe; therefore the agnostic is a skeptic.

And as Kenny points out religious statements are not propositions (or at least should not be taken to be propositions), but metaphors, more akin to poetry than to scientific theories or propositions (or any other empirical statement) so they do not need to be justified or warranted.

I think that should be understood to represent a previous position, it does not seem to be in accordance with the thrust of this article.

. The anthropic argument is posited as an answer to the question of why the world is so suitable for life. The argument is that there are innumerable ways in which the world might have been but we find ourselves as a matter of fact in a world that is suitable; and points out that we could not have found ourselves in any other sort of world, because any other sort of world would not have produced us... Because we are in a suitable world, it is not just possible but necessary that there must be such suitable worlds. — Banno

Recall the opening paragraphs of Russell's A Free Man's Worship:

To Dr. Faustus in his study Mephistopheles told the history of the Creation, saying:
"The endless praises of the choirs of angels had begun to grow wearisome; for, after all, did he not deserve their praise? Had he not given them endless joy? Would it not be more amusing to obtain undeserved praise, to be worshipped by beings whom he tortured? He smiled inwardly, and resolved that the great drama should be performed.

"For countless ages the hot nebula whirled aimlessly through space. At length it began to take shape, the central mass threw off planets, the planets cooled, boiling seas and burning mountains heaved and tossed, from black masses of cloud hot sheets of rain deluged the barely solid crust. And now the first germ of life grew in the depths of the ocean, and developed rapidly in the fructifying warmth into vast forest trees, huge ferns springing from the damp mould, sea monsters breeding, fighting, devouring, and passing away. And from the monsters, as the play unfolded itself, Man was born, with the power of thought, the knowledge of good and evil, and the cruel thirst for worship. And Man saw that all is passing in this mad, monstrous world, that all is struggling to snatch, at any cost, a few brief moments of life before Death's inexorable decree. And Man said: `There is a hidden purpose, could we but fathom it, and the purpose is good; for we must reverence something, and in the visible world there is nothing worthy of reverence.' And Man stood aside from the struggle, resolving that God intended harmony to come out of chaos by human efforts. And when he followed the instincts which God had transmitted to him from his ancestry of beasts of prey, he called it Sin, and asked God to forgive him. But he doubted whether he could be justly forgiven, until he invented a divine Plan by which God's wrath was to have been appeased. And seeing the present was bad, he made it yet worse, that thereby the future might be better. And he gave God thanks for the strength that enabled him to forgo even the joys that were possible. And God smiled; and when he saw that Man had become perfect in renunciation and worship, he sent another sun through the sky, which crashed into Man's sun; and all returned again to nebula.

"`Yes,' he murmured, `it was a good play; I will have it performed again.'"

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms...

I think that proclamation, especially the underlined passage, is what the anthropic cosmological principle challenges. It challenges the notion of the fortuitous origins of life, because it now seems the origin of life was in some sense simultaneous with origin of the Universe itself.

There's another point to be made, which is that the glum vision of a never ending cyclical creation and destruction is exactly the presumed background of the Indic religions. But their vision of salvation is set against it. The fact that all man's works and designs are brought undone in the fullness of time is the very reason to seek transcendence of them. Or, in the Christian context, ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away’.

A theist believes, an atheist believes; they just believe different (contrary) things. An agnostic does not believe; therefore the agnostic is a skeptic. — Janus

He sets up the following, after Dawkins and Aquinas
There is a god:
Knowledge
Conviction
Guess
Doubt
Guess
Conviction
Knowledge
There is not god.

...then rejects it as inadequate because it collapses the dimension of warrant:

The scales given by Aquinas and Dawkins are an interesting way of classifying different degrees of commitment to a proposition, but they are inadequate to provide a total classification of epistemic states. States of mind are to be distinguished along not one but three axes: degree of commitment, conformity to the facts, type of warrant. Thus, e.g. knowledge differs from certainty not by degree of commitment, but by the fact that knowledge is only of the truth but certainty can be false.

It's the introduction of Warrant that is novel and interesting.

Nor does he gainsay his previously stated position, instead pointing to the further issue of multiple revelations. He thinks religious faith not unreasonable, but at least potentially a vice.

which is that the glum vision of a never ending cyclical creation and destruction is exactly the presumed background of the Indic religions. — Wayfarer

...Indic cosmology as equivalent to the multiple universes conjecture. Cute.

I've Confirmable and influential Metaphysics in mind - faith as a haunted-universe doctrine. Faith is neither falsifiable not verifiable, and yet taken as true.

So multiple universes and the anthropic principle become articles of faith...

Knowledge is justified, true and believed. This provides three dimensions on which Kenny can hang his definition.

Looking first at the dimension of belief, a theist believes, an atheist disbelieves and an agnostic does neither. On the dimension of truth, a proposition can be either true or false, with no middle ground.

Now if we add the dimension of justification or warrant, we find faith as unwarranted belief - whether true or false. — Banno

Ultimately, theism is not a theory about some purported being that either exists or doesn't exist, and about which science might have something to say. It's a theory about the nature of reality itself, not about some purported super-engineer or director which might or might not exist. The fact that justification is cast in these pseudo-empirical terms is an indicator of a deep misconception about the nature of the question.

Terry Eagleton said it well in his 2006 review of The God Delusion - the review which actually got me interested in philosophy forums in the first place:

Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects. — Terry Eagleton

God cannot be just one more being among beings. The Source of being is not just another thing sourced. The ground of intelligibility is not just another intelligible item. The Thinker behind every thought is not just another thought. The locus and source of all value is not just another valuable thing. The One is not just another member of the Many. 1 — Bill Vallicella

So - what are the implications of all this? The issue is, the question of the reality or non-reality of God can’t be settled by empirical methods, nor by armchair speculation. If a school-leaver were to say, instead of studying engineering or medicine, that s/he wished to ‘seek for the truth about God’, then what course of action would you recommend? Deep self-searching under the direction of a spiritual mentor would be the usual course; perhaps enrolment in a theology degree or even a monastic vocation. And I think, involved in that quest, is a willingness to deeply question what we normally take for granted, what we assume to be real.

That is why the course of contemplative religion wherein these answers are sought, requires a kind of mental transformation (known in traditional philosophy as ‘metanoia’). It is not concerned with what exists in the empirical sense and to misconstrue it as such is a sign of a confusion which is all-pervasive in contemporary culture. So to try and answer the question in the terms that Kenny proposes is basically to concede his point. It’s a radical question.

Hence the paradox. To even investigate the question, requires a certain open-mindedness to the possibility - a willingness to believe. (I think this is a topic dealt with by William James.) Whereas in secular culture, there is a will not to believe, not to even consider the quest worth embarking on. That is what ‘belief’ really comes down to: it’s not a matter of propositional knowledge, but a dispositional attitude.

Anyway enough for today, I feel we’re the only guys left in the bar.

Ultimately, theism is not a theory about some purported being that either exists or doesn't exist, and about which science might have something to say. It's a theory about the nature of reality itself, not about some purported super-engineer or director which might or might not exist. The fact that justification is cast in these pseudo-empirical terms is an indicator of a deep misconception about the nature of the question. — Wayfarer

Kenny criticises Dawkins for treating belief in god as "a scientific hypothesis like any other". He presents arguments from Newman, Wittgenstein and Plantinga. Newman, that there are propositions that can be rationally believed and yet are without warrant; Wittgenstein, that there are certainties not based on evidence; Plantinga, that a belief such as a religious belief is somehow central to one's mental structure - I gather this is like the belief that the bishop stays on the same coloured squares is part of what it means to believe one is playing chess.

I suspect Kenny is agreeing with you.

It's the introduction of Warrant that is novel and interesting.

Nor does he gainsay his previously stated position, instead pointing to the further issue of multiple revelations.He thinks religious faith not unreasonable, but at least potentially a vice. — Banno

Right, for Kenny religious faith is not unreasonable; does it not follow that it is reasonable? If it is reasonable it must be warranted, but if it is belief without evidence then it cannot be warranted by evidence. So, it's warranted by "multiple revelations"? Or?

If religious faith is reasonable, then how can it be "potentially a vice" unless it is potentially unreasonable? A little observation serves to show us that religious faith is indeed potentially unreasonable; it is unreasonable when it turns into fundamentalism, that is when it takes itself to be knowledge.

If it is reasonable it must be warranted, — Janus

...I think that is what is in contention.

If it is reasonable it must be warranted,
— Janus

...I think that is what is in contention. — Banno

Yep.

Logical possibility alone does not constitute sufficient reason to believe(does not warrant belief).