If it is reasonable it must be warranted, — Janus


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

What are you suggesting is in contention? That for something to be reasonable it must be warranted?

If that is what you say is in contention, then I think the question would be: is a belief not warranted simply by virtue of being reasonable? Or conversely is a belief not reasonable, simply by virtue of being warranted? If this is right then the two terms are synonymous, and "if it is reasonable it is warranted' is a tautology.

It seems that it all depends on what we count as reasonable, and why. A belief is reasonable if we can give good reasons to believe it. We know what good reasons are when it comes to simple empirical claims, but what about other domains? Ethical and aesthetical contentions, for example? Can such kinds of belief or contention be reasonable in one social context and not in another?

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 — Banno

This is what I have been saying; that religious belief is not propositional at all (at least not in the empirical sense). So, it's broader than it being not merely "a scientific hypothesis like any other", it is not any kind of empirical claim or conjecture.

So I think it should be "Newman, that there are propositions (although "propositions" would not be my preferred terminology) that can be rationally believed and yet are without (empirical or logical) warrant. And I think Wittgenstein's "certainties" (so-called hinge propositions) are of a different order than religious belief, so I don't see the relevance.

Being reasonable(coherent) means following the rules of correct inference. A belief system can be both perfectly reasonable(coherent) and false. Thus, being reasonable(coherency alone) does not guarantee truth. Given that all belief presupposes it's own truth somewhere along the line, and coherency alone(being reasonable) does not guarantee truth, it only follows that being reasonable(coherency alone) does not constitute sufficient/adequate reason for our assent/belief(warrant).

If religious faith is reasonable, then how can it be "potentially a vice" unless it is potentially unreasonable? — Janus

In terms of what it can compel people to do. There have been many evils committed in the name of religion. Just now I heard that in some English ethnic groups people are refusing COVID vaccination ‘because their pastor told them’. I think that is what Kenny has in mind.

Given the ending, I would say that that much is clear.

Yes and that's just what I meant by "faith taking itself to be knowledge", or in other words, fundamentalism.

Yes a proposition's being coherent is not by itself reason for believing it; that much is obvious. So what are the criteria for believing anything that is not empirically verifiable?

There's a distinction to be made between those matters beyond the reach of reason, and the merely irrational. Regrettably, the religous tend to slip between the two quite easily. But even though that is true, the secular account of faith still often misses something fundamental.

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”

Postmodernism announces (loudly and often) that a supposedly neutral, objective rationality is always a construct informed by interests it neither acknowledges nor knows nor can know. Meanwhile science goes its merry way endlessly inventing and proliferating technological marvels without having the slightest idea of why. The “naive faith” Habermas criticizes is not a faith in what science can do — it can do anything — but a faith in science’s ability to provide reasons, aside from the reason of its own keeping on going, for doing it and for declining to do it in a particular direction because to do so would be wrong.

The counterpart of science in the political world is the modern Liberal state, which, Habermas reminds us, maintains “a neutrality . . . towards world views,” that is, toward comprehensive visions (like religious visions) of what life means, where it is going and what we should be doing to help it get there. The problem is that a political structure that welcomes all worldviews into the marketplace of ideas, but holds itself aloof from any and all of them, will have no basis for judging the outcomes its procedures yield. Worldviews bring with them substantive long-term goals that serve as a check against local desires. Worldviews furnish those who live within them with reasons that are more than merely prudential or strategic for acting in one way rather than another.

Does Reason Know what it is Missing?[/quote]

In terms of what it can compel people to do. There have been many evils committed in the name of religion. — Wayfarer

That's interesting. I read it more as a bad habit, an addiction. The first vice he speaks of is "the vice of credulity". I expect he means to use the term consistently.

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

To play my role as Dawkins apologist, which I'm not entirely sure why I do:

Not all fanaticism is religious fanaticism, and I
found unconvincing Dawkins attempt to show that Hitler was a closet Catholic

seems a tad dishonest. In that part of the book, Dawkins is answering the oft-repeated point that the greatest evil comes from atheism, the usual citations being Hitler and Stalin. Dawkins' point was that they weren't evil because they were atheist, but for reasons at best independent of and at worst parallel to religious belief. Which is a sound point. The reference to Hitler's possible Christian sympathies was merely one of several illustrations of why the religious idea of atheism begetting evil is phony. It was not meant as suggesting that Hitler was evil because of his secret Catholicism. Dawkins is imperfect, but he's better than his American Anglican detractors in that respect.

The first vice he speaks of is "the vice of credulity" — Kenosha Kid

Again, there's a difference between creduiity or gullibility and warranted belief. Everyone has beliefs - even (or especially!) those who claim to have no beliefs, because, for them, non-belief becomes a normative guide, but non-belief turns out to have content of its own.

The problem is that a political structure that welcomes all worldviews into the marketplace of ideas, but holds itself aloof from any and all of them, will have no basis for judging the outcomes its procedures yield. Worldviews bring with them substantive long-term goals that serve as a check against local desires. Worldviews furnish those who live within them with reasons that are more than merely prudential or strategic for acting in one way rather than another.

I’ve been reading along, but this quote caught my attention.

I would have thought that the political structure itself is the basis for judging the outcomes, and that there exists a broader relational structure (the marketplace of ideas), the awareness of which enables such an entity to ‘hold itself aloof’ - ie. remain variable at the level of value and potential.

It is in this ‘marketplace of ideas’ that we develop a self-awareness of local affect (valence and arousal) in relation to ideological structures, and the influence this has on our constructs of belief, knowledge and reasoning, both as a political structure and as a human being.

That for something to be reasonable it must be warranted? — Janus

.. being coherent is not by itself reason for believing... that much is obvious — Janus

Ok. Do you agree that a belief system's being reasonable requires only coherence and plausible premisses?

Those conditions seem uncontroversial. In everyday empirical matters and in science those criteria seem unproblematic enough. It's when you want to make claims outside those domains that the problems arise. How to establish the plausibility of premises; by what measure?

Everyone has beliefs — Wayfarer

Indeed, and all statements thereof are meaningful to the creature making them, and presuppose truth, insincerely made ones notwithstanding.

.. being coherent is not by itself reason for believing... that much is obvious — Janus

Do you agree that a belief system's being reasonable requires only coherence and plausible premisses? — creativesoul

Those conditions seem uncontroversial. — Janus

Ok, then surely you'll take the next step, and realize that the following is not true.

If it is reasonable it must be warranted... — Janus

So you don't consider a belief being coherent with plausible premises, which you say makes it reasonable to believe, constitutes a warrant to believe?

If not, perhaps you could offer a counterexample or tell us what would make a belief warranted. And remember I have already specified that I am not talking about empirically observable facts or truisms.

So we are dealing with the kinds of beliefs or contentions that might be found in philosophy, metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics, aesthetics etc., that may be purported to be warranted.

So, I am asking: if you think there any warranted beliefs in those above-mentioned domains, what would it be that warrants them? Something other than plausibility?

Again, there's a difference between creduiity or gullibility and warranted belief. Everyone has beliefs - even (or especially!) those who claim to have no beliefs, because, for them, non-belief becomes a normative guide, but non-belief turns out to have content of its own. — Wayfarer

Sure. My point was just that when he says "vice", I don't think he means doing great evil to others, rather he means being systematically mistaken.

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I find this problematic too:

But a belief in God, falling short of certainty, is not open to the same objection. A belief may be reasonable, though false. If two oncologists tell you that your tumour is benign, then your belief that it is benign is a reasonable belief even if, sadly, it is false.

That is true about the tumor, but it's based on the acceptance of the authority of scientific experts. The analogy for God's existence might be, for instance, a cosmologist consensus that the universe was created purposefully.

No such consensus exists, nor any such evidence. It is precisely this point that, for the scientifically-minded, makes belief in God unjustified. Pointing to a justified belief by way of claiming that an unjustified one is in fact justified seems pretty poor to me. I get that he's saying that belief in God *may* be reasonable, not *is* reasonable, but the criteria give a much stricter statement: belief in God is not yet justified. This allows for the possibility of future justification, while observing the fact that no such justification exists or ever has existed, therefore no belief in God to date is justified.

One could argue that a cosmologist consensus is not analogous; on divine matters, it is clerical consensus one seeks since they are the experts on God. But then the basis of the authority of oncologists is not transferred. One cannot equate faith and evidence: it is precisely the necessity of faith -- belief without and despite evidence -- that makes that belief unjustified.

This reliance on "can be" in place of "is" is a cop out imo. Yes, oncologists "can" tell me my tumor is benign, but if that isn't what they're actually telling me, to believe it would be unjustified.

I should've paid more attention in university. There was a course in, I think, community medicine (no, I'm not a health professional) and we had to study the dynamics of communication - techniques that were designed for optimum efficiency of information exchange - and we had to learn the role of Knowledge, Attitude, Belief and Practice. It seems that there are multiple independent factors that come into play between what one thinks and what one does. For instance, I'm a chain smoker. I have knowledge that smoking is, according to what the packets say, injurious to health. I also believe that to be true. Yet, I smoke, my practice of nicotine inhalation is now, at the very least, 20 years and counting. While I'm fairly certain I'm not reckless, bravado isn't my cup of tea, i.e. I don't seem to have an attitude issue, I can't quite put a finger on where - between my head and hands and lips - the error (it's an error, right?) occurs. Off topic? Never mind.

tell us what would make a belief warranted. — Janus

More than just logical possibility alone.

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. — Janus

Is scientific belief when it promotes itself to the status of scientism subject to the same criticism?

More than just logical possibility alone. — creativesoul

Here is our earlier exchange:

Do you agree that a belief system's being reasonable requires only coherence and plausible premisses? — creativesoul


Those conditions seem uncontroversial. — Janus


Ok, then surely you'll take the next step, and realize that the following is not true.

If it is reasonable it must be warranted... — creativesoul

So, you asked me if I agreed that being reasonable 'requires only coherence and plausible premises".

I said that seems uncontroversial. Then you claimed that being reasonable does not equate to being warranted. So I asked what else would be required, and then you didn't tell me exactly what more is required, but instead replied that more than logical possibility alone is needed. So, you don't consider " plausible premises" to be already more than mere logical possibility?

Is scientific belief when it promotes itself to the status of scientism subject to the same criticism? — Pantagruel

I can't see why not. I think the same principle applies to all ideologies. The ideas that can come to constitute ideologies are reasonable enough when they are understood by the person holding to, or entertaining, them to be fallible and mostly based on faith, but when they are taken to be certain knowledge then we have fundamentalism, fanaticism or dogmatism, none of which are reasonable.

Well, I've gritted my teeth and have read the article, but am disinclined to "have a go" at it, being disinclined to have a go at the issue or dispute itself.

"I don't know" seems to me the only possible intelligent response if asked whether God exists and I see no point in debating God's existence any further. I have no quarrel with those who believe or those who disbelieve until they insist on telling me so and, worse yet, insist on telling me why the believe or disbelieve. Similarly, I have no quarrel with those who claim to know whether God exists until they insist on telling me so and insist on telling me why or how they so know.

That said, I think it's possible for particular views of God to be less reasonable than others. Perhaps this is more an issue of religious belief than an issue of belief in God. For example, belief in God as envisioned by organized religions of which I'm aware are, I think, clearly less reasonable than the so-called "God of the philosophers" if only because belief in the former entails acceptance of a variety contentions which go beyond the question of existence and relate to the characteristics, conduct, intentions and desires, writings, rules, laws, and words of God, and the rituals and ceremonies, and even language, which must be employed in worshipping God and are required as expressions of belief.

It is precisely this point that, for the scientifically-minded, makes belief in God unjustified. — Kenosha Kid

Naturalism excludes God as a matter of principle. The mistake is to then believe that science has disproved the substance of such a belief, when in practice it has simply excluded it.

One could argue that a cosmologist consensus is not analogous; on divine matters, it is clerical consensus one seeks since they are the experts on God. — Kenosha Kid

You know that when Lemaître initially published his 'Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom', it was widely resisted for a long time because it seemed to suggest a creation from nothing. In fact...

...by 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître's theory provided a scientific validation for Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope's proclamation, stating that the theory was neutral and there was neither a connection nor a contradiction between his religion and his theory. Lemaître and Daniel O'Connell, the Pope's scientific advisor, persuaded the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly, and to stop making proclamations about cosmology. Lemaître was a devout Catholic, but opposed mixing science with religion, although he held that the two fields were not in conflict. — Wikipedia

I think Lemaître's view that there is 'neither a connection nor a contradiction' is instructive.

I would have thought that the political structure itself is the basis for judging the outcomes, and that there exists a broader relational structure (the marketplace of ideas), the awareness of which enables such an entity to ‘hold itself aloof’ - ie. remain variable at the level of value and potential. — Possibility

Fair enough, but in the context, the writer is discussing Habermas' late-in-life re-evaluation of the role of religion in the public square. What he's saying is that Habermas recognises 'something missing' from secular rationalism and liberalism. That 'something missing' can't be defined in secular terms - otherwise it woudn't be missing!

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From p395 in Kenny's text.

It is a particular difficulty for the rationality of faith that there are so many alleged revelations that conflict with each other. One thing we know for certain is this: if any sacred text is literally true, then most are literally false. Of course, the incompatibility between conflicting revelations leaves it open as a logical possibility that just one of them is true while all the others are false. This is certainly not a possibility that can with decency be ruled out a priori by someone who believes that just by existing in this universe we are defeating odds of a billion to one. It seems to me, however, that if there is any truth in any religious revelation it is more likely that each of them is a metaphor for a single underlying truth that is incapable of being expressed in literal terms without contradiction. In this way religion would resemble poetry rather than science.

@Janus would agree that 'It is a particular difficulty for the rationality of faith that there are so many alleged revelations that conflict with each other. ' This is especially so in Christian culture, with its insistence that Christianity is the one true religion. Indic cultures seem naturally more pluralistic in their outlook.

John Hick, a philosopher of religion and committed pluralist, has this to say about the supposedly irreconcilable differences between religions:

The basic principle that we are aware of anything, not as it is in itself unobserved, but always and necessarily as it appears to beings with our particular cognitive equipment, was brilliantly stated by Aquinas when he said that ‘Things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower’ (S.T., II/II, Q. 1, art. 2). And in the case of religious awareness, the mode of the knower differs significantly from religion to religion. And so my hypothesis is that the ultimate reality of which the religions speak, and which we refer to as God, is being differently conceived, and therefore differently experienced, and therefore differently responded to in historical forms of life within the different religious traditions.

What does this mean for the different, and often conflicting, belief-systems of the religions? It means that they are descriptions of different manifestations of the Ultimate; and as such they do not conflict with one another. They each arise from some immensely powerful moment or period of religious experience, notably the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment under the Bo tree at Bodh Gaya, Jesus’ sense of the presence of the heavenly Father, Muhammad’s experience of hearing the words that became the Qur’an, and also the experiences of Vedic sages, of Hebrew prophets, of Taoist sages. But these experiences are always formed in the terms available to that individual or community at that time and are then further elaborated within the resulting new religious movements. This process of elaboration is one of philosophical or theological construction. Christian experience of the presence of God, for example, at least in the early days and again since the 13th-14th century rediscovery of the centrality of the divine love, is the sense of a greater, much more momentously important, much more profoundly loving, personal presence than that of one’s fellow humans. But that this higher presence is eternal, is omnipotent, is omniscient, is the creator of the universe, is infinite in goodness and love is not, because it cannot be, given in the experience itself. In sense perception we can see as far as our horizon but cannot see how much further the world stretches beyond it, and so likewise we can experience a high degree of goodness or of love but cannot experience that it reaches beyond this to infinity. That God has these infinite qualities, and likewise that God is a divine Trinity, can only be an inference, or a theory, or a supposedly revealed truth, but not an experienced fact.

Who or what is God?

...you don't consider " plausible premises" to be already more than mere logical possibility? — Janus

Perhaps. You've made me regret writing "plausible premisses"...

:wink:

If it is the case that in order for some statement or other to be true, certain other things must have happened and/or be happening, and we know that they have not, or that they are not, then there is no warrant to believe the statement under consideration despite it's being logically possible.

I don't disagree with that in regard to empirical assertions.

But we were considering what makes beliefs reasonable, and whether all reasonable beliefs are warranted, not what makes statements true.

Janus would agree that 'It is a particular difficulty for the rationality of faith that there are so many alleged revelations that conflict with each other. — Wayfarer

I would agree with that in cases where contrary or contradictory propositional claims are being made by different faiths. If religious stories are taken to be allegories that profess metaphorical truths then I think the difficulty disappears. That's why I often say that I think religion and theology are closer to poetry than they are to science.

Kenny actually makes the point about poetry. I would agree, so long as it’s not prefaced with ‘mere’. :-)

I would never refer to poetry as "mere". I think it is the highest art.

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. — Banno

Irrespective of the rest of the article, his objection parsed in that piece follows from the explicit Kantian methodology, wherein anything in reality is for us only phenomena, but conceptions arise spontaneously from the understanding, which has nothing to do with phenomena. Things in reality relate to my conceptions, in accordance with Kantian methodology, which could be said to be the same as answering to my conception, but such things are not contained in, nor part of, them, but nonetheless possibly presupposed by them.

It is good you don’t see some differentiating among worlds; no such implication is carried by that objection.
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As regards the article itself......it begins with “Is belief in God reasonable?”.....which of course it must be, for the question must have been thought, which makes explicit there were reasons for thinking it. Kenny didn’t ask whether belief in God was rational, or sustainable, or logical. Even a reason that doesn’t make sense, is refutable, or self-contradictory, is still a reason.

Dialectically familiar your analytical predispositions already, I will still offer that if one wishes to remain with Kant....which could be presumed as a chronological backdrop, insofar as A820/B848 is a section in CPR with the almost the same name as this thread, and covers the same general notions....one will find that belief is nothing but a judgement with subjective sufficiency but no objective sufficiency, which easily translates to....when I arrive at reasons to believe in God, then immediately the criteria for subjective sufficiency is met, hence my judgement for believing is reasonable.

So....what’s all the hoopla about anyway?

Fair enough, but in the context, the writer is discussing Habermas' late-in-life re-evaluation of the role of religion in the public square. What he's saying is that Habermas recognises 'something missing' from secular rationalism and liberalism. That 'something missing' can't be defined in secular terms - otherwise it woudn't be missing! — Wayfarer

That’s arguable - perhaps not in terms of secular rationalism, at least. I’d agree that religion has a role to play in challenging the ignorance, isolation and exclusion of affect (particularly in terms of ethics) from rationalist or logical reasoning, but so does art (in terms of aesthetics) and quantum physics (in terms of consciousness). What I think is missing is a dimensional aspect to secular rationalism that’s inclusive of qualitative potential.

But we were considering what makes beliefs reasonable, and whether all reasonable beliefs are warranted, not what makes statements true. — Janus

Warrant involves truth. Being reasonable involves only coherency.