read more - http://www.ppiclaimshandler.org.uk

I am not sure the banning of epeeist was fair, but I do recognize gross unfairness when I see it, and you are being grossly unfair to Brandon and the other moderators. I have been in many forums over many years, and of all those with moderation, this is surely one of the most permissive I have seen. I think that is appropriate, given that it invites dialogue with unbelievers, but in terms of snark and insult to people's beliefs, commenters here almost get away with murder.

Would you care to revisit that view in light of recent events, David? No need to answer it if on a flounce - this question is merely rhetorical and aimed at putting a view across. I wouldn't want to rain on your parade :)

Once can be an aberration, yes, but twice can be the start of a pattern. Absolutely no more comments from me, even if tempted by a harmful view. I am not prone to banging my head on the wall, being very fond of both the Einstein quote:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

and the W.C. Fields one:

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There is no point being a damn fool about it.

N.B. The above does not apply to my being here now (I am sure this comment will be deleted), I post as I know you will receive it via disqus nonetheless.

Isn't the human mind an exception to this rule?

I don't think Spinoza would have it that way. The correspondence principle will keep the mind connected to the body, although one is never the efficient cause of the other. My body moves the pencil when my mind thinks "my body is moving the pencil". Both are necessarily coincident but neither made the other happen.

Is it strange? Yes, it's strange. It is counter-intuitive. It seems as though physical things affect mental things (otherwise why am I wasting time drinking caffeine in the morning?) and vice verse. I don't know why Spinoza didn't just go with a sort of hylomorphic system: there's no contradiction in his philosophy if you do this. Maybe he did and I'm misinterpreting him.

I am confused by "physical things don't cause mental things and mental things don't cause physical things." Isn't the human mind an exception to this rule? It is influenced by mental things and can influence physical things like our limbs. It seems the other way around should be true to. It is influenced by physical things like blood sugar and hormones. It influences mental things. OK maybe mental thing exists independent of the human mind, not sure of you definitions, but I thought the word mental referred to the mind.

The "unanswered refutation" is simply made, and its parts are contained in your response, I think.

By "Lewis' point" I mean his assertion that if materialism is true, we have no good reason to trust our minds or capacity to reason.

Spinoza gets around this by not being a materialist. :D It is unanswered because that's not what Lewis was going after.

I don't think materialists have a good response to Lewis's argument. But I don't know for sure, since I'm not a professional philosopher.

There's a collection of essays in 2002 about a more difficult-to-address version of this argument and responses from naturalists, called "Naturalism Defeated?" It is possible some new objections are present there.

Thanks Paul. Is Spinoza right? I don't know. But it doesn't matter whether he's right
or not. He's shown that it is possible for naturalism to be true and
for our senses and reason to be reliable

It is more difficult to find a correlation, within my 'imperfect sense and reason' between the reality in which Catholicism holds the 'existence' of God to be, rather than Kant's ideality of metaphysical transcendents, including God, but at least you have given me confidence that my self-analytic signature of being 'a-theist Catholic' can support both 'Faith' (Yes I can accept the Nicene Creed) in the Being (I don't say existence) of God, and my understanding that there is truth within Spinoza's 'pantheism'....

But I have found time and time, again, that my understanding and support of particular ideas, etc. is not what I hold to be true when I make general statements concerning my 'over-riding' beliefs. The word 'a-theism' even is not an accurate description of some of the interpretations I make of reality.

But I'm not sure how it is possible to be a naturalist and a 'super'naturalist' at the same time, and so I believe, without having explicit self-understanding that I may lean to a 'naturalist' explanation, and yet hold to the 'being' of transcendent reality/ies.. But again, within particular understandings that have not been assimilated into a 'whole'. If only I could see myself as others see me, or more to the point- how 'God'? sees me.

As always, thanks for the excellent comment, Paul! I'm very curious about your last assertion:

"If someone holds to Spinoza's naturalism, it would be fair to ask them why they think it's true, but it wouldn't be fair to use Lewis's objection, because that's already been answered."

I'm not aware of any unanswered refutation of Lewis' point (one which has, of course, been proposed by many other philosophers, scientists, and theologians.) Can you briefly and clearly explain to me Lewis' point has been refuted?

(PS. By "Lewis' point" I mean his assertion that if materialism is true, we have no good reason to trust our minds or capacity to reason. This is because there's no reason to assume purposeless and deterministic patterns of firing neurons would lead to the truth,)

I assume that my sense and reason are reliable as a foundational basis for philosophy and for science. Those philosophers who are unable to make this assumption will not trust that the little black marks on the computer screen convey anything trustworthy, and will have a hard time responding to my comments here.

Whatever we find using sense and reason is what we need to provisionally accept as reality. Since we can't be infallible, what we find needs to be constantly revised, and nothing should be accepted with 100% confidence.

If an explanation suggests that our senses and reason are unreliable, that's not evidence against the assumption, but evidence against the explanation.

C.S. Lewis asks how likely is the foundational assumption given materialism. He concludes that it is not very likely. Maybe he is correct, although it is difficult to say, since no one knows what sense and reason is made of, let alone how it arises. Nevertheless, maybe his argument holds some water as a broad speculative intuition.

Spinoza's view is that mind and body are two different things. They are connected to each other such that both are part of a single reality (which Spinoza calls God or Nature). They correspond. But one doesn't cause another.

Spinoza thinks everything has an explanation, or that things are understood in terms of their causes. So, for Spinoza, every physical thing is connected to a set of mental ideas (its explanation). This means there's a 1:1 correspondence between mental objects and physical objects, even though mental things don't cause physical things and physical things don't cause mental things. He also thinks that there are mental laws as deterministic as the physical laws, and that a separate science (psychology) can explore what they are.

Is Spinoza right? I don't know. But it doesn't matter whether he's right or not. He's shown that it is possible for naturalism to be true and for our senses and reason to be reliable. If someone holds to Spinoza's naturalism, it would be fair to ask them why they think it's true, but it wouldn't be fair to use Lewis's objection, because that's already been answered.

Hey Paul, thanks for your response, and I apologize for my again-delayed response. Let us give thanks for Disqus notifications! :-P

I think I understand, and I accept, the technical distinction between naturalism and materialism. I think what I'm more curious about is how one might conceive of "material" and "non-material" substances interacting in a "naturalistic" metaphysical framework in a way that sidesteps Lewis' objections and allows for the mental experience to probably experience Truly Reasonable insights.

My understanding is that most non-materialist naturalists are non-materialist because they acknowledge the non-material nature of mental experiences (or qualia). However, they believe (in my understanding) that non-material reality exists in strict causal relationship to material reality. I can think of two metaphysical frameworks which feasibly account for the relationship between material reality and non-material reality:

Option 1: Non-material reality exists in strict causal relationship to material reality. There is nothing in non-material reality cannot be completely accounted for by a corresponding arrangement of matter in the material realm of existence.

Option 2: Some non-material reality exists and functions in a way which cannot be completely accounted for by a corresponding arrangement of matter in the material realm of existence.

If the first option is true, we again meet Prof. Haldane's objection about the (un)trustworthiness of our own thoughts. The second option presents multiple possible metaphysical frameworks; I've thought of the following possibilities: non-material forces somehow direct the motion of matter in the material realm of existence and/or non-material forces influence other non-material existence.

If naturalism doesn't require that all qualia directly correspond to an arrangement of matter in the material realm (as I believe you suggested at the beginning of your second-most-recent comment in this conversation thread), it sounds as though the latter of my "second option" ideas must be true: non-material forces somehow influence other non-material existence, in this case qualia. Either all mental experience directly corresponds to material matter or at least some of it corresponds to non-material influences/forces/etcetera. You seem averse to the former of those possibilities, but I've never heard of a "naturalistic" metaphysical framework wherein forces/influences affect non-material reality essentially independent of material reality.

Unless your "naturalism" involves stipulating some entirely-unknowable principles (similar to the principles of physics) of "the non-material realm" which precisely govern the action/interaction of non-material things with other non-material things and with non-material-correspondent-to-material things (such as our qualia), I think you're basically admitting that at least some non-material forces/influences exist as "free agents." However, if such principles exist, there's still no more reason to assume that they will produce Truly Reasonable mental insights than there is to assume that the principles of physics will cause arrangements of brain matter which in turn generate Truly Reasonable insights in one's qualia.

In short, I think that one must either believe in a system where all things (both material and non-material) are governed by inviolable natural principles (which exclude any action by "free agents") OR one must believe in a system wherein "free agents" truly exist. However, as accepting the former system essentially damns reason altogether (as Lewis observes), the latter system can only be equally reasonable or more reasonable.

The nature of non-material things is not generally thought to include randomness (and according to Spinoza cannot possibly include randomness), and so Lewis's argument cannot be made. Lewis's argument only connects to materialism.

On what grounds should the nature of non-material things not be considered random? I'm not familiar with Spinoza's thoughts, so please feel free to share them here if you think it'd be constructive. :-) I think that Lewis' argument can be employed any system wherein the system's operative parts cannot be relied upon to arrange themselves in a fashion which would cause Truly Reasonable qualia. Whether or not a naturalist believes in materialism or not is irrelevant to the principles which he or she believes govern reality and to the reliability of those principles in generating Truly Reasonable qualia. Although he only specifically talks about principles which govern material reality in his argument (as opposed to any principles which may govern non-material reality), Lewis proposes that abandoning naturalistic principles for understanding reality enables a probability of Truly Reasonable qualia which doesn't exist in a naturalistic metaphysical framework.

Regarding your last paragraph, it's true that neither Lewis nor any other philosopher can demonstrate the validity of thought, and Lewis doesn't set out to do so. He relays (at least in the first edition of Miracles) that some devoted naturalists with whom he's conversed have preferred to call their own thoughts invalid than to give up their naturalistic metaphysical perspective. Lewis simply proffers that a non-naturalistic metaphysical framework allows for valid thought in a way which a naturalistic metaphysical framework can't; thus, if one desires to accept one's own thoughts as valid, one should not hold a naturalistic metaphysical perspective.

(2) Some cosmologists speculate that the universe is roughly the minimum size and age necessary for human life as we know it to exist. One would not expect that if the universe was a random happenstance and not a creation of an intelligence.