I'm doing a thesis on new atheism and epistemology. what can I talk about?

I'm doing a thesis on new atheism and epistemology. what can I talk about?

Natural>Supernatural

and by definition supernatural doesn't exist, if it did, then it would be natural.

this hardly diminishes the undeniably supernatural. if we had a systematic theory for God and how he interacts with the universe no one would say "oh well see that's just a natural phenomena, not supernatural at all"

Being able to completely understand a process and predict the effects doesn't preclude it being natural (and non-anthropomorphic).

I was thinking of talking about Kuhn and Feyerabend.

*Not being able to

define new atheism.

Thesis about what? The movement as an idea, the movement's influence on culture and society, the people involved in it or the results they have or haven't gotten?

What undeniably supernatural?

epistemic claims they've made: in regards to science and mostly scientism

Other people have done it so I'll just use their definition.

I also invented a drinking game. Every time a new atheist gets buttblasted and says "strawman" take a shot.

>scientism

buttblasted. take a shot.

"New Atheism" is retarded because it's just public figures who don't take the subject matter seriously. Dawkins says things like "some questions are just silly questions" as a way of deflecting serious philosophical queries.

If you want a good modern atheist philosopher, read Bertrand Russell, not fucking Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, neither of whom have training in philosophy.

>not fucking Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, neither of whom have training in philosophy

Aren't they partly following the whole will to power idea?

>Bertrand Russell
top kek
you might as well look at Seth MacFarlane for philosophical ideas bro.

Sick bantz

Add Sam Harris to this

To which list? Sam Harris actually studied philosophy you know, which at least puts him ahead of the others I mentioned.

>and by definition supernatural doesn't exist, if it did, then it would be natural.

OP asked about new atheism, so I tried to explain it.

he studied as an undergrad. he's barely qualified to talk philosophy.

as public figures they have discursive power so it's not completely useless to talk about them.

If the number of times an accusation is made would make an accusation less credible, and instead, suggests that the accuser is merely deflecting or sidestepping, that should go both ways.

So, defenders of 'new atheism' would be merely deflecting by accusing critics of strawmanning, but, critics of 'new atheism' would be sidestepping by the constant accusations of 'scientism' or outdated logical positivism'.

>serious philosophical questions are serious because I say they are

>people without formal training in philosophy can't seriously discuss philosophical topics
>everyone that has a formal background in philosophy is familiar with the disparate work of hundreds of different philosophers of various schools
>philosophers ofcourse can talk about every other field of expertise with no or little formal training
>let me now talk about biology while misunderstanding some very basic concepts

I really fucking hate this 'no formal background' argument, which is only used when it's convenient to shut people out of the discussion. This mentality has empowered hacks such as Reza Aslan.

>philosophers ofcourse can talk about every other field of expertise with no or little formal training
>let me now talk about biology while misunderstanding some very basic concepts

Who are you quoting?

>no formal background, opinion dismissed

But he has.

>formal background not good enough, opinion dismissed

Your goalposts are breaking the speedlimit.

Will there ever be someone who makes the same arguments as Harris who will satisfy the credentials brigade?

What worth does a 'formal training' in philosophy even has considering it's wide range of schools? Should I value the work of some post-modern obscurantist over the ramblings of some religious lunatic just because he/she has a 'formal training' in philosophy?

>There is "no evidence" in the natural (material) world for the supernatural (immaterial) one, therefore the supernatural does not exist.

I have heard this said many times and it sounds like faulty; perhaps circular(?); reasoning. It is surely unfalsifiable to make the positive assertion "there is only the natural world", since, if the only "evidence" for such a world can come from the natural-sciences, and they can only understand the natural world, there is no way of either proving or disproving the existence of a supernatural world using the tools of natural-science. It is obvious that if we only use the tools of natural-science, we can only show that the natural world exists.

I have been introduced in passing to this man, his ideas of philosophy as formalizing language, and attempting to express what we cannot understand seems applicable here. It appears foolish to hope to understand the supernatural using natural science, or explain the unspeakable with language.

Have new-atheists addressed this problem?

Not you directly, but the general impression I get from your posts and others that echoes the notion that only 'true' philosophers can talk about philosophical issues.

In so many of the attack pieces written against 'new atheism' (a terrible label in itself) assert that they (Dawkins, Harris, etc) are philosophically weak, and accuse them of scientific racism etc. while misunderstanding basic biology.

It's not even a central issue of Harris, but he was dismissed as 'sexist' by a bunch of feminist morons by merely stating that hormonal differences between men and women will result in differences in the aggregate. I have seen this attitude amongst too many philosophers and their supporters (who apparantly CAN understand what, for example, Foucault means without a formal background).

I have read so many retarded pieces of feminist philosophers and other schools, formally trained, that make the most absurd claims about biology and evolution, while being very arrogant and elitist against non-philosophers.

First, I'm only one of the anons who is posting in this thread so I'm not necessarily the one either of you is responding to. I'm the user who said earlier that Harris has at least a bit more credibility than Dawkins or Hitchens.

I can't speak for everyone, but as someone who has studied philosophy and theology, whenever I listen to New Atheists talk about theology they just resort to the most basic high-school-level objections that betray a complete lack of sophistication on their topic, and the fact that they refuse to even take the topic seriously means they are either unable or unwilling to tackle more serious philosophical or theological concepts. When presented with answers to their objections their response is simply to double down and insist upon the validity of their handful of axiomatic statements. For example, they have a steadfast attachment to verificationism, which has been long since debunked in academic philosophy and taken seriously by practically no modern philosopher.

It's not that there's a "credentials" war so much as there is a kind of naive ignorance that's blatantly obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary philosophical education. The New Atheists are popular because they preach to the converted.

If you read The God Delusion it comes across like someone who spent an afternoon on Wikipedia rolling his eyes at ideas that he barely understands and interprets removed from their context. For example, he cites Pascal's Wager as an ontological argument, which it was clearly never intended to be.

They are too disdainful of their subject matter to be taken seriously, and it's that lack of respect for the seriousness of the questions they're discussing that prevents them from having (and exhibiting) a more nuanced understanding. But since their audience is simply those who agree with them already, there's just no need for them to ever rise above this level.

I recommend Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion.

>Have new-atheists addressed this problem?
"don't worry about it" would be their answer

I posted both the posts you replied to.

>sophistication

This word has become a redflag to me. Instead of saying what is wrong with an argument, or adding some actual nuance, we get the faux nuance of 'sophistication'. Too often this impies: my convoluted diatribe is the right one, because it is 'sophisticated'.

'New atheism' isn't a coherent system of thought, and I have never seen someone labeled as a 'new atheist' describe themself as such enthousiastically. The only thing they share is a direct and arguably blunt opposition to religion, and even in that they differ (Harris and Hitchens have very different views on spirituality. Harris was critical of Islam much earlier than Dawkins was, who focussed more on Christian creationism. Harris barely addresses biology.) I am most familiar with Harris, of whom I've read almost everything. I've read much less of the other three of the 'big four'. Some of his topics aren't even directly linked to religion, such as his views on morality and free will.

I truly don't see the attachment to verificationism. The whole justification Harris offers of his axioma 'questions of morality are questions of maximizing the well-being of conscious creatures' goes against logical positivism and it's attempt to strictly seperate facts from values. Harris basically takes on a constructivist view by asserting that all truth claims (facts) are grounded in certain values, and that values are (implicitly) making claims about facts.

Besides, this idea of 'verificationism is debunked' is weird to me. I have a formal background mostly in biology, but had courses in philosophy, and heard this many times. Apparantly, when it comes to positivism and verificationism ideas can be 'debunked', implying philosophical progress, while still discussing 'nature vs. nurture' and 'blank slate' ideas as if there still is a lack of consensus on these topics is just fine. They barely addressed postmodernism, but apparantly that wasn't debunked.

>opinion dismissed
project harder buttblasted. never said that. just said that he's barely qualified. in response to saying he studied philosophy, as that was the credential that was in question.

barely anybody else is making sam harris argument because they're stupid.

See, the problem is that you can't have a good philosophical conversation or debate unless both parties are sufficiently informed on the topic. Otherwise it will just be one party struggling to educate the other. Most philosophy is deeply private and is the result of a lot of study, because philosophy proceeds by a series of arguments and conclusions that compound on one another. This means that there's a baseline of philosophy and then an advanced level of it that requires, at minimum, an understanding of what comes before it. So you can't really understand Kierkegaard or Nietzsche without understanding Kant and Hegel. Philosophy as a field does advance, contrary to what people outside of the field seem to think.

Dabbling in philosophy is fine as long as you do so with self-awareness and don't hold yourself out as someone who has all the answers. This is what many people see in Dawkins and Hitchens, an attempt at armchair philosophy that is unconvincing to anyone who doesn't already accept their position.

and whats wrong with that answer? if we cant prove it or detect it in anyway then whats the point of pretending we know it exists?

Continuing:

You just restate the 'lack of credentials' argument in a more polite way. You say they have a 'naive' ignorance that is 'blatantly obvious' to anyone with a rudimentary philosophical education'. This is just elitism disguised as critique. I have a rudimentary philosophical education, and I don't see this in Harris. I have read academic replies to his book that, besides missing almost all points, where incredibly condescending and often reiterate Hume as if his 'is/ought' distinction is some dogma that will never change. (Ironically, while following philosophy of science courses, most teachers fawned over Kuhn and his 'paradigm shifts', greatly exaggerating the discontinuity in scientific progress. It's there, but there still is continuity, even when fundamental ideas are discarded. Hume is eternal though.)

Besides, they are popular writers. They want to change mainstream ideas. Mainstream ideas very often are 'basic high-school level'. The opposition also uses this level of argument, but that, apparantly, is ok. (hurr durr, can't proof there is a God. hurr durr, atheism leads to Stalinism. hurr durr, rejecting religion is just as dogmatic as accepting religion and it's myriad of rules, hurr durr atheists are angry edge lords).

The preach to the converted you say. How do you know that? Harris did change my mind on certain topics, or offered refinements to issues I was confused on. I started reading his work very sceptical, still infected with my leftist dogma that said 'you should criticize all religion equally, focussing on Islam is suspect'. He changed my views on lying, free-will and morality. Also, if you just use google, you will find many formally religious people that credit Harris and Dawkins for changing there minds. People don't need some inpenetrable academic paper to change their minds on some basic issues.

I'll look up Eagleton's piece.

I just want to reiterate that I have no objection to Harris and I think he's among the more credible "new atheist" philosophers. I think you're confusing me with another poster in this thread.

It's fine to "want to change mainstream ideas" but that makes them no better than the people they are criticizing. It's a form of argument from authority, just like your bishop telling you that the wafer you're eating is the body of God.

My objection is that they hold themselves out as being more than that. I mean Dawkins in particular. He's trying to convince people to have a dismissive attitude towards the topic of religion and the possibility of supernatural realities because they're simply stupid and not worth thinking about. It's the atheist equivalent of Young Earth Creationism and it reminds me of the attitude the Church was espousing during the Dark Ages. "Listen to us because of all the great things we've given you." Scientists have a lot of credibility in our day and age because of technological and medical advances, for instance. So a few of them are going rogue and holding out opinions on non-scientific topics, and doing so authoritatively, which is as damaging as it is intellectually dishonest.

At this point I wonder whether we're talking about different things because I'm mostly responding both to the book The God Delusion and to the writing of Christopher Hitchens, but you keep bringing up Sam Harris, who I've always found to be more reasonable.

OP. dawkin's in god delusion claims that beliefs should be provided with reference to evidence. but according to feyerabend and others observation only becomes evidence when assessed against theoretical framework, that theorectical framework is arational according to feyerabend.
this is somewhere to start.

You contradict yourself within three sentences.

>you can't have a good philosophical conversation (...) unless both parties are sufficiently informed on the topic
>Most philosophy is deeply private

Conversation is always difficult, even in narrowly defined fields. You should read the endless discussions within biology on the merit of kin-selection theories. These discussions already presuppose an enormous amount of knowledge to be true (for now), and still they lead to heated debate on what to a layperson maybe minutiae.

So yes, philosophical discussions will often be even harder considering the broader claims. But this undermines, instead of strenghtens, the appeal to formal education. Philosophical views can differ on a much more fundamental level than most scientific views. Philsophy is much less continues than science. Besides, learning argumentation and specific idiom you have to basically learn both the field of philosophy and the history of philosophy. This will inherently be superficial in many cases. Who decides the baseline? You mention Kierkegaard, Nietsche, Kant and Hegel. Those are just 4 wellknown philosophers. When do you 'know' them well enough? Understand their 'private philosophy'? Reading all their work, rereading it, researching it, reading comments of others on them, reading about their times and the sociological context in which they wrote their work, their influence, etc., that is a lifetime of learning in itself. Congratulations, you still have a few hundred philosophers left.

Basically, by that standard, there are no experts in philosophy.

There hardly is a 'private science'. You really don't need to read Darwin, Wallace or Watson and Crick, in order to be a good biologist. Their contributions aren't dependant on them as people. That is a very different form of advancing than that of philosophy, and don't get me wrong, I belief in philosophical progress and I am by no means a verificationist.

My point is mainly that most philosophical conversations are difficult to have because they will usually end in book recommendations rather than actual changing of opinion. Difficult questions have difficult answers that require time and effort in order to discover.

That's actually the depressing thing about philosophy. It's fun to have conversations on philosophical topics, but ultimately it's rare to find a topic that you are better "debating" than you are self-studying. And once a deficiency of self-study is evident in a philosophical text, you start to realize that you're not reading anything worth reading, which is the feeling a lot of people have towards people like Dawkins.

I agree it's the ideas that are important. And I think it's fine to read the ideas in survey as opposed to studying the primary sources, as long as those ideas are accurately represented. In fact, some authors are better at explicating the ideas of philosophers than the original philosophers were. For example Martin Buber wrote a great essay called "What Is Man?" that condensed the whole history of what might be called "existential" philosophy into a much more concise and easily digestible format. But he was able to do this because he understood these arguments so well, and in doing so was able to build on them and critique them. Charles Taylor is another good example of a 20th century philosopher who has a knack for this. Charles Darwin is not, though he pretends to be, which is all I'm taking issue with.

>Charles Darwin is not, though he pretends to be, which is all I'm taking issue with.

Lol, I meant Dick Dawkins. Sorry Darwin.

Maybe we are talking past each other. Have you read anything of Harris?

I have read only parts of the God Delusion. I prefer Harris, but didn't object to much. Hitchens relied too much on rhetoric over argument, but damn his rhetoric could be good. And sometimes there is nothing to give besides rhetoric, when people present empty moral posturing as if it was an argument.

I think you present a false equivalence. When did Dawkins or Hitchens play a background card as an argument?

And don't misunderstand me: I think everyone should be able to talk about anything, especially in the public sphere. Everyone can talk about biology. I was referring to the irony of philosophers claiming exclusive rights to talk about philosophy (which basically means everything relating to 'knowing') and then start to philosophize about scientific fields such as biology without much training. It's just ironic and hypocritical.

In contrast to what I've heard philosophers occasionally say, verificationism is basically dead within the hard sciences. (It's all empirical cycle and falsification, the idea of simplisitic linear progress and 'we're nearly done' is long gone.)

Are you referring to Dawkins' 'science works bitches' comment? As far as I know that was dismissive of post-modernism, not of philosophy as a whole. I can stand by that.

Also, being dismissive of an idea isn't the same as not taking it seriously or wanting to understand it. I am dismissive of religion in general (as in, justifying believing things on faith, meaning, without good evidence or reason but just because it's established dogma), but that doesn't mean I don't want to know about the doctrines or dismiss everything labelled as religious (community, ritual, art, customs).

I have to go to work, but I'll read possible replies later. I'll see if this thread is dead by closed by then.

We actually don't seem to disagree on much.

>and then start to philosophize about scientific fields such as biology without much training.

I never defended that.

With Harris I've read some of his writing on the topic of consciousness and found it well reasoned and I like how he incorporates his scientific research into the topic. He tends to be very specific about what he's arguing which is where his philosophical background (rudimentary though it may be) shines through. I wish that user who actually objected to Harris were replying to you because he seems to disagree with you more than I do and I'm interested to know in what way he's critical of Harris.

I see what you mean about philosophical elitism being a problem. You're right, anyone can discuss philosophy, and it's interesting and enlightening to do so, especially for people new to philosophy. The problem is having (and promoting) a dismissive attitude towards specialized topics. This is where Dawkins reminds me of "The Jar of Peanut Butter: An Atheist's Worst Nightmare." Or if you're not familiar with that, people who say that the existence of an immune system can't be accounted for by natural selection. There are people who sincerely believe this and who teach others to believe this, but the reason they believe it is simply ignorance masquerading as "hard truth" that puts an end to conversation, and moreover, throwing the credibility and reliability of authorities into question for being apparently unwilling to cope with this. Global warming deniers act this way too, by implying that people who believe in global warming are part of a massive conspiracy of deception, rather than being sincerely convinced of the truth of their position on the basis of perfectly rational research and conclusions.

Anyways I'm at work too so we'll just revisit this thread in the future maybe if either of us has anything to add.