Plantinga - Dennett 12 (Final)

Alvin Plantinga (Notre Dame) delivers a paper at the 2009 Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago, entitled "Religion and Science: Where the Real Conflict Lies." Daniel Dennett (Tufts) comments.

No, this is not my recording, but yes, I was at this talk (I actually ask the very first question in the Q&A (I didn't express myself well, but Plantinga seemed to get the jist). I tried to record it, but my camera wasn't working. So I found this recording online, and thought the YouTube community might enjoy.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Alvin
• Plantinga
• Daniel
• Dennett
• theism
• atheism
• naturalism
• evolution
• epistemology
• religion
• science

[AHBritton]

SisyphusRedeemed,

I get kind of lost in Plantinga's "propositions 'A' and 'Q' defeating 'R'" type talk. Is this very common in this type of philosophical discourse? It seems to me like it just obscures the point he's trying to make.

As far as I can tell it just breaks down to the fact that he doesn't understand why our beliefs should track reality. Is this the gist?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

Sadly it is rather common, not just for Plantinga, but for many analytically trained philosophers, and it can be rather alienating if you're not used to it. It can be easier if you can read it, rather than just hearing it.

I don't think you've quite got the gist. I take Plantinga's basic point to be that natural selection selects for surviving-behavior, not true beliefs, and there is no reason to think that the later would come along with the prior.

[Aquam9n]

This is off topic, but Dawkins makes a horrible philosopher. I won't comment on the subject on whether he's a deep thinker, I think he has shown he is. However, this is only applicable to his native field of interest -- biology.

I feel more comfortable hearing Dennett speak on the subject of religion in the context of philosophy.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

I've heard more than one person say Dawkins is a poor philosopher, but I've never heard anyone say why they think so, other than (1) he's not trained as a philosopher or (2) simply that they disagreed with his conclusions, neither of which are good arguments. Can you tell me specifically why you think he's a poor philosopher?

[disofchrist]

how much material is missing from the end of the 11th video and the beggining of the 12th? And thanks for posting

[SisyphusRedeemed]

I think there was about a minute, or maybe a minute and a half. I tried to get the whole thing, but technical complications being what they are...

[EastofForever]

@SisyphusRedeemed well....where does a trained philosopher begin? the first time I saw a video of Dawkins was in a video in which he lectured at UC-Berkeley and led off his lecture with one of the most basic fallacies of all: the genetic fallacy.And it didn't get any better.

all these atheists just project all their little atheistic fantasies upon him and mindlessly try not to logically discern whether what he is saying makes any logical sense.

he's an anti-religious bigot on top of it...

[Mylth]

Dennett's argument seems to be summed up thusly - I don't like belief in God.

[Gnomefro]

Yeah, that's his point, but AHBritton probably has the counterargument in mind when he says Plantinga doesn't understand why our beliefs should track reality.

Because that's basically what it's all about. If Plantinga had any understanding of this, he'd realize that the kinds of "false, but useful" beliefs he proposes are exponentially unlikely to create a coherent system of ideas that's useful for making predictions. True beliefs have the advantage of not having to fight reality.

[AHBritton]

TheIrrationalAtheist,

What exactly is Pantinga's argument against naturalism? If you could help me break it down more simply it would be appreciated. It mostly seemed like hand waving to me.

[AHBritton]

Man, TheIrrationalAtheist is kind of a jerk... maybe that's what he means by "thinker"

[jkllkj12345]

It makes me happy to see someone defending Dawkins as a philosopher. He is, to an extant polemic, and that puts people off, but his platform is increasing people's awareness of science. I enjoyed your question, but it seemed like one of maybe 10 or so times Plantinga needed to be hand shown exactly how Dennett responded to his arguments. This made it rather frustrating for me to hear this debate, even though I sat through it all.

[julebakst]

Clear win for Dennett. I'm so glad we got people like him to keep us sane. He deserves to go to heaven! ;)