Steve Hays Responds to Prof. Witmer re Presuppositionalism

Steve Hays has weighed in on Prof. Witmer's response to PS. In a recent post entitled Machiavellian Atheology, Steve spends a great deal of time complaining that Prof. Witmer chooses to take a tactical perspective, focusing on debate, rather than addressing more of the substantive philosophical issues (in Steve's opinion). Of course, Prof. Witmer admits the purpose of his talk is largely in how to "respond" to those who present the PS in debate formats.

One of the things that I think will prove problematic is the issue of how the burden of proof is established in these PS arguments. The PS's claim that only internal critiques are valid to evaluate the coherence of worldviews. They also claim that there is "no neutral common ground" -- that the employment of logic/morality/etc., presupposes the Christian God.

So if they claim these things, how is it that they can establish, as Steve comments below, and as CalvinDude repeats numerous times (most recently here), what levels of justification are required to presuppose something, whether or not some things may be viewed as primitive and little explained? This seems a serious issue. I await a serious reply.

Steve writes [I'll add in a few links]:

At the time I was busy with other things, so I’ll now take the occasion to revisit that issue.

I'm glad Steve did, and I hope we can continue to discuss general presuppositionalism, as well as the question of whether or not theism is a necessary precondition of logic.

I would note, in passing, that Witmer freely concedes that Manata handily won his debate with Barker:

I think most impartial people would agree. I did, long ago (back in August, if I recall).

Exposition aside, Witmer’s presentation is a combination of a few substantive objections along with a lot of tactical advice. These are somewhat interrelated, but, for clarity of analysis, I’ll make some effort to address them separately. Let’s address the substantive objections first:

This talk was limited to one hour, and much of what he said was contained in the transcript that was made available. However, some of the peripheral issues that were discussed, especially in the following Q&A session, were not incorporated into his talk. He has told me, though, that he plans to revisit the issue in a while when he gets sufficient feedback and time.

That’s a valid criticism of one particular formulation of presuppositionalism. But this is easily rectified by scaling back the claim to a more reasonable burden of proof. The onus is not on the presuppositionalist to rebut every conceivable alternative to the faith. That would be an inhuman burden of proof. And it would saddle him with a double standard, for no one, whether believer or unbeliever, can meet such a hypothetical challenge.

One of the first points to make is that there is a fundamental difference between an individual-directed negative argument (IDNA): "you cannot account for X", a generalized negative argument (GNA): "atheism cannot account for X", and a generalized positive argument (GPA): "God is required to account for X". I have seen all three go under the guise of presuppositionalism.

True, when it comes to arguing for one’s own position or against a competing position, both sides have their own burden of proof to discharge.

But this is where things get problematic. If you are only making an "internal critique", then the question of how we establish a "burden of proof" that translates across both my own and your own worldviews, and meets our presuppositional standards, is difficult to answer. If I assert some specific premise, such as, "All claims must be substantiated via the scientific method," then you can obviously use that sort of hasty, generalized premise against my other premises, since I have established a metric for the burden of proof. What if I do not think a simple metric can be used, and that different levels of proof are required as we correlate to those things inside of and outside of generalized human experience and induction?

This is a valid criticism as far as it goes. Presuppositionalists can be guilty of substituting slogans for arguments. Paraphrasing the original claim.

Or considering a negative argument the same thing as a positive one.

However, this doesn’t mean that no such answers exist. There are book-length treatments on modal metaphysics from a theistic perspective which go into excruciating detail.

And I see this as a problem for both IDNA and GNA formulations of presuppositionalism. Rarely do these two ever interact with parallel treatments of metaphysics, ontology or logic from either a God-neutral, or atheistic perspective.

Here he’s transitioning from substantive objections to tactical advance. And notice, in the course of this transition, how he’s forgotten where he himself positioned the burden of proof?

I think he's pointing out that we all hold presuppositions, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded. He's asking why "accounts" have to be given for presuppositions themselves, since your presuppositions cannot be properly "accounted for" either -- definitionally, these are assumed truths which form the basis of our starting points to make arguments.

His advice takes the form of: “You think we’ve gotta problem? Well, you’ve gotta problem too!”

I don't think he's committing the tu quoque fallacy. He's pointing out that this is a flaw in the PS strategy -- to imply an infinite regress, tautological difficulties, primitive facts, or circularity will not result if we justify what we presuppose, ad naseum.

But this is an attempt to flip the burden of proof rather than discharge the burden of proof. To say that unbeliever doesn’t have to justify induction on secular grounds because the believer has unwarranted beliefs as well—even assuming that this is true—is not an intellectually responsible answer. It’s fair to point out that the believer has his own burden of proof to meet. But that doesn’t shift the burden of proof from the unbeliever to the believer.

Again, I think he's addressing the necessity of "unburdening" everyone at the level of presuppositions and primitive facts.

The onus is still on the unbeliever to justify induction on secular grounds. The onus doesn’t go away just because he can claim that the believer has failed to meet his own burden of proof.

No, but if the PS argument is that the unbeliever has failed to meet the unbeliever's own burden of proof, and the PS argument is all about "internal critique", then this gets tricky to claim, doesn't it? This is what he addresses later on.

For another thing, even if these beliefs were about the same thing, both sides would bear their respective burden of proof. The onus is on the believer to justify induction on Christian grounds while the onus is on the unbeliever to justify induction on secular grounds.

But in so doing, how many other assumptions do you, or we, package in? How much of a regress will we get into? Typically PSs claim they have two assumptions: i) God exists (where God = all good, powerful, knowing, not a liar, etc.); ii) Scripture is God's Word. They then feel consistent in falling back on (i) and (ii) in order to discharge their own burden of proof re induction. I typically hear induction "defended" by Scriptures like Gen 8:22 (KJV) --

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

But this assumes many things, especially that all of these things will remain as they are, in addition to just "not ceasing". That is, God would not be a liar, per se, if days became 29 hours and nights 5 hours, or if summer was 9 months long, and winter 9 months long. What the reader assumes (unjustifiably) is that induction is strengthened by this primitive verse, when there is no way to find support here without serious other leaps in logic. Some of the other assumptions include the translation of the verse, the choice of the MSS, the hermeneutics, etc., etc.

So, my point is that as much as PS advocates may believe they can always fall back onto these basic internal assumptions, especially when they do metaphysical apologia, they cannot. Too many other considerations are packaged into (ii) to allow that.

Even if the believer was guilty of shirking his side of the argument, that would’t prove that the uvbeliever was right.

Correct, because of tu quoque.

The problem with all this is that it’s so transparently cynical and unprincipled.

Cynical, perhaps; unprincipled? Hardly.

The unbeliever is entitled to take some things for granted “if” he has good reason to take these things for granted. The unbeliever is entitled to treat certain facts as primitive facts if they are primitive facts, and he has good reason for believing so. The unbeliever is entitled to say, “they just are, and that’s that,” only “if,” as a matter of fact, that’s a truthful claim.

Well that's not "for granted" then, is it? Care to tell me what "good reason" you have to believe that other minds exist? How do you show that this is a truthful claim? Besides, the whole basis of the PS argument is that internal critiques are all we can do. How do you inject into my worldview the "burden of proof" and the prerequisites for presuppositions? See the problem, here? You claim there is "no neutral ground". But you also claim you can neutrally evaluate my justification for presuppositions? That's where we get into classical foundationalism, or coherentism, etc., which is where theism and atheism will quickly find some issues.

The unbeliever is only entitled to revert to atheistic Platonism as his last-ditch stand if that fallback maneuver is actually true or he has good reason for believing it’s true.

Or perhaps the atheist realizes his own ability to respond to a IDNA is predicated upon that which he is committed to, and how familiar he is with the metaphysics thereof. Saying that the universals are metaphysically possible or impossible within a physicalist framework is one thing; accepting it as a presupposition is another; demonstrating it is quite a whole different story.

I have attempted to show (here, here) that conceptual intensional/natural realism is not inconsistent with physicalism to "account for" the laws of logic, and universals in particular.

Platonism, conversely, is parallel to theism in some ways -- it removes verifiability principles from the ball game, and makes non-veridical statements a matter of rule rather than exceptions. Talk of transcendent, universal, abstractions, existing outside of the spatio-temporal framework of our universe, sounds just about like God, doesn't it?

And, of course, if that’s what he thought all along, then he wouldn’t “revert” to atheistic Platonism, now would he?

Many people who are pressed by PS debates into commitments ought not overcommit to things they don't understand, myself included. His point is that metaphysical defenses of our worldviews are not simple, and that if one commits to physicalism and is shown they don't properly conceive of how to incorporate morality, values or logic or etc., the *best* thing to do is not dismiss values, logic and morality, (obviously) but instead to change their commitment to a particular metaphysic. This isn't dishonest. He's pointing to the relative priority of core presuppositions versus ontological commitment.

The unbeliever is entitled to be noncommittal if he is, indeed, truly noncommittal, and has good reason to be a minimalist.

But how does an externalist critique verify "good reason"? Same problem, over and over and over...

But that Witmer is saying throughout this section is that an unbeliever should make opportunistic use of any blocking maneuver or evasive maneuver whether he believes it or not. He is coaching the unbeliever on how to win the debate without winning the argument. How to lose on the merits, but survive intact. It’s pretty revealing that Witmer would resort to such unscrupulous counsel.

How to keep ones wits about the debate -- that jettison of one's faculties, morality, etc., is not the end result of "losing". At best, someone can defend themselves adequately from an IDNA, and deflect the criticism of internal incoherence by demonstration. At worst, someone can be shown by IDNA that some of their presuppositions conflict with their explanations -- what should "give"? The fundamentals? No. The explanations.

Use any old argument, good or bad, just to get the presuppositionalist off your back! The convenience, and not the cogence, of the argument is all that matters.

It can sound that way, but remember that he is indeed referring to a debate strategy, and he calls it such. On the other hand, he points out the flaws in the arguments of PS (which you addressed in the beginning), and gives advice on responding along substantive lines throughout the talk.

On another subject, Danny also refers us to an article by Nino Cocchiarella on “Logic & Ontology.”

I have been looking around for a few months for an online, free resource that I could reference to try to describe how logic/morality/etc. can be incorporated into physicalism. This was the best I've yet found. Prof. Witmer recommended some books I put on reserve at the library, but they're not due back until 12/4.

i) Does Danny subscribe to Cocchiarella’s solution? Of is this just one of those blocking maneuvers recommended by Witmer to silence the presuppositionalist if you can’t answer him?

I find both his forms of conceptual realism (intensional/natural) completely consistent with physicalism as an ontology. As I was reading them (sections 6 and 7, respectively), I found he had put into words what I tried to describe long ago on this blog, when you brought up "pure" conceptualism, in which these abstractions don't exist apart from our minds at all. Therefore, your accusation is refuted by the evidence that I resorted to conceptualism in the past as an explanation of abstract explananda within physicalism.

ii) Cocchiarella discusses the three standard theories of universals, and opts for a synthetic solution: conceptual realism.

With two subtle distinctions: conceptual intensional realism, and conceptual natural realism. I am working on a blog post to put up at DC and my own site on this topic.

I myself also opt for a synthetic solution: theistic conceptual realism. Cocchiarella confronts me with a false dilemma, for I favor an option which isn’t even on the list. Therefore, Cocchiarella hasn’t boxed me into accepting his solution. And, for reasons I won’t go into at the moment, I don’t accept his solution.

Steve, the point of my quoting this reference was not to box you into a dilemma, but to extricate myself from the accusation of being in one. My purpose was to defend my own presupposition that physicalism is not incompatible with logic. Would you concede that conceptual realism is the solution? Do you admit that there is nothing absurd or incoherent in holding to physicalism and to one of Cocchiarella's forumulations for the explanandum of logic?

Presuppositionalism claims that all alternative worldviews are inherently and intrinsically self-defeating. Can you show this for someone who subscribes to physicalism and to conceptual intensional realism?