"The Definition of Prejudice" - Defending Naturalistic Philosophy

One of the members of the Tippling Philosophers, from which this blog derives its name, is very suspicious of naturalism in all of its guises, and what it means for psychology, science, causality and the freedom of the will. We have had many run-ins and a number of pieces on this blog have been in answer to his claims and his positions. This piece will be continuing in that vein.

Guy wrote a piece on his blog entitled "The Definition of Prejudice". I will quote extensively from it in order to critique it. It is of the school of thought that attacks areas of modern philosophy as being scientistic, making assumptions and claims that are supposedly self-defeating.

The first thing to take issue with is the idea that humans are of a different category to other animals; that our minds and the products thereof imply something far greater and of a different type than that of other animals. As Guy states:

What predicates the presence of two reasonably compos mentis humans sitting across a table from each other in a condition where they are capable of verbal communication, discussion and debate? And what do such presences signify?

To determine this we need a psychology – not the psychology of which we find ourselves in possession. This psychology comes out of the stable of deterministic materialism and biological behaviourism and, so, is permeated with conclusions that derive from its very inheritance. This psychology can’t help but look at us as just another animal, as its tools were honed in the study of the surface appearance of animal “behaviours”. It is, therefore, by nature, uninterested in what informs creatures or even the idea that anything can inform their actions and motivations. Beyond hormones and other chemicals that is.

The fact that the two philosophers are participating in an activity that no other creature indulges in does not give this psychology pause for thought. It does not stop to ask itself – “What is this creature that is capable of philosophizing (loving knowledge by etymology) and of practicing science (knowledge by etymology)?” (Here I take knowledge to mean reflection on our condition). It does not trouble itself to work out before it begins its enquiries exactly what it is in the nature of humans that distinguishes them from animals. It just lazily assumes, in the face of contrary evidence, that they are just another form of animal. It may be right but it has no right to jump to this conclusion without proper proof. This is the definition of prejudice – coming to the table with your mind already made up and flying in the face of the evidence.

You could argue all sorts of things along the lines of "The fact that creature X is the only creature that has properties Y should make us think that this animal is special to the point of being a different category". Fish have gills, the common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light, elephants are the only animal with four knees and so on. There are many animals that have particular skills. We have skills for complex language which, together with a complex tool-making ability, has allowed for a coextensive development of both. With similar brain development, humans look like a whole different kettle of fish to other animals. But each of these skills are merely (and not to denigrate our amazing abilities) very complex versions of skills already owned by other animals, or further refined. Indeed, it is now thought that monkeys entered the Stone Age some 700 years ago (to take tool making into account). Our complex speech derives from particular networks and structures in our brains. I do not have the time or space to look into this here, but it is a fascinating area of research.

Yes, we are intelligent. I like the definition of intelligence as follows:

"Intelligence measures an agent's ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments."

(see http://arxiv.org/pdf/0712.3329v1 and Is "Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments" the best general definition of intelligence? )

 On Quora, Frank Heile (Frank Heile, Physicist, SW Eng, Consciousness Theory) states:

So what makes us the most intelligent species? Language. Yes, language is a method for communication, but the aspect of language that makes us so intelligent is the fact that language allows for the creation of a totally symbolic representational system that allows us to make a better model of the world.  The sophistication and flexibility of this representational system has enabled humans to create more and more accurate models of the world.  In general, all nervous systems are always creating models of the world. That is what enables a nervous system to achieve goals. But the very extensive and sophisticated symbolic representational systems that humans (alone) have allows for a much more accurate model of the world than the kind of sensory/analog models of the world that all other nervous systems have created.  This is almost exactly like the difference between building something with hardwired discrete electronic components versus building the same thing with the flexibility of programmable digital computer systems.

In particular, the symbolic representation system (used by language) has allowed us to create science and mathematics.  What is science other than a model of the world that allows us to make better and better predictions.  After all physics has allowed humans to even create the totally unintuitive models of the world know as Quantum Mechanics and Relativity.  Another advantage of language and of the symbolic representational model of the world that humans have created is that we are now able to hold a lot of this model outside of our own individual nervous system and that we are able to learn a lot of this model from our parents and ancestors. The internet and Quora itself has now become part of this external symbolic external representational system that we can all access and rely upon.

Now it is true that some other species have been able to learn some relatively primitive symbolic communication capabilities and it may also be true that dolphins have a more sophisticated language that we have not been able to decipher (yet). But I think it is clear that humans have a more sophisticated symbolic representational system than any other animal by several orders of magnitude.

Another question to ask is what neurological structures have enabled the human brain to create this sophisticated symbolic representational system.  For that I will have to defer to experts, but from what I know, the brain itself is larger than would be expected for a mammal of our size and the pre-frontal cortex, in particular, has significantly expanded.

We do know that these neurological changes occurred before language itself developed, so it would be interesting to understand the selective pressures that caused these neurological changes.  In any case, once a brain that can support sophisticated symbolic representations had evolved, it was still necessary to have the social and cultural evolution of language itself to take advantage of the brain's new capabilities. The verbal language communication system created a model of the world that became significantly expanded when written language was developed a few millenia ago. So humans are now a new kind of species that has two kinds of inheritance - genetic in the form of DNA from our parents plus our verbal and written language models of the world from our ancestors and others contemporaries.

The history, evolution and neurodevelopmental basis of language is fascinating. But just because we can do language and communication well does not suddenly mean that supernaturalism, free will, mind / body dualism or any other claim is true. There are many leaps and assumptions in Guy's position that themselves need addressing.

I suppose the most galling statement is:

It just lazily assumes, in the face of contrary evidence, that they are just another form of animal.

An assumption itself that comes with no evidence of...(contrary) evidence. We are just another form of animal - that is almost too obvious to even bother with mentioning. What does he think we are, some mythical beast? Some alien life form so far removed from the animal kingdom that we simply adhere to utterly different rules? You can dress humans up in all sorts of fancy labels and plaster over us with all sorts of fancy ideas, but we are remarkably and understandably similar to other animals:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJxRqTs5nk[/youtube]

I do think Guy would profit from reading much more into evolution and its vast and many-faceted areas of research and evidence. I know personally that he does believe in evolution in the macro sense, but also get the distinct impression that he believes that at some point in the evolution of man, some agent sprinkled some fairy dust and magicked up a human species of such distinct character and properties that we are removed by category from our cousins and ancestors.

Doing some serious reading into evolution should put paid to this god-of-the-gaps style of argument. There are holes in both his own understanding and knowledge, and in the evidential and explanatory jigsaw that is evolution (and anthropology and evolutionary psychology to boot). Science exists in order to plug those gaps, and has a very good track record. But we don't suddenly go off chart to plug those holes. There is every probabilistic reason to assume naturalistic explanations to things we do not yet know, as I have so often been at pains to explain.

Guy states that

This is the definition of prejudice – coming to the table with your mind already made up and flying in the face of the evidence...

Thus, the most fascinating thing about philosophical debate is not its content but the very fact that it takes place at all. That we do it at all proves that we are different. The fact that I am asking this question means that you should accord me more respect than that which you accord to a lab rat and also that I will not willingly consent to being examined on the stage of a microscope nor to being summed up by what might be seen there if I did. The fact of my curiosity about my condition is a stumbling block to the psychology we find at our disposal.

to which I would counter (using Richard Carrier who states):

The cause of lightning was once thought to be God’s wrath, but turned out to be the unintelligent outcome of mindless natural forces. We once thought an intelligent being must have arranged and maintained the amazingly ordered motions of the solar system, but now we know it’s all the inevitable outcome of mindless natural forces. Disease was once thought to be the mischief of supernatural demons, but now we know that tiny, unintelligent organisms are the cause, which reproduce and infect us according to mindless natural forces. In case after case, without exception, the trend has been to find that purely natural causes underlie any phenomena. Not once has the cause of anything turned out to really be God’s wrath or intelligent meddling, or demonic mischief, or anything supernatural at all. The collective weight of these observations is enormous: supernaturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always lost; naturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always won. A horse that runs a million races and never loses is about to run yet another race with a horse that has lost every single one of the million races it has run. Which horse should we bet on? The answer is obvious.

The underlying premise to Guy's piece is the basis of the Argument from Reason, really - the idea that such high fallutin abstract ideals and processes cannot come from the physical; that a psychology imbued with representationism cannot emerge from purely natural processes. As he concludes:

Seated alongside the philosophers’ table a proper psychologist would observe, and make it his objects of study (and what a study!), the phenomena of highly complex linguistic communication, two self-aware consciousnesses capable of reflecting on their condition, their awareness of their own mortality, a sense of what is proper and improper in terms of the conduct of debate and a delusion(?) that they are free to think whatever they choose to think and to conclude whatever seems reasonable. And all of this founded inside a creature that shares all of the characteristics of the other animals in that it is full of hormones, requires nourishment, the disposal of waste products and sleep. Now explain that and, whatever you do, don’t just gloss over it!Finally, one has to ask whether philosophical conclusions that would seem to ignore or discount the conditions on which the fact of philosophical discourse are predicated have any value as they are, in a sense, impossible.

There are plenty of naturalistic theories of meaning and representation. Such casual dismissal of the whole field is disingenuous at best. Yes, it's dry (in my opinion), but valid work has been done on inferential role semantics, teleosemantics, success semantics and causal theories and many other similar positions. Indeed, it can be claimed that Hume had naturalistic theories of intentionality and representation. Moreover, the Institute of Philosophy has just had a two day conference on this very topic - it would be remiss of anyone commenting on it to ignore the entire body of work regarding it.

Part of me wants to say of the fact that we an do all of these wonderful things: so what? Again, not to denigrate those abilities or take the wonder away, but I am just utterly unconvinced of his appeal to...I don't really know, some kind of magic dualism or undefined "something else" to which we must be grateful for, for realising, in a fit of self-awareness, that we can be grateful, and that we can communicate this with big words to other understanding beings.

He has in no way shown that this cannot be achieved solely on the back of the human brain. You know, the most complex thing in the known universe. More complex than other brains in the same way a latter day quantum computer is to the ENIAC, or a dolphin brain is to an amoeba's.

It might be mind-boggling and mind-blowing, but it ain't magic.