Is apologetics a science?

[McCulloch]

Christian apologetics have always been a form of cognitive science.

Question for debate: Can Christian apologetics be considered a discipline within the field of cognitive science?

[jcrawford]

When science (the word being derived from 'scios' in Greek, which means knowledge) is limited by definition to "the study of the physical universe," then those scientists who limit science to their own definitions, can have nothing authoritative to say about their own human minds and souls, or any science of the human mind or soul, and the fields of both Christian science (apologetics) and cognitive science are open to all scientists whose definitions of science are not presuppositionally limited to, or prejudiced by, the particular science which physicists have defined and limited themselves to.

I would disagree with this, not on the grounds that issues of the minds and souls are not every bit as legitimate as the physical world (in my opinion, far more legitimate), but that science is not the only field of logical study, and should not be treated as such. Scientists can say things about art, literature, religion, and philosophy as human beings, but are not experts in these fields. As such, their professional findings and statements should only relate to science, and the branch of apologetics that touches on their field.

As such, metaphysics is not science, but this is not to say that it is any way inferior to science. It is entirely legitimate study, but is a study of a different sort than science.

Science can only be defined as a body of systematic knowledge, and is only limited in concept, definition and application by those who define and limit the use of the word to their own profession or those bodies of knowledge which they consider to be a "science."

Other scientists are just as free to call whatever they want to define as science as a science as well, otherwise you end up with a "scientific" dictatorship by scientists who claim that certain other people are not "scientists."

Political scientists, cognitive scientists, social scientists, Christian Scientists and other Christian scientists are all scientists whether physicists, chemists and biologists like it or not, since the word "science" is neither trademarked, copyrighted nor standardized.

Now if you want to tell me who is a true scientist and who is a pseudo-scientist, go ahead, since we are all entitled to our scientific opinions.

Next we can decide who is a real Republican and conservative, and then we can move on to separating the sheep from wolves within Christianity.

[jcrawford]

You are confusing the brain with Mind and Soul since the brain cannot philosophize about ethics any more than conceive of its own soul. Mind and brain are not the same unless you mentally (intellectually) presuppose the brain's capacity to be ethical or to generate an ethical philosophy.

Let me ask you a question John, do you use your brain when your thinking?

It is not necessary to know anything about your brain in order to think logically and rationally.

Some of the greatest thinkers in history, would be evidence of that.

[Cogitoergosum]

What is pure rhetoric compared to theoretical rhetoric which presupposes that men with consciences and souls originated from sub-human beings in Africa once upon a time long ago?

Please give us your enlightened account of how we got here and some evidence to refute the volumes of evidence for evolution.
If you close you eyes so you won't see the truth, the truth still sees you.

[Cogitoergosum]

You are confusing the brain with Mind and Soul since the brain cannot philosophize about ethics any more than conceive of its own soul. Mind and brain are not the same unless you mentally (intellectually) presuppose the brain's capacity to be ethical or to generate an ethical philosophy.

Let me ask you a question John, do you use your brain when your thinking?

It is not necessary to know anything about your brain in order to think logically and rationally.

Some of the greatest thinkers in history, would be evidence of that.

But even those thinkers you mention, i'm sure, had the insight that if they had no brain they would not be.
An exercise for you if you want to prove your theory of a soul:
I suggest you blow your brains out and then ponder how you did it with your soul and let me know how it works out

[jcrawford]

What is pure rhetoric compared to theoretical rhetoric which presupposes that men with consciences and souls originated from sub-human beings in Africa once upon a time long ago?

Please give us your enlightened account of how we got here and some evidence to refute the volumes of evidence for evolution.

There are no volumes containing any evidence of evolution outside the minds of religous evolutionists.

If you close you eyes so you won't see the truth, the truth still sees you.

Yea, God is watching you too.

[Confused]

Once again: mind=brain, brain=mind.

Repeat after me: Brain=physical, natural and observable.
Mind=mental, metaphysical, supernatural and cognitional.

My brain is responding to stimuli to make me cognizant of my awareness. Neurons, neurochemical/transmitters, synapses, hormones, etc.... all the processes that lead me to be aware.

Who is the "me" in this physical process? You, your brain, mind, personality or soul?

Without mind, personality and soul, you have no way of being objective about what you mentally believe to be functions of your brain.

I never met a brain with the sort of self-esteem, ego or personality that you would self-consciously attribute to its neurochemical or biological processes and capacities.

Can you have a mind without a brain?

On the contrary, if a person has a seizure that does frontal lobe damage, they will display personality changes similar to tourettes syndrome. Depression is directly related to serotonin and norepinephrine (neurochemicals) which affect the ego and self esteem.

Next?

[Confused]

You are confusing science with philosophy and ethics. The two are not the same.
It is ethics and philosophy that deal with 'personal responsiblity'. The fact that it is the physical brain that allows that is irrelevant.

You are confusing the brain with Mind and Soul since the brain cannot philosophize about ethics any more than conceive of its own soul. Mind and brain are not the same unless you mentally (intellectually) presuppose the brain's capacity to be ethical or to generate an ethical philosophy.

Let me ask you a question: Do you have a conscience?

Are you equating the soul with a persons conscience?

[Jester]

Logical positivism is a philosophy of science that says metaphysics is not legitimate.

The original logical positivists drew much of their inspiration from the early Wittgenstein. However Wittgenstein said something different. His point was that as soon as we use language for metaphysics the logic of langauge fails, and you end up talking nonsense. Even if you don't notice this yourself. A sentence can be of a correct grammatical form, but if it says nothing about the world, then it can be neither true of false. In which case it is meaningless, and worse it is logical nonsense because a proposition is not formed.

This is a big claim. I have not as yet run across any evidence that supports this. Frankly, if you remember that metaphysics is a field of study, rather than a school of thought, the best one could hope for is to prove that the current treatment of metaphysics needs to be changed.

Ok Metaphysicians can choose to carry on regardless. You don't have to buy into logical positivism or the Tractatus. However, science is still streets ahead because it can offer a clear criteria for what gives its propositions meaning. Viz., physical evidence.

Science offers physical evidence because it is a study of the physical world. Certainly, we cannot make that a universal demand. Demanding that all mathematics, including imaginary and negative numbers should be proven with physical information rather than abstract proofs is irrational.
I make no claim that metaphysical studies are inherently true or perfect, but claiming that it is inferior and meaningless because it does not meet the criteria of an arbitrarily selected study (physical science) is not a realistic claim.

Metaphysics on the other hand is not equal in this respect. The things it wants to talk about, do not physically exist.

This does not make it illogical or irrelevant. Many things that concern humanity do not have physical existence; this is undisputed. Even the position that science is superior to metaphysics is a metaphysical claim.

The problem goes deeper than just being an empirical problem of how does the metaphysician know their ontological commitments is true. It is a problem of how, and upon what theory of logic and langauge do their metaphysical assertions have meaning, and make sense.

Those are the criterion by which we determine the compelling metaphysical theories from those that should be discarded. We ought to consider the relevance, continuity, and logic of any metaphysical claim before accepting or rejecting it.

Metaphysicians cannot show how their propositions connect to the reality they describe. Their problem is how do they demonstrate their propositions have meaning and sense. Wittgenstein's answer is that that they can't and metaphysical propositions are nonsense.

Certainly they cannot to someone who has taken the metaphysical position that metaphysics is meaningless and should be replaced by science (might I add, also, that logical positivism is (by these definitions) also metaphysical, rather than scientific. If logical positivism cannot provide physical evidence that metaphysics is not a valid field of study, then (according to your earlier explanation of scientific superiority) it is not making a scientific claim, and should be categorized as metaphysics (which is where I would categorize it personally).

Even if you don't agree with that, there is a logical gap in their theory of langauge metaphysicians just have to treat as filled; whilst not worrying themselves that Wittgenstein and the logical positivists might be right.

Science has no such worries.

As I do not know the gap of which you speak, I cannot address it until it is recounted to me. Beyond that, I will point out that disproving the truth or usefulness of a particular theory or technique does not refute the entire field of metaphysics any more than it would do the same to science. That is why science has no such worries. If we were to find a language gap in it, we would simply adjust it as opposed to abandoning the entire study.

Metaphysics ( Greek: μετά (meta) = "after", φυσικά (phisiká) = "those on nature", derived from the arrangement of Aristotle's works in antiquity[1]) is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the nature of the world. It is the study of being or reality.[2] It addresses questions such as: What is the nature of reality? Is there a God? What is man's place in the universe?

It would logically follow then, that everyone who posts on this site is engaging in metaphysics.

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Jester,

I am going to split my reply into two. This post is more background.

This is a big claim.

Not sure which bit you believe to be the big claim.

A central tenet of logical positivism is that metaphysical, theological, and ethical sentences are "cognitively meaningless," and serve merely to express the feelings or desires of a speaker. Only mathematical, logical and scientific statements are literally meaningful, or have truth values.
So logical positivism is a stance averse to metaphysics. And a little further down the page.

Wittgenstein's Tractatus was a text of great importance for the positivists.
In the Tractatus Wittgenstein wrestles with the logic, meaning, sense and the form of propositions. To do that he has to indulge in some metaphysics. Hence Wittgenstein’s second to last point in the Tractatus.

6.54 My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understand me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical…

Also, the word “meaning” might convey various connotations. But in this philosophical sense, the meaning of a proposition is that what makes it true or false. A sentence that cannot be true or false is factually meaningless. The fall back of logical positivism (also known as logical empiricism) is that science can point to physical phenomena that makes its propositions true or false.

Even this extreme empiricism accepts that mathematics holds true. So analytical, or necessary truth (including mathematics) is accepted as a criteria of meaning, but this is subtly different from factual (contingent) meaning. However, if one wishes to talk about metaphysical objects as facts, then from this viewpoint your sentence is not a proposition because it cannot be true or false, but neither is it an analytical truth, and thus it is meaningless.

Again, logical positivism would be happy to accept mathematics as a conveyor of necessary truth; but if, for example one started to try to explain what numbers were in terms of a platonic realm then you would be speaking words/sentences, but would not be saying anything meaningful.

If you go with Wittgenstein, you cannot even talk about necessary truths without also talking nonsense, hence 6.54. Wittgenstein is not saying necessary truth of logic do not exist (careful with the use of word exist here), but that we cannot think about them or talk about them meaningfully or sensibly. Think about it this way: logic is self evidently true, so you can’t give further evidence of its truth other than logic just is self evidently true.

The difference between Wittgenstein and the logical positivist who followed him is that W thought that the most important things in life was the metaphysical aesthetic. So when reading Wittgenstein we should not be to ready to read "nonsense" as a dismissal of something greater. You just cannot talk about it. Whilst for the logical positivists nonsense meant nonsense.

Ok all this is a slice of philosophy that has it critics and in some respect its time has come and gone, but there are some general principles here that do not go away.

Last point: "Meta" used as a prefix is usually taken to mean 'beyond' or 'of a higher order'. A metalanguage is a second language that talks about another language. Metaphysics is usually taken to mean ontological discourses that are of a higher order or beyond the physical. Platonic realms being an obvious metaphysics. Heaven, Hell the holy trinity being theological metaphysics. All are nonsense of one form or another if you go with W or LP.

[Furrowed Brow]

This does not make it illogical or irrelevant. Many things that concern humanity do not have physical existence; this is undisputed.

Well I think you would need to provide a short list of some of the things you have in mind. But if you mean stuff like ethics, then that is exactly the sort of metaphysical discourse logical positivists were averse to. Not that standards of behaviour are not important, it's just that any metaphysics of ethics is meaningless.

Even the position that science is superior to metaphysics is a metaphysical claim.

No. Science has truth/false propositions. This is a factual claim, not a metaphysical claim. By definition Metaphysics does not offer factual true/false propositions. This is an analytical claim, not a metaphysical point. Mathematics and logic convey necessary truths; any metaphysics that tries to say more than that is neither analytical true or contingently true. It is by these lights meaningless nonsense.

Those are the criterion by which we determine the compelling metaphysical theories from those that should be discarded. We ought to consider the relevance, continuity, and logic of any metaphysical claim before accepting or rejecting it.

Perhaps so, perhaps not. I quite like Sartre’s existential metaphysics. I think it is quite evocative. I also think it has an internal consistency. I am also convinced it is complete nonsense. I think Wittgenstein got it right. Use your metaphysical statements (note: deliberately not using the word “proposition”) to orientate you, but do not take them too seriously. In fact - from this perspective - you could say philosophy is really learning how to get over the need for metaphysics.

If logical positivism cannot provide physical evidence that metaphysics is not a valid field of study, then (according to your earlier explanation of scientific superiority) it is not making a scientific claim, and should be categorized as metaphysics (which is where I would categorize it personally).

Well . If you are saying that metaphysics statements can be tested for and verified, then you are not doing metaphysics, you are doing physics.

Also. This is not a case of science trying to kick metaphysics out of the nest. Though that might be true of the motivations of the logical positivists. But the argument was and is about logic and the logic of the language we use to convey meaning. If your statement is about physical phenomena then it can be true or false. If it is logic or mathematics then it can be analytical true.

I suppose there is the fallback position, ah when you die then to will know the truth! But sentences like that either mean something now or they do not. There is some way of testing, verifying such statements or there is not. Ok there may be some logical wriggle room here you might want to try out, but that is the point, it is wriggle room only motivated by theism. Those kind of statements may well be very important to theism, but that does not make them the logical equivalent to scientific propositions.

The question of moral superiority is one of faith I think. The question of empirical superiority cannot be argued against - science is superior in this respect. With the question of logic and meaning, science is superior. If only because it has logical criteria for meaning, whilst metaphysics does not.

As I do not know the gap of which you speak,

I’m hoping this and my last post have been of help in this regard.