The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
I thank everyone who participated. You did Ricochet proud. The verdict:
***
I have been very impressed by the richness, sophistication and passion of these responses. Before discussing any of them, there is the matter of the original quotation itself. It may be found here. In talking informally with Christopher Hitchens, I mentioned this quotation specifically; he agreed that he endorses it. I see no reason today to suppose that he has changed his mind.
A number of commentators -- Robert Promm especially -- have scrupled at the word 'proof,' observing, correctly, I think, that it is word whose meaning becomes progressively more flabby the further the distance from mathematics. Euclid had proofs; the rest of us, arguments. I am sympathetic to this line, but unsure how to make it compelling. An argument is a small proof, and a proof is a large argument. But truth by itself is not the logician's business, and so the question always arises anew: Why accept these premises or those axioms? In the nature of things, neither the assumptions of an argument nor the axioms of a proof can be proved without some sort of regress. No science, as Aristotle observed, demonstrates its own first principles. Mark Woodworth makes this point elegantly.
We must start somewhere. But to say that we cannot demonstrate everything is not quite to say that we cannot support anything. And this, too, is a point made very nicely by many commentators, especially Michael Labeit.
Mr. Labeit has thus argued that it is a demand for evidence, rather than proof that is at issue, and that claims made in the absence of evidence must be matters of faith. Science deals in evidence, religion in faith. Up with one, down with the other. The great difficulty with this line is that it is omnivorous. This is the burden of Hume's problem of induction. "A scientist who returns to his lab," Labeit argues, "and concludes that his instruments will continue to operate does not conclude so on faith, he concludes so via inductive reasoning."
This is what he concludes. Is he right to conclude it? It is not possible to defend inductive reasoning by inductive reasoning, Hume argued, and in the case at hand, what other reasoning is there? This is a point Bob Forrester made effectively in quoting Steve Jobs.
"Am I operating on faith when ... I continue to walk into a lab assuming that a chasm will not open at my feet and plunge me into a dark abyss? "
Why, yes, Mr. Labeit, I believe that you are.
Consider those chasms. The inductive principle of so far, so good, suggests that there is nothing to worry about. It is a counter inductive (and counter intuitive) principle of watch and worry that puts chasms behind every threshold.
What rational consideration distinguishes between them?
Perhaps it is something so simple as the principle that things stay pretty much the same. But this principle at once engenders a counter-principle. It is the negation of the first. Things do not stay pretty much the same.
The first principle suggests that what has worked will work and what has not worked will not work. The second, that what has not worked will work and that what has worked will not work.
It is the last that is counter-intuitive, but the argument is simple. And it is devastating. Watch and worry has always been false in the past but if things do not stay pretty much the same, that is quite by itself reason to suppose that it will be true. Watch your step.
It is both easy and pointless, as Hume observed, to chase these principles up the ladder of an infinite regress.
So far as those chasms go, we proceed on faith.
Curiously enough, only two commentators thought to attack the claim that what is asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof by applying the claim to itself. If it has been asserted without proof, it may be dismissed without proof; and if not, where is the proof?
This seems to me the most concise of objections. It is by no means new. When A.J. Ayer advanced very similar arguments in Language, Truth and Logic, a number of philosophers understood at once that the principle of verification when self-applied self-destructs.
HVT comes very close to expressing this argument. Chapeau. But Charles Rapp does it best:
"Since Mr. Hitchens provides no proof for his assertion that, "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof ", I hereby dismiss it with no proof. ... "
The winner, then, is Mr. Rapp.
***'
Congratulations, Mr. Rapp, the glory is yours. Please send your mailing address to editors@ricochet.com so we may send you your signed copy of The Devil's Delusion.
That goes, too, for our runners-up: Robert Promm, Bob Forrester, Michael Labeit, and HVT. Well done, all.
Of course, you may feel free to disagree and suggest your own winners. The comment floor is open.
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Comments :
Nov '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
Gratified to be Miss Congeniality.
:-)
May '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
I'm not sure if anyone ever posted Mr. Berlinski's debate with Hitchens, which took place last year, September 7th.
Jun '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
I'm travelling and I missed it. But, who can do better than Charles Rapp's answer anyway.
I look forward to reading all 186 comments.
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
"Since Mr. Hitchens provides no proof for his assertion that, "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof ", I hereby dismiss it with no proof. ... "
There should be the sound of a rock being kicked when Mr. Rapp reads this passage aloud.
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
It is both easy and pointless, as Hume observed, to chase these principles up the ladder of an infinite regress.
I can't recall, off the top of my head, what C.S. Pierce had to say on the matter.
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
I look forward to it.
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
By the way, for the curious lurkers in the crowd, Chapter 11 of Peter Kreeft's Socratic Logic, Third Edition Chapter 11 Checking Syllogisms for Validity Exercise 24 Page 256 is exactly this exercise using the exact quote from A.J. Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic. It can be checked by Aristotle's Six Rules. When you follow that procedure the invalidity becomes apparent quickly.
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
Ain't I a stinker?
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
Congratulations, guys! It was quite a thread!
Oct '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
Pipped at the post! [:-)
I doff my chapeau to Mr. Rapp … well done, Sir.
Aug '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
This is strangely unsatisfying in a self-referential way.
If you say that it is sufficient to show that the statement can be dismissed without proof because it is asserted without proof, you dismissal is convincing only if you accept as dispostive the very statement you are dismissing.
One the other hand, once you have dismissed the assertion, you have also dismissed the grounds for your own argument.
Clever, but ultimately unlikely to change hearts and minds.
The pro-Hitchens faction seems to think that they have proof on their side, as opposed to the bare assertions or faith of their opponents. I think that weakness of their argument is that they have unacknowledged unproven assertions on their side also: for example, they must take on faith that there is a physical world outside their own mind, that they are not caught in The Matrix. A first step to understanding requires them to acknowledge their own first unproven principles. A more fruitful discussion would compare these first principles.
Proof gets its power when used in an environment of shared first principles. Where we do not agree on the axioms, the proofs are pointless.
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
This is strangely unsatisfying in a self-referential way.
That's why I made comment #7 above replete with page and exercise number.
Aug '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
I had followed the links, was unable to get to page images to see what you were pointing to.
Sep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
Mark Woodworth
I had followed the links, was unable to get to page images to see what you were pointing to. · Oct 4 at 2:09pm
Unfortunately, you would have to plunk down for the book. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of bad form in someone else's book thread, though I will say that David Berlinski's book is considerably cheaper as well as being available on Kindle. Oh, and he's a handsome and cultivated gentleman.
Feb '11
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
...what about a Kindle edition of Devil's Delusion? ......
Nov '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
759 words to say who won.
There's a joke in there somewhere.
Interesting discussion of faith. I guess I don't share the same definition of that word as some others do.
Jan '11
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
Unsatisfying, yes, even irritating -- because the whole premise is that there is a meaningful analogy between a belief in cause and effect, reinforced in each sane human mind by literally millions of observations, and religious faith, be it a Cargo Cult, the divinity of Joseph Smith, or the tyranny of the Engrams. Such nihilistic sophistry is fun in college, as is pondering whether entire universes exist in each atom of your fingernail. It's pretty hard to get excited about it as an adult.
May '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
All of this means that you all are wrongheaded if you dismiss my assertion that all occurrences in the universe are teleologically ordered toward that day in 2015 when Mila Kunis pledges herself, both soul & body, to...me, even though I other no proof of this metaphysical view. In fact, you're all a-Kunisists, and your position - or your faith, I should say - is quite irrational in its absolutism.
Edited on Oct 4, 2011 at 6:34pmSep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
TheRoyalFamily: 759 words to say who won. There's a joke in there somewhere.
Oct 4 at 4:50pm
999-Self-Refute
Edited on Oct 4, 2011 at 7:14pmSep '10
Re: The Devil's Delusion: My Father's Verdict
I just bought the Kindle edition for $9.99 which makes it part of my 999 plan. I now have 2 Berlinski's in my Kindle, and I hope they don't start kvetching about how long its taking me to read them. Especially with the text to audio activated.