Explanations from a non-theist perspective

1. Naturalism, Humanism and the
Religious Temperament
God and the Natural Sciences
Lecture 20
John Wilkins

2. Where to begin?
• Stephen argued for a theology of evolution based
on certain prior assumptions about God
• What happens if we do not grant those
presumptions?
• I will argue that there is no reason, in the
abstract, for granting that assumption set
• So if I begin from a lack of commitment to a
God, what must I do to replace God in my
philosophy?

3. There is one short rule that should regulate
human relationships. All that you see, both
divine and human, is one. We are parts of the
same great body. Nature created us from the
same source and to the same end. She imbued
us with mutual affection and sociability, she
taught us to be fair and just, to suffer injury
rather than to inflict it. She bid us extend our
hands to all in need of help. Let that well-
known line be in our heart and on our
lips: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
[Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius, Letter 95, 51–53]
“I am a human; nothing human
is foreign to me”
Publius Terentius Afer, or Terence
(195/185–159 BCE), Roman slave and poet

4. Back to Naturalism
• Problems of completeness
• Reductionism
• Is everything physics?
• What is the meaning of it all without
transcendence?
• What is the source of knowledge?

5. Contrasts and explanations
• According to Contrastive Explanation Theory (Peter Lipton)
▫ An explanation is an answer to a question
▫ The question supposes a set of (viable) alternatives or
contrasts
▫ The explanation is always partial (as not all alternatives are
considered
• What counts as a viable contrast space?
▫ It depends on the history of the dialogue (where’s the
argument up to?) and what has been eliminated already
▫ “What gets explained is not simply ‘Why this’, but ‘Why this
rather than that’.” [Lipton, 249]

6. How to know a rough, blueish median-sized object
Explanation is like this: a narrowing of possible accounts and causes

7. How it works
• Suppose I have an explanandum (E, the thing to be
explained)
• On offer are three possible explanans (explanations):
A, B and C (there are an infinity of other possibilities)
• I can offer an explanation of E by one of them if I can
show that the other two are less preferable
▫ A is empirically inadequate (doesn’t explain all the
relevant data)
▫ B is un-parsimonious (it adds unnecessary processes
or entities)
▫ Therefore C is the best explanation

8. What are the contrasting positions (foils)?
• That depends on the subject matter:
▫ Is it God-as-explanation versus Natural-process-as-
explanation?
▫ Is it Physics-as-explanation versus Mind-as-explanation?
▫ Etcetera
• What contrasts should I, as a naturalist, consider?
▫ Do I have to consider God as a possibility?
▫ Do I have to assume the viability of non-natural
explanations?
▫ Or can I assume the burden of proof is on the non-
naturalist?

9. The state of the dialogue
• The available foils depend on the state of the debate in which foils are
offered
• It follows that the “space” of available foils depends on which debate
we are engaged in
• If we are engaged in a scientific debate, only scientific foils are available
▫ “God’s action” is not a viable foil in science now
• If we are engaged in a philosophical debate, then offered metaphysical
claims are foils
▫ Non-natural foils are acceptable in philosophy
• But as a naturalist (recall my personal story), I have already lost any
commitment to non-naturalist foils
• So what foils are viable depends on your doxastic commitments
(“doxastic” refers to beliefs)

10. Can a Naturalist account for everything?
• What does a [metaphysical, ontic] naturalist need to account for?
▫ Mind? Consciousness? Experiences?
▫ Language and meaning?
▫ Morality and The Good?
▫ Existence?
• This depends on what one can reasonably count as contentious and in
need of explanation
▫ One strategy is to give explanations of things that used to be explained
non-naturally (e.g., consciousness)
▫ Another is to deny that there is an explanandum there (e.g., Dennett on
consciousness)
▫ A third: to suspend judgement in the absence of telling evidence
(agnosticism)

11. Mind, morality and meaning

12. Reductionism (the standard view)

13. Losing the layercake
• Functionalism

14. Is it all physics?
• Two questions:
1. Can we find anything that is not physical?
2. Can we account for transcendence?
• Q1: If there is, it doesn’t have any observable effect
▫ Schrödinger’s equation covers it all
▫ A soul can have no effect in a closed physical universe
• Q2: Why think there is transcendence?
▫ We can explain, in principle, all experiences of
transcendentalism

15. Existence
• The Weak Anthropic Principle does not imply the
Strong Anthropic Principle
▫ We’ll get back to that
• Why something rather than nothing?
▫ Can we even conceive of nothing existing?
[See the inherent contradiction?]
• Something must exist if there is anything: why not
stop at the universe [or multiverse]?
▫ Why do we need to invoke a non-natural object like
God?

16. The elements of humanism

17. Humanism is ideology-neutral (sort of)

18. Epistemology and naturalism
• Empiricism
• Constructive empiricism
• Empirical adequacy (anti-realism)

19. Explaining religion
• What needs to be explained about religion?
• Is it:
1. The ubiquity of religion?
2. Religious experiences (call them ecstatic)
3. Why religion evolved?
• There are naturalistic explanations
1. Cognitive science of religion – HADD
2. Neurological explanations
3. Adaptive and spandrel type explanations

20. Ubiquity of religion
• Romans 1:20:
▫ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the
creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So
they are without excuse.
• Calvin mentioned the sensus divitatis – the internal sense
of divinity
▫ That there exists in the human mind and indeed by natural
instinct, some sense of Deity [sensus divinitatis], we hold to
be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man
from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some
idea of his Godhead…. …this is not a doctrine which is first
learned at school, but one as to which every man is, from
the womb, his own master; one which nature herself allows
no individual to forget.

21. Ubiquity of religion
• But is there such a sense?
• It depends on what you wish to include within
the term religion
• We do tend to anthropomorphise natural events,
processes and things
• Is this religion, or a developmental stage?
• Justin Barrett: Hyperactive Agency Detection
Device (HADD)
▫ A “module” designed to identify danger that gives
many false positives, but increases fitness

22. Ecstatic religious experiences
• Near Death Experiences (NDEs)
• Sudden enlightenment
• Awe and feelings of oneness
• Trances
• Altered consciousness
• All explicable (in principle) by neurobiology
▫ NDE: All similar to dreaming, and degradation of
brain pathways
▫ Enlightenment as gestalt switch-style patterns
▫ Oneness and awe as by-products of our social
psychology
▫ Trances as