The illustration on the front page of the Bulletin cannot be shown here for copyright reasons.
Meeting of 25 November 2004
Derek Hill: Postmodernism (summary of talk)
My central purpose is to demonstrate the extent to which postmodernism represents a threat to the core values of enlightenment humanism, namely objective science, rationality and the humanitarian notion of the free self-defining essential human person. Postmodernism and associated theories such as post-structuralism, relativism and social constructionism are fundamentally anti-foundationist, arguing for linguistic determinism, the view that since reality is present to human consciousness only through language it is the language we use which determines our concepts of reality. Social constructionists refer to language in use as systematic sets of images which construct an object in a particular way. These discourses as they term them represent not the beliefs of the users but the ideologies of the ruling classes intent on maintaining the hegemony of capitalism.
I am concerned at the extent to which postmodernists have infiltrated their teachings into the humanities in UK and US universities and the immense cost of this subversive enterprise to taxpayers and students. These were moneys which could be far more usefully diverted to the teaching of science and other socially beneficial subjects.
The absence of debate in postmodernist teaching is underlined by academics who invariably approach their subject matter as advocates rather than objective guides, by ignoring the existence of all counter-arguments. I suggest that one of the main reasons for this partisanship is political. While many academics embrace epistemological nihilism as a passing intellectual fashion many others are disillusioned Marxists who nevertheless still see capitalism as the source of most of the social and economic inequalities which beset the world and the bourgeois commitment to reasoned individualism as its sustaining force. To the extent that people’s belief in themselves as responsible, centred agents can be questioned; to that extent the power of capitalism could it is hoped be diminished.
In conclusion Ealing humanists and the British Humanist Association are urged to devote as much effort into eradicating anti-humanism from the universities as they do in securing the introduction of humanist teaching into our schools.
D.H.
Impressions. Derek Hill on Post-modernism
Arthur Atkinson and John Bennett, the two stalwart defenders of humanist objectivity of the past, were unfortunately absent. It was Derek who, in the past, had found subjectivity lacking in the Association. He now generously described (in picturesque but realistic detail) what happens when subjectivity gets out of hand. After a widely-informed introduction to the various forms of postmodernism Derek typified the present state of academic performance in Psychology, Philosophy, English Language and History Departments in the UK and North America as virus-
infected. A proliferation of output is combined with disintegration of the personality of at least a proportion of sufferers. The symptoms had been detailed in herself by one of these, Vivienne Burr, a social psychologist.
In the discussion afterwards the 'virus' description became immediately challenged by Maggie Adams; and with it the nature of psychology (and psychiatry). I then defended diagnosis, a sine quae non for any useful work as a doctor, but could not deny that subjectivity is also essential.
Derek endorsed an attack by John, given in the Bulletin published that day, on the life's work of Jacques Derrida. Harry Chambers spoke in Derrida's defence. Also the simile, originally due to Michel Foucault, of a human face in the sand being erased by the next wave was held by Harry to represent human endeavour in the widest sense. He challenged the enduring, universal nature of any human knowledge (ignoring any distinction between general knowledge and personal knowledge). Goaded by this two other of us members spoke in defence of science. The recent needless confusion in philosophy that we were hearing about had resulted I felt from the total absence of Natural Selection1. It left the mere 'exercise of philosophising', I described as 99% froth, obscuring a valid 1% which could only later be generally recognised as fact - following testing and scientific consensus.
In response to a question from the chair we were told that postmodernist supporters dismiss religion as Grand Narrative and as a means of social control. They too, it appears, attack both personal belief and general belief without distinction.
On a more immediate issue the chairman noted that chemistry departments in the U.K. were closing because of lack of funds. Simultaneously the parasitism - to quote our speaker - of post-modernism and similar studies within orthodox departments is, as Derek warned us, increasingly diverting resources to nihilistic philosophies of little if any conceivable use to the largely unsuspecting students.
R.C.
1 A term linked to our past use of the word Hypotheses; denoting multiple alternative precursors to a single Theory which is selected from among them by exposure to nature/science - not by human choice.
Extract from the press:
Meeting of minds
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Religious people have no need to fear science2, says theologian Keith Ward3. Modern physics makes belief in God more plausible than ever.
I am a professional theologian . . . Ever since . . . the 18th century, theologians and philosophers have been almost embarrassed about God4. They have tended to talk of . . . a leap of faith, instead of seeing it as a natural5 thing to think.
Today, however . . . modern physics makes belief in God more plausible than it has ever been since Kant.
This might sound counter-intuitive6. For a theist, all material reality depends on a fundamental spiritual or conscious reality7. Science, on the other hand, deals with the physical8,. . . is at best totally dependent on matter, at worst an illusion9.
Yet science10 has long offered an alternative hypothesis in which fundamental reality is more like mind than matter, and the material world is dependent11 on mind. Galileo and Newton took it for granted12. Darwin accepted it . . . and so did
Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg13 . . . Now . . . a "theory of everything" as an explanation for the state of the universe . . . resonates strongly with the religious idea of God as a cosmic mind14 . . . This is an exciting, creative and positive view, and I believe it is vital that religion digests it15. . . .
It does not take any great leap of faith to go from there to the religious notion of a cosmic consciousness16. If we suppose that mathematical realities exist only when conceived by some consciousness17, we can frame the idea of a consciousness in which all mathematical structures, all possible states all moral and aesthetic values exist18. . . . We can speak of it as a Supreme Good19, since it contains an indefinite number of forms of beauty20, intelligibility21 and bliss22. Here we find ourselves23 very close to the classical Christian, Jewish or Muslim idea of God. . . .
Religion and cutting-edge science can inform each other24. The idea of a cosmic consciousness can help make comprehensible the beauty and intelligibility of the physical world25. As Stephen Hawking recently said, a strictly scientific search for a theory of everything seems doomed26. Mathematical theories do not exist on their own, and there seems to be no way of "breathing fire into the equations"27. . .
Modern cosmology refines and articulates the idea of an ultimate mind in a very exciting way. For the believer, the ultimate mind it points to is perfectly good and beautiful. And the contemplation of that good for its own sake is the heart of religion28.
Keith Ward is Gresham Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London
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Excerpts from NewScientist 2004 Nov 27
2 Science of course has no single mind. Like all of us, every scientist has his or her own subjective mind, full of prejudice. A world-wide scientific community does exist . . . for each small topic. For any other small topic the community is a different one. The members, who are all experts, may never know each other - as long as they know each other's views. Science itself is objective and the latest, widest-possible consensus of opinion within each scientific community. The implications of this - for the claims of Keith Ward - are given in the footnotes below. R.C.
3 NewScientist 2004 Nov 27.
4 Justly so. God after all is objective human discovery delivered second-hand, upside-down: as a kind of supra-subjectivity. Knowledge becomes subjective in each of us and accumulates from the bottom up one might say.
5 Not natural (scientific) at all, but an unconfirmed hypothesis.
6 Hardly. This is only what the writer's a priori theism leads him to expect. It is scientific findings that usually prove counter-intuitive.
7 Fundamental and spiritual are terms in need, firstly, of definition. Consciousness is a feature of human brain function only. That is the sole conclusion from evidence so far.
8 Scientific knowledge - whether of the physical or non-physical - deals with what can be agreed, after testing, by global consensus.
9 And at less-than-worst an autonomous function of brain matter.
10 Philosophy rather is devoted to formation of hypotheses and science to selection from them, by testing.
11 It is knowledge of the material world, like knowledge of everything else, that is dependent on mind.
12 Along with lots else we no longer believe.
13 Why do we have to accept anything all these individuals may have said just because we do already accept some other contribution from them? Science counts, rather than opinions of scientists, especially if on a topic outside their expertise.
14 Or threatens to further exclude it, depending on your a priori opinion.
15 Perhaps it would be better to wait first and see if the view is confirmed, or otherwise.
16 For the simple reason that faith will always flourish while we unnecessarily confuse what we know and the form in which it exists in the mind.
17 When we see a few trees we usually know for instance whether there are 2 or 3 of them (isn't that mathematics?) and whether they are green or brown. Colours too only exist in some consciousness or other. At what point do these properties and others, size, weight etc., start to exist on their own as it were?
18 Certainly, if we wish. But there are a vast number of such fanciful hypotheses with no way of choosing between them.
19 But why? Whom is it good for and whom is it bad for? A good/evil bi-polarity is definable purely in terms of single individual (or group) goals. It too cannot exist in empty space. To talk of supreme anything is a recipe for meaninglessness. What of supreme evil, or supreme neutrality? Science is built not from ever-more-extensive indefiniteness but from specificity and from selection.
20 Perhaps best regarded as being confined to the eye of a beholder,
21 to a measure of some observer's understanding and
22 to an emotion of terrestrial animals.
23 Surprise, surprise.
24 Religion can inform historians and psychologists but science can, and does, inform us all.
25 Phenomena experienced subjectively and projected by man onto the physical world.
26 It is attestable to date and thus still a non-scientific, subjective opinion.
27 This would need the introduction of Purpose which, like Good, is always subjective.
28 Or else it resides in the temporo-limbic brain centre (EHA Bulletin 26, May 2001) of the contemplator.
Editorial: NewScientist
As may be seen from the extract from an interview of James Whyte, below, there are arguments too in favour of expert opinion (of the right kind) and we have not always regarded NewScientist as a vehicle of anti-scientific views. Now however the prominence given to certain writings, particularly those of a theologian with supportive cartoon in the 27 November issue of NewScientist, forces us to reconsider. Extracts from the text of the Reverend Professor appear above together with 28 footnotes which, it is true, I have not tried sending to NewScientist. Past experiences of submission of rejoinders are not encouraging. Three letters have though been published, on 11 Dec. However none of them mentions a confusion of science on the one hand with the free views of scientists on the other.
We do read "a hypothetical notion of God is ... different from the real thing" and "theory to support his "supreme being" hypothesis in defiance of ... Occam's razor". (These are respectively akin to footnotes 5 and 19 above). And that's the lot!
Science has no mind so how can it meet with another mind? The individuals depicted* on top of two cliffs should intercommunicate, no doubt, but has the white-coated one any more right to speak in the place of science than the one in black vestments? Is such an implication scientific or is it, in fact, anti-science?
* Referring to the illustration (on the front page of the printed Bulletin), which cannot be shown here on the website for copyright reasons.
Editorial: Early Obituaries
The first two in what is hoped will be a series of such paired statements are due to appear next issue. They concern anyone who is, or has been, an EHA member prepared to send suitable material along to Alex Hill (or me). Anonymity will be preserved but no prizes are offered for guessing the writer's identity. The suggested sequence to be followed appears below. Why not give a thought to the idea?
A - Potted autobiography with dates and places.
R - The role of humanism in the life described. Apologies given, where really needed and if they have appeared as a result of a more objective attitude.
LO - Preferences for later-on - for funeral ceremony and for things-to-be-remembered-by.
FF - Projected fulfilment finale. This may be an event (a world event, even, on the pattern of Francis Chichester's circumnavigation) or masterpiece of subjective expression (please, not a suicide bombing) such as a book or work of art . . . or a goodbye party.
Extract from the press:
Religious Guidance unites faiths
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Stephen Bates - Religious affairs correspondent
The government achieved the rare feat of uniting the Church of England and the British Humanist Association yesterday in supporting the publication, for the first time, of a national framework for religious education in schools.
The proposals, which have advisory status, recommend that Christianity should have a central place in RE but children should be taught about other faiths and secular beliefs.
Charles Clarke, the education secretary, writing in today's Church Times, says: "At all stages, pupils should be confident about being able to share their beliefs without fear of embarrassment or ridicule. They should be willing to listen to and learn from others who hold views different from their own."
Religious education is compulsory but governments have shied away from laying down what should be studied in detail, leaving the matter to be decided locally. The proposals were welcomed by Canon John Hall, the Church of England's chief education officer, who said: "(They) recognise the pre-dominant place of Christianity ...they will help pupils with their religious development."
Marilyn Mason, the education officer for the British Humanist Association, said: "I am delighted that humanism is explicitly included in the guidance which I hope will be widely adopted."
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Excerpts from The Guardian 2004 Oct 29
Extract from the press:
James Whyte, Get-it-right Philosopher
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. . . the authority fallacy, which these days appears in a variety of perverse forms. One of the worst is trusting someone simply because they have acquired a measure of celebrity which might include publishing a book.
. . . These days scientists are increasingly seen as part of various tribal groups, so when you read about their views the newspapers will go to great
lengths to ask who they are working for, what their backgrounds are, and what are their political views are, and so on. Someone's motives may reasonably make you suspicious that that person has an incentive to mislead you, but their arguments are no better or worse than the evidence put forward to support them. So ultimately the question of whether something is true or false can't be settled by a question of motives. And just to dismiss somebody on the basis of "it pays them to say that" isn't a good argument. They might be right anyway.
. . . Harsh on religion. Aren't people entitled to their faith? This is one of my favourite errors. An interesting change has happened, at least in the west. It used to be that people would argue for a particular religious dogma or a clear religious doctrine. That is no longer what happens. The world is increasingly dividing into those who have "faith" and those who don't. It doesn't really matter what the faith is. That is why you now get "faith groups" coming together from all kinds of different religions. The weirdest manifestation of this new tendency is when people say: "I'm not a Christian
but l believe in something." Then I say: "Of course, I believe in many things, like there is a chair there and a table. What are you talking about?" And they reply: "Well, you know, something more." But what "more"? What they mean is something more than we have any good reason to believe in.
. . . What amazes me is that they like to set themselves up as having a slightly finer sensibility than you or me but in fact they are completely intellectually irresponsible. They used to come up with very bad
arguments for their faiths but at least they felt that there was something they should provide. Now mere willfulness has triumphed.
. . . The egocentric approach to truth. You are no longer interested in reality because to do that you have to be pretty rigorous, you have to have evidence or do some experimentation. Rather, beliefs are part of your wardrobe. You've got a style and how dare anybody tell you that your style isn't right. Ideology is seen as simply a matter of taste and as it's not right to tell people they've got bad taste, so it's not right to tell them that their opinions are false. I'm afraid that the cast of mind of most people is the opposite of scientific.
There's something close to that that [I] also hate. When people say "there is an awful lot we don't understand" and use that as an argument for believing in something . . . The mystery fallacy: it's a mystery therefore I can think whatever I want.
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Excerpts from Liz Else and Alun Anderson, NewScientist 2004 Sep 4
