sordavie

This is to make a certain fallacy that has been historically called the problem of Plato's Beard. Most contemporary philosophers consider problem to have been solved by Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions. Roughly, the problem is developed as follows:

Suppose Jones, who thinks that unicorns don't exist, asserts "unicorns don't exist."

Smith, who thinks that unicorns do exist, can then give the following argument:

Your assertion, Jones, is a simple subject-predicate sentence. A simple subject-predicate sentence is true if and only if the predicate of the sentence applies to the subject of the sentence. But, a predicate can only apply to the subject, if the subject actually denotes something in the world. So, if you think that the sentence 'unicorns don't exist' is true, then you must think that the subject phrase of the sentence 'unicorns' denotes something in the world. So, you must think that there are unicorns in the world. So, your position is contradictory, and so your assertion that unicorns don't exist must be wrong.

But, as Switch points out, this line of reasoning is completely absurd. For it entails that there are no true assertions of the nonexistence of anything.

Now, at this point, Tarenth, you might object, "But Switch, what you're saying then is that there are things that don't exist. And, if that's what you're saying, then, again, you're contradicting yourself. To say that there are things that don't exist is just to say that there exist things that don't exist."

But, Russell took the objection to Smith's argument a step further and gave a theory for what's going on in what appear to be simple subject-predicate sentences like the example above. The thesis is that these really aren't simple subject-predicate sentences. The semantics for sentences like 'God is nonexistent' or 'unicorns do not exist' is much more complex, and essentially involves quantification over everything that exists.

So, Russell analyzes the sentence 'unicorns do not exist' as meaning roughly the following "For all things, none are unicorns." And, similarly, the sentence 'God does not exist' means "For all things, none are God." (His actual analyses are a good deal more complex. If you're curious, to see the actual theory, it's in his essay titled "On Denoting.")

The Plato's Beard reasoning that Smith gave cannot be used to show that these statements are contradictory. You needn't acknowledge the existence of unicorns or God to make use of these concepts as predicates. That's what Russell's analysis does, and it is widely accepted by philosophers and linguists. So, the fallacy here is assuming that the correct semantics for these kinds of sentences can be read straight forwardly from the from surface grammar. Doing so leads you to absurd conclusions.

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Steeler

I wish I had a fallacy named after MY beard.

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CingularDuality

I think you've fallen victim to the Steeler's Beard fallacy. Agnosticism and atheism aren't really in the same spectrum of thought, like Scratch already pointed out.

Agnosticism isn't refraining from belief, it's believing that it's impossible to know of the existence or non-existence of god.

I'm agnostic.

I'm also atheist, as I believe, despite it being impossible to know or prove, that there is no god.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

sordavie

No, an agnostic refrains from belief. There may be a number of reasons why someone is agnostic. One reason why someone might be agnostic is that they believe that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not. So, they conclude that it is rationally best to refrain to believing either way.

Another reason why someone might be agnostic is that they don't know whether it's possible to know whether God exists or not, and they have no prevailing evidence either way. So, they conclude that it's rationally best to refrain from believing either way.

A third reason why someone might be agnostic is that they believe that it's possible to know whether God exists or not, but that they currently do not possess enough evidence either way to make an informed decision. So, they conclude that it's rationally best to refrain from believing either way.

Theism, atheism, and agnosticism label people by what they believe, not by how, what reasons they have for believing, or how they came to the belief in the first place. Theism covers both people who believe in God because they think they have good rational evidence and also people who believe in God because they are fideists (people who think that such beliefs can only be held on grounds of faith).

Here's an example of a theist who thinks that it is impossible to know of the existence or non-existence of God. If your definition of agnosticism is correct, then he turns out to be an agnostic. But, clearly, he's not an agnostic. The French mathematician, physicist, theologian, and philosopher Blaise Pascal believed that God exists but also believed that it is impossible to know of the existence or non-existence of God. In other words, he thought that it is impossible to have any rational evidence for or against the existence of God. He further did not believe on grounds of faith.

We owe to Pascal projective geometry, advances in probability theory, advances in social and economic theory, and Pascals triangle. We also owe to Pascal his famous argument for the believe in God called Pascal's wager.

Pascal's wager is an argument that one should believe in God, not on grounds of rational evidence but on grounds of practical reasoning. Pascal assumes a basic axiom of rational choice theory: We should do what's in our best practical interests. And, he assumes a theorem: When the outcome of our choices are uncertain, we should choose the action with the best expected outcome. He then argues that choosing to believe in God leads to the best expected outcome, given that it's impossible to know whether God exists or not.

Agnosticism and atheism are not the same spectrum of thought because atheists believe that God doesn't exist while agnostics refrain from that belief (they also refrain from the belief that God does exist). But, it can't be that an agnostic is defined by believing that it's impossible to know of the existence or non-existence of God. For Pascal is not an agnostic. And, nobody would consider Pascal an agnostic.

You are an atheist who also happens to believe that it is impossible to know or prove that there is no God. One cannot be both an atheist and an agnostic unless one makes the kind of distinction I made earlier between narrow and broad versions of these theses. Bertrand Russell claims that he is both; but if you read carefully, he also makes a distinction between narrow and broad versions of each (he just doesn't use those terms).

Anyway, had I made a mistake here (I didn't), it wouldn't be the fallacy leading to Plato's Beard. Here, it would just be a case of not knowing what a word of English means. The fallacy that leads to Plato's Beard is very particular: It's assuming that one can read the semantics for sentences of the form 'X does not exist' from the surface grammar.

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Elwenil

Does anyone here have a dictionary?


Agnostic:
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

Atheist:
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

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CingularDuality

Thank you. And Sordavie is confusing his beard fallacies...

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Steeler

I'm going to propose this:

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sordavie

Unfortunately, dictionary definitions are not very good. They are meant as a general practical guide to the use of words in every day writing.

Let me cite an authoritative source: Bertrand Russell, http://atheistempire.com/mm_dl/text/...20Agnostic.pdf.

Unfortunately this is a very informal essay by Russell and it is dated. The contemporary use of the term 'agnostic' has changed slightly. But, for the most part Russell is a good authoritative source on the meaning of the term. You need to read carefully, since Russell hedges on many of his claims. For instance, in the first sentence of the first paragraph, Russell claims that an agnostic is someone who thinks it is impossible to know whether God exists or not, per Cing's claim. But, in his next sentence he hedges on that claim, stating "Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time." What he means by that is, "if not impossible to know whether God exists or not, then at least that we don't currently possess enough evidence to make an informed decision either way."

Further down, Russell does make some contentious claims that not all agnostics would agree to. For instance, he says that Christians can be agnostics. But, I think the term Christian today means something like believer of certain essential doctrines of Christianity, two of which are that God exists and Jesus is God. So, a Christian in our sense could not be an agnostic.

The relevant answers here come in the sections, "What is an agnostic?" "Are agnostics atheists?" and "What kind of evidence could convince you that God exists?"

In the second section titled "Are agnostics atheists?" Russell makes a distinction, which basically amounts to something like the narrow and broad conceptions of theism, atheism, and agnosticism. He makes use of the distinction but isn't careful to make it explicit for his readers. That's why it seems like he's contradicting himself in certain passages.

Russell himself is a narrow atheism but broad agnostic. He thinks there is conclusive evidence against the existence of a Christian God, but he doesn't think there is any conclusive evidence against the existence of Greek gods or something like that. Since he doesn't make the distinction explicitly, it seems like he's saying that you can be both an agnostic and atheist or an agnostic and theist. But, that can't be right given how he answered the first question of the essay. Once you realize that he's making a distinction here, it all makes sense. What he's saying is that someone can be a narrow atheist but broad agnostic or a narrow agnostic and broad theist. It turns out that you can't be an agnostic and atheist in the same sense, and you can't be an agnostic and theist in the same sense. This is why the three positions are on the same level, competing with each other.

The essential features of an agnostic that come out of this are that agnostics refrain from belief in God. They may hold that belief in different ways and for different reasons. But, that's what's essential for being an agnostic.

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Steeler

Can an atheist, by definition, be an animist? Or hold any number of belief systems that do not consider a supreme being, but hinge on the existence of other metaphysical principles?

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sordavie

Perhaps you guys are making a distinction between weak and strong agnosticism. The terms 'weak' and 'strong' modify how the agnosticism is held.

A strong agnostic is someone who refrains from belief in God, who also believes that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not.

A weak agnostic is someone who refrains from belief in God, who also refrains from belief in whether it is or isn't impossible to know whether God exists or not.

Given that people make such a distinction between weak and strong agnosticism, that's evidence that the term 'agnostic' by itself doesn't mean "strong agnosticism" as some of you guys are claiming.

Another piece of evidence is that the term 'agnostic' can be used in a non-theological context. It's perfectly fine for me to say, "I am agnostic about whether the standard theory or the hidden variable theory of quantum mechanics is correct. But, I'm sure that physicists will be able to tell me which one is wrong someday." We can use the term 'agnostic' almost interchangeably with the phrase "I don't know." But, "I don't know" doesn't carry the connotation that one cannot know. If so, then that's evidence that 'agnostic' also doesn't carry that connotation.

Lastly, you guys are selectively citing the dictionary. Let me cite all of the entries from dictionary.com and bold the relevant entries which you left out:

ag·nos·tic /ęgˈnɒstɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ag-nos-tik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
–adjective
3. of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism.
4. asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge.

ag·nos·tic (āg-nŏs'tĭk) Pronunciation Key
n.

1.
1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
2. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.


adj.

1. Relating to or being an agnostic.
2. Doubtful or noncommittal: "Though I am agnostic on what terms to use, I have no doubt that human infants come with an enormous 'acquisitiveness' for discovering patterns" (William H. Calvin).

agnostic

adjective
1. of or pertaining to an agnostic or agnosticism
2. uncertain of all claims to knowledge [ant: gnostic]

noun
1. someone who is doubtful or noncommittal about something
2. a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

The dictionary just doesn't give us fine grained enough meanings for terms.

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sordavie

An atheist could be an animist.

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CingularDuality

And it's not like that applies to us here...

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Ashenhart

Yes it seems that here in Oklahoma we have more churches than we have cows.. yes thats saying something. We have more churches per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. and yet we have some the highest rates for divorce, child abuse, alcohol/substance abuse and rape per capita than anywhere else. What does that tell ya?

As a former youth pastor here in Oklahoma. I am not at all surprised by these numbers and sure we could have loads of conversations why this is and what not but all you were wanting to see was what kind of stats we have here at TG.
So....
Protestant Evangelical 40yrs

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sordavie

Graham Oppy is another authoritative source. Here's his take on the distinction between weak and strong agnosticism: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode.../agnostic.html.

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RGM-79N_GM_CUstom

I used to be a Roman Catholic but my current religious feelings are best described by DL Hugley.

"I believe in God, I just don't think everyone that claims to work for him does."

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