Specter of Reason

I don't have the time, and don't see much of value, in posting at length about Dennett's recent review of Sam Harris' book, Free Will , or Sam Harris' reply.  I did, once upon a time , suggest that such a review from Dennett might be worth reading, though I quickly changed my mind, supposing that silence from Dennett would be better.  As it turns out, I'm not sure.  A lot of Harris' fans and supporters are still in need of argumentation to understand why Dennett (and others) think they are mistaken.  And Dennett is more capable than most when it comes to clearly and persuasively laying out arguments.  And yet, even after he has done so, he is accused of missing the point.  On top of that, his snarky tone--fully justified, in my opinion--is used against him.  So, in unsnarky terms, and without addressing particular moments in this debate, let me try to get to (and unravel) the bottom line. Harris' main contention is that there is a certain lived expe...

A blogger name John Pieret has also criticized Sean Carroll 's article about naturalism, though I think his criticisms are somewhat misguided. I just left the following comment on his blog : I have major problems with Carroll's treatment of naturalism and supernaturalism. (See here: Discovery, Demonstration, and Naturalism .) However, I don't agree with all of your points; specifically about Ockam's Razor and the so-called "problem of induction." Ockam's Razor is an indispensable explanatory tool. Consider the situation with ID again. IDers might claim that ID is simpler than natural evolution, that Ockam's Razor weighs in their favor. The question is, are they right? The answer is: of course not. Natural evolution does not postulate any entities beyond our explanatory framework, and it does not postulate anything superfluous. It does not postulate entities beyond necessity. ID, on the other hand, postulates an "intelligent designer"...