Darwinian Theology

Suppose we marry zoolatry with modern evolutionary science: what kind of offspring do we get? Are the two compatible or do we get only sterility? I think they are perfectly compatible and that we deliver an attractive baby; indeed, something with considerable power—scientifically and spiritually. We get a Darwinian religion, a science of the divine. Am I talking about miraculous spiritual energies controlling evolution, with God firmly in the cockpit? I am not. There is no God in this religion or anything supernatural: we just have animal organisms evolving by means of Darwinian natural selection and gene propagation.[1] This is a scientific religion—and I mean orthodox science. My point is that sound biological science, as atheistic as you wish, is not incompatible with a religion built around animals. We can regard animals as sacred, divine, holy, venerable, and absolutely fabulous without giving up on Darwinian science; we just have to detach those adjectives from God-centered religion. We may view animals as god-like but not godly; they resemble (non-existent) gods in certain ways without being actually gods. The OED gives the following for “divine”: “of, from, or like God or a god”: to be divine is to be like a god, i.e., as “excellent, delightful” as a god. The intuitive idea is that animals can be (and often are) regarded as deserving of reverence, awe, and admiration—religiously, in a word. But notsupernaturally. We can even think of them as having souls or spirits–though not as capable of surviving death in a disembodied form. We are not going full Cartesian dualist about animals. Nor do we suppose that they were created ab initio by God; rather, we follow orthodox Darwinian evolution by mutation and natural selection. There is no supernatural metaphysics, but there is cultural religiosity. Zoolatry is atheistic and anti-supernatural, but it is also religiously tinged (iconography, rituals, ethical attitudes, “mystical” emotions, places of worship, devotional communities). We have the trappings of typical religions but without the baggage. There is nothing self-contradictory or spooky about any of this.

According to this religion, animals evolved from inorganic matter many millions of years ago, then proliferated by blind natural selection, eventually producing us (and whatever happens in the future). Darwin was the messiah of this religion (Wallace was his John the Baptist). The Origin of Species is the New Testament of the zoolatrical religion (the Old Testament consists of the Creationist guff that preceded Darwin). But Darwin didn’t know it all; he had no idea about genetics. Here is where things get interesting in zoolatrical circles: how do genes figure in the new (actually very old) religion? I’m not going to beat about the bush: they play the role of God. For genes are the hub, the driver, the architect of the animal world. I won’t argue for this position here; it has been done already by better men than me. I am concerned with interpretation: what is the religiousmeaning of the gene? Simple: genes are regarded as sacred in this religion. You could write a book called The Sacred Gene. Genes are objects of veneration, awe, gratitude, amazement, worship. They make animals! Us, too, but we are talking here about a religion of (non-human) animal worship (fascination, esteem, love). The genes are the gods of scientific zoolatry—the masters, the creative agents. That double helix rules the biological universe. We would describe DNA as miraculous if that word were in our naturalistic vocabulary—miraculous-seeming anyway. Without genes there would be no biological world; no butterflies, bees, or beavers. Nothing to get excited about. Also, genes are not selfish in the sense that they produce selfish animals; on the contrary, they produce unselfish animals where genetic relatives are concerned. The things animals do for their offspring! Genes are also immortal like gods: the vehicle perishes when the animal dies, but the genes live on in perpetuity. My genes will still be here long after my body and soul have shuffled off this mortal coil. So, in the religion of zoolatry genes will be granted a special place of honor—lovingly depicted, sung about, praised, commemorated. The Sistine chapel will have a different ceiling: an array of chemicals dividing and growing, with glorious animals springing up everywhere. The genes play the generative role traditionally ascribed to God: they are “holy spirit” of living things—though entirely chemical in nature. The science of genes thus occupies a central place in the bible of zoolatry. And notice the plural: not a single superlative Gene but many different genes—polytheistic not monotheistic. If you want a proof of their existence, you need nothing more than a good microscope to look through: DNA molecules are small but in principle visible. Of course, their workings are rather inscrutable—they work in “mysterious ways”—but we can be sure that there is nothing else in there calling the shots. Animals are rather inscrutable too, as far as we are concerned, but no one doubts their existence; mystery just adds to their religious appeal. Thus, the theology of zoology is plain sailing; nothing spooky to worry about, no miraculous resurrections or virgin births—just good old biological reproduction. This is astonishing enough—much better than that loaves-and-fishes caper, or the walking-on-water stunt. This is whole animals arising from little eggs, fish becoming mammals, etc. The genes are quite enough to inspire and amaze. Butterflies are icing on the cake.[2]

Did early man get the idea of the gods from observing animals? Did he magnify the remarkable traits of animals into something transcending the natural order? That seems like a plausible hypothesis—where else could he get the god idea? He observes the excellence, power, perfection, awesomeness, and beauty of animals and projects it into the idea of a superior being with similar attributes—a kind of eagle-man perhaps. He has already deified the Sun and this is a natural progression of thought. He really has no idea of what these deities might be like apart from their animal and celestial models. If so, the content of early god-centered religions is based on acquaintance with animals. It is therefore no great stretch to convert more recent religions into nature-based religions—solar or animal. Then we shall want to conjoin them with whatever we have discovered scientifically about the natural world. Hence, Darwinian religion with its accompanying theology. Part of that theology is that there are no gods (or God) in the usual sense, but it is accepted that we can have god surrogates—remembering that the gods were originally based on animals anyway. It has always been animals in our deep religious psychology, in so far as that psychology has any intelligible content (thus the mammalian being with a long beard of old-school theology). It is true that we are not going to be able to derive our morality from observation of animal behavior, but that idea is no worse than trying to make gods our moral yardstick, as Socrates pointed out long ago. What we really need is a type of religion that meshes with current science (and philosophy); and Darwinian zoolatry seems to fit the bill nicely. The selfish gene meets the sacred gene.[3]

[1] See my “Animal Worship” and “Beastly Religion”.

[2] The zoological theology of parasites has a problem, however, since we don’t tend to regard parasites with any awe or affection. They might be viewed as the demons of the biological world, on the principle that a religion needs its villains as well as its heroes. I will remain agnostic on the question of parasite divinity.

[3] This perspective enables us to interpret the book of the dead carried by the genes as constituting a sacred text: it informs us of times long past when life was at an earlier stage. The genes tell a story akin to biblical stories, but there is no God or gods in this story. The genes have their book of Genesis.

Explicable Knowledge

Suppose I don’t know where my phone is; it could be in a number of places in the house. I look around and find it on top of my desk, thereby coming to know that my phone is on my desk. This is a paradigm case of perceptual knowledge—knowledge by means of the senses. It is characteristic of such knowledge that I also know how I know—the means, the method. I don’t just suddenly know, inexplicably. I know that I know the fact in question by using my eyes to search the house and eventually see the phone sitting on my desk. I know that I moved my body through space and let the external world act on my senses so as to produce experiences of kinds that I also know. I know that I saw the phone from a particular angle, in a certain light, at a specific time. I know what led up to the knowledge, its preconditions and procedures. I have first-person explicable knowledge—knowledge of how such knowledge is produced, in general and in particular. It is no mystery to me. It gives me confidence in the belief I formed about the whereabouts of my phone.  So it is with what we are pleased (and proud) to call empirical knowledge in general—a posteriori knowledge, if we prefer the Latin (and its associated italics).[1]

But the same is not true of all knowledge. Suppose I know that 2+2=4 or that everything is self-identical or that bachelors are not married: do I know how I know these things? I do not. I could say “By reason alone”, but that is like saying I know where my phone is “by perception”: there is no detail, no explanation, just a general formula. There is nothing corresponding to walking around the house, casting my eyes this way and that, letting the world act on my senses (I could also feel my way around if it’s dark). I don’t know how I know—in fact, there is nothing like the procedures that led to my phone knowledge. I am inclined to say I just know, inexplicably (it is “self-evident”). My knowledge of mathematics, logic, and analytic truth operates in the absence of an accompanying knowledge-how. Movements of the body are not involved; nor is environmental causality. What we are pleased (and proud) to call Pure Reason has need of none of this: it proceeds in a vacuum, as it were. There is no knowledge of how the knowledge is produced. We have a first-person blank here, while in the case of perceptual knowledge we have an embarrassment of riches.

This enables us to make the following pronouncement: a posteriori knowledge is explicable knowledge and a priori knowledge is inexplicable knowledge—that is, to the agent or subject. The first kind of knowledge is knowledgeably known, but not the second kind; it is unknowledgeably known. Thus, the latter is a mystery-to-the-knower. We don’t understand how we come to have such knowledge. It is a kind of ignorant knowledge, though this doesn’t detract from its status as knowledge. The epistemic lack is higher-order: it concerns knowledge of knowledge. Conceivably, it could be the other way round: inexplicable perceptual knowledge (perhaps a bit like blindsight) and explicable rational knowledge (but what would this be like?); in any case, as things are, this is the way things line up. Predictably, the situation provokes suspicion of the a priori: it smacks too much of unsupported intuition, mere stabs in the dark. It would be nice if we could fit it under the sensory umbrella, as covertly perception-based; then it would enjoy the procedural transparency of perceptual knowledge. Some may say there can be no such thing, or that it amounts to vacuous tautology. And one can appreciate the motivation; there is a real asymmetry here, to the seeming detriment of the a priori (but see below). The a priori already seemed suspect from an objective explanatory point of view (mysterious in its operations); now we see that its first-person epistemology leaves much to be desired. The subject doesn’t know how he knows what he knows, yet he is convinced that he knows. This kind of suspicion will spill over into neighboring areas like introspective and ethical knowledge. For here too we find no clear analogue of the perceptual case: how do I know that I am in pain or have a particular belief, and how do I know ethical propositions? Not by moving my body around and deploying my senses, not by causal interactions and sensory impressions. Rather, I just know, inexplicably. Thus, some people question whether there is really knowledge in these cases—hence expressivist theories. If the subject can’t say how he knows, he doesn’t really know; and if he doesn’t know, there is no fact to be known. A lot of philosophy hangs on the asymmetry in question.

But an irony intrudes: if perceptual knowledge comes with knowledge of how it is acquired and justified, the question must arise of whether the means we use are up to the task. Hence skepticism. Brains in vats could use the same methods, or appear to. But not so for a priori knowledge: if no means are used, then there is nothing to criticize. Thus, a priori knowledge has been traditionally regarded as exempt from skepticism—not brain-in-vattable. It allows for (justified) certainty. Since it is first-person inexplicable, we can’t ask how good the explanation really is: what is not attempted cannot be faulted. A priori knowledge may be mysterious and inexplicable, but it cannot be accused of using shoddy methods, as a posteriori knowledge can be. We have a kind of Mexican stand-off: guns drawn but no victory, because what the a priori gains in certainty it loses in explicability, while the a posteriori can claim explicability only at the price of skepticism. This has been the basic layout of epistemology since Plato’s time: empirical knowledge makes sense but is open to skepticism, while rational knowledge is hard to make sense of but is not open to skepticism. The senses are fallible, so empiricism faces skepticism; reason is not similarly fallible, so it is (relatively) immune to skepticism. But rationalism is up to its neck in mystery (first-person and third-person), while having an easier time with skepticism. There is no obvious way out of this maze, as the last two thousand years testify.[2]

[1] This view of perceptual knowledge is defended by Michael Ayers (my old supervisor) in Knowing and Seeing: Groundwork for a New Empiricism (2019). I have not had the opportunity to read this book, but I have gathered the basic thesis from the book’s blurb. It is pretty straightforward.

[2] I first wrote about this topic in my MA thesis in psychology in 1972 and have returned to it intermittently.

False Good Ideas

There should be a category of false good ideas: ideas that are clever and appealing but clearly false. These ideas will tend to catch on despite their obvious falsity, because they appear to solve problems. Most of philosophy is made up of these ideas; they might be said to constitute the subject. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing: it is good to see what the options are and what their faults may be. Discovering the truth is another matter. Science isn’t like this—it regularly comes up with true good ideas (though sometimes false ones). There ought to be a prize for the best false good idea in philosophy. Of course, they are not generally recognized as false at the time of their promulgation; in retrospect, however, it seems obvious and we wonder how people could have been taken in. I will make a list.

I don’t think there are any false good ideas in Plato and Aristotle (I’m not counting his physics), because I don’t think any of their ideas are obviously and demonstrably false, and many are good. But the category comes into its own in the modern period, beginning with Descartes. Surely, his substance dualism, though attractive and ingenious, is clearly false—today it is scarcely necessary to argue the point (the pineal gland says it all). Empiricism is manifestly false, though enormously appealing—simple, commonsensical, unmysterious, monolithic. Wouldn’t it be great if all knowledge were simply a carbon copy of the senses? We could all go home and play backgammon. Unfortunately, the problems are staring us in the face, particularly the problem posed by a priori knowledge. By contrast, rationalism is true but not so good—because it has no decent account of how innate knowledge arises and has an air of mystery about it (God gets wheeled in). Honorable mention goes to Berkeley for his theistic idealism: extremely clever, theoretically impressive, but not remotely credible. Almost magnificently false. For a while, these false but good ideas dominated the philosophical landscape, as they were absorbed, refined, and then steadily criticized (Thomas Reid was a dissenting voice). It wasn’t until the twentieth century that new brilliantly false ideas hit the airwaves. Frege was an early exponent of the brilliantly false, though his ideas were never mainstream (and many of his ideas are not clearly false). I am thinking of his ontology of functions and objects—concepts as unsaturated entities, truth-values as objects. Personally, I have been entranced by these theories and I recommend that everyone study them (even construction workers), but they are not exactly shining examples of indisputable truth. Is The False really an object like your kitchen table? Now consider Wittgenstein: the picture theory of meaning is a delightful theory, resolving many a vexing problem, but it is not exactly manifestly true. The tautology theory of necessary truth is also wide of the mark, though certainly appealing. The distinction between saying and showing has not worn well, though arresting enough. Russell’s theory of descriptions is extremely clever, but has been subject to serious criticism; it is no longer regarded as irrefutably true. Nor has Russell’s mathematical logicism stood the test of time, despite its prima facie appeal. Logical atomism withered long ago.

But it was logical positivism that specialized in palpable outright falsity. The reason this was not recognized is that it is an extremely good theory, judged by the standards of philosophy. It solves so many problems! It refutes traditional religion, demolishes troublesome metaphysics, offers a deflationary theory of a prioriknowledge, and for good measure puts ethics on a sound emotional footing (supposedly). What’s not to like? You just have to swallow the falsehoods and foolishness (is every unverifiable proposition really meaningless?). The positivist emperor had no clothes, but he sure talked a good game. Admit it, we have all been tempted by logical positivism at one time or another (I believed it in my youth for at least 24 hours). It’s a great theory, just not too hot in the truth department. Similarly for its descendants and fellow-travelers: pragmatism, instrumentalism, conventionalism, confirmational holism, and the like. The doctrine of phenomenalism was ingenious and exciting, but it collapsed like a house of cards in short order. Behaviorism suffered the same fate after an initial surge of enthusiasm. Now we wonder how these doctrines could have been believed so fervently, forgetting the lure of the novel and fashionable. And the doctrines had clear philosophical payoffs—it wasn’t just shiny objects and false hopes. More recently, we have had the causal theory of knowledge and reference, the token identity theory, Tarski-type truth theories, functionalism, possible worlds semantics, meaning externalism, experimental philosophy, panpsychism, supervenience, zombies, virtue ethics, epistemology and metaphysics naturalized (have I forgotten anything?). All these are goodtheories in that they purport to solve philosophical problems, or at least move the needle forward: they give us something to think about, to pin our hopes on. I see their appeal, I really do. But are they true? Do they seemtrue? Don’t we see a pattern of failure, of hopes dashed? There was a time when many people saw in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations a path to philosophical enlightenment, but those days are past. The initial excitement wore off, just as it has throughout philosophical history. Maybe we can find some truth in these ideas, but we don’t find complete and final truth. We don’t find philosophical closure. This is not a counsel of despair, but it is a warning against premature and rash optimism. The good is not the same as the true. Let’s by all means keep looking for good theories, but let’s not get too carried away by them. Curb your enthusiasm, as the philosopher once advised.[1]

[1] You might have wondered why that philosopher (Larry David) called his comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, given that this title seems to have nothing to do with the content of the shows. A more descriptive title might have been “Be Careful What You Say” or “Watch Your Step”. Larry never shows any enthusiasm for anything he does, yet he still gets into hot water all the time. I choose to believe that he is expressing his general philosophy of life: Don’t get too carried away, don’t believe everything you hear, don’t succumb to the latest dogma, don’t suspend your rational faculties. Philosophers, like everyone else, need to curb their enthusiasm.

Can I Prove that I Exist?

The Cogito purports to be a proof that I exist. It is supposed to establish the proposition that I exist. But this is a funny kind of proof for a simple reason: it only proves my existence to me. I cannot use it to prove my existence to you, or to any other person no matter how intelligent and receptive to rational argument. If I come up to you and announce “I can prove my existence” and offer “I think, therefore I am”, you will reply “But how do I know that you think?” My alleged proof fails at the first hurdle: I have not established its basic premise. The problem of other minds prevents the proof from working. I cannot prove to anyone else that I exist, only to myself. What kind of proof is that? Is it really a proof at all? The OED gives us “demonstrate by evidence or argument the truth or existence of” for “prove”, and goes on to link the concept to proof under the law. You can’t go into a court of law and propose to prove the existence of someone or something by establishing its existence for you—and you alone. That’s not a legal proof. The proof has to be public not private. Would there be any proofs of anything if all such proofs were irremediably private in this way? More fundamentally, does it even make sense to qualify “proof” by “to me”—doesn’t that take back with one hand what has been offered by the other? It’s like saying you have evidence for something and then adding that it’s only evidence for you. In the Cogito the putative evidence is necessarily available only to the proponent of the proof—in his acts of thinking. It is impossible to accept the proof for anyone but the individual giving it. The audience will retort, “But that’s no proof to me!” You can’t relativize proof in that way. A proof that only I can accept is no kind of proof at all.

It is the same in science and mathematics. You couldn’t go to a scientific conference claiming to have a proof of something and then turn around and say the proof is only available to yourself. You couldn’t base a science, say physics, on a proposition whose truth is ascertainable only by you. As Wittgenstein would say, the word “proof” has its meaning in a language game involving other people and what they can know; you can’t detach it from this language game and expect to retain sense. The idea of a “private proof” is a contradiction. You may be convinced of the truth of “I exist” by reflection on the Cogito, but you are misusing language if you say you have a proof of this proposition. And isn’t it very strange to describe yourself as having proved that you exist by means of the Cogito? Maybe you know it thereby, but you haven’t found a proof of it—not in any ordinary sense. But it sounds scientific and rigorous to speak of proof in this connection—as if we are talking about Euclidian geometry or Newtonian physics or Darwinian biology. In these subjects the proofs are all objective and public, but not in the case of the Cogito. For the “proof” is limited to a single individual, necessarily so. If my science requires that other people exist, the Cogito is no use in establishing this. The science becomes limited to me, which disqualifies it from being a science. Only I can have reason to believe this alleged science if it rests on my employment of the Cogito. This kind of certainty is no use to science—or law or everyday life. It is really a kind of category mistake to call the Cogito a proof, no matter cogent it otherwise may be. Nor is it right to characterize it as an argument or a presentation of evidence: these concepts presuppose a social context, i.e., interpersonal accessibility. The words in question have a meaning that derives from their use in social contexts; they are misused if detached from such a context. At the very least it should be signaled that the Cogito doesn’t work to prove one’s existence to other people, unlike other proofs of existence. Clarity is best served by withholding that term from discussions of the Cogito.[1]

[1] If someone seriously doubts that I exist as a thinking thing, it cuts absolutely no ice to reply, “But I can prove that I exist”, proceeding to offer the Cogito. The skeptic will simply say, “Your initial premise begs the question”. The Cogito is no use at all if other people question your existence.