From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 9:40 AM To: Brian Holtz Subject: Re: JH: The Design Argument "Paul Filseth" wrote > > ... William Lane Craig. Quentin Smith. Alvin Platinga. Richard > > Swinburne. David Hume. Immanuel Kant. Thomas Acquinas. > > ... at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/arguments.html, > > what do you think they are debating? Do you think they are debating > > "mush"? > > the last thing I'm going to do is your research for you. If you think > somewhere in the above vast body of work there are definitions useful > for your purposes, *you* find them. On the contrary, my claim is that this literature uses the terms freely, without any special definitions or any indication they mean anything other than their ordinary dictionary definitions. You seem to think that either a) the literature contains some better definitions than mine and Websters', or b) the literature hasn't noticed that the ordinary definitions make the debate meaningless. If (a), then what evidence -- assumption? vague recollection? -- do you have for this proposition, and what if anything can you tell us about how these elusive definitions are better? If (b), then why haven't you or anyone else submitted a journal article that demonstrates that the debate is meaningless? > if you think your definitions and your defense of > them are just fine and my criticisms are off-base, then quit using the > existence of other people's work as an argument. I've answered your criticisms of my definitions. I've shown that they harmonize with those used by lexicographers. And I've asserted without rebuttal that there is no evidence the philosophical literature uses the terms to mean anything other than their dictionary definitions. If you dispute this assertion, then surely you have as your basis some evidence or argument or assumption that you can share with us. > It doesn't help your case and it just comes off as > "Go read what the experts say. Who are you to reason?". I'm simply asking you to explain why you think that you and a few other a.a.m. diehards are right that the very concept of supernaturality is ill-defined or oxymoronic, while the professional philosophical community (including writers at infidels.org) is wrong that supernaturality is well-defined enough to argue over whether it exists. It reminds me of biblical inerrantists who defy the overwhelming secular scholarly consensus on e.g. the two-source theory of the synoptic gospels. In such a case (as you're about to see in my debate with James Holding), it's not worth my time to retrace all the original research that led to the scholarly consensus. Instead, I'm inclined to pop the debate up a level and ask how the opponent reconciles the contested belief with the overwhelmingly contrary consensus that currently exists in the broader marketplace of ideas. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net