Paul L. LaClair’s post is here. His comments are in blue

Paul,

I am assuming that I am included in your comments to,

“You guys are a hoot, expecting people who are rooted in reason and scientific method to accept your “philosophy” as a legitimate discipline.”

What is “a hoot” is your describing yourself as “rooted in reason and scientific” when your arguments have been filled with irrationalities and errors. I have repeatedly pointed these out, but for the most part you have simply ignored them.

Your argument above is a case in point. You claim to be “rooted in reason” yet when presented with a rational argument that conflicts with what you want to believe in, you refuse to deal with it rationally. Instead of dealing with the actual reason and evidence presented against your position, you make grand claims about your position and question your opponent’s legitimacy as if that was an actual argument. This is sophistry not rational argument.

“Put your claims to the test: Consider the wealth of scientific and technological advancements spawned by science. Now try to name one advance in science or technology spawned by academic philosophy without being checked and verified.”

This is another case in point. What you apparently are blinded to is the fact that historically science is a branch of philosophy and the scientific method is grounded in philosophy. The problem is not between science and “philosophy,” as the two overlap too much. Remove what you label “philosophy” from the scientific method and you would gut the scientific method leaving it useless.

The real problem is that you conflate the scientific method with your world view of naturalism to the point that, in your mind, the two are indistinguishable. As such any arguments that refute your world view are taken as an attack on science. This is why you can make such irrational challenges as you have, because you fail to see the distinction between the two.

Thus, you see one side as “the wealth of scientific and technological advancements spawned by science” as if that somehow uniquely represents your views. In a previous note I pointed out that, “Naturalists in the past have argued that the advances of science justify their assumptions.” In your reply, you denied this, but here you are making an argument that assumes it.

So one problem that I have with your argument is that I see, “the wealth of scientific and technological advancements spawned by science” as also supporting my view as well as yours. So the contrast your argument requires to be valid does not exist. There are additional problem and assumptions in your argument, but this is sufficient to show its irrationality.

“There’s no need for a war between science and philosophy, the two should complement each other. But you guys seem to think that you can play internal logic games, completely overlooking the multiple assumptions you’re making, call it philosophy and imagine you’ve said something useful.”

This is really amusing. I agree there is no war between science and philosophy. As I said above the two are closely related. The problem is not with science, but with naturalism. So you defend your views by conflating them with science, and then immediately follow this with a claim that we are “completely overlooking the multiple assumptions” we are making.

More importantly, I and others here have repeatedly pointed out the problems with the assumptions made by naturalism, problems you have repeatedly just ‘overlooked.’

Still, if you think we are making “multiple assumptions” fine. I certainly would not deny this as everyone, including you, makes assumptions. So that is not really at issue. The question is: are these assumptions reasonable and consistent. What I and others have pointed out is that the assumptions of naturalism are not. They are internally inconsistent, and therefore naturalism is self-refuting. And to be clear, to say that naturalism is self-refuting, says nothing at all about science. Science is common to both my world view and yours. What is in question here is not science, but our different world views.

Now, if you think my assumptions are flawed, the please tell me what these assumptions are, and then demonstrate why they are problematic. In short, “put your claims to the test.”

“In this discussion, you’re being driven not by reason but by the fact that you don’t agree with me.”

I cannot speak for others, but I don’t see any difference between “reason” and “disagreeing with you.” I disagree with you because I believe your position to be at least on some points irrational, and my replies have detailed the reasons and evidence for my objections.

“There’s nothing rational or objective about your arguments; they are merely self-justifying rationalizations for the result you want, and the proof of that pudding is that you keep trying to making wishful thinking respectable and to put it on a par with science.”

Yet another case in point. You make the claim that my arguments were “self-justifying rationalizations” but claiming something and demonstrating it are two different things. You have made a lot of claims. I have challenged a number of them that I disagreed with by citing the reason and evidence for my disagreement. Much of this you have just ignored.

More to the point, I have pointed out a number of irrationalities and errors in your arguments. While you have disagreed with my points you have not demonstrated any flaws in my actual reasoning, or errors in my evidence. Saying you disagree, is not quite the same thing as demonstrating an error. Instead, you have done, what you did here, repeat lines of argument that have already been addressed and refuted.

“If you really weren’t challenged by the arguments against your point of view, you would have called me a fool and moved on.”

Talk about, “self-justifying rationalizations,” how can you believe this, and yet claim to be on the side of reason?