Dr. Paul Reasoner, Habitat for Humanity, and Houses in Cebu

The following comes from our colleague Paul Reasoner, describing his work in Cebu in the Philippines last month.  As a little background, Paul, his wife Shari, and their children have done remarkable work at an orphanage in Cebu over the years.  Here Paul describes is a major development connected with that work... 

I spent a few weeks in January in the Philippines where I have been working on putting together a Habitat for Humanity project for three years.  This is a joint project between Habitat for Humanity-Minnesota and Habitat for Humanity-Philippines to build homes for Filipino staff at the Children’s Shelter of Cebu (CSC), an orphanage started by Bethel Philosophy Department grad Paul Healy and his wife Marlys in 1979.  Many of the employees of CSC live in marginal housing and my son Joel (who has been working at CSC for 8 years) and I have wanted to do something significant for them.  My role has been in putting the project together and, of course, fundraising.

On January 7 land was purchased and on January 22 we had a ground breaking ceremony.  The CEO for HFH-Philippines, Charlie Ayco, flew down from Manila for the occasion and Jan Plimpton, Executive Director of HFH-MN, also took part in the ceremony.  (She traveled to Cebu with me and we also visited HFH rebuild sites in Bohol, Cebu, and Leyte related to the typhoon and earthquake disasters.)  But most important, a number of the employees of CSC who will be getting new homes were able to be present.  The actual building of the 70+ homes should start this spring, and I expect to be back in Cebu again this summer to continue working on the project.

 

The site of the housing project

 

 

The ground-breaking.  Paul is 2nd from the left.

 

 

Some of the workers at the orphanage who will get houses.

 

 

 

Paul speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony.

 

If you want to contribute to this cause or participate in a Bike Trainer Ride fundraising event, please see the following links:

 

Online donations can be made here (2.2% plus $0.30 handling charge on each donation):

https://www.huterra.com/fundraiser/ride-for-cebu/

 

Register online (free) for the Bike Trainer Ride here (registration at the event is also possible):

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/habitat-for-humanity-ride-for-cebu-2015-registration-15801246955

Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism: A Taxonomy of Belief

Bethel and UW - Milwaukee graduate John Grandits writes about distinguishing varieties of theism, atheism, and agnosticism.

A friend of mine was recently walking in a park in San Diego and came across a local atheist group selling t-shirts and Skeptic magazine. They also had a banner that read, "Ask an atheist a question. You might like the answer." My friend, a philosophy graduate student, took the bait. I'm not sure what questions he asked, but he told me that the group of six atheists ended up unanimously endorsing a position that embraced both agnosticism and atheism. They told him, "Agnosticism has to do with knowledge, whereas atheism has to do with belief," to which my friend responded "Huh?"

The confusion that my friend felt is also the confusion that I notice among many people when they get in debates about theism, atheism, and agnosticism. Some people claim to "lack belief in God" while others say they "believe that God does not exist" while some label themselves as agnostic atheists or agnostic theists. This is all very confusing. So what is the difference between these positions?

To answer this question, I think it's helpful to talk in terms of attitudes toward the proposition "God exists." Generally speaking, for any proposition P, you can either believe P, believe not-P, or neither. If we apply this to "God exists," there are those that believe that God exists (P), those who believe that God does not exist (not-P), and those who neither believe that God exists nor that God does not exist (neither P nor not-P). I think it's appropriate to call these theists, atheists, and agnostics, respectively.

So what are we to make of the atheists in the park who claim to be agnostic atheists? How is this not a contradiction? I think the implicit distinction they have in mind is between one's attitude toward P and one's attitude toward whether one knows that P. For instance, if I believe that P, I can go on to claim to know that P, claim to not know P, or neither. That is, if I am a theist, then, regarding the proposition "I know that P"--call this KP--I can believe KP, believe not-KP, or neither believe KP nor not-KP. Likewise, if I am an atheist, then, regarding the proposition "I know that not-P"--call this KnP--I can believe KnP, believe not-KnP, or neither. On this view, an agnostic atheist is one who believes not-P (this is what makes him an atheist) but he neither believes KnP nor not-KnP (this is what makes him an agnostic). The following table attempts to fill in the rest of the logical space:

	Believe KP/KnP	Believe not-KP/KnP	Neither KP/Knp nor not-KP/KnP
Believe P	Strong theism	Weak theism	Agnostic theism
Believe not-P	Strong atheism	Weak atheism	Agnostic atheism
Neither P nor not-P	N/A	Agnosticism Proper?	Agnosticism Proper?

 

So I think part of the confusion over these issues results from a failure to make this distinction between one's attitude toward P and one's attitude toward one’s knowledge that P. Further confusion results from the fact that agnosticism is sometimes defined, not as the (negative) position in which one neither believes P nor not-P, but as the (positive) belief that knowledge about P is impossible. However, on the way I have set things up, this kind of agnosticism would be a subcategory of those in the second column in the table above, i.e. those who have the more general belief that they do not know P. That is, out of all the persons who believe that they do not know P, there will be those who believe that knowledge about P is impossible and those who believe it is possible. The latter of these may believe they don't know P because, say, they believe that the evidence isn't sufficient for knowledge, even if it could be.

There are also other subcategories that a comprehensive taxonomy would need to include. For instance, out of all the persons who are properly agnostic, there will be those who have never thought about or considered P and those who have. Those who have never thought about or considered P could be further divided into further subcategories, e.g. between those who have never heard of, conceived of, or properly understood P and those who have but have never taken the time to reflect on P.

I'm not sure all of this is correct, but I think this is a useful way to start thinking about our differing attitudes, not only about the existence of God, but about any given proposition.

A Philosophy Joke

This one comes from the facebook page of Jaegwon Kim, a well-known metaphysician and philosopher of mind from Brown Univerity. 

A boy is about to go on his first date, and is nervous about what to talk about. He asks his father for advice. The father replies: "My son, there are three subjects that always work. These are food, family, and philosophy."

The boy picks up his date and they go to a soda fountain. Ice cream sodas in front of them, they stare at each other for a long time, as the boy's nervousness builds. He remembers his father's advice, and chooses the first topic. He asks the girl: "Do you like potato pancakes?" She says "No," and the silence returns.

After a few more uncomfortable minutes, the boy thinks of his father's suggestion and turns to the second item on the list. He asks, "Do you have a brother?" Again, the girl says "No" and there is silence once again.

The boy then plays his last card. He thinks of his father's advice and asks the girl the following question: "If you had a brother, would he like potato pancakes?"

Interesting List of Philosophy Students in Other Fields

This comes from the APA (American Philosophical Association).  We are proud of some people on the list, but others . . . not so much.  (And maybe you're proud of different members than we are.)  Here it is.

Just so you know, our posting is less regular during the craziness of January term.  Bethel alumni, or alumni of other schools who have January terms, will understand how busy (and fun) this time can be.  We will increase production as second semester begins.  If any of you readers has something you want to contribute to the blog, please contact us through our facebook page, which is here. 

What should we teach our children?

Another contribution from Bethel and UW-Milwaukee graduate John Grandits.

The last post, about lying to your children by telling them about Santa Claus and the Elf on the Shelf, raises the question of child education in general: what should we teach our children? Take a common topic that has some parallels with Santa: what should we teach our children about God? David Johnson thinks Santa and God share some characteristics, although he doesn't mention which ones. Some atheists argue that we shouldn't believe that God exists for the same reasons we don't believe that Santa exists. That seems false to me, but you don't have to think it's false to think that it's an open question whether one should teach his children to believe/not believe that God exists. What are the criteria?

David Johnson mentions some. For instance, don't lie to your children unless there is some overriding/noble reason to. Certainly those who believe/don't believe that God exists wouldn't be lying to their children if they told them that God exists/doesn't exist.

But might there be a related criterion that says something like, "Don't tell your children that P unless you have good reasons that P"? And what if you believe you have good reasons for believing that P, but there is still reasonable disagreement about P – as in the case of belief in God? Does your child have a legitimate complaint against you if she, upon growing up, comes to disagree with you about P when you always told her that P? She might say something like, "You had no (epistemic) right to tell me that P because there isn't much evidence in support of P. And even if you believed that there was such support, you should have realized that this was a matter about which one could reasonably disagree."

All of this leaves me wondering: shouldn't we teach our children as if they were, say, students in a college classroom? Views about college teaching certainly differ, but whatever our view is, shouldn't that just be our view about teaching our own children? Or is there something about them (e.g. our relation to them as parents) that makes this not the case?