Epistemological strategery

The epistemology people actually use is not necessarily the epistemology they claim to use. And it's not that they are being dishonest either. A lot of times, they just haven't thought it through.

A major obstacle in conversations between Christian apologists and counter-apologists is their differences in the epistemologies they explicitly and knowingly subscribe to. When a counter-apologist wants to challenge a Christian apologist, they will often do so by telling them what their standard of acceptable belief is, and it usually has to do with physical evidence, verifiable proof, or something along those lines. This is meant to nip any argument in the bud that depends on a priori information, philosophical reasoning, intuition, and a host of other things that Christian apologists appeal to.

My approach in these situations is not to try to meet their challenge but to challenge their epistemology. I think claiming to only believe what your own sensory perceptions tell you is an obstacle, not just to accepting Christianity, but to epistemology in general. Now, I know that in spite of what people say, they don't actually use this epistemology. There are lots of things they believe they know that are not known through empiracle means. So my strategy in the past has always been to point it out to them by bringing up counter-examples to their claimed epistemology. For example, I might ask them if they can think of a number and know which number they're thinking of. Or I might ask them if they believe their wife has thoughts and emotions and if they have ever seen those thoughts and emotions with their own sensory perceptions. Or I might ask them if they believe the external world is real. Or sometimes I'll force them into an infinte regress and see how they handle it.

I've had these conversations a lot, and I can't tell you how many times the person I talked to just bit the bullet and claimed they didn't know if there was an external world, or if there were other minds. Just a few days ago, a guy told me he was a skeptic and that his standard of proof was high, so my evidence for Christianity had better be impressive. It didn't take but a couple of exchanges before he told me that he was a solipsist because he was even skeptical of the external world and other minds. I simply don't believe him. I think he's blowing smoke. And I've run into a lot of people like him who are willing to embrace these kinds of absurdities rather than concede my point about epistemology.

So I came up with a new strategy for dealing with people like this. It's a little sneaky, but it'll be interesting to try. I haven't actually tried it yet. The next time somebody tells me they insist on physical proof (or whatever) before they'll believe anything, I'm going to ask them whether they believe in evolution, or whether they believe the holocaust happened, or something they will probably claim to have a lot of certainty about and that anybody who denies it is crazy or ignorant. This way, I can get them to commit to affirming something. I think evolution is a good one because this is a point where a lot of critics of Christianity think they are following the science, and a lot of Christians just have their head in the sand. So I suspect most peopel who claim to only believe in things that have physical proof will readily admit to believing in evolution.

Then I'll ask them how strong their belief is in evolution. How sure are they? Let's say, for instance, that they are 90% sure that evolution is true. It might even be higher. Well, if evolution is true, that means the external world exists, right? If there's no external world, then there can't be evolution. So by getting the person to admit that they believe very strongly in evolution, they cannot escape the force of my argument by pretneding to be unsure about the existence of the external world. If they are 90% sure that evolution is true, then they must be at least 90% sure that the external world exists.

Of course, I suppose there's an escape they could use for that, too. They might qualify their statement about evolution and say something like, "Oh, I'm working within the parameters of our 'simulation' on the assumption we're in one. Evolution is 90% certain in our perceived realty. But again, this reality may be illusory." That's the only escape I can see, but I'm going to try it anyway and see what happens.