Seems, madam? Nay it is; I know not seems
Russell says Aikin and Talisse have portrayed themselves as accommodationists when they seem in fact not to be accommodationists. I thought I would corroborate that – they’re not accommodationists. They say so in their book.
[W]e do not consider ourselves to be accommodationists. We think that the religious believer’s core commitments are simply false; we also hold that adopting religious beliefs often has bad moral consequences. We stand, really, in firm opposition to religious belief and to the very idea of a supreme deity. As subsequent chapters will make clear, we are not just atheists (people who reject religious belief), but antitheists (people who think that religious belief is morally bad. [p 92]
There you go. You’ll never find an accommodationist saying that. That’s exactly the kind of thing an accommodationist won’t say, for fear that all believers will promptly enlist in the Tea Party in response.
They have “accommodationism” a bit wrong, in my view, but that doesn’t make any difference to the above avowal. They’re not apologizers; they’re not royalists; they’re not embarking on a campaign to go “tut tut tut tut tut” at atheists who think religious belief is morally bad.
They get how the bullying is done, too, which also makes them very different from accommodationists and royalists.
…the popular discussion about atheism is nearly exclusively fixed on the demeanor of the atheist. And the presumption is that openly rejecting religious belief is itself an uncivil act, and thus to be avoided. [p 70]
Not spoken like an accommodationist; do admit.
The 3Q article is really a bit misleading.
Good evening.
sorry if this may seem like a silly question, but what is a “royalist”?
Not a silly question. It comes from this
http://kazez.blogspot.com/2011/01/emperors-gnu-clothes.html?showComment=1296576600895#c752565330095783127
It came up on an old thread a week or so ago
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/strident-n-combative/
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa and Wayne de Villiers, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Seems, madam? Nay it is; I know not seems http://dlvr.it/GW75d […]
Any bets on how it’ll take a blogger to write about how you called them accomodationists?
That said, it might be an interesting book to read.
(The first part was meant to be more humorous than sarcastic, but after sending it in, I don’t think it came out that way. Sorry about that)
I find this section puzzling. For starters, religious belief is not based on evidence nor reason but belief or faith. That makes religious belief fall outside the idea of being in the same category as beliefs from rational agents.
As far as I can gather, most gnus seem to accept the idea of empiricism or scientific naturalism, and therefore take factual evidence to formulate rational arguments. But where Aikin and Talisse seem to go wrong is assuming that religious believers have weighed up some evidence and rationally made the choice to believe.
But this is not the case. The usual explanation is ‘compartmentalisation’. Religious beliefs are compartmentalised from the intellectual part of the brain, therefore explaining the ‘stupidity’ and irrationality of religious beliefs in ordinarily intelligent and educated persons.
Religious beliefs are in fact ‘stupid’ and irrational and not intellectual. This does not mean that the believer is stupid, as explained above.
Also, I’m not sure that we hold religious believers in ‘contempt’ by default, in fact I’m sure of it. Where our contempt comes from are morally stupid or dangerous choices and actions made by believers, which draws contempt, disgust, anger. Sometimes we’re actually sympathetic toward believers, because they’re often victims of their beliefs or other believers.
So basically, Aikin and Talisse have misunderstood gnus, and therefore argue against the misunderstanding, when in fact, apart from their misunderstanding, they would be in almost complete agreement. But whereas they wish to engage with beliefs from rational agents, I think gnus are more or less engaging with believers rather than their beliefs, attempting to reason with their reasonable side, not their religious side.
I can’t imagine anyone reading Dennett and not noticing the huge emphasis on what it is that counts as justification.
I don’t get it: what is “misleading” about their comments? I was going to post the same “tut-tut-tutting” at the New Atheists that Egbert notes, but that you seem to be ignoring. Here’s their pretty explicit characterization of New Atheists:
Granted, I don’t see them as “accommodationists,” nor have I ever called them that. But Egbert is exactly right: they’re wrong when they say that Gnus spend more time attacking believers than their beliefs. The mini-tempest about their post is not about their accommodationism, but about their trying to win converts by throwing Gnus under the bus.
Yeah, I was thinking along Egbert’s lines myself. I want to know if, in the book, they expand upon what they mean by [engaging] with religious believers in a way which manifests a proper regard for their cognitive capacities, and accordingly seeks to hear and address their best reasons and arguments, inasmuch as belief typically, and proudly, involves rejecting reasons and arguments.
Thanks for that, Ophelia. It highlights the need for all of us to be really, super-special-clear about what we mean when we use terms. Aikin and Talisse used the terms “accommodationist” and “new atheist” in a way out of step with the general consensus about its use, unintentionally waving a red flag in front of people (like us) who are legitimately weary and pretty damned touchy about being characterized as ignorant, shoot-and-deride-first, ask-questions-later bullies. They shouldn’t have done that.
They seemed to accept the characterization that “new atheist” means someone who illegitimately, inappropriately, tactlessly, and without any deeper engagement derides and scorns theists themselves at a 7th-grade level. Why? They take pains, as you point out, to reject the notion that criticism of religion itself is not Platonically Uncivil, and I take them at their word that they mean it. It follows, then, that they’re intellectual and political allies to most of us Gnu types who hang around here.
So I’m left frustrated that they made an elementary blunder, and that many of us (myself included) got our triggers tripped. We don’t need this; we need the exact opposite. If they’re reading this, I hope they take a bit of time to understand the mistake they made (and anyone can make mistakes; it’s not as if they’re obligated to know the whole sordid history of every Gnu blog skirmish in intimate detail), and to be a little more careful to be clear about what they mean.
And also, I think they’re flat wrong when they claim that taking believers’ arguments for god seriously is diagnostic of whether non-believers are intellectually engaged with theists at the level deserved. Why? Because the vast majority of them have no arguments. They didn’t get where they got by looking carefully at evidence, or by considering (and being convinced by) twee exercises such as the ontological argument I’m genuinely surprised and disturbed that Aikin and Talisse don’t already realize that.
I think they’re vastly too generous in characterizing many believers as having an “inflated sense of the strength of the evidence in support of their view.” That’s uncontroversially true of some – obviously. But it is not the only thing going on when believers stick to their guns, and I’d argue it’s not even the main thing going on. Most of them (the ones we’re concerned about, the everyday Joes and Janes who vote and sit on school boards) don’t even think about it that deeply, if at all. They may even believe, on the surface, in their own minds, that they think what they think because they’ve seen good evidence.
But for most people, belief in god is not a place they arrived at through a conscious, intellectually rigorous process. They believe it because their daddy does, and their daddy wouldn’t lie to them. They believe it because that’s what everyone in Springfield always believed when they grew up, and everyone knows the best yardstick for measuring what’s good and right and true is what your hometown thinks. You know, they’re local, which means you can trust them. They believe it because that’s what they heard at church, and everyone knows that anyone worth knowing goes to church and believes those things. They believe it because that’s what normal, decent people believe. Yeah, it’s really that parochial, that tribal, and that common across the human species.
So, it’s a red-herring (and an incredible waste of time) to propose that the way to tackle this at any level that will be heard outside Alvin Plantinga’s office is to engage in earnest intellectual debate about the “evidence” Aikin and Talisse generously assume the average theist has spent any quality time thinking about. Changing these “beliefs,” or at least blunting their political and public policy effects, will only come through changing the culture. And that includes things like discursively marginalizing public professions of piety, making it embarrassing to proclaim your belief in resurrection from the dead/original sin/the Garden of Eden, and making it more common for people to giggle when such things are uttered in public and less common for them to fold their hands and cast their eyes down in an Appropriately Respectful gesture.
I’m afraid it’s much grubbier and a little more vulgar than Aikin and Talisse would like it to be.
I should acknowledge that Egbert said everything I did before I wrote it, and with considerably more brevity.
The fact that A&T are not accommodationists, and further that they seem to be in perfect agreement with all the gnus I know on the central matters at issue in atheism, only leads me to be MORE appalled by their ill-informed swipes at people whose ideas and arguments they clearly haven’t even bothered to read in a cursory fashion, let alone addressed respectfully “to elicit their best arguments and their conception of what evidence there is,” etc. Why is it that the people who spout the most high-minded rhetoric about treating believers with courtesy consistently fail to exercise even the most basic courtesy towards atheists — such as actually reading their work carefully and referring to it honestly and without distortion?
Besides, the fact remains that A&T not only take the Ontological Argument seriously, but even think that those of us who don’t take it seriously — including the vast majority of working professional academic philosophers, incidentally — fail what they call a <a href=”http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/i-dont-see-how-the-argument-even-begins/”>”litmus test for intellectual seriousness.”</a> That is so transparently laughable that I can’t help but take them less seriously for saying it. To my mind, that’s the equivalent of saying that any intellectually serious person must grapple with the deep and profound importance of Ayn Rand’s contributions to philosophy.
Incidentally, I draw that particular comparison not only to be insulting — although I certainly do mean it as an insult — but because there are other substantial parallels. Ayn Rand’s “arguments,” like the Ontological Argument, can only be taken seriously in spite of their glaring logical and evidentiary flaws by those who desperately desire the conclusions to be true. Moreover, much of the appeal of both Objectivism and theism lies in how successfully they flatter the vanity of their respective true believers.
According to TB over at Josh Roseneaus blog:
“That’s kind of what Coyne did – he’s comfortable railing in the abstract but when he visits the book group he’s downright accomodationist.”
In other words anything short of a Tom Johnson style full frontal assault on the religious with the necessary throwing insults, spitting, kicking and hairpulling and you are an accomodationist.
Once you realize that this is actually how the gnus are seen by the accomodationists (look at Nick Matzkes recent vile contribution at WEIT) then suddenly everything makes sense.
They seriously DO think we are like that!
And it’s not as if the point hasn’t been explained again and again – not to Aikin and Talisse, who are largely outsiders to this ongoing debate, and should be cut some slack – but to the likes of Rosenau. Let’s just say that it becomes difficult to assume good faith after a while.
What’s misleading about the article, I think, is that it conveys an impression that they’re more critical of new and gnu atheists than they in fact are in the book. They are somewhat critical, about some perceived and debatable aspects, but they are also what many people would consider new atheists themselves. (That “antitheist” bit is the mark of Cain.)
I kind of agree about the arguing though. That’s probably my main disagreement with the book as a whole. I think they have a somewhat rosy view of theist argumentation, perhaps the result of extrapolation from their theist colleagues. They want us to engage with the best theist arguments, not the worst ones – but as far as I can ever tell, the worst ones are ubiquitous in the public discussion while the best ones, if there are any such, are locked away in seminars or somewhere.
I mean…if there really are “best” theist arguments, why don’t they work their way out into the public discussion and make it better? Why don’t the people at BioLogos ever say anything even faintly convincing?
That’s a genuine puzzle for me. I’m taking A&T at their word that there are such arguments, but if there are, why are they so futile and hermetic? Where are they?
I am afraid that I gave up giving Rosenau any benefit of the doubt when it comes his intellectual honesty quite some time ago. I really do not think the truth matters to him anymore, and it is all about PR, spin and framing.
[Disclaimer: I know and have taken courses with Talisse and have read parts of Reasonable Atheism]
Aikin and Talisse are accomplished philosophers at a good university, and they are experts in logic and epistemology, having published between them many articles and books on these subjects. The complaints that these two are guilty of some schoolyard fallacy is hard to take seriously. Go back and read the essay, slowly. It’s not an indictment of gnu atheism, it does not throw the gnus under the bus, it does not object to gnus’ tone, it does not call for coddling the religious. The essay in fact says very little about gnu atheism in general. The essay discusses a kind of critique the authors say they have been charged with (they don’t say the charge came from a gnu), what the authors call “accommodationism as failure of critical nerve”. That gnu atheists don’t all use the term in this way is a point worth stressing, but not a major criticism of Aikin and Talisse. At worst, they have mistaken the critics they’re responding to for a representative sample of gnus. But I don’t even think they’re guilty of that. And they comment directly on gnu atheism only twice in the essay. First, they explicitly agree with gnu atheists that religious beliefs are false. Second, they say they “part ways” with gnus because they, apparently unlike the gnus, think that religious believers aren’t all fools. They here can again be criticized for a sampling error. But let’s face it, some gnus do think precisely this, and they say that they do. Could saying that you “part ways” with gnus be any less critical? They don’t claim that gnus are wrong about anything, only that they “part ways” with them. This is consistent with thinking that gnus are perfectly correct, but thinking that a different strategy should be represented (and maybe there are many different atheist strategies that are good). The Aikin and Talisse essay is solid, it makes use of a good distinction, and shows that a certain attitude among some atheists is confused. Maybe we should use their essay as an opportunity to get clear amongst ourselves what we gnus mean by accommodationism. We don’t all have to agree about this, but we should take note of the various uses of the term, some of which mistake the belief/believer distinction Aikin and Talisse make.
Dan, I take your points, but I guess my more serious concern is what I see as their unjustified confidence in the utility or appropriateness of “arguing” with theists on grounds of reason and evidence. I suspect they’re giving way too much credit to the average religious believer, perhaps because they’re used to arguing with educated people who put forward (even if they’re flawed) academic arguments for the existence of god.
[Note disclaimer above]
Josh,
But then your concern is about Aikin and Talisse’s attitudes about religious believers, not about their attitudes towards gnus. You object to their alleged “[characterization of gnus as] ignorant, shoot-and-deride-first, ask-questions-later bullies.” You attribute this to them and say “They shouldn’t have done that.” But they didn’t do that at all. Many of us jumped the gun. If your concern is about Aikin and Talisse’s unjustified optimism about the willingness of religious believers to engage in rational discussion, then you’re not criticizing Aikin and Talisse. You’re only looking out for them, trying to warn them that they’ve underestimated the vices of religious believers, and so on. I happen to think you are right. But they’ll learn this lesson soon enough. No need for gnus to pile on. And as Ophelia has said several times, the book is top notch and says lots of new stuff. At least people should wait until they’ve read the book weigh in.
Good points Dan. I have no problem believing I might have jumped the gun – I’m one of those tired-of-it-and-touchy people I talked about above:) If I’ve mischaracterized them, I don’t want to, and I’d want to correct that. But to me, the implication in their 3 Quarks article (if you’ll allow me a little room for my hyperbole above) was that they thought of gnu atheists as generally treating the religious as if they were ipso facto stupid. Remember, I can only comment on what I’ve read – I have not taken classes with these gentlemen, nor have I met them. I only know them through that article. Yes, I understand the picture would probably change if I read their whole book. But if so, that makes the deficiencies (in my view) of that article puzzling.
I can see it now: a reference guide called “You Might Be An Accommodationist If…”
New Atheists now have an entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/
Not sure if I agree entirely with the article, but it gives a fairly good description. I’ve no idea why atheism is a highly controversial philosophical position either.
I think I may have jumped the gun on this:
I guess it just evoked shouting forced laughter.
at CONSERVATION EVENTS, no less.
Interesting that the author of that article on the New Atheists is a Philosophy Professor at Westmont College and teaches Christian Apologetics.
http://www.westmont.edu/_offices/president/statement_of_faith.html
http://www.westmont.edu/_academics/departments/philosophy/james-e-taylor.html
Which article?
Aikin and Talisse teach at Vanderbilt.
I think Michael is referring to the author of this.
Which pisses one off, no?
Thanks Ken, I was referring to the article mentioned by Egbert #23.
[note disclaimer above]
Josh,
Thanks for replying. Notice that you’ve now described your worry in terms of an “implication” of Aikin and Talisse’s statements, and not in anything they explicitly said. That’s ok, we are usually responsible for the implications of our expressed views. It’s the nature of this implication that’s now of interest. There’s nothing in the piece that involves a strict (that is, formal) implication to the claim that “gnu atheists as generally treating the religious as if they were ipso facto stupid.” So if there’s something in the piece that has this implication at all, we’re talking about something other and weaker than formal implication, something more like a conversational implication (a la Grice). Once again I do not find anything in their essay that strongly invokes this weaker kind of implication. They present an example of a criticism they have received, they call that criticism “accommodationism as failure of critical nerve,” and they dismantle that charge as drawing upon a conflation between two distinct kinds of evaluation. I do not see any strong implication to a broader commentary on gnus as a whole anywhere in the piece.
Ken Pidcock picks up on the most likely culprit. Aikin and Talisse say, “Part of what fuels the charge of accommodationism is the view that religious believers should be treated with contempt.” Taken in isolation, the does carry the stronger implication you are concerned with. But in the context of the whole essay, it is clear that Aikin and Talisse are referring to “accommodationism” always as the specific charge they are replying to (“accommodationsm as failure of critical nerve”). And accommodationism in that sense is fueled by what they note. So I still don’t see the essay as objectionable on any substantive grounds. Maybe Aikin and Talisse don’t write well for a public audience, or write in a way that invites misreading. But that’s a criticism of their writing style, not their essay
Dan, I really think you’re being far too defensive here. It is not a good piece, and it strongly suggests that they think accommodationism consists in merely being something other than hostile to religious people. You can try construing it like an Act of Parliament, but when you read it in any normal way it certainly gives the impression that they think anti-accommodationism is about a hostile/uncivil stance towards religious believers, and that they accept the terms “accommodationism” and its cognates on the basis that they are going to be civil, non-hostile, and to look at various arguments on their merits.
It would have been very easy for them to come out directly and say, “We are not accommodationists because we don’t argue or claim or believe that religion and science are in any useful sense compatible.” I can’t see anywhere in the essay where they even notice that this is what the accommodationism debate is about. If they wanted to use “accommodationism” in a non-standard sense, they could at least have said so explicitly and referred to the standard senses (i.e. a claim that “science and religion are compatible”; or that we should not say otherwise, even in a civil tone; or something of the kind).
I’m sorry, but it’s a badly-written piece and it does throw allies under the bus. It may not be a strict logical implication – how much ever is when texts are being interpreted? – but the strong impression conveyed to a reasonable person is that they think vocal Gnu Atheists/anti-accommodationists are all about incivility. They have the excuse of not having been involved in various debates, but the fact remains that this is a very destructive idea for people in their position to support publicly (apart from its being false).
I hope they learn from this. I hope their response to our criticism is not as defensive and narrow (“Where’s the logical entailment, dude?”) as yours.
[Disclaimer repeated – I have taken courses with Talisse and have read Reasonable Atheism]
Russell,
Thanks for the interesting response. I’m confused by your claim that I’m being too “defensive.” I aim to defend Aikin and Talisse, and so quite naturally am being defensive in that sense. But perhaps in calling me “defensive” you mean to comment on my psychological state. Amazing that you offer such a diagnosis on the basis of the few short and quite mild-mannered posts (if I may say so) I’ve contributed. How about leaving this kind of thing to the side until I decide I’d like to hire you as my therapist? (No worries, that’s not likely to happen.) Thanks. On to the matter at hand.
I think you need to read Aikin and Talisse’s post again. As you now concede, the post gives an “impression” and “strongly suggests” that they’re anti-gnu. On your blog, thought, you claim something that seems stronger, namely that they have “added to the popular myth” that gnus are nasty and uncivil. Going further than you, Coyne says above “they’re wrong when they say that Gnus spend more time attacking believers than their beliefs.” Coyne is wrong. They do not say that anywhere in the piece. No doubt the piece can be criticized on various grounds. But it seems to me that its main defect is nuance. Given this, I wonder if after a careful read of the piece you’d be able to defend the view that what they wrote “strongly suggests” anything that’s anti-gnu. A defense of this kind would require you to actually cite the piece, avoiding quote0mining,, and show that the anti-gnu interpretation is to be preferred to the natural alternative interpretations. I don’t think you’d succeed at that.
As for the claims about the true meaning of accommodationism and “what the accommodationism debate is about,” I think you’re right that the only debate worth having (and the only sense of “accommodatinoism” worth arguing about) is about science and religion. But the threads on this blog and several others demonstrate that many gnus do not comply with your very sensible useage, and, moreover, use the term in precisely the way that Aikin and Talisse are on about (“accommodationism as a failure of critical nerve”). I too hope Aikin and Talisse join us in this discussion and learn a few things. But they’re not the only ones to need to learn. Thanks again.
Dan, has it occurred to you that those who read A and L’s piece with more distress may actually be offering a reasonable read that’s not absurd on its face? Has it occurred to you that, since you know them personally in an academic setting, that your insider knowledge is causing you to defend them inappropriately? By this I mean that you keep bringing knowledge that none of us have -and none of us could be expected to have – to bear in order to defend a stand-alone piece that can quite reasonably be criticized on its own?
We don’t have to have taken classes with A and L in order to critique the one and only piece we’ve seen by them. We are not being unreasonable by critiquing the piece without having read the book, either. The piece stands or falls on its own, as does every article any of us might publish in various venues, and regardless of how nuanced, how fair, how whatever we may be in our other books (if any).
You think we’re going overboard. Know what I think? You’ve got an emotional or personal button that’s being pushed, and it’s causing you to be excessively defensive. A lot of other people just as intelligent as you read their piece differently. They may not all be wrong. Get off it.
Oh I see, the author of the IEP article is at a Jesus college. That is interesting! It seemed pretty fair from a hasty skim.
Dan,
Go back and read the last two paragraphs of the 3Q piece. How do they define accommodationism? They define it as respect for religious believers not religious beliefs, don’t they? If they had paid any attention to the debates (as Russell pointe out to you), they would never have defined it as such. Accommodationists accept that “true” religion is fully compatible with science. If a religious believer accepts certain key aspects of science (e.g. evolution), then any other religious beliefs they hold are or should be beyond criticism. In other words, as soon as someone accepts evolution he or she automatically become an ally, and not only the believer, but also his or her beliefs must be respected.
[Disclaimer above]
Hi Josh,
Certainly it’s possible that I’m being overly charitable. But rather than turn to the project of diagnosing what might be causing me to defend Aikin and Talisse (which is irrelevant to the issue in any case, and I dare speculate of no interest), why don’t you just give an argument to the effect that the best and most plausible reading of the piece supports the interpretation you’ve given it. I’ve nowhere said that I think that those who read them as anti-gnu are by that fact unintelligent or irrational or anything of the kind. I think they’ve just allowed themselves to get carried away by the admittedly careless way in which the piece was written, but then have claimed that the piece says things it in no way actually says. If I’m right, you, and Russell, and Coyne, and many others on this blog are wrong. Why not just show me I’m wrong? I’m happy to be corrected, if indeed I’m mistaken. I should add that I am not working from any special information– I studied logic with Talisse some years ago, and spoke to him for the first time in several years only a few days ago, and only for a few minutes. I’ve read Reasonable Atheism, but the book does not really address the issue we are discussing. I am not working with any privileged information that is not available to any other reader of the blog. Thanks.
I’m especially glad to see Michael Fugate’s comment, as it’s a clear confirmation of my position. No, Michael, Aikin and Talisse do not “define” accommodationism; they are reporting a charge that was brought against them and responding that accommodationism (so understood) is something that atheists should embrace. If you think that they’re using the wrong definition of “accommodationism,” I agree. But it’s not their definition. It is the definition employed by those who criticized them.
I wonder if Josh regards Fugate as one of the reasonable interpreters of the original piece or not?
Dan, I’ve given you my arguments, and others here have too. This has gone from a good-faith conversation into outright tedium on your part. I’m not going split any more hairs with you over this goddamned blog post. And no, it’s not because I “can’t support my argument” but because you’ve gone beyond excessively picayune into outright obnoxious. Other people read the argument differently from you. No one’s obliged to do a grad-school level textual analysis to your satisfaction. Get the hell over it.
You may be the only person who figured that out from reading the article – I don’t think it is clear. They did not publish any part of the complaint – only paraphrased it? Did the person or persons only accuse them of accommodationism or did they accuse and define it? We don’t know. It is very unclear from the first paragraph who is meant by “atheists” or “atheist” – are they referring to the accuser(s), some subset of atheists or all atheists? They do make it clear in the second paragraph they think accommodation defined as disrespect for religious believers “is commonly employed in atheist circles.” Is this the only definition of accommodationism or just the definition of which they were accused?
I am with everyone but you Dan – this is a very poorly written article. They make no attempt to tie the accusation into the bigger picture of the accommodationist debate. It is as if they don’t even know what the context of the debate is.
[Disclaimer Above]
Josh,
Sorry for being such a drag, but that a piece has been written unclearly does not mean that it’s OK to directly attribute to the authors of that piece claims that are manifestly nowhere in evidence. I would have thought that anyone urging, as you do above, “the need for all of us to be really, super-special-clear about what we mean when we use terms” would readily concede this. Apparently I’m mistaken. As for the claim that you’ve given me arguments, it’s simply demonstrably not so. You’ve articulated a “serious concern”, identified what you take to be an “implication” of Aikin and Talisse’s piece, speculated about my psychology, and charged the piece with being poorly written (I agree), but have offered to me no arguments at all.
Michael Fugate,
Your reply is nearly entirely off target. I have not defended the thought that the piece is crystal clear and not poorly written. And I of course hold the view that many (perhaps all) people have interpreted it differently. But I would have thought then when we are engaging in argument, we are interested in finding out the best, most plausible, interpretation of what someone asserts, not the easiest, quickest, most popular interpretation. The challenge is, once again, as follows: Aikin and Talisse have written in a way which admits of various interpretations. And they use a term in a non-standard way. And perhaps they give the impression that they think that this non-standard usage is standard. If so they are wrong about that and should be criticized. And in any case the essay could have been written in a way which avoids these ambiguities. So far, we agree. Where I think you and others are wrong is in attributing to Aikin and Talisse claims that they in fact do not make. The error is as follows: Aikin and Talisse have written a piece that unfortunately involves ambiguities about crucial terms and therefore admits of several interpretations; but rather than criticize the piece for that ambiguity, critics have begun attributing to Aikin and Talisse claims that they do not assert, not even ambiguously. I am not defending the claim that the piece is well-written or clear. I am defending that claim that the piece does not say that gnus are nasty or inappropriately hostile and does not say a range of other things that other have claimed the piece says. And—guess what!—I’m right about that. Anyone who is claims otherwise needs to read the piece again. And, by the way, if that’s what Josh thinks is a call for “grad-school textual analysis,” I cannot bear to fathom what he thinks plain old reading is.
Dan –
You’re pedantic, dense, and a bore.
Bye.
Sorry to interrupt, but what do you mean by,”Gnu”,?
Dan,
The only reason you are defending the article is because you like the authors – not because it says anything worth saying or that hasn’t been said many times before. In fact, it is so poorly written that one could interpret it a million ways and each would make equal sense.
Eric B, “gnu” is a joke replacement for the “new” in “new atheists.” It hints at a certain scorn for the pejorative use of the phrase.