{"id":423,"date":"2015-01-19T23:00:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T04:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/?p=423"},"modified":"2015-08-28T15:25:36","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T20:25:36","slug":"responding-to-craig-and-hunt-part-4-the-semantic-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2015\/01\/responding-to-craig-and-hunt-part-4-the-semantic-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Craig and Hunt (Part 4 \u2013 the semantic argument)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"branching_future\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the fourth\u00a0installment in a series of posts in which I respond to a recent 2013\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0entitled \u201cPerils of the Open Road\u201d authored by William Lane Craig and David Hunt (hereafter, C&H).\u00a0In their paper C&H critique two papers defending open theism: a 2006\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0(hereafter, RBB) that I co-wrote with Greg Boyd and Tom Belt entitled \u201cOpen Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future\u201d and a 2007\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0(hereafter, DT) by Dale Tuggy entitled \u201cThree Roads to Open Theism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In\u00a0part 1<\/a>\u00a0of this series I laid some groundwork by defining key terms like \u201copen theism\u201d and \u201cfuture contingent\u201d and distinguishing between different types of future contingent proposition (FCP). In\u00a0part 2<\/a>\u00a0I examined C&H’s dismissive discussion of arguments for the incompatibility of future contingency with an epistemically settled future. In part 3<\/a> I replied to C&H’s criticisms of RBB’s and DT’s use of branching diagrams to depict an indeterministic future.<\/p>\n

In this part I reply to\u00a0C&H’s criticisms of RBB’s “semantic” argument for the\u00a0incompatibility thesis<\/em> (IT), the claim that a causally open future entails an alethically open future. As we will see, their criticisms largely miss the mark.<\/p>\n

Overview of the semantic argument<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The semantic argument is developed on pp. 438-446 of RBB. (In a subsequent\u00a0paper<\/a>, “The Philosophical Case for Open Theism” I refine the argument a bit.) The main contention is that when used assertively in a genuinely predictive<\/em> manner, the future tense marker “will” carries a significant degree of causal force<\/em>, such that the predictor must regard occurrence of the predicted event as more likely than not<\/em>. The basic argument for this contention turns\u00a0on the\u00a0principle of charity<\/em>, a fundamental interpretive principle which says that if someone says something that, when taken at face value, it seems to us they are not<\/em> in a good epistemic position to assert, then we\u00a0should not automatically assume that they are saying something stupid, irrational, or otherwise unassertible for them. Rather, we\u00a0should be charitable and\u00a0give them the benefit of the doubt by trying to construe what they say in such a way that either (1) they are not making an assertion or (2) they are asserting a claim other than the face-value one, a claim that would be assertible for them, or (3) reassess our\u00a0opinion of their epistemic position\u2014perhaps they have, or think they have, inside knowledge or evidence that makes the face-value claim assertible.<\/p>\n

For example, if a person says, “The Cubs will win the next World Series” we might rightly wonder how they could be in a good position to assert this given the Cubs’ well-known and rather disappointing post-season track record. The principle of charity says that before we conclude that they are irrationally clinging to an unfounded belief in the Cubs’\u00a0prospects, we should first consider the possibilities that (1) they aren’t speaking assertorically\u2014maybe they are just joking or making a performative utterance like placing a bet, or (2) they are really asserting something else\u2014maybe they are using the word “win” in a loose or\u00a0metaphorical sense (e.g., the Cubs will play hard enough all season to earn a kind of “moral” victory such that they’ll\u00a0deserve<\/em> to win the World Series even if they don’t in fact), or (3) they have inside evidence\u00a0(e.g., scouting reports) that if known would make a Cubs’ victory seem probable, or at least highly likely.<\/p>\n

If this is right, then ordinary predictive claims do not satisfy the Ockhamist semantics favored by C&H. According to the Ockhamist to assert that an event will<\/em> happen is just to say that it subsequently happens without connoting that the event is in any degree\u00a0likely<\/em> to happen (other than that it’s probability is\u00a0non-zero<\/em>).<\/p>\n

In polar opposition to the Ockhamist semantics is the Peircean semantics according to which to assert that something will<\/em> happen is to say that it is inevitable or now-unpreventable. In RBB we do\u00a0not<\/em> argue that ordinary predictive claims satisfy a Peircean semantics. Rather, we argue that ordinary usage is\u00a0closer<\/em> to a Peircean semantics than to an Ockhamist semantics, and since we need a systematic way of construing the causal force of predictions if we’re going to place\u00a0metaphysical\u00a0weight on the truth values of predictive propositions about the future, a Peircean semantics is more fitting. Moreover, such a semantics yields the result that will<\/em> and will not<\/em> propositions about future contingents are uniformly\u00a0false<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Against this line of argument C&H raise several objections.<\/p>\n

1. RBB are inconsistent regarding colloquial usage and causal force<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the first place, C&H seem to think (pp. 62-64) that we inconsistently affirm\u00a0both<\/em> (1) that colloquial predictive uses of “will” can express a wide range of degrees of causal force, and<\/em> (2) that such uses express maximal causal force in accordance with the Peircean semantics. But there is no inconsistency here, for we don’t affirm (2). What we say, rather, is that colloquial usage is\u00a0closer<\/em> to the Peircean semantics than it is to the Ockhamist semantics and thus that\u00a0for philosophical purposes<\/em> we should regiment future-tense propositions in a Peircean manner, using weakening qualifiers like “probably” when non-maximal causal force is intended.<\/p>\n

If there were examples of genuinely predictive uses of “will” that conformed to the Ockhamist semantics, then C&H would have a good case for arguing that philosophical regimentation ought to go in the Ockhamist direction. But if our argument is correct, there aren’t any such examples. C&H, at any rate, don’t supply any.<\/p>\n

2. RBB conflate probability with causal necessity<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In a footnote on p. 64 C&H charge that we conflate probability with causal necessity and contingency. They say,<\/p>\n

Probability has to do with the expectations of a perfectly rational agent, and these expectations may be based on something other than causal determinism. A time traveler, for example, may be certain of the future (it has a probability of 1.0 relative to his background beliefs) despite its causal indeterminacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are three\u00a0problems with this criticism. First, there are several different ways in which the term “probability” is used, the most common being to express frequencies, chances (i.e., propensities or objective tendencies), and credences (i.e., degrees of belief). It is simply false to say that probability\u00a0tout court<\/em> has to do with the expectations of a perfectly rational agent. That is one type of probability, namely, probability construed as idealized rational credence, but it is certainly not the only type. Second, the relevant type of probability for our argument is not idealized rational credence but chance<\/i>, of which it is true that something now has probability 1.0 of coming to pass if and only if it is inevitable or now-unpreventable that it come to pass. Third,\u00a0the counterexample presupposes the metaphysical possibility of forward and backward time-travel, something that is\u00a0notoriously controversial, and which presupposes a linear block ontology of time that itself raises fatalistic worries.<\/p>\n

3. RBB beg\u00a0the\u00a0question<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On p. 64 C&H charge that the semantic argument “begs the question against the traditional position on divine foreknowledge” because<\/p>\n

If God\u2019s omniscience includes future contingent truths, as the tradition\u00a0maintains, then such truths are rationally assertible for God; to deny\u00a0this, on no better grounds than that human beings are not in a position\u00a0to rationally assert them, simply presupposes the falsity of the traditional\u00a0doctrine of divine foreknowledge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This charge\u00a0misses the point. Of course\u00a0propositions\u00a0may be rationally assertible for God that aren’t rationally assertible for humans. That’s true simply because God has access to a much wider evidence-base than humans do. But the semantic argument doesn’t rest on any assumptions about human limitations. It rests solely on the idea that to rationally assert a prediction one must believe the predicted event to be more likely than not<\/em>, and this is true regardless of who the predictor is.<\/p>\n

4. RBB\u00a0overlook restrictions on the principle of charity<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

C&H next charge that for the semantic argument to work we must show that “all<\/em> predictive ‘will’ statements should\u00a0be assigned a Peircean meaning” (p. 64), a very strong conclusion that considerations of rational assertibility are too weak to establish because the principle of charity does not apply in the case of first-person utterances or “when the person\u2019s meaning\u00a0is already clear or subject to clarification” (p. 64). In the first-person case we don’t need it, they say, because we can know directly what we mean when we say that something “will” happen. In the “already clear” case we don’t need it because the meaning is readily apparent.<\/p>\n

Consider a roulette player who\u00a0asserts, \u201cThe ball will land on 20.\u201d …\u00a0[S]uppose we question him about his assertion. \u201cI just know,\u201d he replies.\u00a0At some point we have to take this person at his word. There is no opening\u00a0here for invoking rational assertibility. (pp. 64-65)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In response I reemphasize, first, that we obviously do\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0argue that “all<\/em>\u00a0predictive ‘will’ statements should\u00a0be assigned a Peircean meaning” since we point out that predictive uses of “will” can have a range of degrees of causal force. Our\u00a0recommendation to apply the Peircean semantics is limited to\u00a0philosophical contexts<\/em>. The point is that if we want\u00a0to get metaphysical mileage out of the assumption that certain “will” or “will not” propositions about the future\u00a0are true<\/em>, then we have to control for variations in causal force because otherwise we won’t know precisely what such propositions commit us to. Since\u00a0the Peircean semantics is closer to\u00a0colloquial usage than is the Ockhamist semantics, it makes more sense to regiment in that direction.<\/p>\n

Second, even if in certain circumstances we don’t\u00a0need<\/em> to apply the principle of charity to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of what is said, rational assertibility remains an applicable norm. In the first person case we can imagine the person who confidently said “I just know” pausing to reflect on how, exactly, he does know. If such reflection reveals something\u2014a strong subjective sense of the event’s having a high chance of occurring, perhaps\u2014that he believes to be strongly correlated with the event’s having a high chance of occurring, then his assertion is rational and<\/em> it\u00a0implicitly carries a high degree of causal force. If, on the other hand, reflection reveals nothing<\/em> that he believes to be an indicator of the event’s having a high chance of occurring, then\u00a0he should withdraw<\/em> the assertion and admit frankly that he doesn’t know<\/em>\u00a0that the ball will land on 20. Knowledge, nearly everyone agrees, precludes luck. You can’t properly claim to know something while thinking you just lucked into getting it right.<\/p>\n

Finally, taking a person “at his word” does not mean that we shouldn’t ourselves go on to ask how that person could be in a position to claim knowledge on the matter. It would not be improper for us to think to ourselves that if so-and-so\u00a0knows<\/em> this, then he must have epistemic access to something that indicates the event is highly likely to occur, for if he didn’t, then his getting it right would be mere luck or coincidence, which is insufficient for knowledge.<\/p>\n

5. RBB’s application of the principle of charity has absurd consequences<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On p. 65, C&H charge that if our argument for a Peircean semantics based on the principle of charity were sound, then “many will-statements that would ordinarily be\u00a0regarded as true will instead turn out false.” It is “ironic,” they say,\u00a0that “rational assertibility\u2014a principle of hermeneutical charity\u2014[should yield]\u00a0a semantics under which certain statements are more likely to end\u00a0up false.”<\/p>\n

In response, I introduce\u00a0a distinction between what is strictly true<\/i>, or true without qualification, and what is\u00a0practically true<\/em>, or true enough for practical purposes. Lots of common “truisms” fall into the latter category: “All cows eat grass,” “The sky is blue,” “Haste makes waste” (cf. “He who hesitates is lost”), “Honesty is the best policy,” etc. They aren’t strictly true\u2014it is not hard\u00a0to come up with clear counterexamples\u2014but they are true enough<\/em> to be assertible in the contexts in which people are most likely to utter those\u00a0expressions. “The ground here is flat,” someone says. Is he saying that it’s really<\/em> flat, that it’s absolutely<\/em> flat? No. He’s saying it’s flat enough for current practical purposes. We don’t and shouldn’t expect ordinary language to reflect logically rigorous standards of clarity and precision. Striving for such clarity and precision would be far too onerous in most contexts. It would also be exceedingly\u00a0obnoxious to object to ordinary language assertions because they aren’t strictly true (“The ground’s not flat, you idiot\u2014look, there’s a little anthill over there!”).<\/p>\n

In sum, then, the mere fact that a semantic theory (Peirceanism, in this case) entails that many statements that would “ordinarily” be “regarded” as “true” are not strictly true is innocuous. Indeed, it’s a desideratum. In light of the\u00a0pervasive and\u00a0practically unavoidable\u00a0semantic looseness of much ordinary language, it would be a pretty poor semantic theory that\u00a0didn’t<\/em>\u00a0have that entailment.<\/p>\n

C&H’s remark about irony rests\u00a0on a misunderstanding of what the principle of charity is for. Its purpose is not to make as many statements as possible come out as “true”, either strictly or practically speaking. The principle of charity is a principle of interpretation<\/em>, not a principle of truth. One doesn’t have to suppose that what people say is even remotely true in order to understand what they’re saying. The purpose of the principle of charity is to keep us from dismissing a\u00a0person’s statements too quickly as irrational, absurd, or obviously false. It tells us that if the most straightforward interpretation of a person’s statement would commit them to saying something that seems rationally unassertible\u00a0for them in the context, then we should either (a) consider other possible interpretations, figurative ones perhaps, that would be rationally assertible for them, (b) consider whether the speaker might have other beliefs that would make the original statement rationally assertible for them, or (c) consider whether the person’s utterance is best construed, not as a statement, but as some other kind of speech act.<\/p>\n

6. RBB are wrong that rational assertions require maximal probability<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

C&H continue their barrage:<\/p>\n

[E]ven if we\u00a0granted the authors\u2019 astonishing contention that rational assertions\u00a0should be assigned a probability of 1.0, there would still be circumstances\u00a0in which what are in fact future contingent propositions will be rationally\u00a0asserted. Having rigged the roulette wheel, our gambler may rationally\u00a0believe that the ball\u2019s landing on 20 is not only probable but guaranteed.\u00a0His prediction passes the rational assertibility test. But if a freak martini\u00a0spill causes the gizmo rigging the wheel to short out, then if the ball\u00a0still lands on 20, as it might, what the gambler asserted was a true future\u00a0contingent. (p. 65)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This charge is part straw man, part question-begging, and thoroughly confused.<\/p>\n

In the first place, it’s not clear what C&H mean by\u00a0“probability” here. In a footnote noted under section 2 above, they express the view that all probability is epistemic, a matter of the “expectations of a perfectly rational agent.” But their example of the roulette wheel and the ball’s being “guaranteed” to land on 20 suggests that they are thinking about probability here in terms of objective chance or propensity. In any case, they are simple wrong in attributing to RBB any such “contention” as that “rational assertions\u00a0should be assigned a probability of 1.0.” Not only do we not say such a thing, we make repeatedly clear in our paper that rational assertibility only requires that\u00a0the speaker\u00a0believe<\/em> the proposition asserted to be more likely true than not<\/em> (RBB, pp. 442ff.).<\/p>\n

In the second place, C&H take for granted that the class of future contingent propositions is limited to claims about what either categorically\u00a0will<\/em> or categorically will not<\/em> occur. But this is an unjustified assumption, and one we do not share. (Cf. Part 1<\/a> of this series, where I introduced a distinction between DFCP’s and IFCP’s.) Furthermore,\u00a0we don’t deny that future contingent propositions can be rationally asserted. Sure they can. “There is high probability that the Patriots will win Super Bowl\u00a0XLIX” is a defensible future-oriented claim about what is presumably a future contingent event.<\/p>\n

In the third place, that the roulette ball does still land on 20 despite the martini spill’s shorting out the mechanism that was supposed to “guarantee” that the ball lands on 20 does not entail that the prediction “The ball will land on 20” was\u00a0true<\/em> when it was made. We spend several pages in RBB explicitly arguing against<\/em>\u00a0any such entailment (esp. pp. 444\u2013445).\u00a0For C&H, therefore, to\u00a0assert this as an\u00a0example of a “true” future contingent is simply question-begging.<\/p>\n

7. RBB\u00a0cannot accommodate settled aspects of the future<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, C&H argue (pp. 65\u201366) that RBB can’t account for paradigm examples of causally settled aspects of the future like “The sun will rise tomorrow.” Their argument is that because of God’s freedom there aren’t<\/em> any causally settled aspects of the future:<\/p>\n

Since God is free, then barring limitations (e.g.,\u00a0promises) he has imposed on himself, nothing about the future is causally\u00a0settled, for God could annihilate the world tomorrow. So there won\u2019t be\u00a0any true statements about the future. This makes havoc of their claim to\u00a0be providing the most plausible interpretation of colloquial usage, since\u00a0such usage is filled with claims about the future. (p. 66)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But why should any Christian\u00a0<\/em>theist believe that God is “free” is this radical sense? Why would the God who in Jesus died to save the world from sin and death regard the abrupt annihilation of the Earth as an open option? At any rate, it’s unclear why ordinary language claims about the future must regard this as a salient possibility. As we\u00a0argue in RBB, rational assertibility requires that the speaker\u00a0believe<\/em> that predicted events are more likely to occur than not. So even if one regards abrupt divine annihilation as\u00a0possible<\/em>, so long as one doesn’t think it’s\u00a0probable<\/em>, one can still make genuine predictions.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Based on their\u00a0scattershot barrage of objections against RBB’s semantic argument for a Peircean semantics, C&H claim to have shown that the semantic argument is an “unqualified failure” (p. 66). It seems to me that that description is much more accurate when applied to their own objections\u00a0against the semantic argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the fourth\u00a0installment in a series of posts in which I respond to a recent 2013\u00a0paper\u00a0entitled \u201cPerils of the Open Road\u201d authored by William Lane Craig and David Hunt (hereafter, C&H).\u00a0In their paper C&H critique two papers defending open theism: a 2006\u00a0paper\u00a0(hereafter, RBB) that I co-wrote with Greg Boyd and Tom Belt entitled \u201cOpen\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,30,15,41,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alethic-openness","category-epistemic-openness","category-openness-of-the-future","category-semantics","category-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions\/564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}