Webinar: Properly Basic Islamic Belief — Ibn Taymiyya & Reformed Epistemology (2020-10-21) ​

0:00:13 brothers and sisters and friends i hope
0:00:15 you're all well in shout allah thank you
0:00:17 very much everybody for
0:00:18 for tuning in um i hope you've yanni
0:00:21 inshallah been taking benefit from
0:00:23 some of the other uh webinar sessions
0:00:26 and uh inshallah you'll also take
0:00:28 something away from
0:00:30 this one as well obviously sapience
0:00:33 institute is is new
0:00:34 and um we have a you know a number of
0:00:38 things set up
0:00:38 in the near future inshallah in terms of
0:00:40 webinars and
0:00:42 essays and workshops and lectures and so
0:00:45 on and so forth
0:00:46 in there um so yeah
0:00:49 let's get straight into it because i do
0:00:51 have a few quite a few slides to get
0:00:53 through
0:00:54 and um you know
0:00:57 i know that you're probably busy and so
0:00:59 on so yeah inshallah
0:01:00 let's get on so obviously the title of
0:01:02 this session is properly basic islamic
0:01:04 belief
0:01:05 in tamiya and reformed epistemology
0:01:08 so it's it might be the case that for
0:01:11 many of you or at least for some of you
0:01:14 some of these terms and that you're
0:01:16 going to come across
0:01:17 uh you may not be familiar with it may
0:01:19 be the first time that you're
0:01:21 you know hearing these terms and so i'm
0:01:24 going to do my best insha allah to try
0:01:26 and define them for you
0:01:28 and to make everything clear for
0:01:30 instance properly basic belief or
0:01:32 reformed epistemology
0:01:34 on this the title here might not be
0:01:37 something familiar but uh being building
0:01:39 that by god's permission
0:01:41 at the end of the session in chat online
0:01:43 will be it will be
0:01:45 clear okay so well let's get into
0:01:48 inshallah
0:01:49 um so we'll just
0:01:52 give an outline as to what we intend to
0:01:55 cover and get
0:01:56 and get through in this uh in this
0:01:58 session so the
0:02:00 the general thesis or theme of the
0:02:03 webinar
0:02:04 is going to be looking at something
0:02:06 called reformed epistemology
0:02:08 now in one of the slides i'm going to go
0:02:09 through that in more depth
0:02:11 but just as um you know just to get you
0:02:14 familiar with it
0:02:15 performed epistemology is basically the
0:02:17 thesis or the idea
0:02:19 that religious belief can be rational
0:02:23 um even without arguments so that's
0:02:26 the general theme of this discussion and
0:02:28 we're going to try and frame this in a
0:02:30 unique islamic way inshallah
0:02:33 and so we're from the epistemology in
0:02:35 the evidential subjection so we're going
0:02:37 to
0:02:37 try to define formal epistemology
0:02:40 understand the thesis
0:02:41 and also understand um what it's coming
0:02:44 up against what is it responding to
0:02:46 why is it a position that philosophers
0:02:49 of religion have taken
0:02:50 and so yeah inshallah and then we're
0:02:53 going to look at some
0:02:55 concepts um such as knowledge and
0:02:58 justification and belief
0:03:00 and to try and help us flesh out this
0:03:03 idea
0:03:04 that belief in god or even in islam
0:03:07 there can be something sufficient for
0:03:10 knowledge it can be justified
0:03:13 even in the absence of arguments so in
0:03:15 order to build a strong thesis on this
0:03:18 point
0:03:18 obviously we need to get familiar with
0:03:20 some um
0:03:22 concepts and terms that will allow us to
0:03:24 do that in an academic way
0:03:27 and so we're going to look at the idea
0:03:29 of knowledge and what
0:03:30 sort of conditions that someone might
0:03:32 need
0:03:33 in order for their beliefs to have it
0:03:37 also we're going to look at a particular
0:03:39 concept
0:03:40 called warrant and this is linked to the
0:03:43 idea of
0:03:44 our faculties uh our faculty that aim at
0:03:47 um
0:03:48 giving us beliefs like our perceptual
0:03:51 faculties hearing sight and so on and
0:03:53 reason um and that's a lot to do with
0:03:56 them functioning
0:03:58 properly as they ought to it's going to
0:04:00 be integral to
0:04:02 what we're going to talk about in
0:04:04 relation to knowledge
0:04:05 and um as i said we're going to try and
0:04:08 develop this in
0:04:09 some unique islamic way um and we're
0:04:12 going to be drawing on the ideas of the
0:04:14 um damascene 14th century theologian
0:04:21 and we're going to offer a model based
0:04:23 on some of his ideas
0:04:25 um principally the idea of fitla and
0:04:29 we're going to look at how this can
0:04:32 relate
0:04:32 to belief in god as being
0:04:36 something that's uh let's say justified
0:04:38 without arguments
0:04:40 and then we're going to try and look at
0:04:41 extending that model
0:04:43 for specifically islamic belief
0:04:47 um as well and then we might discuss
0:04:49 some potential problems what are some of
0:04:50 the problems with this
0:04:52 thesis or this model that we've offered
0:04:53 or offering and what are the
0:04:56 what are some you know solutions to
0:04:58 those problems
0:05:00 and um finally we'll try to take your
0:05:03 questions
0:05:04 uh in so yeah uh
0:05:07 let's let's get into the actual session
0:05:09 now
0:05:10 so we begin with this idea of an
0:05:12 evidentialist objection to this
0:05:15 so this is an objection
0:05:18 to um belief in god uh
0:05:21 okay so let me try to paint a picture
0:05:24 for you to understand where we're coming
0:05:25 from
0:05:26 um and we're looking at the idea of
0:05:30 burden of proof here now many of you
0:05:32 have probably
0:05:33 had discussions with uh atheists or
0:05:36 people who don't believe in god
0:05:38 and um they will they'll often suggest
0:05:41 that the
0:05:42 the burden of proof uh in regards to
0:05:44 that belief
0:05:45 rests solely on the the shoulders of the
0:05:48 believing god
0:05:50 it's up to them to to um back up their
0:05:53 claim so to speak
0:05:54 they are the ones who need to give us uh
0:05:57 some arguments
0:05:58 uh you know in order for for us to um
0:06:03 wants to be warranted i'm just saying
0:06:05 there is no audio
0:06:06 in in one of the questions so just to
0:06:09 double check once again
0:06:10 um then everybody can hear me child
0:06:13 while you can just
0:06:14 verify so
0:06:17 um yeah alrighty so
0:06:20 often atheists will suggest you know
0:06:22 believes in god that they have a burden
0:06:23 of proof they need to
0:06:24 um you know demonstrate to to uh
0:06:27 uh to non-believers why why we should
0:06:29 believe in god
0:06:31 and um they they run an argument
0:06:34 maybe not uh as sophisticated as this
0:06:37 one but
0:06:38 uh you know your average atheist runs an
0:06:40 argument that
0:06:41 draws on an intuition a little bit like
0:06:44 like this so um they'll say something
0:06:47 like
0:06:48 belief in god uh you know it's justified
0:06:52 or warranted we're going to look at the
0:06:54 term warranted
0:06:55 um in more detail uh
0:06:58 in one of the sites they'll say you know
0:07:00 believe in god is justified or warranted
0:07:02 only by way of good argument
0:07:04 and then they'll say but there is no
0:07:06 good argument for belief in god
0:07:09 and therefore belief in god is not
0:07:11 justified or warranted
0:07:13 so this is the you know standard
0:07:16 objection
0:07:17 to theists who um you know don't offer
0:07:20 an argument or don't put some evidence
0:07:22 on the table so to speak
0:07:24 um you know the atheist will um will lay
0:07:27 something down
0:07:28 probably similar to this and this is
0:07:30 called the evidentialist objection to
0:07:31 theism
0:07:32 there's a traditional way in which um
0:07:35 people will go about in responding to it
0:07:38 and i'll just mention that
0:07:39 in a moment but um we're not going to
0:07:41 take that traditional approach so we're
0:07:43 going to take a different approach from
0:07:44 child land that's the um
0:07:46 the the novelty of reformed epistemology
0:07:49 as a concept
0:07:50 remember the idea that religious belief
0:07:53 can be rational without arguments
0:07:55 but why think that why why why think
0:07:59 that this is the case
0:08:00 um why think that belief in god is
0:08:02 justified only by way of good arguments
0:08:05 um you know is that sounds
0:08:08 plausible maybe at face value but is it
0:08:11 something that we should necessarily
0:08:12 accept
0:08:14 i i doubt it now
0:08:17 it seems to me that there are a number
0:08:19 of different beliefs that we
0:08:21 hold and we're very much rational in
0:08:24 holding them uh we're justified in doing
0:08:27 that
0:08:27 and we don't have very good arguments
0:08:30 um for these beliefs and in fact even if
0:08:33 we
0:08:34 did have good arguments most of us if
0:08:37 not all of us
0:08:38 um don't hold that belief in question
0:08:41 on the basis of those arguments even if
0:08:43 they exist
0:08:44 and for the most part i don't think that
0:08:46 they do at least not in a conclusive
0:08:48 sense
0:08:49 so consider belief in the external world
0:08:52 we believe that there is a world out
0:08:53 there before
0:08:54 this world is is real in the objective
0:08:56 sense this is not just a figment of our
0:08:58 imagination this is not a dream
0:09:00 and that's a belief that we hold as firm
0:09:03 as any other
0:09:04 and and yet you know philosophers like
0:09:07 to speculate
0:09:08 and they like to imagine well um here's
0:09:11 my
0:09:11 my handy animation so they like to
0:09:14 imagine well
0:09:15 isn't it logically possible that you
0:09:17 know you are a brain
0:09:19 in a jar and there's some alien like
0:09:21 species
0:09:22 you know putting probes into it and then
0:09:24 it's sort of projecting this
0:09:26 dreamlike world in the figment of the
0:09:29 imagination of this brain which is
0:09:30 ultimately you and so this is what this
0:09:33 world is
0:09:33 this is what this world is now of course
0:09:35 for most of us
0:09:36 you know this is obvious as you know
0:09:39 when our uh
0:09:40 as long as we're in sound mind of sound
0:09:42 mind it's pretty clear to us
0:09:44 that obviously the world is real out
0:09:46 there this isn't just a dream
0:09:48 and this isn't just a figment of our
0:09:50 imagination
0:09:52 but do we dismiss
0:09:55 this logical possibility by way of
0:09:58 arguments or do we
0:10:01 defend the belief in the external world
0:10:02 by way of arguments
0:10:04 well it just doesn't seem to me that we
0:10:07 do
0:10:08 and could we could we do so well you see
0:10:11 it seems that any argument that we we
0:10:14 offer
0:10:15 any reason that's accessible to our own
0:10:18 consciousness that we think about that
0:10:19 we construct
0:10:20 and that we offer it seems that we're
0:10:22 already assuming in some sense
0:10:25 that you know the world is real as we
0:10:27 see it um you know in order to
0:10:29 to construct an argument and so on you
0:10:31 have to think well
0:10:32 yeah that this is something possible
0:10:34 this is something that i can do
0:10:36 because the world is real my argument uh
0:10:38 released something objective
0:10:40 and um and so on so it seems to me that
0:10:44 you know we can't really escape the
0:10:46 problem by way of argument
0:10:47 but but that's not not not something to
0:10:49 worry about and
0:10:50 and it's not a belief that we um we hold
0:10:53 by the way by way of arguments i believe
0:10:54 we hold
0:10:55 intuitively and yet we all would you
0:10:58 know
0:10:59 defend it um you know
0:11:02 until the cows come home as as we say
0:11:04 here in
0:11:05 england um you know without
0:11:09 needing arguments that's one example and
0:11:12 this belief we would say is rational
0:11:14 what about belief in other minds that is
0:11:15 to say what about belief in other
0:11:17 persons
0:11:18 we believe that there are other persons
0:11:20 out there in the world around us
0:11:22 we see plenty of people walking out on
0:11:24 the streets going to school going
0:11:26 shopping and we see all these different
0:11:28 bodies walking
0:11:29 amongst us um do we do we think that
0:11:32 they are just
0:11:33 mere sort of robotic machines that don't
0:11:36 have
0:11:37 conscious mental states like we do
0:11:40 states like you know um i
0:11:42 feel this and i think that or they think
0:11:45 about something or they
0:11:46 reflect um you know well you think they
0:11:50 obviously have these
0:11:51 mental conscious states just like i do
0:11:53 just like you do
0:11:55 um but do i do i hold that belief
0:11:59 by way of argument do i argue um you
0:12:02 know from something of well
0:12:03 you know they look quite similar to me
0:12:05 they behave and react in a similar to it
0:12:07 a similar way to me
0:12:09 and therefore they probably are similar
0:12:11 to me in the sense that they have
0:12:12 conscious mental states therefore they
0:12:13 they're similar to me in that sense no
0:12:16 we don't construct arguments like that
0:12:17 it's
0:12:18 obvious you know when we're born we
0:12:19 don't we don't question um
0:12:22 the conscious mental state of our mother
0:12:24 it's very obvious that they are a
0:12:26 person that's conscious like us so
0:12:29 again this belief seems to be entirely
0:12:31 justified and rational for us
0:12:33 and even in the absence of arguments we
0:12:35 really we believe it
0:12:36 intuitively and it just seems to me that
0:12:38 the arguments
0:12:39 for it are just not strong anyway so
0:12:42 even if we have arguments
0:12:43 they don't they don't seem to do very
0:12:45 much by by way of um
0:12:47 proving it um conclusively
0:12:50 so that's the first point
0:12:55 now belief in the past
0:12:58 what about belief in the past again some
0:13:00 people might say well couldn't we have
0:13:02 been
0:13:02 you know created five minutes ago
0:13:05 with um memories that were implanted
0:13:09 within us um you know
0:13:12 memories of past events which didn't
0:13:14 really occur
0:13:15 um you know it's not logically possible
0:13:18 but of course we don't we don't
0:13:20 suspect that's the case we know it's
0:13:22 pretty obvious
0:13:23 that we weren't created just five
0:13:25 minutes ago and could we
0:13:27 could we prove this by way of arguments
0:13:29 well it's it's
0:13:30 doubtful that we could prove it by way
0:13:32 of a non-circular argument because
0:13:35 when i think about the memories that i
0:13:37 have
0:13:39 um obviously i'm using the the you know
0:13:42 my memory to form the belief about them
0:13:44 so if i want to demonstrate that i have
0:13:46 these memories that really happened
0:13:48 you know it seems like i can't do
0:13:49 anything but use and assume
0:13:52 the truthfulness of the the thing in
0:13:54 question
0:13:55 namely you know my memory corresponding
0:13:58 to real things
0:13:59 that happened so again it seems we have
0:14:02 this belief intuitively it seems to be
0:14:03 rational justified for us
0:14:05 and yet we don't have arguments
0:14:08 for it or we don't believe this by way
0:14:11 of arguments
0:14:13 so what about the reliability of our
0:14:16 faculties
0:14:17 well what i mean is you know we have
0:14:19 faculties for cognition
0:14:21 faculties for thought and reason and
0:14:23 forming beliefs
0:14:24 um we assume in some sense that these
0:14:26 faculties are not fallacious they're not
0:14:28 just
0:14:29 um making constant errors that they're
0:14:31 actually getting as
0:14:33 some sort of truth um out there in the
0:14:35 world you know
0:14:36 they're aimed at true belief when i form
0:14:38 the belief that there is this
0:14:39 laptop screen in front of me um you know
0:14:42 if i thought my faculties were
0:14:44 fallacious
0:14:45 then then i couldn't trust that belief
0:14:47 but obviously
0:14:49 we don't think like that and even if i
0:14:51 wanted to foremost
0:14:52 perform my doubt or my skeptical
0:14:55 argument
0:14:56 i have to rely on those faculties and i
0:14:58 have to think that all those faculties
0:14:59 are capable
0:15:00 in some sense of forming an argument
0:15:03 that's
0:15:03 reliable plausible uh something along
0:15:06 those lines
0:15:08 so what about our belief in god then
0:15:11 remember
0:15:12 the evidentialist he thinks that um you
0:15:15 know belief in god is is
0:15:17 is something that needs to be
0:15:19 demonstrated by way of arguments
0:15:20 but we've seen like at least a few
0:15:22 beliefs
0:15:24 which are perfectly rational which we
0:15:26 can hold justifiably
0:15:28 and yet we don't have arguments
0:15:30 necessarily for those so we don't
0:15:31 believe them by way of arguments
0:15:33 so why would our believing god be so
0:15:35 different why is it not immune
0:15:37 from this same requirement what sort of
0:15:40 suspicious or suspects about that belief
0:15:43 that it couldn't be um held rationally
0:15:46 without um needing arguments
0:15:51 so here comes reformed epistemology and
0:15:54 this is the novelty of it
0:15:57 first of all the novelty is of course um
0:16:01 rejecting the traditional approach when
0:16:04 i say rejecting it doesn't reject it
0:16:06 um it allows it but it's not the
0:16:09 approach
0:16:09 that it takes what i mean here is that
0:16:12 if you remember our evidentialist
0:16:14 objection
0:16:15 said that belief in god is justified if
0:16:17 and only if
0:16:18 you know there are good arguments um but
0:16:21 there are no good arguments therefore
0:16:22 that belief isn't justified
0:16:24 now um the traditional
0:16:28 theological approach would be to accept
0:16:31 the basic principle underlying this
0:16:34 argument but rejected by way of offering
0:16:38 arguments
0:16:39 so they would say well yeah okay premise
0:16:41 one that's
0:16:42 fine but premise two you know we reject
0:16:45 that because there are good arguments
0:16:47 for god's existence and therefore we are
0:16:48 justified
0:16:50 where you're not so that's the sort of
0:16:51 traditional theological approach
0:16:53 um which within western theological
0:16:56 philosophical history
0:16:58 is referred to as natural theology sort
0:17:00 of the way
0:17:01 a way of um demonstrating god's
0:17:04 existence
0:17:04 in reference to things in the world
0:17:06 rather than
0:17:08 in reference to scripture in in the
0:17:10 islamic tradition we find this very much
0:17:12 taken up by the discipline of reinman
0:17:16 so yeah but the reform that this
0:17:18 semologist
0:17:19 um takes a different approach the
0:17:21 reformed approach is
0:17:23 to reject premise one
0:17:27 um i'm aware of the term epistemology by
0:17:30 the way not being familiar to some of
0:17:31 you so
0:17:32 far but that's okay again the basic
0:17:35 thesis is just about
0:17:36 um belief in god or religious belief
0:17:38 being rational without arguments i will
0:17:40 try and define epistemology
0:17:42 in another slide perhaps the next one
0:17:43 around let's see um
0:17:46 so the reformed approach is to say
0:17:49 this argument falls down not simply
0:17:52 because we have good arguments
0:17:54 because even if we didn't have arguments
0:17:57 that's not a problem it rejects premise
0:17:59 one namely the idea that uh
0:18:02 belief in god is justified if and only
0:18:05 if
0:18:06 there are good arguments so this is the
0:18:09 approach
0:18:10 that we're going to take now uh or we're
0:18:12 going to try and build that
0:18:14 thesis um andrew moon
0:18:17 in his paper recent work in reformed
0:18:19 epistemology which
0:18:21 i would recommend as a good introduction
0:18:23 although it's not the best there are a
0:18:24 couple others
0:18:26 you could read before this one i think
0:18:28 it's
0:18:29 you know probably the third best intro
0:18:33 for you to read it does go into a bit of
0:18:35 detail that you don't need
0:18:37 in terms of a basic introduction but
0:18:39 moon summarizes the thesis as i've said
0:18:41 the thesis
0:18:43 reform epistemology is the thesis or the
0:18:45 idea that religious belief can be
0:18:47 rational
0:18:47 and i put justified and warranted as
0:18:50 well
0:18:51 these are concepts we're gonna um you
0:18:53 know touch on
0:18:54 in the next slides without arguments
0:18:57 um so that's that's a basic thesis and
0:19:01 this is what
0:19:02 we're going to try to do in chat online
0:19:05 i just want to again double check
0:19:06 everybody is with me i'm
0:19:09 i'm seeing that some people are
0:19:10 struggling to hear me my microphone is
0:19:12 not the best
0:19:13 but uh all i can say is do your very
0:19:16 best to
0:19:17 turn the sound up as much as possible
0:19:21 and insha'allah um things will be okay
0:19:25 all right so gathering our conceptual
0:19:29 token
0:19:29 now i've said so far that we want to
0:19:32 offer
0:19:33 um a model of reformed epistemology we
0:19:35 want to
0:19:36 um show how it's possible that our
0:19:39 belief in god
0:19:41 and uh by extension even our belief in
0:19:44 islam which we'll get to
0:19:45 can be rational even if we don't have
0:19:47 good arguments
0:19:48 but if we want to build a robust thesis
0:19:51 it's a robust model
0:19:52 we're going to have to gather our own
0:19:54 little toolkit of concepts
0:19:56 we don't need rulers and pencils and
0:19:58 spanners and screwdrivers of course
0:20:00 we need concepts we need um ideas
0:20:04 that are going to help us flesh out this
0:20:06 thesis in a in an academic way
0:20:08 insha'allah so
0:20:09 this is what we're going to try and do
0:20:11 first of all we're going to try and
0:20:12 gather our concepts
0:20:13 and we're going to take those concepts
0:20:15 and apply those concepts
0:20:17 to the model itself and childbirth
0:20:20 so epistemology you know just to clarify
0:20:22 what do we mean by epistemology so
0:20:24 epistemology is a sub-branch or
0:20:27 sub-discipline
0:20:28 of philosophy so philosophy um
0:20:32 you know it's debatable what what the
0:20:34 definition of it is but you might think
0:20:37 of it as the discipline of using reason
0:20:40 uh to essentially answer the fundamental
0:20:43 questions
0:20:44 uh of life and that can be broken into
0:20:47 different
0:20:48 um components so you might have um
0:20:51 a philosophy that looks at religion
0:20:53 looks at specifically
0:20:54 religious questions that we try to use
0:20:56 reason to answer
0:20:58 and that's what we're doing here we're
0:20:59 thinking about um
0:21:01 the existence of god that for instance
0:21:03 whether he exists whether we can be
0:21:05 justified in believing in existence we
0:21:06 have other branches of um
0:21:08 philosophy like ethics which looks at um
0:21:11 that moral truth
0:21:12 could there be such a thing as as moral
0:21:14 truths that's a meta ethical question
0:21:16 and and if they are how could we um
0:21:19 come to know these for instance and um
0:21:22 and there are different theories
0:21:24 about what constitutes the good and so
0:21:26 on now epistemology
0:21:28 is another branch epistemology is
0:21:30 concerned specifically
0:21:32 with knowledge and so
0:21:35 what are the conditions that our belief
0:21:37 might need such that
0:21:40 we can say oh this belief is not just a
0:21:42 mere beliefs not just an opinion there
0:21:43 this this is knowledge
0:21:45 and it looks at concepts like
0:21:46 justification right rationality what
0:21:48 does it mean for you to be justified
0:21:51 and holding your belief and how does
0:21:53 that relate to
0:21:54 knowledge so that's broadly
0:21:58 and very roughly epistemology and um
0:22:01 uh insha'allah you know any of you who
0:22:03 want to
0:22:05 read more you can do and you know there
0:22:08 are plenty of
0:22:09 basic introductions online so
0:22:13 we're gonna now i'm trying to list some
0:22:15 of the concepts that we're gonna look at
0:22:16 these are
0:22:17 concepts that we're gonna try to put in
0:22:18 our toolkit and apply
0:22:20 to our model
0:22:23 we're gonna look at a very sort of
0:22:26 rudimentary
0:22:28 introductory account of knowledge which
0:22:30 is
0:22:32 sometimes as a tripartite definition
0:22:35 and because it includes three components
0:22:37 namely
0:22:38 belief truth and justification and we're
0:22:40 going to look at whether that is
0:22:42 a sufficient account for knowledge
0:22:45 and we're going to look at another
0:22:46 concept called warrant which i'll just
0:22:49 leave it as it is for now
0:22:50 and proper functionalism which is a an
0:22:53 account of what warrant is
0:22:55 um which will become clear as soon as
0:22:57 we're going to look at the difference
0:22:58 between
0:22:59 basic beliefs and non-basic beliefs now
0:23:02 if you remember the
0:23:03 first slide the very title of this
0:23:05 webinar
0:23:06 uses properly basic islamic belief and
0:23:09 so
0:23:10 in sha allah after we've got that
0:23:12 concept it's going to be clear
0:23:13 what my title actually meant at the very
0:23:15 beginning so we have basically these
0:23:16 numbers
0:23:17 we have probably basically that'll be
0:23:19 clear insha'allah
0:23:21 okay so
0:23:24 let's look at this sort of rudimentary
0:23:26 introductory account and knowledge
0:23:30 um as being jtb
0:23:33 justified true belief so
0:23:36 let's give you give you an example um
0:23:40 let's suppose you have a belief you
0:23:42 believe that um all
0:23:44 elephants are pink in color this is a
0:23:47 belief that you just find yourself
0:23:48 having it just comes to you
0:23:49 spontaneously
0:23:51 um and um yeah you believe it to be true
0:23:55 now could you know that um or
0:23:59 would you know uh that's true
0:24:02 would that belief be sufficient for
0:24:04 knowledge um
0:24:05 well obviously it wouldn't and um
0:24:08 there's an obvious reason why because
0:24:10 it's missing
0:24:11 a vital ingredient and well what's that
0:24:14 ingredient
0:24:15 obviously that ingredient is truth it
0:24:17 misses
0:24:18 the ingredient of truth the reason why
0:24:20 your belief that elephants
0:24:22 are all pink in color couldn't
0:24:24 constitute knowledge
0:24:25 is because it simply isn't true and
0:24:28 knowledge
0:24:30 necessarily assumes that we're talking
0:24:32 here of something that's true
0:24:35 all right so we know that having a mere
0:24:38 belief
0:24:38 is not sufficient for us to have
0:24:41 knowledge
0:24:42 well what about a
0:24:46 true belief if i have a belief that's
0:24:48 true
0:24:49 then surely i can know it so let's
0:24:51 suppose
0:24:52 um you have another belief you believe
0:24:57 um i've used this example before um
0:25:01 let's suppose you believe that
0:25:02 accrington stanley
0:25:05 are going to beat manchester united five
0:25:08 nil
0:25:09 in the third round of the ethical for
0:25:12 those of you not familiar with these
0:25:13 things this is football um i don't know
0:25:16 if people are from different places but
0:25:17 yeah so imagine you've got two teams
0:25:19 playing football
0:25:20 um you know i'm using manchester united
0:25:23 in this example because i don't
0:25:24 i don't support them i spot liverpool so
0:25:26 i want them to lose in the example
0:25:28 um anyway sorry for those who think
0:25:31 otherwise
0:25:32 uh so there's a big golfing class in the
0:25:35 two teams and um
0:25:36 and so you know if you just if you have
0:25:39 the belief that you know manchester
0:25:40 united
0:25:40 lose at their home stadium five nil
0:25:42 they're gonna be knocked out of the
0:25:43 competition
0:25:44 and you know that they have all of their
0:25:46 star players key players in hackington
0:25:48 who are already you know nowhere near
0:25:52 the quality of manchester united also
0:25:54 have key players missing from their side
0:25:56 um but then lo and behold it turns out
0:26:00 that um manchester united lose five nil
0:26:04 at home and you were right all along so
0:26:07 you had a belief and that belief turned
0:26:11 out to be
0:26:11 true but did you know
0:26:15 that this was gonna happen did you know
0:26:17 that manchester united were gonna lose
0:26:18 five now well
0:26:19 we'd be inclined to say now of course
0:26:21 you didn't know it was i mean i guess it
0:26:23 was um
0:26:24 a case of epistemic luck you had a lucky
0:26:28 belief that turned out to be true
0:26:30 so a mere belief isn't sufficient for
0:26:33 knowledge
0:26:34 true belief isn't even sufficient for
0:26:36 knowledge
0:26:37 there seems to be something else that
0:26:39 we're lacking here
0:26:41 um it seems that
0:26:44 we are lacking some reason or some
0:26:48 connection um or ground
0:26:51 that supports our true belief and this
0:26:54 is known as justification so
0:26:56 let's suppose you have a third belief
0:26:58 you believe that it's raining outside
0:27:01 you look out your window and you see the
0:27:03 rain you know steaming down against the
0:27:05 rooftops across your street and you hear
0:27:07 the pitter-patter sound
0:27:09 of the rain you know splattering across
0:27:12 uh not across on your windows
0:27:16 um and and it actually is raining it
0:27:19 seems that you have a belief that belief
0:27:21 is
0:27:21 true and you have justification for that
0:27:24 but it seems that
0:27:25 you know you can hear the sound of rain
0:27:28 you can
0:27:29 see the sound of rain and maybe even if
0:27:30 you have a window open you can kind of
0:27:32 smell the effects
0:27:34 of rain on the grass or the soil or
0:27:37 something like that so
0:27:37 it seems you have a a um
0:27:41 account of knowledge here doesn't it it
0:27:43 seems though you know that that's true
0:27:44 you have a justify true belief and
0:27:45 therefore
0:27:46 that's sufficient for knowledge
0:27:50 so um just to sort of
0:27:53 put this a little bit more clearly um
0:27:57 i want to um to help you by clarifying
0:28:00 what i mean by justification
0:28:02 so justification is um
0:28:05 roughly the idea at least this is the
0:28:08 way it's
0:28:09 being used predominantly in the 20th
0:28:12 century um and even 21st century
0:28:16 um epistemology but certainly in the
0:28:18 20th century
0:28:19 it's the idea of um well
0:28:22 even in western epistemology per se but
0:28:24 it's the idea of um
0:28:27 fulfilling your your epistemic duties it
0:28:29 seems you have
0:28:30 a sort of duty to um try
0:28:34 and access the evidence for yourself to
0:28:36 try and
0:28:37 um counter some objections to your
0:28:40 belief
0:28:41 and to have some reason that you you can
0:28:44 reflectively access
0:28:46 that supports a belief that you you have
0:28:50 so that's what we mean roughly by
0:28:51 justification
0:28:53 and so it seems as i mentioned in our
0:28:55 reign example
0:28:56 you have um these sensory
0:29:00 perceptual beliefs that are accessed to
0:29:02 you
0:29:03 you have this strong the strong seeming
0:29:06 um and and so it seems that you have
0:29:10 you have what we call justification now
0:29:12 subhanallah just reminded me that
0:29:14 on the slide um on reformed epistemology
0:29:19 i had a picture
0:29:20 of like a head with a tree inside it and
0:29:24 many of you are probably wondering why
0:29:26 on earth i i had that
0:29:29 uh why i had that picture and i forgot
0:29:33 to
0:29:33 mention why um that has any
0:29:36 relation whatever whatsoever to perform
0:29:39 the epistemology well
0:29:41 it the idea is that for instance when
0:29:43 you when you see
0:29:44 a tree outside or in front of you it
0:29:47 this
0:29:48 uh sensuous imagery just impresses
0:29:51 itself on your mind almost as if
0:29:53 you have this image the strong seaming
0:29:56 of the tree the image in the mind that's
0:29:58 being pressed upon
0:29:59 and so you have this image you have this
0:30:01 reason that's accessible to you
0:30:03 and reformed epistemology can be seen as
0:30:06 saying that
0:30:07 but you know in different ways that it's
0:30:10 possible that
0:30:11 you know the presence or the awareness
0:30:13 of god can be sort of impressed upon the
0:30:15 mind
0:30:16 in a way that's similar of course not in
0:30:19 the sense of seeing imagery
0:30:21 but in the sense of being pressed upon
0:30:22 the mind so
0:30:24 yeah i'm sorry i didn't mention that um
0:30:26 but but not to worry so
0:30:28 this is what we mean by by by knowledge
0:30:30 as
0:30:31 has been construed in terms of justified
0:30:33 true belief
0:30:36 however although it seems like a
0:30:38 plausible account
0:30:40 um so far
0:30:43 um it's not actually a count that
0:30:46 anybody accepts anymore
0:30:47 in epistemology and philosophy there is
0:30:49 a problem with this and um
0:30:52 this is known as the gettier problem
0:30:53 there is a famous um
0:30:55 philosopher who is um
0:30:58 called edmund gettier who wrote a famous
0:31:01 paper i think in 1963 it was only three
0:31:04 pages long but it sort of transformed
0:31:07 the whole discipline of epistemology
0:31:10 and he showed conclusively really by
0:31:13 just by way of i think
0:31:15 three or two examples um
0:31:18 that you can have justify true belief
0:31:20 and you you're lacking knowledge
0:31:22 somehow okay so so let
0:31:26 how might that be so we're questioning
0:31:29 here whether the jtb account really
0:31:32 sufficient for accounting for knowledge
0:31:35 and um and edmund getty as i mentioned
0:31:37 came to spoil the show for us
0:31:40 so um you can see that clock on on the
0:31:43 picture there and uh bertrand russell of
0:31:46 course
0:31:47 is um before gettier somewhat um
0:31:51 but he offers a sort of pre-getty
0:31:54 gettier example
0:31:56 and so um it's to do with with a clock
0:31:59 but i've tried to excite
0:32:00 you know paint a kind of a different
0:32:03 picture using the same idea
0:32:05 so imagine um
0:32:08 one day you you're going to the dentist
0:32:10 you have a dentist appointment
0:32:12 and normally you use your your watch um
0:32:14 but
0:32:15 but for some reason you don't have your
0:32:16 watch suppose it's at the jewelers it's
0:32:19 under repair
0:32:20 so you don't have access to it and
0:32:21 you're not sure of the time now
0:32:23 so you rush quickly to the dentist
0:32:25 hoping that you know you've made your
0:32:26 appointment on
0:32:27 time and let's say your appointment is
0:32:30 is that um
0:32:32 quarter past three and so you you get
0:32:36 into the
0:32:36 the waiting room of the dentist
0:32:40 and you look to the clock and you see
0:32:43 it's
0:32:43 oh it says it's um it's three o'clock ah
0:32:46 so you sit down you're relieved
0:32:48 because you know you're on time and your
0:32:51 appointment is going to be in 50 minutes
0:32:53 now let's suppose that that's that's
0:32:55 true and it really was free
0:32:56 three o'clock and you had the belief
0:32:58 that it's three o'clock
0:33:00 and you you surely had justification for
0:33:02 believing that three
0:33:03 three o'clock because uh you saw the
0:33:06 clock
0:33:07 and you know it says it's it's three
0:33:10 so you have justification for that
0:33:11 belief but let's suppose
0:33:13 um that clock wasn't actually working it
0:33:16 wasn't ticking
0:33:17 and it just so happened that
0:33:19 conveniently
0:33:21 the clock was left in three um
0:33:24 but it wasn't ticking it wasn't working
0:33:26 and let's see it hasn't been working for
0:33:28 for over a week it's up conveniently
0:33:31 um it was showing the right time at the
0:33:34 time and when you've entered
0:33:35 the time when you've entered so it seems
0:33:37 here you had a belief
0:33:39 namely that it's three o'clock that
0:33:41 belief is true it seems that you had
0:33:43 some justification because you can see
0:33:44 the clock saying
0:33:46 um that is three but
0:33:49 there seems to be an element of
0:33:51 epistemic luck here
0:33:52 because it was just lucky that you saw
0:33:55 the the clock at the time you did
0:33:57 so it seems you can have um just to be
0:34:00 justified true belief and not knowledge
0:34:02 because surely
0:34:03 if you just came to this belief by way
0:34:05 of look
0:34:06 even though it's justified um you didn't
0:34:09 really know that it's three o'clock
0:34:11 so this is a you know a sort of
0:34:15 a simple example of a gettier case
0:34:18 and so it just seems that you can have
0:34:21 justification and truth and
0:34:23 you can have your belief but you can
0:34:25 still lack knowledge in some sense
0:34:28 so what are we to do with this is there
0:34:31 a way out
0:34:32 well this is puzzling well
0:34:36 one of the ways out in the way i'm going
0:34:39 to be looking at
0:34:40 is by offering a different account
0:34:43 knowledge
0:34:43 which draws on a different concept now
0:34:46 in the previous slide i mentioned
0:34:48 justification is about accessing the
0:34:50 reasons
0:34:52 that support your belief maybe defending
0:34:54 that belief if counter objections
0:34:56 come not fulfilling your epistemic
0:34:58 duties in some sense
0:35:00 and so it's it's a lot to do with you
0:35:02 accessing the beliefs reflectively
0:35:05 you know they're impressed on your mind
0:35:06 you think about them or something like
0:35:08 that
0:35:09 now warrant is is the idea
0:35:12 that um well the warrant is defined
0:35:15 simply as
0:35:16 that quantity enough of which
0:35:20 turns a mere true belief into knowledge
0:35:23 that's all it is simply
0:35:24 um and warrant differs from
0:35:27 justification though in
0:35:29 important ways at least in the way i'm
0:35:31 going to try
0:35:32 and demonstrate now
0:35:36 so a famous philosopher religion
0:35:40 and philosophy in general alvin
0:35:41 plantinga he spearheaded this thesis of
0:35:44 a former epistemology
0:35:45 and he spearheaded the thesis of of an
0:35:48 idea of warrant
0:35:49 um which is based primarily
0:35:52 on the notion of our faculties um
0:35:55 functioning properly so as i mentioned
0:35:57 warrant is that
0:35:59 the idea of that that special ingredient
0:36:01 that somehow
0:36:02 turns and made true belief into
0:36:05 knowledge
0:36:05 before we we had a true belief that's
0:36:07 justified and yet
0:36:08 it was lacking knowledge it wasn't
0:36:11 sufficient for knowledge so we need
0:36:12 something
0:36:13 that special sauce a special ingredient
0:36:15 that's going to give
0:36:16 our belief knowledge now
0:36:21 we've seen that justification is
0:36:24 you know roughly about you having access
0:36:27 to certain reasons
0:36:30 but we've seen that in many cases
0:36:33 a few slides ago where we had the belief
0:36:36 in other persons
0:36:38 the belief in the external world um
0:36:41 the belief in in in the past it seems
0:36:45 that
0:36:46 we just don't have access to to reasons
0:36:50 or arguments that make our belief
0:36:53 sufficient
0:36:54 for knowledge it seems that in the end
0:36:57 we simply have to rely on our
0:37:00 um intuitive the intuitive um
0:37:04 products of our faculty so when i look
0:37:07 at the laptop
0:37:09 um when my eyesight is functioning
0:37:12 properly
0:37:13 it just seems to me very clear that i
0:37:15 can see the laptop and i know the laptop
0:37:17 is here
0:37:18 i don't have access to some arguments
0:37:20 there aren't really good arguments
0:37:22 it seems that something external to my
0:37:24 access
0:37:25 just merely the functioning of my
0:37:26 faculties is what's
0:37:28 really at the heart of giving me
0:37:30 knowledge in all of these cases
0:37:33 again we believe in other persons
0:37:35 because our faculties just
0:37:37 produce this kind of belief and we don't
0:37:40 seem to have access
0:37:41 to to reasons necessarily but
0:37:44 um the mere functioning of our faculties
0:37:47 as they ought to do
0:37:48 is sufficient for giving us knowledge so
0:37:51 here warrant is shifting the focus away
0:37:54 from
0:37:55 factors um that you're accessing inside
0:37:58 your mind reflectively
0:38:00 and focusing on something external to
0:38:02 that like just the faculties
0:38:04 being reliable and functioning properly
0:38:07 and so this thesis of of warrant
0:38:10 being based on proper function has
0:38:13 four conditions and we're going to try
0:38:16 and look at these conditions one by one
0:38:18 and then in the end we're going to
0:38:20 suggest that this
0:38:23 is the best way to construe the nature
0:38:25 of
0:38:26 a belief being sufficient for knowledge
0:38:29 and then we're going to see if our
0:38:30 belief in god can
0:38:32 meet these conditions so the first point
0:38:35 is the focus on proper functioning
0:38:38 cognitive faculties
0:38:40 we have lots of different faculties we
0:38:42 have faculties of side faculties of
0:38:44 hearing
0:38:45 we have faculties for reasoning and they
0:38:48 they they function in a certain way they
0:38:51 have
0:38:52 what planting it calls a design plan a
0:38:54 way in which they ought to function
0:38:57 so you know like you have a heart which
0:38:58 is another faculty
0:39:00 um a heart is supposed to beat
0:39:04 you know a number of minutes on average
0:39:07 uh sorry
0:39:07 your heart is supposed to be a number of
0:39:09 beats per minute
0:39:10 on average and when it um
0:39:14 you know beats in that way it's
0:39:15 functioning as it ought to do
0:39:17 now suppose it wasn't you know barely
0:39:20 beating at all i suppose there were too
0:39:21 many beats
0:39:22 per minute um there'd be something wrong
0:39:24 with that faculty it's not functioning
0:39:26 as it ought to do it's not functioning
0:39:28 according to its design plan
0:39:30 the way in which it should so that's the
0:39:33 first point now
0:39:34 we can see how this is relevant to
0:39:36 knowledge
0:39:37 um by way of an example um
0:39:41 so suppose you have
0:39:44 a man who lives in the countryside and
0:39:47 um
0:39:49 he he he lives in a windy sort of area
0:39:53 and um when and he has a
0:39:56 wind chime hanging from his door outside
0:39:59 and so when the wind uh you know when
0:40:02 it's windy
0:40:03 the chime uh you know sounds and then he
0:40:06 forms the belief
0:40:07 that it's windy outside and so
0:40:10 you know it seems that he's fulfilling
0:40:13 his uh
0:40:14 he's justified he has a belief that's
0:40:16 accessible to him
0:40:18 in other words he hears that sound and
0:40:20 on the basis of that
0:40:21 he he infers the wind plus
0:40:24 but suppose when he got older he
0:40:28 suffered from
0:40:28 some cognitive malfunctioning
0:40:32 suppose that um you know he couldn't
0:40:35 hear anymore
0:40:36 so he's not able to hear the the wind
0:40:39 chimes anymore
0:40:40 but he also suffers from some kind of
0:40:42 cognitive disease
0:40:44 which makes him occasionally have these
0:40:48 auditory hallucinations where he he
0:40:51 hears
0:40:52 this wind chiming sound and let's
0:40:54 suppose
0:40:55 um he hears this winning shining sound
0:40:58 on occasion
0:40:59 when the wind is actually blowing and
0:41:00 the wind chime is chiming but
0:41:02 of course his belief is formed by
0:41:06 by way of sort of a hallucination so it
0:41:09 seems
0:41:10 that he you know he has a belief that he
0:41:13 can reflectively
0:41:14 access he can be justified in a sense
0:41:17 but because his faculty is not
0:41:20 functioning properly
0:41:21 he doesn't really know that the wind is
0:41:23 blowing um
0:41:24 on the basis of the wind chimes chiming
0:41:28 because um it's just a an auditory
0:41:30 hallucination
0:41:31 because his faculties are not
0:41:32 functioning properly so it seems it's
0:41:34 essential
0:41:35 that we have proper functioning
0:41:37 cognitive faculties um
0:41:39 and and that's the first condition
0:41:42 the second condition i try to sort of
0:41:44 speed things up
0:41:45 is that these faculties be aimed the
0:41:47 truth and so you know if these faculties
0:41:49 were not aimed at truth
0:41:50 then how would we be sure that the
0:41:52 belief we have is really true and not
0:41:54 just
0:41:54 um acquired for some other reason
0:41:57 and the other condition is that it
0:42:00 occurs in an appropriate environment
0:42:02 i'm going to touch on that and that it
0:42:04 should be
0:42:05 successful in some sense this um the
0:42:08 faculty's
0:42:09 imminent truth so
0:42:13 that's the conditions roughly okay so
0:42:16 the proper function condition um as i've
0:42:19 mentioned this is the idea that we have
0:42:20 cognitive faculties
0:42:22 which um function in a certain way they
0:42:24 have design plans that is to say that
0:42:26 they
0:42:26 have um a way that they ought to
0:42:29 function
0:42:31 so um yeah consider the following
0:42:34 just to sort of cement this within the
0:42:35 mind so suppose um you look outside into
0:42:38 your garden
0:42:39 and you see what appears to you to be a
0:42:41 rabbit
0:42:42 you see it you know sort of hopping
0:42:44 around
0:42:45 on the grass and then you know you have
0:42:48 your friends come up to you and um
0:42:50 they tell you oh no it's not a rabbit um
0:42:53 that's actually a squirrel
0:42:54 and then you realize oh yeah i wasn't
0:42:56 wearing my glasses then you put your
0:42:57 glasses
0:42:58 on and then you um you see it's clearly
0:43:01 a squirrel
0:43:02 now the the the first belief you had
0:43:04 namely that there was a rabbit
0:43:06 in the garden um it didn't have warrant
0:43:08 for you it wasn't
0:43:09 sufficient for knowledge because your
0:43:12 eyesight wasn't functioning properly
0:43:14 without the glasses
0:43:15 and so um it's clear how proper function
0:43:18 is necessary
0:43:20 for you to to reach knowledge so so
0:43:22 that's the first point
0:43:23 that if your faculties are not
0:43:25 functioning properly and you're
0:43:27 you are in some sense then of course you
0:43:30 you know your belief
0:43:31 might just be lucky one you know it's
0:43:33 not clearly
0:43:35 one that would be warranted for you and
0:43:37 as i
0:43:38 and that's the idea that um warrant
0:43:41 um needs to be secured by proper
0:43:43 functioning faculties
0:43:44 if there is some cognitive
0:43:46 malfunctioning obviously you don't know
0:43:49 truth aimed condition so
0:43:52 the other condition is that you know
0:43:55 your faculties
0:43:56 um they aim at truth uh in some sense
0:44:00 um so you know you um
0:44:04 you form a belief that the laptop is in
0:44:06 front of you or something else
0:44:08 now if this um
0:44:12 if your faculties were aiming just for
0:44:15 survival
0:44:16 or fulfilling wishes or something like
0:44:18 that then it seems
0:44:20 you know you wouldn't be able to have
0:44:22 warrant because you couldn't be sure
0:44:23 that your belief is
0:44:24 true there is something else going on
0:44:27 here darwinian survival for instance
0:44:29 darwinian mechanism suggests that you
0:44:31 form beliefs to help you
0:44:32 survive and reproduce well if that's the
0:44:34 case how can we be sure that even our
0:44:35 belief
0:44:36 in darwinian evolution is not just a
0:44:38 belief that helps to survive rather than
0:44:40 being true
0:44:40 so truth aim is a necessary condition
0:44:42 and it seems in that sense it could be a
0:44:44 problem for naturalism
0:44:45 at least on a darwinian account
0:44:49 and also there is this idea that this
0:44:51 needs to be
0:44:52 occurring in an environment that is um
0:44:58 suitable for your faculties so suppose a
0:45:00 little bit like in the picture
0:45:02 you enter a room and you you um
0:45:06 you you look out of a window let's say
0:45:08 you think it's a window
0:45:09 and you see some some scenery up there
0:45:12 uh and you know you think oh this is
0:45:13 this is lovely this is beautiful
0:45:15 but but actually it was just um a
0:45:18 television
0:45:19 a television screen that just was really
0:45:21 realistic
0:45:22 and so your faculties were functioning
0:45:24 fine they're aimed at truth
0:45:26 and so on but you know you were tricked
0:45:28 your environment was tricked it wasn't
0:45:30 suitable for your faculties and of
0:45:32 course our design plans must be
0:45:34 successful even if they aim at truth
0:45:36 um but let's say that they get one true
0:45:40 belief
0:45:41 um out of a hundred so 99 wrong
0:45:44 one true then you wouldn't have warrant
0:45:46 because um most of the time
0:45:48 you know your beliefs are all they're
0:45:50 all false so
0:45:51 on the time you get it right you know
0:45:53 you have no reason to suspect that
0:45:56 no um so the idea then is
0:45:59 a belief is sufficient for knowledge if
0:46:02 it's produced by faculties that function
0:46:04 properly and successfully in the truth
0:46:07 in environments for which they're
0:46:08 designed to apply
0:46:11 finally you know someone still might say
0:46:13 well don't we need an
0:46:14 access condition that is don't we need
0:46:16 to access the reasons
0:46:18 um you know for our belief to be
0:46:20 warranted
0:46:21 um but it just seems you know as we said
0:46:24 in the um
0:46:26 one of the earlier slides again that i
0:46:28 believe in other persons in the past in
0:46:29 the external world and so on
0:46:30 we just don't seem to have access to the
0:46:32 reasons that confer
0:46:33 warrant on our on those beliefs but
0:46:36 still we can have warrants
0:46:39 um yeah i'm aware of the time of
0:46:42 analog i'm going on a little bit but
0:46:44 i'll try to speed things up so
0:46:46 um the final concept to grasp
0:46:51 before we move on to our model
0:46:56 is the notion of basic and non-basic
0:46:58 beliefs
0:47:00 so consider
0:47:04 belief chain we can have chains so
0:47:07 suppose you have a belief um
0:47:10 that there is someone at your your door
0:47:14 because you heard the doorbell ring so
0:47:17 you have like two beliefs here you have
0:47:19 number one the belief that the doorbell
0:47:21 rang that's something that you hear
0:47:23 comes to you immediately and then two
0:47:26 you form the belief
0:47:27 uh from that you infer a second belief
0:47:29 that there's someone that you don't
0:47:30 now the first belief that comes to you
0:47:33 immediately
0:47:34 without argument or inference
0:47:38 um is something known as a basic belief
0:47:40 sometimes
0:47:41 uh it's seen as like a foundation i
0:47:43 believe like
0:47:44 we we have this is a foundation from
0:47:46 which we form other boots but
0:47:48 the basic idea is um the
0:47:51 part pardon the pun there but the basic
0:47:53 idea is
0:47:54 that this belief comes to you
0:47:56 immediately it's not a belief you hold
0:47:58 by way of argument so again
0:47:59 i see the laptop in front of me that's
0:48:01 just a basic belief it's something that
0:48:03 comes to me
0:48:03 immediately i don't hold that belief on
0:48:06 on
0:48:07 on by way of argument i don't argue from
0:48:10 the
0:48:10 proposition or premise rather that it
0:48:12 appears to me there's a laptop in front
0:48:14 of me
0:48:15 and to the conclusion therefore there's
0:48:16 a laptop no again with our belief in the
0:48:19 past with our belief in external world
0:48:21 and
0:48:21 and of the minds these are just basic
0:48:23 beliefs they just come to us intuitively
0:48:24 and we don't hold them
0:48:25 by way of other vapes non-basic beliefs
0:48:28 obviously beliefs we hold
0:48:30 um by way of inference i can't believe
0:48:33 that there's someone at the door this is
0:48:34 something inferred from another belief
0:48:37 and then we have a notion of properly
0:48:39 basic beliefs so imagine you know again
0:48:41 you have
0:48:42 you have your basic belief you see the
0:48:43 rain outside
0:48:45 um that's a basic belief it just comes
0:48:48 to you immediately
0:48:49 now if that belief is warranted for you
0:48:51 if that belief
0:48:52 is produced by faculties that are
0:48:54 functioning properly aimed at truth and
0:48:56 so on
0:48:57 then that's a properly basic belief so
0:48:58 it's a basic belief in nature
0:49:00 that's also warranted for you and so
0:49:03 the central claim of reformed
0:49:06 epistemology
0:49:08 is the idea that god can be a property
0:49:10 basically we can
0:49:12 come to belief in god in a basic way
0:49:16 and that belief can be warranted now
0:49:19 just as a as a final
0:49:20 side point on this slide it's clear that
0:49:23 not just any old belief can be basically
0:49:26 like let's suppose
0:49:28 i just suddenly have the belief that
0:49:30 next week
0:49:31 on alternate days uh it will rain
0:49:36 now you know someone say well you know
0:49:38 clearly
0:49:39 you need an argument that you need to
0:49:41 infer that on the basis of other beliefs
0:49:43 maybe on the basis of
0:49:45 you know reading the weather forecast or
0:49:47 something
0:49:48 it just seems that we can't hold that
0:49:50 belief in a basic way
0:49:52 but when it comes to you know your
0:49:54 belief in the
0:49:55 that it's raining outside you see that
0:49:58 it seems you can hold that in a basic
0:49:59 way so
0:50:01 how can we differentiate between a
0:50:03 belief that's like properly basic
0:50:05 and i believe this that's not
0:50:08 obviously a properly basic belief is one
0:50:10 which is warranted
0:50:11 but also it seems that the difference
0:50:13 between
0:50:14 beliefs that just basic and beliefs
0:50:17 which are
0:50:18 properly basic it relates to the very
0:50:21 nature of our belief
0:50:22 forming faculties we have faculties for
0:50:25 forming beliefs about things in front of
0:50:27 us
0:50:27 we have faculties for forming sounds
0:50:29 that we hear nearby
0:50:31 or we have faculties of taste we have
0:50:35 faculties of of reason and inference but
0:50:38 we don't have belief forming faculties
0:50:39 that can just
0:50:40 tell us that it's going to be raining um
0:50:43 on alternate days next week
0:50:45 like that we just don't have those
0:50:46 faculty so
0:50:48 the idea might be to bear in mind that
0:50:50 it seems we could argue
0:50:52 maybe we have a faculty that um
0:50:55 performing beliefs about god and
0:50:58 certainly studies in cognitive science
0:50:59 or religion
0:51:00 are suggested with this in some sense
0:51:04 so we have our concepts insha'allah i
0:51:06 hope it's clear just to
0:51:08 reiterate a few things um well just to
0:51:11 tell you that i have an essay coming out
0:51:13 which is
0:51:13 basically um on this topic
0:51:17 and so insha'allah that should be out
0:51:18 very soon on the website
0:51:20 and obviously you'll be able to follow
0:51:23 things
0:51:23 through more clearly so you'll have that
0:51:26 reading you can download it print it do
0:51:28 what you want with it
0:51:29 and so this webinar is just a um an
0:51:32 introduction for you to kind of
0:51:34 get to grips with the the basic idea
0:51:37 and help you understand the essay in
0:51:39 childhood so
0:51:40 we've got our concepts now we want to
0:51:43 outline
0:51:44 our plan in applying this to uh belief
0:51:47 in god
0:51:48 more specifically and then islam as well
0:51:51 and
0:51:52 um and constructing that model
0:51:55 so we're trying to build a model of
0:51:56 reform of history
0:51:58 which is designed to show how theism
0:52:00 namely the belief in god and islamic
0:52:02 belief can be
0:52:03 properly basic it can be a belief that
0:52:05 we hold not on the basis of other
0:52:06 beliefs
0:52:07 just intuitively not on the basis of
0:52:09 argument and that belief can be
0:52:11 warranted for us
0:52:13 warranted along the lines of proper
0:52:14 functioning the idea as we said earlier
0:52:17 um that
0:52:18 is produced by faculties that function
0:52:21 properly
0:52:21 aimed at truth in environments suitable
0:52:24 for it
0:52:26 and we want to show how this is in some
0:52:28 sense some sense consistent
0:52:30 on an islamic um you know scheme
0:52:34 and so as i mentioned the the the
0:52:37 central
0:52:38 uh sort of you know well clearly the
0:52:41 central figure or the only figure
0:52:42 that i'm proposing this model on is
0:52:44 having tamiya and the central notion
0:52:47 in the model is the is the notion of
0:52:51 so that's going to be key um to
0:52:53 understanding
0:52:54 how that belief in god can be properly
0:52:57 basic
0:52:58 for us so
0:53:01 we have this standard tamiya model and i
0:53:03 want to just quickly give you an
0:53:04 overview and then we just ran it trying
0:53:06 to go through it point by point
0:53:08 so the idea is that a loss of panelist
0:53:11 adder has instilled within human beings
0:53:14 different faculties in order to acquire
0:53:15 tribally so we have different faculties
0:53:17 you know sense perception reason sight
0:53:20 hearing
0:53:21 um and these faculties have been placed
0:53:23 within us by allah
0:53:26 in order to form beliefs about um
0:53:29 things in the world true beliefs and
0:53:32 allah
0:53:32 he created them meaning human beings
0:53:35 upon
0:53:36 a natural constitution um which we're
0:53:39 going to call the hippala
0:53:40 and of course allah created us all upon
0:53:42 the fitra and that
0:53:45 urges us to know uh to know that
0:53:51 three the fifth um
0:53:54 this disposition has been set to work in
0:53:58 tandem with our other faculties
0:54:00 so when one's fiddler functions as it
0:54:03 should
0:54:03 it can trigger within the heart
0:54:07 also can be considered uh of translated
0:54:09 as mind
0:54:11 immediate awareness of allah
0:54:15 and this typically arises
0:54:19 we could say from the apprehension of
0:54:21 the many
0:54:23 or science in the created world
0:54:27 therefore through this role that the
0:54:30 fitra
0:54:31 plays in giving us knowledge and in
0:54:33 conjunction with the heart
0:54:35 upon the apprehension of god's signs
0:54:37 belief in him can be reached immediately
0:54:39 without
0:54:40 without needing arguments all right
0:54:44 so let's try and go through this a bit
0:54:45 faculties for knowing so
0:54:47 it's clear that allah gave us these
0:54:49 faculties
0:54:50 for knowing for knowing him for
0:54:52 worshiping him
0:54:53 as he mentions in the quran it is allah
0:54:56 it is god who brought you out of your
0:54:57 mother's
0:54:58 wombs knowing nothing and gave you
0:55:01 hearing
0:55:01 sight and hearts that you might be
0:55:04 thankful
0:55:06 now as a side note um
0:55:10 in lane's lexicon uh he explained that
0:55:13 um the term used here effide is plural
0:55:18 of
0:55:22 and he explains that um literally
0:55:26 uh for ed means heart but also refers to
0:55:29 mind or intellect
0:55:30 um so that's something to bear in mind
0:55:32 as well with what we're saying
0:55:34 and also um
0:55:38 himself said and i noticed i forgot the
0:55:41 page number for this
0:55:42 this is in the much more in volume 9 i
0:55:46 can get the page number for those
0:55:47 interests
0:55:48 um yeah so the heart was created to know
0:55:51 things
0:55:52 this pursuit of things out of a desire
0:55:54 for knowledge it's called thought and
0:55:55 reflection
0:55:56 just as the ears pursuit of speech
0:55:58 design to hear it is god listening
0:56:00 and the eyes attention to things trying
0:56:02 to view them is called sight
0:56:03 so it's clear that you know allah has
0:56:07 created us with different faculties
0:56:10 um for true belief or knowledge
0:56:14 and um and even tamiya
0:56:17 um obviously on his scheme and we're
0:56:20 using his epistemic scheme
0:56:22 he um you know he makes us clear that
0:56:25 the heart
0:56:27 is central in that sense um i've just
0:56:30 known someone say
0:56:31 slow down we're taking notes don't worry
0:56:33 insha'allah i can send
0:56:34 these to people uh the slides i mean
0:56:38 afterwards and also but you're gonna
0:56:41 have my essay which has got
0:56:43 pretty much all of these quotes anyway
0:56:45 okay
0:56:46 so we mentioned that the fifa is central
0:56:50 to the model okay
0:56:53 so we know that is mentioned in the
0:56:55 quran
0:56:56 you know allah
0:57:10 and we know the hadith um the famous
0:57:13 hadith
0:57:14 that every child is born on the fifa
0:57:17 it's only the parents
0:57:18 of the christian the jew the zoroastrian
0:57:22 that you know changes or tampers with
0:57:26 that
0:57:27 initial state
0:57:31 so we know that this is a clearly
0:57:32 islamic concept
0:57:34 now even tammy himself said
0:57:37 that what the prophet meant in the
0:57:40 hadith
0:57:42 is that there is a certain nature with
0:57:44 which allah created man
0:57:47 and that is the nature of islam and by
0:57:50 which he meant
0:57:51 simply and allah endowed all human
0:57:55 beings with this essential nature the
0:57:56 day he addressed them saying
0:57:58 am i not your lord and they said yes we
0:57:59 have testified
0:58:01 see that there in uh sort of 7
0:58:05 verse 1 2. is the original nature of man
0:58:10 uncorrupted by later beliefs and
0:58:11 practices ready to accept
0:58:14 the true notions of islam
0:58:17 so let's get a little bit clearer on um
0:58:20 what
0:58:21 might mean to contain the edges so we
0:58:23 can um
0:58:24 you know cement this notion central to
0:58:27 the model within the mind
0:58:29 they've been taking me elsewhere said
0:58:32 that it has been shown
0:58:33 that in the human beings there exists
0:58:36 a potency or an urge
0:58:39 to believe in truth and intend the
0:58:41 beneficial
0:58:43 the fitrah has the potency to know and
0:58:45 believe in the creator
0:58:46 and the also has a potency for
0:58:50 his oneness
0:58:53 now what is um
0:58:58 becoming clear here is that the third
0:59:01 is not merely in just a disposition
0:59:05 of that like a human like human nature
0:59:09 um you know a sort of stagnant
0:59:11 disposition that we're all created upon
0:59:13 but
0:59:13 it's a it's a it's a normative
0:59:16 disposition it's something that
0:59:17 pushes us towards believing certain
0:59:20 things it
0:59:20 pushes us towards the belief in truth
0:59:23 uh and to intend what's beneficial to
0:59:26 believe in the creator
0:59:28 and to believe that he is one and to
0:59:29 worship him
0:59:31 so so that's central to the idea of
0:59:33 thought and imitating means
0:59:35 that scheme ivan tamiya suggests here
0:59:39 that the
0:59:40 the locus of the fifa is the heart
0:59:44 and he said that allah made the fitra of
0:59:46 his servants
0:59:47 disposed to the apprehension and
0:59:49 understanding of the realities of things
0:59:51 and to know them
0:59:53 and if it were not for this readiness
0:59:55 within the hearts
0:59:57 or minds to know the truth neither
0:59:59 speculative reasoning would be possible
1:00:01 nor demonstration discuss a language so
1:00:04 the fitra is
1:00:05 central to the whole cognitive
1:00:08 scheme of the human being
1:00:13 so we mentioned the fedra
1:00:16 you know it's places within the heart as
1:00:18 anything you suggest that so what's the
1:00:20 sort of cognitive relationship between
1:00:21 the heart
1:00:22 and and the again i've got a picture
1:00:26 with the brain but
1:00:28 you can just think of that as a football
1:00:30 all right
1:00:31 so here's the idea here's the scheme
1:00:35 that we're gonna
1:00:36 there are well there are different ways
1:00:37 you could you could put this sort of
1:00:39 diagram
1:00:40 um and i'm actually going to
1:00:44 land upon this in another essay that i'm
1:00:46 writing in a journal
1:00:48 but um so now we can think about it like
1:00:51 this in terms of its relation to believe
1:00:53 in god so
1:00:55 when the um the heart
1:00:58 reaches a cognitive state um
1:01:01 that that it believes in god as long as
1:01:04 the philosophers function
1:01:05 properly it will result in a basic
1:01:08 belief in god that is
1:01:10 a belief immediately for without
1:01:11 arguments and that belief will be
1:01:13 properly basic as long as
1:01:15 the fifa is functioning properly in the
1:01:18 heart is functioning properly
1:01:21 and so the acknowledgement of god's
1:01:25 existence 17 years
1:01:26 and knowledge of him and loving him and
1:01:28 unifying him
1:01:29 are from the fifa and firm
1:01:33 so you know this
1:01:37 acknowledgement this um sense of god's
1:01:40 existence
1:01:41 it's it's from the football and it's
1:01:43 firm in the heart when things are all
1:01:45 functioning
1:01:46 accordingly so
1:01:50 how how might this occur how might it be
1:01:52 the case
1:01:53 that we end up with uh belief in god in
1:01:56 a basic
1:01:56 way well even tamiya seems to suggest
1:02:00 this in reference to the concept of a
1:02:02 yes and he has this notion of
1:02:04 is idea of an inference
1:02:07 through science again it's not an
1:02:09 inference in the traditional sense
1:02:11 because
1:02:11 the belief that's produced here is basic
1:02:14 but uh
1:02:14 the inference is really the only way of
1:02:16 translating it so
1:02:18 um even samia said that proving
1:02:22 or establishing god's existence by way
1:02:25 of science is something
1:02:26 waging something obligatory because this
1:02:28 is the way of the quran
1:02:29 and the inheriting of the servants so
1:02:33 um we we see allah subhanahu wa to
1:02:36 animaking mention of various ayat
1:02:38 in the quran that are signs for people
1:02:41 who reflect
1:02:42 the people who remember for people who
1:02:44 reason for people who believe
1:02:46 or have faith and um
1:02:50 this might occur for instance upon you
1:02:52 know pondering the
1:02:53 the night sky or the glorious blender of
1:02:55 the cosmos and seeing design in nature
1:02:58 or
1:02:58 numerous different in numerous different
1:03:00 circumstances
1:03:02 as long as the fitbit is functioning as
1:03:04 it ought to do
1:03:06 um the apprehension of such signs can
1:03:08 produce
1:03:09 belief um in god
1:03:13 immediately and eben tamiya
1:03:16 um you know he he makes a sort of well
1:03:19 this is a classical distinction about
1:03:20 ayatollah
1:03:22 and as well so ayatollah emphasis is the
1:03:25 idea of signs within yourselves
1:03:27 that's one set of circumstances and ayat
1:03:31 you know signs in the horizon in the
1:03:33 cosmos let's say
1:03:34 um and so there are different sets of
1:03:36 circumstances in which believing god can
1:03:38 be
1:03:39 elicited in an immediate sense as long
1:03:41 as the filthy is functioning
1:03:43 as it all to do
1:03:47 so
1:03:51 the question we wanna we wanna ask now
1:03:53 is can
1:03:54 this take me in a city scheme
1:03:58 um fit on that
1:04:01 warrant account proper functionalism
1:04:02 that we talked about earlier
1:04:04 well it seems like it definitely can
1:04:07 um first of all even tamiya has written
1:04:11 that
1:04:12 crown's knowledge of truth and his
1:04:14 confirmation of it and the rejection of
1:04:16 falsehood and his rejection of it
1:04:17 so it's clear that the fitra is
1:04:19 essential
1:04:20 in aiming all of our faculties at true
1:04:24 belief um so you can certainly it
1:04:27 satisfies that truth aim condition
1:04:29 and we can see that from um the quran
1:04:33 as as well um but
1:04:37 the the fit is also essential to the
1:04:39 proper function of other faculties
1:04:41 and um and i quoted actually
1:04:44 who's a friend of mine who who
1:04:46 summarizes really well
1:04:48 when he said that the proper functioning
1:04:50 of all our epistemic faculties is
1:04:52 predicated in
1:04:53 all cases on the health and proper
1:04:54 functioning of the fifth allah he
1:04:55 imitate me his
1:04:56 um scheme and so it seems that our
1:05:00 faculties
1:05:02 in question here we talked to the heart
1:05:04 as being sort of the general seat of all
1:05:06 cognition and the fitbit
1:05:08 being there um as long as the
1:05:11 these things are functioning properly as
1:05:14 they ought to
1:05:15 and they're aimed at true belief which
1:05:16 we see the fifth to be
1:05:19 and it's clearly aimed at recognition of
1:05:22 god as we've seen
1:05:23 it seems perfectly reasonable to to
1:05:26 think that
1:05:27 this model can satisfy a proper
1:05:28 functionalist counter warrant
1:05:31 and so
1:05:32 [Music]
1:05:35 it seems that um theistic belief
1:05:38 um i should say it's a properly basis of
1:05:41 course that's meant to be properly basic
1:05:43 it seems then that we can have um
1:05:46 you know belief in god in a basic way
1:05:48 and it can be warranted for us
1:05:51 um then we can think about this question
1:05:55 of um
1:05:57 the burden of proof that we we talked
1:05:58 about in the second
1:06:00 slide um if if it
1:06:03 you know uh appears to you that you have
1:06:05 um
1:06:07 belief in god came to you in an
1:06:09 immediate way
1:06:10 now if if that's true then um
1:06:14 it seems that the burden of proof would
1:06:16 somewhat switch
1:06:18 um rather than you having to demonstrate
1:06:20 your belief
1:06:21 you you have a basic belief that can be
1:06:23 warranted and so the atheist has to show
1:06:25 why it isn't warranted
1:06:27 now we'll touch on this a little bit
1:06:28 later
1:06:30 but we'll leave it there for now on to
1:06:32 the next slide the fact of the year i'm
1:06:34 going to just skip that
1:06:35 okay so we've seen how it could be
1:06:38 possible for islamic belief to be
1:06:41 sorry for theistic belief to be
1:06:42 warranted
1:06:44 and to be sufficient for knowledge for
1:06:45 us without having arguments
1:06:48 um again of course so far the model is
1:06:51 on the supposition
1:06:53 if it's true like we're saying if it's
1:06:55 true that allah exists and created us in
1:06:57 such a way
1:06:58 we're not trying to prove that allah
1:06:59 exists we're trying to show how
1:07:01 it's possible we can have warrants we
1:07:03 can have police that are sufficient for
1:07:05 knowledge
1:07:06 um on an islamic scheme so just bear
1:07:08 that in mind
1:07:09 and then i'll touch on it um shortly and
1:07:12 that's relevant to
1:07:13 what i was saying about the burden of
1:07:14 proof now we've seen again
1:07:16 as i said how this can be related to
1:07:18 theism
1:07:21 but is there a way we can extend it more
1:07:23 specifically for our belief in islam
1:07:25 now even team um elsewhere
1:07:29 has spoken of um two broad
1:07:33 categories of science so we have the
1:07:36 signs which indicate the existence
1:07:38 um of the lord may
1:07:42 he be exalted are one his spoken signs
1:07:44 that he mentions in the quran
1:07:46 and two signs of his creative acting
1:07:49 which he created in the souls and the
1:07:52 cosmos
1:07:55 now if it's possible that
1:07:59 you know when the fibre functions
1:08:02 properly
1:08:03 and it's aimed at truth as you said when
1:08:05 we reflect on signs in the cosmos it's
1:08:07 possible that we can
1:08:08 you know um come to immediate basic
1:08:11 belief in god's existence and presence
1:08:13 well it's also possible that when we
1:08:15 read the ayat the verses in the quran
1:08:18 the spoken words of allah subhanahu we
1:08:20 can
1:08:21 reach basic belief can just come to us
1:08:24 immediately we can be filled
1:08:25 with the immediate sense and obviousness
1:08:28 of allah's
1:08:29 uh words being true and that this being
1:08:31 from allah
1:08:32 and therefore we can culminate now our
1:08:35 full model with
1:08:36 with islam so as long as
1:08:40 the faculties of in conjunction with the
1:08:43 heart are functioning properly
1:08:44 they're aimed at truth then when we read
1:08:47 the quran it's possible
1:08:49 that we have basic belief in god and
1:08:52 that belief
1:08:53 in conjunction with the proper function
1:08:56 account of warren can be warranted
1:08:58 and therefore it can be sufficient for
1:09:00 knowledge and therefore we can know
1:09:02 the truth of islam in a basic way
1:09:04 without it
1:09:05 so i just want to um give you a complete
1:09:08 overview of this
1:09:10 extended element of the model and then
1:09:12 i'll just touch on something that i've
1:09:13 mentioned i'll
1:09:14 touch on about the assumptions here so
1:09:17 from points one to five of the standard
1:09:20 model we have six so
1:09:21 just as allah has made available an
1:09:23 immediate apprehension of his existence
1:09:25 through his many signs in the created
1:09:26 world so
1:09:27 too has he permitted more intimate
1:09:29 knowledge of him through the signs in
1:09:31 his revelation
1:09:33 seven upon apprehension of these
1:09:35 revelatory signs
1:09:36 that are read and understood um
1:09:39 this is something that uh that um
1:09:42 even tammy's student i'm obtaining with
1:09:44 those it refers to
1:09:47 i i don't have the score here but it's
1:09:48 messy so upon
1:09:50 apprehension of these revelatory signs
1:09:52 that uh in the quran that are read and
1:09:54 understood
1:09:55 human beings can acquire basic beliefs
1:09:57 in the truth of god's revelation and
1:09:59 hence the truth of his religion
1:10:02 this immediate belief of the truth uh or
1:10:06 in the truth of islam
1:10:07 arises through the natural workings of
1:10:08 the fibra in conjunction with the heart
1:10:11 upon apprehension of these signs
1:10:13 that is the verses of the quran
1:10:15 therefore
1:10:17 full-fledged islamic belief can be
1:10:18 acquired in immediate and basic fashion
1:10:21 without regards to arguments
1:10:25 okay so that's
1:10:28 the model and we've tried to apply
1:10:32 our epistemic concept to it
1:10:37 now we're going to discuss uh a few
1:10:39 problems with the model
1:10:40 people might have before i conclude but
1:10:42 the first thing to say is this well
1:10:45 you've been saying uh or some might say
1:10:48 you've been saying that
1:10:50 you know allah created us and um and so
1:10:53 on so you've been assuming the truth of
1:10:54 islam all the way through
1:10:56 and i say yeah so we're saying if it's
1:10:58 true
1:10:59 um but why should i suspect that it's
1:11:01 true someone might say why should i
1:11:02 suspect that my belief is true well
1:11:05 as i mentioned earlier it seems that
1:11:08 what we do
1:11:09 uh in in in many cases if not most
1:11:12 i'll believe in the laptop being in
1:11:13 front of me i believe in the past
1:11:16 our belief in the external world um
1:11:19 our belief in other persons we
1:11:22 it seems that reasons are not
1:11:24 necessarily accessible to us but we rely
1:11:29 on and trust the output
1:11:32 of our cognitive faculties we rely on
1:11:34 the output of our cognitive faculties
1:11:36 and we say as long as they're properly
1:11:38 functioning aimed at truth and so on
1:11:39 and our beliefs have warrant and i am
1:11:42 justified in holding that they are aimed
1:11:45 at truth and function properly because
1:11:46 it seems to me that way
1:11:47 i have no reason to suspect that they're
1:11:49 not and so
1:11:52 in the absence of any defeater through
1:11:54 your belief
1:11:55 you seem to be entirely justified in
1:11:58 in inspecting your beliefs are warranted
1:12:01 and that
1:12:01 being produced in the way that they need
1:12:04 for warrant
1:12:05 and so you have these beliefs about you
1:12:08 know things in front of you and so on
1:12:11 and you're you're relying on your
1:12:13 cognitive faculties you're trusting them
1:12:15 in these cases in the absence of any
1:12:17 reason to suspect there's something
1:12:19 going wrong
1:12:20 so that can be naturally extended now to
1:12:22 our belief
1:12:23 in islam again just as my other beliefs
1:12:26 about um things i see before me and
1:12:29 about other persons in the external
1:12:31 world and so on
1:12:32 um as long as there's no reason
1:12:35 to suspect uh you know i have
1:12:39 uh a defeater for my belief um it just
1:12:42 seems obvious to me it seems as clear as
1:12:44 anything
1:12:45 as clear as anything else then i have
1:12:47 justification
1:12:48 for suspecting my belief is warranted
1:12:51 and therefore i think that it probably
1:12:52 is and i'm justified in thinking that
1:12:54 and so therefore um i'd say my belief
1:12:57 is warranted and i can know and i do not
1:13:00 so
1:13:01 um that's the way it seems to be
1:13:05 in the absence of some defeater we are
1:13:07 entirely justified
1:13:09 in suspecting our belief is fully
1:13:11 warranted in the same way
1:13:13 as our other beliefs that we've
1:13:14 mentioned but
1:13:17 we might suspect that people have some
1:13:19 problems
1:13:20 with this and um we'll try and entertain
1:13:24 some of them so forgive me for the silly
1:13:28 uh
1:13:29 image but one uh
1:13:32 one thing that people have brought up is
1:13:34 well surely if you say
1:13:36 you know believing god and islam can be
1:13:38 properly basic
1:13:39 we might as well claim that the great
1:13:41 pumpkin that comes back every halloween
1:13:43 is properly basic
1:13:44 you know anyone can say that
1:13:47 well how would we respond to this well
1:13:50 first of all obviously because a belief
1:13:54 is properly basic that doesn't mean that
1:13:57 just
1:13:57 any all belief can be properly basic
1:14:00 suppose you have the belief that
1:14:02 one plus one is two and you just have
1:14:04 that belief in the immediate sense
1:14:06 well and and we know pretty clearly that
1:14:09 that belief is warranted that that
1:14:10 belief is something we know
1:14:13 why would it follow that because one odd
1:14:15 one is two
1:14:16 is a properly basic belief just anything
1:14:18 can be a property basically
1:14:20 well obviously not just anything can be
1:14:22 profit this week only the beliefs
1:14:24 held in a basic way by our faculties
1:14:27 properly functioning and so on as they
1:14:29 ought to do
1:14:30 can be a properly basically but
1:14:33 perhaps that's not what someone means by
1:14:35 the great pumpkin objection perhaps they
1:14:37 mean well
1:14:38 why couldn't it be that a great pumpkin
1:14:40 could could
1:14:42 be sufficient for warrants couldn't it
1:14:43 be that we have this
1:14:45 great pumpkin artist this great sense of
1:14:49 a pumpkin
1:14:50 um as opposed to a census divinitative
1:14:52 sense of god
1:14:53 um the great pumpkin has um
1:14:57 you know created us with
1:15:01 well what would you say about that well
1:15:02 first of all unlike
1:15:05 our theistic belief the great pumpkin
1:15:07 suffers from an obvious
1:15:09 empirical of objection because it's
1:15:10 something that's physical and so on
1:15:13 and um and so it if it doesn't have
1:15:16 empirical evidence for it
1:15:18 then that would give us reason to
1:15:20 suspect it doesn't exist
1:15:22 and but belief in god is quite different
1:15:24 because belief in god is not something
1:15:26 observable it can't be disproved in that
1:15:27 sense
1:15:29 but moreover why think that there'd be a
1:15:31 great pumpkin that
1:15:33 obviously wants to create things and
1:15:36 give them true beliefs and obviously
1:15:38 cares about them in some way
1:15:39 it just seems that the way you're
1:15:41 glossing this up is you're just
1:15:43 picking another term for god you're
1:15:45 actually thinking about
1:15:47 a theistic picture but you're glossing
1:15:49 it up in other terms
1:15:50 so i think that's the way one might
1:15:51 respond to it and there are a number of
1:15:53 other cases as well
1:15:54 but i think it suffers from an obvious
1:15:56 empirical defeater
1:15:57 and it just seems this is another way of
1:15:59 losing the thesis picture
1:16:00 and not just any old belief can be
1:16:02 properly basic because some are
1:16:06 well what about religious diversity
1:16:08 couldn't
1:16:09 a christian or a jew for instance
1:16:11 construct a model
1:16:12 similar to ours on the basis of their
1:16:16 beliefs
1:16:19 what do we have to say about this well
1:16:21 um first of all this idea
1:16:24 um of a problem of religious diversity
1:16:29 is um predicated on what i've written
1:16:31 here e
1:16:33 wp re means performance margin ewp is
1:16:36 the equal weight
1:16:37 principle so it's sort of suggesting
1:16:39 like in the presence of other people
1:16:42 who claim they have a model similar to
1:16:43 yours
1:16:45 um we should sort of um we have a
1:16:48 defeater for ours
1:16:50 because we suspect that they are
1:16:53 equally justified in holding their own
1:16:56 model
1:16:56 but it seems to be a problem with this
1:16:58 equal weight principle because
1:17:00 the equal rate principle is saying that
1:17:04 our
1:17:04 epistemic peers who disagree with us we
1:17:07 should give equal weight
1:17:09 to what they say just as much as what we
1:17:12 say
1:17:12 given the similar circumstances
1:17:16 but then um someone who disagrees with
1:17:19 the equality principle
1:17:20 and thinks that it's not true then we
1:17:23 should give equal weight
1:17:24 to that notion as well and so it seems
1:17:27 that we are
1:17:27 self-defeated it seems you know um
1:17:31 we've like shot ourselves in the foot
1:17:33 with that principle
1:17:34 so that's one thing we might think that
1:17:36 obviously
1:17:38 um our epistemic peers
1:17:41 in jews and christians they're not um
1:17:44 our actual peers in in this sense
1:17:47 because
1:17:48 you know as a hadith it's their parents
1:17:52 that raise them in environments and
1:17:54 circumstances where they're not
1:17:55 accessing the sorts of evidences we have
1:17:58 um for our beliefs about islam they
1:18:00 don't have access to that somehow
1:18:02 they've been
1:18:03 uh deterred from access to that so we
1:18:05 might think that we are not epistemic
1:18:07 peers and an equal weight principle um
1:18:10 is problematic so we might dismiss
1:18:12 it that's one thing we might mention but
1:18:15 there are other problems then with this
1:18:17 and some people might
1:18:18 um suggested solutions now um
1:18:21 i'm just gonna tie things up here i've
1:18:23 been going on longer than i wanted to
1:18:25 you know so please forgive me
1:18:26 um well a classical response from the
1:18:29 reformed epistemologist to this
1:18:32 is to say that you know
1:18:35 in the case where you have arguments
1:18:37 against your belief it's not necessarily
1:18:40 such that we should give it up unless we
1:18:43 have another argument so
1:18:45 um suppose you um
1:18:49 you've been accused or suppose
1:18:52 somebody's been accused
1:18:53 of stealing something and um
1:18:57 suppose that person um
1:19:00 you know is known for for stealing
1:19:03 something let's say they're known for
1:19:04 stealing watches or something like that
1:19:06 and then um suppose one day
1:19:09 you know a watch went missing and it
1:19:11 ended up being the case that um
1:19:14 a man seen by cctv looked just like that
1:19:17 person
1:19:18 and somehow um some of his items like
1:19:21 his car keys were next to
1:19:23 um the table where the watch was taken
1:19:25 from then a number of evidence
1:19:27 stacks up against him and so the judge
1:19:30 in court and the jury they've got good
1:19:33 reason to suspect a good argument a
1:19:35 probabilistic
1:19:36 argument an evidential argument to
1:19:37 suspect you're guilty but
1:19:39 um not you the person in question sorry
1:19:42 um but suppose that that person has a
1:19:45 very clear and strong
1:19:47 memory belief and knows that they were
1:19:49 not there
1:19:51 on that day but they don't know of any
1:19:53 other good reason or argument
1:19:54 they just have that strong basic belief
1:19:57 which is clear
1:19:58 to them and it's true um
1:20:02 it seems that there would still be
1:20:03 justified and warranted
1:20:05 in holding on to their own um basic
1:20:08 belief even in
1:20:10 the um in the face of these reasons
1:20:13 or arguments against i believe even if
1:20:15 they don't have any
1:20:16 argument to rebut it other than this
1:20:18 just intuitive belief
1:20:20 so that's one way to go if we if our
1:20:22 beliefs
1:20:24 are the products of our faculties which
1:20:26 are hard wired
1:20:27 to um produce certain types of beliefs
1:20:30 maybe it's just that islamic belief is a
1:20:32 belief that's you know hardwired
1:20:35 we are meant to produce this belief and
1:20:36 so even in the face of arguments
1:20:39 we um we don't need to respond
1:20:43 and i'll just give one more solution
1:20:45 which says well actually no you can use
1:20:47 arguments
1:20:48 it would say that it makes a kind of um
1:20:51 distinction between
1:20:52 sort of a first and second order level
1:20:55 of things cognitively speaking so
1:20:58 imagine
1:20:59 you can think about this in terms of a
1:21:01 lift like imagine on the
1:21:04 ground floor you you obtain a
1:21:07 basic belief in god's existence just
1:21:09 comes to you immediately
1:21:11 but then on the first floor at the first
1:21:13 order level
1:21:15 you get a defeater for your belief let's
1:21:17 say
1:21:18 by the problem of religious diversity or
1:21:20 something or problem of evil or
1:21:22 something else
1:21:24 and then on the on the on the second
1:21:26 floor
1:21:27 you respond to that defeater you offer a
1:21:29 defeater defeater
1:21:31 by giving some reason to suspect that
1:21:33 that defeater is not
1:21:35 true then all of a sudden you're
1:21:37 warranted and holding that belief
1:21:39 that you have at the very first order
1:21:42 level
1:21:42 on the ground floor in a basic way
1:21:45 um and so you don't need positive
1:21:48 arguments for your basic belief but you
1:21:49 might need some arguments to deal with
1:21:51 the fetus
1:21:52 so something like that this is known as
1:21:53 by evidentialism sometimes
1:21:55 michael sort of anyway so
1:21:58 um this is the basic idea inshallah
1:22:01 i'm going to put my essay out hopefully
1:22:03 within a few days for you guys to read
1:22:04 it
1:22:05 and i'm going to now try to take a few
1:22:08 questions
1:22:09 but i am wary that i've been going on
1:22:12 for quite some time
1:22:13 um but yeah uh let's see
1:22:17 insha'allah uh what you guys think
1:22:20 just as a summary we should we talked
1:22:22 about warrant as being proper
1:22:24 functionalism
1:22:25 that you know belief is warranted if
1:22:26 only if it's produced by faculty's
1:22:28 function
1:22:28 properly and the truth etc uh and then
1:22:31 we have this idea
1:22:33 properly basically some basically so i
1:22:35 can see the laptop in front of me
1:22:36 properly basic meaning it's warranted
1:22:39 for me because it's produced by
1:22:41 proper function faculties etc and then
1:22:44 we try to apply that to a
1:22:45 mean standard model showing how you
1:22:47 think god could be warranted in a
1:22:49 similar way
1:22:50 i believe in islam could be warranted in
1:22:51 similar way and we try to address a
1:22:53 couple of concepts so
1:22:55 insha'allah and i'm going to try to take
1:22:56 a few questions now
1:22:58 um i'm kind of confused
1:23:02 on how to um
1:23:06 how to use this whole um
1:23:10 question bar um
1:23:14 so please bear with me because
1:23:18 it's um i don't know how i can
1:23:22 make the box bigger it's really really
1:23:25 small
1:23:26 and it makes it really really difficult
1:23:31 this is problem
1:23:35 ah let's see okay wait i think okay
1:23:39 here we go
1:23:42 okay so i'll try to take a few obviously
1:23:47 um i can't take them all
1:23:50 so someone said here alex parker asks
1:23:54 um this is a bit long so i apologize i
1:23:57 have a potential rebuttal of the atheism
1:23:59 as default motion
1:24:01 and i'm interested in your thoughts my
1:24:02 position is that atheists only apply
1:24:04 such an epistemological position
1:24:07 because it seems to be the most
1:24:08 logically sound one
1:24:10 however that isn't true because atheism
1:24:12 requires one
1:24:13 to give moral value
1:24:16 to truth which
1:24:20 an atheist worldview cannot substantiate
1:24:23 hence there is a contradiction and
1:24:24 atheism isn't logically sound as an
1:24:26 intellectual
1:24:28 position um however that isn't true
1:24:31 because everything requires
1:24:32 given more ability well i i think
1:24:35 perhaps you're right
1:24:36 um i'm not sure but i think
1:24:39 there is another way to put it which is
1:24:41 to say that
1:24:43 there just doesn't seem to be a
1:24:45 naturalistic
1:24:47 uh slash atheistic account of the
1:24:50 conditions
1:24:51 of proper functionalism so you know how
1:24:53 i believe to be warranted
1:24:55 needs to be produced by faculties
1:24:58 aimed at truth i just don't see how a
1:25:00 naturalist account
1:25:02 can guarantee is that our um beliefs are
1:25:06 aimed
1:25:06 at truth whereas theism can and if it
1:25:08 cannot account for that
1:25:10 then then it would mean that on atheism
1:25:13 or naturalism all our beliefs
1:25:14 would not be warranted but clearly our
1:25:16 beliefs are warranted
1:25:18 and so therefore atheism or naturalism
1:25:20 is false and atheism is true
1:25:23 okay um another question by amer
1:25:26 um how do you even know you have a true
1:25:31 belief then
1:25:32 even without justification um so
1:25:36 the idea here is that you would
1:25:39 know that your belief is true um
1:25:42 in the sense that well you have
1:25:45 justification
1:25:46 of believing that it is knowledge this
1:25:49 goes into a wider discussion about
1:25:51 externalism and internalism
1:25:53 in epistemology but what i'm saying is
1:25:55 that
1:25:57 my um belief in the
1:26:00 the laptop in front of me um well that's
1:26:03 a belief i'm justified in holding like i
1:26:05 know it's true
1:26:06 in the sense that there is no reason i
1:26:08 have to suspect that it's not
1:26:11 and um you know it's clearly warranted
1:26:15 if it's produced in the way that we
1:26:18 see that it is seemingly produced and we
1:26:20 have clearly no reason to suspect
1:26:22 otherwise and so we cannot
1:26:24 um so
1:26:28 uh how do we distinguish observations
1:26:31 from knowledge
1:26:32 what is an observation just something
1:26:36 true because you observe it in your
1:26:39 article you say when the football is
1:26:40 triggered
1:26:41 such knowledge will go to the card and
1:26:43 make it true
1:26:45 but how is the fit that i've triggered
1:26:47 um
1:26:49 from my reading is our feelings in outer
1:26:51 ones give us data and then our brain
1:26:53 takes them and makes them abstract ideas
1:26:56 etc um well as i mentioned that
1:27:00 seems to be triggered on the
1:27:01 apprehension of aix
1:27:04 um so that's that's the way i would
1:27:07 construe that
1:27:09 okay isn't belief in god
1:27:13 uh an ever influenced billy from a basic
1:27:17 belief in material
1:27:18 world it could be and you know you can
1:27:20 have
1:27:21 uh arguments for existence of god even
1:27:23 tamiya has suggested that
1:27:24 people might need arguments whose father
1:27:26 is um
1:27:28 corrupt for instance and can't access
1:27:31 the knowledge of god in a basic way
1:27:34 um but in our case
1:27:38 it's just on reflection or
1:27:41 in the circumstances that we're in we're
1:27:44 having this belief in god in immediate
1:27:46 way but you can definitely argue from
1:27:48 fine tuning let's say in the material
1:27:51 world or from the beginning of the
1:27:52 universe
1:27:53 to a creator designer that we call god
1:27:59 um so this is all for stating that my
1:28:02 belief in when god is rational without
1:28:03 empirical evidence because if anything
1:28:04 says to me that he doesn't believe in
1:28:06 god
1:28:06 all this concept then i can't prove it
1:28:08 to him but i can claim my belief is
1:28:10 rational
1:28:11 yeah i mean the idea that i'm presenting
1:28:14 here is that
1:28:15 first of all you can be rational you can
1:28:17 be justified in believing in god
1:28:20 without argument and secondly you could
1:28:22 even know that
1:28:23 argument and in just the same ways which
1:28:26 you think about your own beliefs about
1:28:28 perception about the passing of the
1:28:30 persons
1:28:31 of course um the atheist isn't going to
1:28:33 accept this
1:28:34 but that's that's fine that's his um you
1:28:37 know that's his opinion
1:28:38 but we we've shown how belief in god can
1:28:41 be warranted
1:28:42 now that belief for me is justified in
1:28:45 the absence of some defeater
1:28:46 so here we shifted the burden of proof
1:28:48 because um
1:28:49 if i'm justified in holding this belief
1:28:52 then the atheist needs to show me
1:28:54 that my um belief is is false in some
1:28:57 sense
1:28:58 because uh you know the atheist accepts
1:29:00 i can believe
1:29:01 in the laptop in front of me with our
1:29:04 arguments
1:29:05 justified there's no reason to suspect
1:29:07 or not it can be warranted
1:29:09 same thing with god so yeah
1:29:19 and so yeah is an influence through
1:29:22 science
1:29:23 to work in the fifa does that make it
1:29:25 non-basically
1:29:26 no it doesn't because the the immediate
1:29:29 belief you have
1:29:30 is triggered by yes of course using your
1:29:33 reason in the sense of reflection
1:29:35 but that's not based on other beliefs
1:29:36 that's just on pure
1:29:38 reflection and so on so um
1:29:42 there are a lot of questions here
1:29:45 a bit long and i really am very very
1:29:48 sorry
1:29:48 like to not answer them all i think i
1:29:51 might have to defer you to emailing me
1:29:54 um so
1:29:57 i'll just say for now if anybody wants
1:29:59 to email me they
1:30:01 can that jamie dot turner
1:30:14 edu dot tr
1:30:18 um and anyway i'll put things on my
1:30:20 essays you know some content
1:30:22 okay i'll try and answer a couple more
1:30:24 though saddam
1:30:25 is this just for the existence of allah
1:30:28 islam how do we know that our beliefs
1:30:29 are not
1:30:30 due to psychological reasons like our
1:30:31 families conflict i think this is a
1:30:33 really good question
1:30:34 um all of the questions are really good
1:30:36 on my channel but
1:30:37 um this is a good question because it
1:30:39 reminds me of something i wanted to say
1:30:41 um yeah so of course i've tried to show
1:30:44 it for the whole of islam now how does
1:30:46 one
1:30:46 not know that our beliefs are not just
1:30:48 the result of some psychological process
1:30:52 well that's the that's the thing it
1:30:54 seems that
1:30:55 the only way one could
1:30:58 argue that it's just a result of
1:31:00 psychological reasons
1:31:02 is if they know god doesn't exist it
1:31:04 means they have to assume that god
1:31:06 doesn't exist because if god exists then
1:31:09 he created our faculties such that even
1:31:12 in you know
1:31:14 scenarios where maybe we feel worried we
1:31:16 feel stressed
1:31:18 or you know etc etc even in those cases
1:31:22 if allah exists
1:31:23 then allah could make those
1:31:24 circumstances
1:31:26 reasons and means for us to come back to
1:31:28 believe in him
1:31:30 so the only way to pursue this line of
1:31:32 argument is to assume god doesn't exist
1:31:34 and so the atheist has to give us some
1:31:36 reason um
1:31:38 so that's the thing so that's a good
1:31:40 point
1:31:41 um and um i'm sorry
1:31:45 if the uh if the presentation was
1:31:47 somewhat complex
1:31:48 i think my essay will clear things up
1:31:50 insha'allah and forgive me for the
1:31:52 volume if it wasn't very good
1:31:54 um so
1:31:57 yeah inshallah that that'll do for now
1:32:00 um
1:32:00 it went on a lot longer than i even
1:32:02 intended and also i will
1:32:05 allow you guys to email me and then you
1:32:07 shall allow respond to your questions
1:32:09 one by one
1:32:10 so i hope you benefited from it and i
1:32:11 hope you're going to benefit from the
1:32:13 remaining sessions um
1:32:17 again thank you everybody for tuning in
1:32:21 and i look forward to some fruitful
1:32:24 discussions with you um
1:32:27 via email um
1:32:32 just to answer one last question how do
1:32:33 you prove something is properly basic
1:32:36 and just to reiterate um you know we're
1:32:39 saying that something is properly basic
1:32:42 if it is produced by faculties
1:32:45 functioning properly and so on into true
1:32:47 we come to that belief aimed in a basic
1:32:49 way
1:32:50 and as long as we have no reason to
1:32:52 suspect that it isn't like that we are
1:32:54 entirely justified
1:32:56 and so our belief in in um
1:32:59 seeing the laptop and so on or whatever
1:33:01 it might be
1:33:02 is is a properly basic belief so
1:33:05 my essay will be on the website within a
1:33:07 few days i hope insha'allah
1:33:09 so that's it for now and um
1:33:12 take care everyone
1:33:26 you