(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen
Comments
I think there are only two types of people who are attracted to study philosophy...
1/ Those who wish to search for truth.
2/ Those who wish to search for justice.
Interestingly, in my experience I find these two "searches" mutually exclusive...one is either drawn to one or the other...NEVER both...
Philosophy is like Psychology...in fact this is what it has in common with Theology...
I still haven't come to the conclusion that Philosophy is scholarly...
It is a form of "knowledge" but whether it is scholarly knowledge...I doubt...I mean, you can't make anything with philosophy...no power in philosophy, like theology...but it can make one feel better mentally like psychology...
But I like philosophy and know that to do it well improves your methods of laying out coherent thoughts and ideas.
Agree with the tenor of both your recent posts. But it's a sad state of affairs that philosophy needs defending.
IMHO, there's a bit of problem right now with philosophy (along with statistics, sadly) getting short shrift in the sciences, especially the life sciences (John Wilkins has spoken of this).
Philosophy is important both for the practical conduct of science and for its ethical conduct.
Dr Andy Martin (Cambridge) has invented, Becksistentialism which he terms is "existentialism but with a very cool haircut".
You can find his ideas on Dr Martin's blog, "Becks in Paris".
Regards, Paul.
Education to degree level is mostly a one-shot deal for working class folk. If you get the oppertunity you had better make it count. If you pick something with decent monetary return you might be able to afford additional education further down the line. You really don't want to be in the position of being utterly unconnected from any employment above manual labour (I mean no connections through friends or relatives to better oppertunities), and a philosophy degree.
"Philosophy is important both for the practical conduct of science and for its ethical conduct."
Would you mind expanding on that, particularly the first part.
Practical implies the "empirical", meaning what we can "measure", i.e. photons, electrons, etc...so with regards to quantum physics say, one does not require philosophy to support a physics theory because it can be empirically valid without recourse to metaphysics, i.e. what IS a photon?...what IS an electron?
It is only when these types of metaphysical questions are asked that philosophy has any role in science.
I mean, think of the discovery of the Higg's...We use theory/calculations to predict tracks in a bubble chamber, from the experiments we infer the trajectories we see in the bubble chamber are "particles" flying through the chamber leaving tracks...
However, what is wrong with this is that really what we are seeing is a succession of bubbles...AND the mistake is to link them together...because in quantum theory "stuff" does not have trajectories...instead they are simply independent "events"...
This is when philosophy comes into play with science...it is in the interpretation of these events...and with it perhaps certain insights that may point in a new direction of research.
Hi Damien,
"Philosophy is important both for the practical conduct of science and for its ethical conduct."
Would you mind expanding on that, particularly the first part."
With regard to "practical" I'm referring on the role of philosophy in narrowing down Best Practice for the process of investigation.
e.g.
1) Hypothesis framing
2) Experimental design and appropriate statistics analysis
3) Data interpretation and conclusions
Science needs, and has always needed, philosophy because the former is ultimately an inductive process through which we are hoping to draw accurate conclusions about the universal from a mere sample.
Philosophy has been instrumental in figuring out the ways to strengthen that inductive process and mitigating its innate weaknesses. Unfortunately, things such as the importance of a good falsifiable hypothesis and avoiding post hoc theorizing &c are being forgotten, and it's clear that this is having negative consequences. There's a real problem both in the biological sciences and in psychology right now with failure to reproduce findings, even the really important ones (there was a pharmaceutical firm that reproduced something like 50 landmark experiments and only succeeded in reproducing 20% of them). In a small number of cases this is due to outright fraud, but in many cases faulty experimental design and inappropriate use and interpretation of statistics is key.
On top of that, there's this trend for government funding agencies to encourage, and sink tremendous amounts of money into, whimsical Big Science investigations. Ones that are too often driven by some vague, ambiguous, and usually conceptually dubious goal (see Genome Project, BRAIN Initiative, Protein Structure Initiative and similar ill-conceived boondoggle fishing expeditions).
So, yeah, philosophy is important to the efficiency of the scientific method, which has clear cost benefits both in terms of time and money. Frankly, I think a philosopher should be employed in every life science department (scientists seem to be cottoning onto the usefulness of having a resident statistician in the house, so maybe there's hope for us yet).
I was wondering, is the question:
"Why can't I push my hand through a brick wall."
A scientific question, a philosophical question or both?