A common internet trope we hear all the time is, “Well, I’m not convinced,” or “That doesn’t persuade me,” or “That doesn’t sound true to me.” And a lot of people get tripped up by this, because they think their job now is to sell the person on the truth of their position. But that already grants too much. We need to distinguish between the psychology of evidence and the epistemology of evidence. The psychology of evidence has to do with how evidence feels to you. Whether it moves you. Whether it strikes you as persuasive. Whether it produces some internal sense of certainty. But the epistemology of evidence has to do with whether the evidence actually supports the claim. Those are not the same thing. Merely reporting your psychological state might be interesting. It might tell us something about your background, your biases, your assumptions, your social environment, or your emotional resistance to a conclusion. But by itself, it has no philosophical weight. The question is not, “Am I convinced?” The question is, “What should convince me?” Notice how much work the word should is doing there. “Should” means we are no longer treating our private psychology as the standard. We are now submitting ourselves to a rule, a norm, a guideline, or an authority outside of our immediate feelings. And in this case, the authority is reason. Because none of us are ideal observers. There is no situation where two human beings are reasoning from a perfectly neutral, bias-free standpoint. We all come with emotions, desires, fears, incentives, background assumptions, biological pressures, and psychological complexity. So the point of reason is not that it magically makes us unbiased. The point of reason is that it gives us a way to regulate our biases. It gives us a standard by which we can discipline our psychology, rather than letting our psychology sit on the throne and call itself rationality. And this is where the epistemology of evidence matters. In philosophy, evidence is not just “whatever makes me feel persuaded.” Evidence is a relation of support. One proposition is evidence for another proposition when it raises, supports, or increases the probability of that proposition being true.

Knowing how to distinguish an internal critique from an external critique is essential for serious argumentation, especially in debate. A lot of people fail at this point because they either collapse the two into one another, confuse them, or simply do not know which kind of argument they are advancing. Here is the basic distinction. An internal critique takes the beliefs, assumptions, or commitments of the position being criticized and attempts to show that, from within that position itself, there follows a contradiction, inconsistency, or unacceptable implication. In other words, the critique works by saying, “Given your own commitments, your view seems to generate a problem.” An external critique, by contrast, does not primarily try to show that the position contradicts itself. Rather, it argues that the position is inferior when compared against some other set of beliefs, values, ethical principles, or explanatory commitments. The claim is not merely, “Your view is inconsistent,” but rather, “Your view is less plausible than this alternative.” So before you make an argument against any position, you should slow down and ask: what kind of case am I making? Am I offering an internal critique, an external critique, or some combination of both? You do not need to be overly rigid here. Both kinds of critiques can be used together. But you do need to know which one you are using, because the way you argue and the burden you carry will be different. Take the claim, for example, that “the God of the Old Testament is not loving.” There are already several assumptions baked into that claim, but the first question to ask is this: is this being offered as an internal critique or an external one? If it is an internal critique, then the critic must show that the internal commitments of the biblical or Christian worldview generate a contradiction with the Old Testament portrayal of God. They would need to show that, given Christianity’s own moral and theological framework, the God depicted in the Old Testament cannot coherently be called loving.

Hey, everyone. A couple days ago, I decided to start reading The Existence of God. Chapter 1 was pretty easy to comprehend and keep all the concepts straight in my mind, but once I got to chapter 2 where there are sections on both scientific and personal explanations, keeping track of all the definitions started to get really difficult, and I felt like I was highlighting multiple things on every page. If you've gone through the book, could you please offer some advice on how to get through it without feeling overwhelmed, yet being able to retain all the very specific, intricate definitions that Swinburne stipulates for the various types of explanations? Additionally, I'm in the section on personal explanations where he mentions Davidson's account of personal explanations in terms of scientific explanations, and I'm not seeing how his argument goes through for a non-reductionist/broadly dualist view of personal explanation that involves intention. From what I understand, he's saying that Davidson is including intentions themselves as reducible to combinations of brain states and their connections to the rest of one's body, correct? If so, it seems that Swinburne then says that intention is not reducible to brain states and their connections to one's body by this analogy: there are properties like redness that are immediately perceivable, but one does not need to know anything about the perceived object with the property of redness reflecting a particular wavelength that corresponds to the color red. So analogous to the case above, one does not need to know about a one's particular brain state and its connections to know what one's own intention is. Is this just how a typical argument for, at the least, property dualism is made?

If you’ve been on the internet for any significant period of time, you’ve come across creators, comments, and debates where someone throws around the phrase “that’s a bad answer” or “that doesn’t answer the problem.” But for whatever reason, no one has stopped to ask: what do we mean by “good answer”? This has always baffled me. If both parties (assuming good intent) desire to be as objective as possible, then why has this notion of “a good answer” not been unpacked or precisified? It seems like the most obvious and fundamental step to take. And yet, mainstream apologetics never stops to first provide clarity. Here’s what we don’t want: a good answer being one where the person receiving the answer feels satisfied. Why? Because that turns something objective into something psychological. If our goal is to track the truth, then why is our litmus test for rationality someone’s psychological state, rather than the merit of the reasons given? That is clearly not the right way to go. Ultimately, we don’t care about the psychology of answers, but the epistemology of answers. Epistemology concerns anything to do with giving reasons for a belief. In apologetics, epistemology is the cornerstone of what we do. So the question becomes: what is the right epistemology of answers? And to that, we turn to a fun little concept called “ad hocness.” You’ve probably heard this term used a lot. “That’s ad hoc!” someone declares, as though the rest of the discussion is now moot. However, there’s quite a bit to say about this concept, and it’s much more nuanced than many make it out to be. Ad hocness occurs when the explanation given to save the truth of one’s belief(s) cannot be ascertained from the principles within that person’s already-held framework. In other words: when resisting having one’s belief(s) defeated, if what’s appealed to is not already expected within their system, it’s said to be ad hoc. Now, you can already see how most who throw around the term do not use it in this rigorous of a manner. Keep note of that.

Hey everyone! Just wondering what y’all’s thoughts on the abortion debate from a philosophical standpoint. I know that many people believe that something is not a “person” until it has a mind. Dustin Crummett gave a couple of arguments in favor of this position in a video on Joe Schmid’s channel “Majesty of Reason” where he was debating Trent Horn on abortion. One argument he gave was called the cerebrum transplant argument, where he essentially said that if one’s mind and organism separate, one goes with the mind and not the organism. Hence, one must be their mind, and not their organism. What are y’all’s thoughts on this? Edit: Just FYI, I'm working on responses to y'all's replies. Thanks for responding to my post!