Department of Philosophy

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Browsing Department of Philosophy by Author "Botha, Charl Louis"

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    Evolution: naturalism's Kryptonite?
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Botha, Charl Louis; Smit, J. P.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis, I consider two questions. The first is whether human cognitive faculties would likely be reliable on naturalism and evolution. The second is which of evolutionary naturalism or theistic evolution offers the best explanation of the empirical evidence we have with respect to human cognitive reliability. With respect to the first question, Alvin Plantinga claims that human cognition would likely be unreliable given naturalism and evolution. For he claims that evolution’s primary care is for creature’s survival and not the truthvalue of their beliefs. And that there is no naturalistic scenario on which the link between belief and behavior would be such that evolution can select for belief content, and where it can, no reason to think that it would select for mostly true content. Naturalist’s disagree. In response, they argue that evolution would be able to select for belief content. And not only that, it would likely select for true content as well. For, according to them, it’s plausible to think that true beliefs would on average be better guides to behaviour than false ones. But even if evolution can’t select for belief content, a number of naturalists argue that there would be conceptual constraints on which beliefs could coherently be ascribed to a person’s behaviour given her desires. And that this means that the most coherent belief ascriptions would involve mostly true beliefs. With respect to this first question, I conclude that the naturalist’s case is the more persuasive of the two. Human cognition would likely be reliable on naturalism and evolution. With respect to the second question, I argue that evolutionary naturalism is the better explanation of the relevant empirical evidence we have concerning human cognitive reliability. For on Christian theism, it’s of absolutely vital importance that humans know that the Christian God exists. That the evidence indicates that the majority of humanity don’t know (or believe) that Christianity is true, and haven’t for most of their history, is therefore very surprising. It is ultimately this that leads me to the conclusion that evolutionary naturalism offers the more plausible account of the evidence we have with respect to human cognitive reliability.