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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The fact that a competent evaluator finds first-order evidence to support God's existence is itself evidence that God exists.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Higher-order evidence that a competent evaluator found first-order evidence is epistemically defeated by the equal existence of competent evaluators who find the same first-order evidence to disconfirm God's existence.
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    • 2.When symmetrically competent evaluators reach opposing conclusions from shared evidence, the higher-order evidence they generate cancels rather than compounds, leaving the original epistemic situation unchanged.
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    • 3.Alvin Goldman's veritistic epistemology and the peer disagreement literature from Christensen and Elga establish that unresolved peer conflict suspends the evidential force of individual evaluator verdicts.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.The move from 'a competent evaluator finds evidence E supports P' to 'E actually supports P' commits the psychologistic fallacy of substituting cognitive performance for logical entailment.
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    • 2.Frege's foundational critique of psychologism establishes that the normative validity of an inferential relation is independent of whether any cognitive agent successfully tracks it.
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    • 3.Competent evaluation of theistic arguments historically reflects prior metaphysical commitments, as Plantinga's Reformed epistemology and Mackie's eliminative materialism demonstrate, undermining the evaluator-neutrality that the argument requires.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The cosmological argument, teleological argument, and problem of evil are first-order evidence regarding God's existence.
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    • 2.A competent evidential evaluator finding a body of evidence to support a proposition is higher-order evidence for that proposition.
      ?

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    • 3.Higher-order evidence bears on the truth of the proposition in question.
      ?

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