Q&A: Taylor’s Argument
Taylor’s Argument
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I looked again at the fourth notebook. There you talk about Taylor and confidence in the senses. After that you bring the challenge from evolution—that perhaps we really do have confidence in the senses because they developed evolutionarily. And then, as an answer, you say that we should take a step back and try to understand who created the laws that lead evolution.
I understood the argument, but I didn’t understand why Taylor’s argument doesn’t just get thrown out. Does the claim that I’m not supposed to rely on the senses still carry weight? Because from your answer I understood that the challenge from evolution really does stand, but we simply return to our insight about the argument from outside the laws and rely on that, while Taylor’s argument itself no longer stands. But if so, your whole argument about confidence in the senses falls apart. Did I understand correctly?
Answer
As far as I remember, I gave there several explanations for why the challenge from evolution does not overturn the argument: 1. Trust in the senses did not arise, and its source did not really change, after Darwin’s discoveries. 2. The theory of evolution itself relies on trust in the senses. 3. Evolution is not a basis for the full confidence that we actually have (after all, who can guarantee that we have reached complete reliability of the senses? Maybe we are only halfway there?). And only at the end did I conclude with the pincer move back to the “philosophical” argument.
Discussion on Answer
You are talking about psychological confidence, and I am talking about philosophical confidence. That is the whole point of this notebook. Morality too is planted in us by evolution. The question is why that makes it valid and binding. The fact that confidence in the senses is planted in us does not mean that this confidence is correct. The question is why people once thought that this confidence is correct and not merely an illusion embedded in us.
Meaning, the assumption is that there has always been “philosophical” confidence in trust in the senses?
Indeed.
But there is no reason at all for confidence in the senses to increase after the discovery of evolution. After all, our confidence in the senses is planted in us evolutionarily even without understanding the evolutionary argument. So clearly there is no reason that the explanation itself should add to our certainty; it only explains it. If so, what is the point of this refutation?