Sleepless Thoughts
March 8, 2010
Does the fact that the Duke of Argyll’s argument is constructed from a range of complex motivating factors make it invalid as a philosophical argument? When it is broken down, the claims, it is based on are not irrational or unreasonable. It has been constructed to address a range of concerns. Identity and belief are only two components but they are significant ones.
But because an idea may be inspired or motivated by a range of issues. The idea is not the same kind of thing. It is drawn from many different kind’s of things. It is the construction of a particular enviroment, but it adapts and transforms.
These are not just claims regarding religion, they are political and concern the perceived ethnos of groups. The pure form of a species in a folk taxonomy. They ask for valid problems to be addressed. Biology in particular still poses a serious question for many peoples identity, it is a threat to the pure soul of imagined communities; the ethnos. The measure of all other things in such a taxonomy of species or type. These are not irrational responses, the mistake made is that these questions are viewed by both parties as simply a matter of science. If evolution can be defeated then all our problems will be solved. If we simply give a scientifically valid argument then we have answered the question.
This would not appear to be the correct response or the correct answer. These are only one part of a much wider debate. But the debate in the 1860′s seems to be a very human response to a range of issues.
The questions posed needs a much broader response. It will not remove the biology question that many religious people or post modernist influenced academics hold. But if questions are understood fully. Responses can be addressed more fully by both parties.
This is not to suggest it is a straight forward matter. But it is one which requires debate and comunication.
