Bill Vallicella has an interesting post on why, in the end, metaphysics is more important than logic. He deals with Fred Sommers' turn away from the former to the latter because he thought it was somehow a superior field of philosophical inquiry. But I think the Maverick is right here:

At the end of the day, how important is it to prove that the inference embedded in 'Some girl is loved by every boy so every boy loves a girl' really is capturable, pace the dogmatic partisans of modern predicate logic, by a refurbished traditional term logic? ... As one draws one's last breath, which is more salutary: to be worried about a silly bagatelle such as the one just mentioned, or to be contemplating God and the soul?

This reminds me of something the late Ron Nash said in one of his introductory textbooks. He was discussing the analytic turn in twentieth century philosophy and the suspicion analytic philosophers often held for "system building." He writes:

During my master's and doctor's studies in philosophy, I took many courses from such analytic philosophers. I remember spending one semester examining a single sentence from the writings of David Hume. I spent another semester exploring the two-word expression "I can." I look back with admiration at the creativity of the professors, even though I remember many days in which I felt certain there were better ways to spend my time.

I understand the sentiment here. Neither Nash nor Vallicella are against logical or linguistic analysis (as one look at the Maverick's blog can tell you). They just (rightly, in my opinion) think that there is no good reason to prefer logical questions over metaphysical ones. Linguistic and logical analysis may seem to be more fruitful and accurate methods of inquiry, but they really aren't, and metaphysics - which is more likely to deal with traditional religious questions such as sin, salvation, and eternal life - is actually more important. We are reminded here of William James' notion that religious questions present us with forced options. We may not be certain about the answer to the questions, but their (potentially eternal) importance forces us to make a decision one way or the other.

I think this point is important for Christian philosophers. I see a tendency for some young Christians who want to do philosophy start out full of energy and vigor for being Christian philosophers. That is, they want to do philosophy to the glory of God and to provide rational support for the faith. But then they do their M.A. or their Ph.D. at a state school and their fire for the faith gets dimmer and dimmer, until in the end they may still call themselves a Christian philosopher, but really they're just a regular philosopher who happens to attend Sunday services. They busy themselves with current problems and issues in analytic philosophy, most of which are (1) not concerned with or (2) downright dismissive of religious issues. And this happens, I think, because of what Vallicella was talking about: they steep themselves in the received academic wisdom, which - since the abandonment of Hegelianism by Russell and others around the turn of the century - sees logical and linguistic analysis as superior to religion and metaphysics.

And I think this is tragic. These Christian philosophers aren't apostasizing by any means (although some of them do apostasize, and others get dangerously close), they're just becoming useless for the kingdom. They don't want to risk their academic necks by forcefully arguing for theism or Christianity, and so they stay in their safe philosophical ghettos. But I think they have forgotten an important notion that comes from (of all places) the writings of Karl Marx: the point is not to understand the world, but to change it. Now, I think we Christians can appreciate the point here while promoting a very different type of change for the world than foisting the silly economic system of Marxism upon it. As Christian philosophers, we should seek both to understand the world by doing philosophy and to change it by advancing the kingdom of God. To abandon the latter for supposedly good philosophical reasons will not excuse us on the day of judgment. God is interested in the soundness of syllogisms, but He's more interested in the salvation of souls.

Recently my wife and I watched Superman Returns. We both enjoyed it immensely, but I always know going into these types of movies that my wife may have trouble suspending her disbelief. She often says that movies that feature fantastic themes, for example, like an invincible flying man, are simply unbelievable. "How can you enjoy a movie like that," she will ask, "when Superman could never exist in the real world?" Hence I often view movies like X-Men 3 all by my lonesome.

In one sense I understand her objection perfectly. As I mature in my years I can see the attraction of putting fantastic stories to bed. Isn't there something a little silly about spending (1) two hours of your life and (2) a not insubstantial sum of money to watch movies where explosions happen in the vacuum of space (Star Wars), a woman can control the weather with her mind (X-Men), or the well-being of nations depends on the fate of a little magic ring (Lord of the Rings)? You don't often see seventy-year old men going to a Spider-Man movie, so I take this to be a near universal aspect of individual maturation.

But should it be? I remember reading Roger Ebert saying that he couldn't fathom a college-educated adult paying money to go see a movie like The Mummy Returns. This seems a little rash, if not more than a little uppity, but I confess that I often find a similar desire creeping in on my consciousness to repudiate fantastic stories. When this happens, I am forced to make a decision: determine whether such stories are worth consuming or whether they aren't. On one side of the argument there is this nebulous, unformed idea that somehow a mature person shouldn't waste time watching superhero movies. On the other side there is, among other things, the fact that I actually enjoy these types of movies and stories. And I find that I am like most people in that I enjoy enjoying what I usually enjoy.

So what is the maturing geek to do? There are two options. First, I could show that there is actually a great deal of redeeming value in such tales, that at their core they are mythical stories which use a fantastic husk to press home the kernel of a traditional moral theme. I could point out, for example, that Spider-Man is all about the universal difficulty that young people encounter when faced with new responsibilities in a hostile world, or that X-Men uses superhero trappings as a social commentary on civil strife, or that Star Wars is both a cautionary tale about the seduction of absolute power and a redemptive tale about the power of family relationships.

On all this I call poppycock. That's because I don't need any sort of defense against the charge that it's silly to believe impossibly fantastic stories. The above arguments for the benefits of engaging in fantasy are all perfectly legitimate, but they are also perfectly unnecessary. To see why, take the standard objection, that there is no redeeming value in consuming impossible stories. But are they really impossible? I suppose it depends on which type of impossibility is implied.

Here I apply philosophy in the defense of geeks everywhere. More specifically, I make an admittedly unsophisticated use of modal logic. For the nonphilosophers out there, modal logic is the study of necessity and possibility. In other words, when we do modal logic we attempt to determine how possibility and necessity work, especially when it comes to propositions and states of affairs. One way we do this is by envisioning possible worlds. When we are trying to determine the possibility of proposition p, for example, we determine under what conditions p would be possible, impossible, necessary or not necessary in possible world W.

So how does all this apply to watching Superman Returns? Consider again the traditional objection: an indestructible flying man is impossible, so it's silly to watch a movie about him. But is Superman really impossible? Again, it depends on what kind of possibility is implied. In modal logic we often talk about something that is logically possible or impossible. It is logically possible, for example that my name is Gerald and I live in Poughkeepsie. Neither of these is actually true (philosophers say that neither state of affairs actually obtains), but they are not impossible. In other words, there exists possible world G where my name is Gerald and I live in Poughkeepsie. However, it is not logically possible that 2+2=5 or that a bachelor could be a married man. There is no possible world in which either of these states of affairs obtains.

At this point we ask: is there anything logically impossible about an alien from planet Krypton who draws power from our sun, giving him indestructibility and the powers of flight, laser vision, etc? Certainly not, and this is how you appreciate watching Superman or reading fantasy: you simply point out to the naysayers that there is nothing logically impossible about the events portrayed therein. Certainly it is highly improbable that a man like Superman could exist in our own world, but there is certainly a possible world out there (we can unsurprisingly call it S) where the last son of Krypton could exist. Now, if he were called "Logical Contradiction Man" and went around squaring circles and making 1 and 1 equal pi, then the objection would stand, but a man like that wouldn't be much of a superhero.

The trick to making this scenario work is ignoring that, on the normal laws of nature, a being like Superman originating like he does would be highly improbable, or at least physically or biologically impossible. But why would you waste your moviegoing experience thinking about dry philosophical concepts like these? Just make a quick determination that he's logically possible and enjoy the ride.

Twice in recent days I have heard the following claim made in an advertisement being run on a local Christian radio station. I didn't take an exact quote, so I'll paraphrase as best as I can remember:

Since the Supreme Court removed prayer from schools in 1962, the crime rate in America has risen by 700 percent! Our traditional moral foundations are being eroded ...

I assume you can imagine the rest. I don't recall what the ad was for, but it was certainly something political: soliciting donations for this Christian group or advertising that politically themed Christian event. Needless to say, both times I heard this claim I cringed so hard I almost pulled a facial muscle. What would cause such a reaction in me? It's simple: bad argumentation. But here we are not dealing simply with a bad argument, but a whoppingly bad argument. The claim made by the ad is a perfect example of the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after the thing, therefore because of the thing"). This fallacy occurs when the arguer assumes that because Event B follows Event A, then Event A was necessarily the cause of Event B. The argument also does a disservice to history, because while it is certainly possible that the Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale contributed to an increase in crime, it is downright fallacious or ignorant to claim certain knowledge of a direct connection. And I'm no expert on the cultural revolution of the sixties, but I think there was more going on in than the removal of prayer from public schools that might have contributed to an increase in the crime rate.

The cultural leftists accuse the politically charged religious rightists with being brainless, myopic ideologues lacking in critical thinking skills who only want to advance their religious worldview by seeking political power. With excruciatingly bad arguments being made like this in order to score political points, can you blame them?

[Cross-posted at RedBlueChristian.com]