Is apologetics a science?

[McCulloch]

Christian apologetics have always been a form of cognitive science.

Question for debate: Can Christian apologetics be considered a discipline within the field of cognitive science?

[Goat]

Conscience and personality are aspects and functions of the human soul.

Prove that statement. Show how 'conscience and personality' are part of the human soul, and not just a product of the mind/brain

As a self-evident presupposition and given, no proof is required, any more than a demonstration of your mental health is.

Have you no conscience? How does your brain know what is morally or ethically right and wrong? And how in the world would you know that if you didn't have a soul to reflect on the correctness of your answer?

I see,. your questions are merely diversions.. and your statements about the human soul are unsupported assertions.

[Furrowed Brow]

My simple response to this is that you seem to be using a different definition for metaphysics than the one I presented. Please let me know how you define it. I will make a few other points as well.

The wikipedia definition you supplied only tells half the story. As I have posted to Jcrawford. Metaphysics is usually taken to mean ontological discourses that are of a higher order or beyond the physical. Platonic realms being an obvious metaphysics. Heaven, Hell the holy trinity being theological metaphysics. All are nonsense of one form or another if you go with W or LP. If we compare these to say to the abstractions of General Relativity, you could say this theory is ontological and explains the nature of being and thus is metaphysics. But this would be wrong. General relativity makes predications and can be tested for. It is very much an empirical theory.

I understand this point, but that does not exclude it from being a metaphysical stance. I have not seen how, by my definition, logic has been ruled out of metaphysics.

Ok I am not saying a metaphysician cannot propose an argument whereby a conlcusion follows from a premise in a neatly argued way. What I am saying is that the implications of W and LP is that the premise is meaningless viz., neither true nor false. This is importantly different from a proposition being true, or just being false, or a contradiction, or an analytical truth. When sentences fall outside this group then no matter how much rigour is being applied, no meaningful work is actually being done.

Is this a retraction of the idea that science is superior to metaphysics on the grounds that it provides physical evidence, or an assertion that science is subtly superior to mathematics?

Neither. There are two ways your propositions may make sense. But only two. Physical facts, and analytical truth. Importantly the necessary truth of mathematics is not accepted as metaphysical at all. (W has his own slant on this). The kind of metaphysics that sometimes goes with mathematics, platonic metaphysics for example, is taken to be the nonsense. The necessary truth of mathematics arising out of truth by definition. e.g. 1 + 1 = 2, is true be the definition of the numbers "1" and "2".

This is only true of certain metaphysical claims. Some are perfectly logical.

But you fall into the pitfall that W and LP advise you not to. Something can look logical, appear perfectly validly, but if the logic of language has been misappropriated, then as much as a sentence looks well formed, it is still meaningless.

Take the poem the Jabberwocky. A piece of nonsense, yes, but one that works because it is grammatically well formed. Metaphysical words often have clear definitions, so a metaphysical argument appears to make more sense than the Jabberwocky. And metaphysical arguments can be formed that draw conclusions that follow from the premise. But….if as W and LP suggest the logic of language is being misused then the metaphysical argument does not escape being nonsense -becuase the premises cannot be either true or false.

This could very easily be referred to as a metaphysical position, even by what I understand to be your definition. It could be argued that, since all logic must begin with certain assumptions, no logic can ever reach proof (or be logically shown to be false) and all statements made by human beings will therefore be meaningless.

No. Mathematics and logic are formal languages. They are the form of the argument., whilst being empty of content. They say nothing about the world/reality. They are simple the rules by which we can think and count. However - you have hit on something. Meaning is also that which makes a proposition true or false, those conditions are out there in the world, viz., evidence, phenomena, stuff that actually happens. It is these things that give our propositions meaning. Metaphysics on the other hand, by definition tries to go the extra step; it tries to say more than analytical truths and more than empirical truth, and as soon as it takes that step it steps into nonsense. (At least if you go with W and LP)

One cannot arbitrarily say that all realms beyond the physical are nonsense unless you are conceding that any statement one will make in the future regarding the truth/falsehood of theism is nonsense.

That’s back to front. W and LP are very non arbitrary positions. Don’t think about the realm you would like to describe - it is all about the limitations of language. Given these considerations, which are not arbitrary - the arbitrary stance is to carry on doing metaphysics without addressing the problems of how language works. Of course you can disagree with the likes of W and LP, but you face a problem. Science relies on physical phenomena to provide its propositions with meaning. Phenomena that can be tested, and sensed. Metaphysics on the other hand if it is to be meaningful still has to posit other realms beyond the physical. So to even get a theory of language going for metaphysics your theory needs to lift itself off the ground by its shoe strings.

This undercutting of all theological debate is fair enough to claim but is (obviously) not being supported by this site or its participants.

OK but this is a forum open to all points of view relevant to religious debate. The upshot of this kind of thinking is not the undercutting of religious debate per se, it just changes the nature of the discourse. Hermeneutics becomes more important. Arguments that have religious language working more like a poem - religioius language not being factual but evocative etc., come to the fore. You may disagree with those kinds of approaches - if you do you are going to need a theory of language - and even when you get one it ain't going to compare to that of science.

Nor does it offer any evidence that the non-physical is not relevant.

Now we are going around in a circle. If you have evidence, or there is in principle some means of getting evidence, verification or corroboration - but one that does not already rely on your theory being true - then you are making sense. Of course a scientist may propose a false theory. But that is the point. Verification, and corroboration fail. This is one reason why a falsification principle is at the centre of the scientific methodology, and you will see guys like me bang on about it in multiple threads. Standing in stark contrast - by definition metaphysical statements cannot be shown to be true or false. (Actually I think W would say he did show that). Anyway, W and LP take a very strict stance, even if you find that too restrictive, metaphysics still lacks a theory of language to support their assertions. This is a fundamental demarcation between science and metaphysics. Which brings me full circle back to why I say metaphysics is not logically equivalent to science. Science is not a metaphysics. I’m on the extreme end of the spectrum and would say metaphysics is nonsense. But even if you discount this viewpoint, you cannot possibly say metaphysic is equal to science. That is viewpoint is logically untenable.

[Cathar1950]

There is nothing so frustrating as the limits of language. Even a powerful tool such as mathematics (Gödel, Whitehead, Russell) has its limitations as it does not have a one to one correspondence to reality. Like language it is a human construct.
Nice post Furrowed Brow. Even I can sometimes understand W.