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Alex Rosenberg (2011) The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions

W. W. Norton & Company, New York & London. ISBN: 978-0-393-34411-0, 368 pp., price $16.95

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Notes

  1. Some evidence suggests the possibility that Rosenberg has embraced this radical solution only quite recently. For example, in his penultimate 2008 book, co-authored with the biologist Daniel McShea, he distinguishes between effects that are a result of blind natural selection and those that depend on conscious human intentions and plans (see Rosenberg and McShea 2008, pp. 89 and 93). The following passage is also in direct opposition to the idea cited in the paragraph above: “Some human institutions, such as the United Nations or a joint stock company, that are the result of conscious, intentional design […] are the exception in human affairs, not the rule” (ibid., p. 224; italics added).

  2. This is by no means our intention. We respect Rosenberg’s commitment to a scientific view of reality and take science to be a fascinating enterprise. The differences, though, might stem from different conceptions of science––more on this later.

  3. See, for example, the claim that “consciousness can’t be trusted to be right about the most basic things” (p. 162). In passages like this the not entirely happy way the book is written manifests itself. Rosenberg deliberately tries to be provocative and overstates some of his theses. This affects not just his concise theory of consciousness and its cognitive value, but also, e.g., his views on history (of which more below). After some time, the reader starts wondering which claims of the book are to be taken seriously and literally and which not.

  4. Take blindsight, one of Rosenberg’s favourite examples: there is simply no way to study blindsight in a scientific fashion without taking the subjective reports of awareness of the probands at face value. Cf., for example, Sahraie et al. (2010).

  5. See Nisbett and Wilson (1977).

  6. See Hutto (2007) for the narrative nature of folk psychology.

  7. Arguments against intentional contents are to be found in other writings of Rosenberg, e.g., in Rosenberg (2006), pp. 102–103.

  8. See, for example, Sellars (1964), or the third chapter of Sellars (1967).

  9. See Dennett (1971) for the explanation of the term.

  10. See, e.g., Baker et al. (2011).

  11. A more startling result of Rosenberg’s view is that we cannot ascribe determinate propositional attitudes even to ourselves, in introspective awareness. But such difficulties present a challenge to most theories of intentionality, not just to the strictly physicalistic ones.

  12. For more details, see Rosenberg (2006), p. 108 (and the whole third chapter of this book).

  13. This is explicitly claimed in Rosenberg and McShea (2008), p. 99: the facts are “true statements about all the events, processes, states, trends, laws, entities, systems, and objects that occur or exist in the universe”. Phrases such as “facts about the world” in the Atheist’s Guide are fully consistent with this usage.

References

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported within the Project of Education for Competitiveness Operational Programme (OPVK), Research Centre for Theory and History of Science (Výzkumné centrum pro teorii a dějiny vědy), Registration No. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0138, co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic.

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Correspondence to Tomáš Marvan.

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Dach, S., Marvan, T. Alex Rosenberg (2011) The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions . Sci & Educ 23, 695–706 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-013-9661-y

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