The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

Philosophical Failure 47
Of course the judgment would go the other way if Ronald were trying
to convert the agnostics to realism, and Norma’s only job were to
block the attempted conversion. You will see that I have imagined our
ideal debate as based on a certain division of labor or, better, a certain
principle of dialectical organization. I have not imagined a nominalist
and a realist as simultaneously attempting to convert the audience to
their respective positions. That way dialectical anarchy lies. I am really
imagining two debates, or imagining that each side in the debate gets
what might be called its innings. When Norma the nominalist is at bat,
she tries to convert the agnostics, and Ronald the realist attempts to
block the conversion. When the Ronald is at bat, he tries to convert the
agnostics, and Norma attempts to block the conversion. But in order
to evaluate the success of a particular philosophical argument, we need
not consider both innings. The question whether a particular argument
for nominalism is a success is settled by how well it performs during the
nominalist’s innings.
So we have a criterion of philosophical success. An argument for p is
a success just in the case that it can be used, under ideal circumstances,
to convert an audience of ideal agnostics (agnostics with respect to p)to
belief in p—in the presence of an ideal opponent of belief in p.Nowthis
definition is counterfactual in form: it says that an argument is a success
if and only if presenting it in certain circumstances would have certain
consequences. One might well object to the criterion on the ground that
it might be very hard indeed—perhaps impossible—to discover the
truth-values of the relevant counterfactual propositions. But that comes
down to objecting to a criterion of success in philosophical argument
because it has the consequence that it might be very hard, or impossible,
to discover whether certain philosophical arguments were successes, and
it’s hardly evident that having that consequence is a defect in a criterion
of philosophical success.
I have to admit that my statement of the criterion raises a lot of
questions, some of which at least I cannot evade by pleading limitations
of time. Here is one: do I mean my ideal agnostics to be drawn from
all times and all cultures—or at least from all times and all cultures
consistent with their being agnostics of the relevant sort? No, I mean
the agnostics to be drawn from our time and our culture; so limiting
the jury pool, of course, relativizes our criterion of philosophical success
to our time and our culture, for it is certainly possible that an argument
that would have succeeded in, say, convincing an eighteenth-century
audience that space was infinite would not succeed with an audience