Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

Atheism and Theism 101
allowing that reality can be, as it seems to be, composed of various distinct
sorts of things constituted at different levels. Unsurprisingly, therefore, I see
no reason to suppose that the explanation of the intentional behaviour of
rational animals conforms to a single pattern. In particular, I see no need to
subsume every factor that might be adverted to in psychological explanation
under a heading termed ‘rational causation’. Consider again the scene in
which Kirsty is writing a sentence and we ask ourselves why she is doing this.
The answer I proposed was that she wants to communicate her ideas, but
many other explanations might be offered: she is in a creative mood; she has
promised to produce a story; she has abandoned pencil and paper and is
experimenting with a word processor; she doesn’t have the time to write a
whole page, and so on. Notice that these need not compete with one another;
they could all be true. Notice also that in many cases the explanation takes
the form of a redescription of the actual behaviour, not a move away from it
to describe something else to which it is only contingently related – an
ontologically independent antecedent cause. To say ‘she is writing because
she wants to communicate’ need not be held to identify some event of wanting
to communicate which led to this behaviour; rather it can be viewed as
interpreting the behaviour as communicative. Here the wish to understand
what is going on is satisfied by being told what the agent is doing. No
mention of antecedent events is necessary. While one may say ‘she is writing
because . . .’ I have argued that it is a mistake to regard this as necessarily
introducing an efficient cause, even though it sometimes may do.
In order to act an agent must be able to deliberate, considering the pros
and cons of alternative courses. In doing so, he or she is not reflecting upon
actual events but possible ones. Possible events are always types; the only
token events there are are actual ones. So in thinking about what to do one is
entertaining general descriptions: ‘writing an essay’, ‘cutting the grass’, ‘polishing
the silver’, ‘changing the baby’, ‘phoning a friend’, and so on. Unless
we could think in terms of types we could not deliberate, and without being
able to deliberate we could not act. It is also true that when we think about
the present and the past we consider events through the mediation of general
categories. Even where the object of thought is a particular, the content of
the thought will be constructed out of general concepts (whether thoughts are
wholly general in content is a matter of dispute). If I think of my wife Hilda
I think of someone who is a woman, a mother, a Scot, and so on; and while she
is a unique individual these attributes are general and can be multiply instantiated
– many individuals are Scottish women, wives and mothers.
Thinking about the future is only ever thinking in general terms, and
thinking about the present involves bringing individuals under general types.
In short, thinking involves universal concepts. This fact creates problems
for materialism and for the effort to show that human beings could have