Knowledge and Bias: A First Response to Tom Clark

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

Several weeks ago Tom Clark commented here on a blog entry about dualism. Clark is the director of the Center for Naturalism and is (I believe) also responsible for a related website, Naturalism.org. He speaks nationally on naturalism and has authored many articles on the topic. I’ve read several of these articles and exchanged a …

January 18, 2009 – 4:21 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (22)

Knowledge and Error: Second Response to Tom Clark

This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

Yesterday I made my first response to Tom Clark’s naturalistic epistemology, pointing to self-contradictions I believe it contains. I use the term “naturalistic epistemology” intentionally, for it seems to me his approach to knowledge is very strongly biased toward naturalistic conclusions. It was not these internal contradictions, however, that interested me most about his paper. …

January 19, 2009 – 10:30 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Evidences, New Atheism | Comments (10)

Knowledge and Evidence: Third Response to Tom Clark

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

In this third look at Tom Clark’s paper, Reality and Its Rivals: Putting Epistemology First, I have just one topic to address: Most thoughtful religionists, paranormalists, New Agers, or adherents of other non-science based worldviews feel, at least to some extent, the force of the empirical imperative: that beliefs need validation independent of one’s subjective …

January 20, 2009 – 7:29 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Evidences, New Atheism | Tagged , , , | Comments (13)

Tom Clark, Empiricism, and Ethics

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

After a two-month hiatus, it’s my pleasure once again to take up conversation with Tom Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism, who also runs the website Naturalism.org and the Memeing Naturalism blog. Our first three rounds on this were interesting and productive, in my opinion, and apparently also Tom’s. Previously we discussed whether his approach …

March 26, 2009 – 11:11 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

Tom Clark, Empiricism, and Ethics, Part Two

This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

I’m certainly more than overdue to respond to Tom Clark here, and now finally there is opportunity to do so. It has been so long since the last post on this topic, and this answer will run so long, that I’m publishing it as a new blog post. First, I want to state my agreement …

April 17, 2009 – 4:51 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics, Origins and Science | Tagged , , | Comments (41)