Stranger Fruit

Apparently Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett debated a week ago at a meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association. An anonymous individual live-blogged it somewhat hyperbolically (?The tension between the titans fills the room?) but the account is worth a read, even if it is clear that the blogger is biased towards Plantinga. Apparently Plantinga attempted to defend Behe and Dennett slapped him around for that.

Short anonymous blogger: Dennett was snarky, nasty and didn?t take Plantinga seriously.

That?s the sort of thing that would get PZ?s blood boiling!

There – apparently – will be audio posted at some stage.

Comments

#1 RBH
February 28, 2009

The audio is linked in a comment on that thread now. It’s an MP3 here.
#2 DLC
March 1, 2009

I guess I don’t see the point in debating ~~cdesign proponentsists~~ creationists. It seems like a big waste of time.
#3 Argon
March 1, 2009

Dennett is a ‘titan’ of philosophy? News to me.
#4 Michael Fugate
March 2, 2009

Interesting conversation on the debate at blog.talkingphilosophy
#5 rimpal
March 6, 2009

Plantinga is a “philosopher”? That’s news to me! Just another one of those “western philosophers” who have claimed ‘philosophy’ for theology.
#6 John Lynch
March 6, 2009

@ Rimpal

That’s a bit of a stupid comment. Plantinga – whether you agree with his religious beliefs or not – *is* a well respected philosopher. Your comment merely illustrates you know nothing about “western” philosophy (whatever you mean by that).
#7 Wayne Alder
March 8, 2009

I listened to the debate. It seemed that Dennett’s response and most of the Q and A strayed from (what I took to be) the key issues. For instance, do we have a defeater for all of our beliefs given Naturalism and Evolution?(as Plantinga argues). Dennett mentions a function of the human brain that destroys faulty cognitive faculties (ones that produce false beliefs) but does such a function of the brain plausibly arise from naturalistic evolution? A full human brain has a hard enough time ascertaining truth, is there really a function of the brain that knows truth so well that it destroys faulty cognitive faculties? Perhaps. However, the existence of such a function seems much more likely on Theism than on Naturalism.