On Angels, Demons, and Ghosts: Is Justified Belief in Spiritual Entities Possible?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of “On Angels, Demons, and Ghosts”
June 6, 2022

Religions should publish this paper and it needs no real revisions.

A central question (if not the central question) in the discipline of philosophy of religion is whether religious beliefs can be justified. Almost all philosophers of religion, however, have focused on theistic belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful supreme being. They have said very little about the belief in multiple spiritual beings that lack omnipotence or omniscience. This lack is a shame since a huge portion of religious people in human history (and still today) believe in the latter kinds of beings. For this reason, this paper focuses on an important topic that has been widely overlooked in the discipline of philosophy of religion. Moreover, the paper is clearly written from start to finish. The author’s opening focus on “what good explanations must be” is smart and terrifically clear. The paper’s distinction between and arguments against testimony of spiritual beings and direct personal experience of them by oneself are well done. The revision to the author’s previous thinking (based on Ghostbusters) is fun to read and makes valuable philosophical point.

Below are some suggested edits (though they are so minor that I would not call them revisions). 

1.      I disagree with this sentence: “Methodological naturalism [is] … the idea that science only studies the natural world because it is philosophically undergirded by the idea that the supernatural does not exist… common” (706-7). I do not think that MN presupposes ontological naturalism. I therefore disagree with this formulation of the same idea as well: “the biased philosophical approach of scientists, methodological naturalism, … dismisses the possibility of the supernatural, on its face, without argument or evidence (738-40). However, I think that the author agrees with me about this point, and so perhaps the sentences should be revised. Perhaps the first one, for example, could say something like: “Scientists adopt MN. Many people assume that science only studies the natural world because it has adopted the philosophical idea that the supernatural does not exist. If that were true, then ‘scientific evidence of ghosts’ would be an oxymoron. But it is not true and ‘scientific evidence of ghosts’ is not an oxymoron..."

2.      2. The phrase “the mystery therefore magic fallacy” (487) would be more clearly written, I think, as: “the mystery-therefore-magic fallacy.” The phrase “even observed germs directly” (573) would be more clearly written, I think as: “we even observed germs directly.”

3.      3. Here are some typos: “hypothois” (552), “thier” (696).

Author Response

I made the typo corrections you pointed out. Thanks!

You were also right about methodological naturalism referring to the method of science, rather than its ontological commitments. (It’s right there in the name, after all.) So I have defined it according to method, added a lengthy quote from Boudry that makes clear what the definition is and how common it is, and then made some other slight corrections in the section.

Thanks for the review!

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall, a fine paper advancing previous work in novel ways. In the following, I offer some constructive observations for clarification (most often) or correction (infrequently). 

Line 23: Gettysburg is in the US state of Pennsylvania (not Virginia) and the Edinburgh Vaults are in Edinburgh, not London.

Line 60: Vaughn’s given name is Lewis. Schick’s is Theodore.

Line 119: “and not merely a matter of faith” is provocative but does not add anything to your argument.

Line 149: Why is being part of a dream problematic? Why cannot an angel exist as an ideal present in a dream? If they are, as is commonly believed, disembodied having no material presence isn’t a problem at all. In fact, appearing before waking eyes seems more problematic for such a being. Without a body, just what is it that one purportedly sees? You get around to this issue eventually in parenthetical comments (175-192) that might be worked into the overall text more seamlessly. You address this again (416-422) later too but it seems to be a theme running through your entire paper that might be brought forward more clearly.

Lines 153-161: This seems to be a restatement of Hume’s arguments. Why not reference him here?

Line 156: I see people float in water all the time. Clarification is needed here.

Lines 304 and 305: Being drugged, getting sick, etc. posit additional entities (a drug, a pathogen, etc.) that are not themselves in evidence. How is this different from invoking spiritual entities?

Line 371: Explanation of EVP is not necessary as you’ve already done it earlier. This sort of thing occurs a number of times throughout. 

Lines 404 and 405: Remove the parentheses and support this claim. Why is “an absence of evidence” in existential cases “evidence of absence” as Brown and Key claim?

Line 552: hypothesis’ not hypothois’

Line 596: You seem to be assuming that to be “real” is to be material. How does this square with your invoking of Descartes earlier or your dismissal of angelic appearances in dreams?

Line 678: Finally you name your commitment to materialism! What evidence has science provided for the metaphysical theory of materialism? It cannot be that all our investigations of material reality have shown us only material objects and forces because that begs the question.

How, would a non-material entity show itself to our scientific investigation? 

Line 698f: At this point a concern arises about a possible equivocation on “spiritual entities.” If these are entities that are by definition not material then surely there can be no material evidence for them. This would mean that any sensory experience of such entities is also impossible. If, as it appears now, you mean by “spiritual entities” simply a stand-in for the thing that stands in need of an explanation then it is not clear how this is consistent with your earlier usage.

While science may provide natural explanations for things previously explained supernaturally, and thus discredit these supernatural explanations by the criteria of adequacy, science can only have evidence for spiritual entities if they are in fact natural objects. But the claim is that they are not. Scientific evidence for ghosts seems possible if and only if ghosts are not what they are believed to be. This is not a mere “semantic triviality” (777) because if spiritual entities are indeed “spiritual” entities then they cannot be known at all by natural means and your question about justified belief is irrelevant.

Lines 783 and 784: What “original” argument? Here or elsewhere? 

Author Response

Thanks for the corrections, on locations and names, and the other typos, omissions (e.g., Hume) and needs for clarification (e.g., floating) you found. I made all those revisions. I took out all the extra EVP definitions, and added a footnote to explain how “drugs explanations” are different than spiritual entity explanations (e.g., in terms of simplicity and scope); I also added to the relevant footnote to explain the problematic nature of “dream angels.” And I added a very long paragraph explaining Brown and Key’s argument that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Now, there was some issue with your line citations matching up exactly to the lines numbers in my draft, so I wasn’t clear exactly where you though I was admitting to assuming materialism, or assuming that “to be real is to be material,” or where you though I was equivocating on spiritual entity (and not considering the possibility that spiritual entities may be unable, due to their immaterial nature, to interact with the world.) So what I did was add some clarification in the first sentence to what I mean by “spiritual entity,” and then added two pretty detailed paragraphs to the conclusion where I articulated these worries and responded to them. I think I covered all the bases.

Thanks for your comments! They really improved the paper!

For a line-by-line response to your comments, see below:

Line 23: Gettysburg is in the US state of Pennsylvania (not Virginia) and the Edinburgh Vaults are in Edinburgh, not London.

Sure enough! Correction made.

Line 60: Vaughn’s given name is Lewis. Schick’s is Theodore.

Sure enough! Correction made.

Line 119: “and not merely a matter of faith” is provocative but does not add anything to your argument.

I left this in; I was trying to head off people who might have forgotten that the issue was whether or not belief was justified (rather than just “can you believe?”) or who might think my argument can be answered by just saying “Well, I have faith.”

Line 149: Why is being part of a dream problematic? Why cannot an angel exist as an ideal present in a dream? If they are, as is commonly believed, disembodied having no material presence isn’t a problem at all. In fact, appearing before waking eyes seems more problematic for such a being. Without a body, just what is it that one purportedly sees? You get around to this issue eventually in parenthetical comments (175-192) that might be worked into the overall text more seamlessly. You address this again (416-422) later too but it seems to be a theme running through your entire paper that might be brought forward more clearly.

I feel like the problematic nature of the explanation “I had a dream, but an angel caused my dream” (when compared to just “I had a dream”) should be clear at this point,” but I added a footnote to make it explicit. Basically, it adds an extra entity when none is needed. I thought about working the note into the main text, but I felt it really interfered with the flow—and, again, that it should be apparent at this point.

Lines 153-161: This seems to be a restatement of Hume’s arguments. Why not reference him here?

Good point. I do acknowledge later that my argument here is inspired by Hume, but I added a citation here for good measure.

Line 156: I see people float in water all the time. Clarification is needed here.

Fair enough. I added that I meant people floating unaided on the air, just above earth’s surface, for an extended period.

Lines 304 and 305: Being drugged, getting sick, etc. posit additional entities (a drug, a pathogen, etc.) that are not themselves in evidence. How is this different from invoking spiritual entities?

Basically, because drugs, illness, etc. are already known to exist, and that and how they can generate weird experience is already understood—so they do not violate simplicity or scope. This is not true of spiritual entities. I clarified this in the paper.

Line 371: Explanation of EVP is not necessary as you’ve already done it earlier. This sort of thing occurs a number of times throughout.

Yep! I took those extra parenthetical definitions out. Thanks.

Lines 404 and 405: Remove the parentheses and support this claim. Why is “an absence of evidence” in existential cases “evidence of absence” as Brown and Key claim?

I have now added a lengthy paragraph articulating their argument. They cite examples in the history of science (e.g., Vulcan) where an absence of evidence was evidence of absence, and go on to articulate exactly why reversing this, saying that “an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” reverses where the burden of proof (the responsibility to provide evidence) actually lies. In “kinds of contexts where we could reasonably expect to find evidence if our hypothesis were true, where our methodology is sound, and where we do not obtain positive results” we are justified in concluding that the thing in question does not exist.

Line 552: hypothesis’ not hypothois’

Thanks! Correction made.

Line 596: You seem to be assuming that to be “real” is to be material. How does this square with your invoking of Descartes earlier or your dismissal of angelic appearances in dreams?

Since spiritual entities are immaterial beings (something I now make clearer), and I am concluding that justified belief in them could be possible and thus that they could exist, I am not assuming either materialism or that to be real is to be material. Clarifying this is part of the point of the paragraphs I added to the conclusion.

Line 678: Finally you name your commitment to materialism! What evidence has science provided for the metaphysical theory of materialism? It cannot be that all our investigations of material reality have shown us only material objects and forces because that begs the question. How, would a non-material entity show itself to our scientific investigation?

I added a reply to this worry in a new endnote. Basically, I point out that the argument only begs the question if you assume methodological naturalism is an accurate representation of the scientific method—but I argue in detail here that it is not. In reply to another reviewers’ comments, I have added even more detail to this argument. So I think this base is now covered.

Line 698f: At this point a concern arises about a possible equivocation on “spiritual entities.” If these are entities that are by definition not material then surely there can be no material evidence for them. This would mean that any sensory experience of such entities is also impossible. If, as it appears now, you mean by “spiritual entities” simply a stand-in for the thing that stands in need of an explanation then it is not clear how this is consistent with your earlier usage. While science may provide natural explanations for things previously explained supernaturally, and thus discredit these supernatural explanations by the criteria of adequacy, science can only have evidence for spiritual entities if they are in fact natural objects. But the claim is that they are not. Scientific evidence for ghosts seems possible if and only if ghosts are not what they are believed to be. This is not a mere “semantic triviality” (777) because if spiritual entities are indeed “spiritual” entities then they cannot be known at all by natural means and your question about justified belief is irrelevant.

This is also covered in the paragraph I added to the conclusion. Briefly, the idea that the immaterial nature spiritual entities precludes them from interacting with the world (and thus from leaving evidence of their existence) (1) grants me my conclusion (you can’t have justified belief in something for which you can’t have evidence) and (2) is an idea that basically no one who believes in spiritual entities accepts (unless they change to this view as an ad hoc way to explain the lack of evidence). You say “Scientific evidence for ghosts seems possible if and only if ghosts are not what they are believed to be.” No, because ghosts are believed to be non-material entities that interact with the world in quite observable ways. Thus scientific evidence of their existence, if they existed, is very possible.

Earlier in the paper, I draw a distinction between what immaterial might mean. (1) Made of something else besides matter. (2) Not made of anything at all. Most people think (1) (when it comes to spiritual entities) so that is mainly what I assume through the paper; but I also deal with (2), especially in the conclusion.

Lines 783 and 784: What “original” argument? Here or elsewhere?

I clarified that I mean my argument from 2017.