Download John Wisdom*s Parable of the Gardener

John Wisdom’s Parable of the
Gardener
• John Wisdom was interested in what is going
on when two people disagree as to whether
there is a God
• In particular Wisdom wants to know whether
the disagreement is a dispute about the facts
of the matter; or about what explains those
facts (the ‘god hypothesis’ versus the atheist’s
hypothesis); or about how we see the world
The Parable of the Gardener
• Wisdom asks us to consider the following parable: two
people see a neglected garden. One person notices the
flowers and the organisation of the plants and takes this as
evidence that someone has been caring for the garden. The
other person notices the weeds and the disorder and
concludes that no one has been tending the garden. The
second also points out that none of the neighbours has
seen any gardener, although the first responds by
suggesting that the gardener comes at night.
“Each learns all the other learns about the
garden. Consequently, when after all this,
one says ‘I still believe a gardener comes’
while the other says ‘I don’t’. Their
different words now reflect no difference
as to what they have found in the garden,
or would find in the garden if they looked
further”
• Wisdom’s point is that although two people can be
presented with exactly the same empirical evidence (it
is the same garden they have come across) their
perspectives can be completely different
• One person sees the garden as neglected, the other as
cared for by a gardener
• In the same way the atheist sees the universe as a
place without God (they may point to natural disasters,
to terrible injustices, to pointless suffering); but the
believer points to the order and beauty of the world
and sees this as evidence of the work of divine
intelligence.
• What do you think of this analogy?
• The difference between this example of
‘seeing-as’ and the example of the duck-rabbit
is that the optical illusion has been
deliberately designed to be ambiguous, to
enable the observer to see it as a rabbit in
instance, as a duck the next
• The question as to which it is can be resolved
empirically – we can discover whether the
intentions of the artist (Joseph Jastrow) were
to draw something that looked like both a
duck and a rabbit
• But, for Wisdom, in the case of the believer and the atheist there is
no further empirical evidence that could be used to say which
perspective is correct
• Wisdom argues that the two are not disagreeing about the facts
they observe, nor about any future observations
•
There is nothing, no experiment or observation, that could verify
and confirm either of their conclusions
• But in this case their claims that there is or is not a God cannot be
claims that are straightforwardly about the world
• As with the examples we looked at previously (clouds, duck-rabbit
etc.), whether someone sees the world as a divine creation, or a
meaningless lump of rock emerges from their existing set of beliefs,
from their expectations, from the suggestions of other people’s
words and thoughts and from their current emotional state.
• How might a religious believer and atheist
view the following?:
– The design of the world
– The complexity of the human eye
– Evil
– Good
– Natural disasters
– The solar system’s movements
– morality
– God/a divine being
• Wisdom does not believe that believers and
atheists are simply reporting their feelings about
the world
• If the difference were simply a difference of
feelings then there would be no genuine dispute
– as the difference would no longer concern what
is or is not the case in the world but rather the
emotional state of the observers
• Wisdom believes that there is more bite to the
dispute than this, and that the believers and nonbelievers are genuinely talking about the world,
and not simply their feelings.
• So he is arguing that believers and atheists are not
making ‘experimental hypotheses’ that can be tested
against empirical observations
• They observe the same facts about the world but have
different perspectives on the world and draw different
conclusions
• Believers see the world as evidence for God’s
existence, atheists see the world as evidence for the
non-existence of God
• But for Wisdom, even though their dispute is not like a
scientific dispute, they are still talking about the world,
and what is needed is a procedure for settling the
issue.
• To help determine what that procedure might be Wisdom
gives another example of 2 people looking at a piece of art
– one says it’s beautiful the other says ‘I don’t see it that
way’
• Here, as with the garden and as with religion, the 2 people
are encountering the same thing but seeing it different
ways. But the debate can shift, and people’s beliefs can
change, according to the power of the different
connections, patterns and relationships with other things
that can be brought to bear on the debate
• Our opinions about a work of art can be changed when
someone draws out connections we hadn’t previously
seen; or enable us to see a relationship with another
picture or theory; or forces us to abandon a set of
prejudices or bad reasoning
• For Wisdom the procedure needed to resolve the
dispute between the believer and atheist is similar to
that needed in the dispute over the work of art
• The procedure will involve further discussion between
the two, with the aims of connecting and disconnecting
their current observations to and from other beliefs
and observations, each person ‘presenting and
representing the features favouring his hypothesis each
emphasising the pattern he wishes to emphasise’
• Wisdom, himself a believer, is making the assumption
that through this type of discussion the atheist will
gradually come to see the world as having been
created by God.
• What do you think of this theory?
Criticism
• Wisdom opened up a theological can of worms by proposing that religious
claims about the world (such as there is a God) are not claims that have
any empirical basis, but are an individual’s perspective on the world
• This seems to undermine both the teleological argument (which makes
the claim that observations about the world support the hypothesis that
God exists) and the problem of evil (which claims that observations about
the world support the hypothesis that God does not exist)
• The atheist might not be too fussed if it turns out they can’t say anything
meaningful about God, as they don’t believe in God in the first place and
would be glad for a release from these kinds of never-ending discussions.
But for the believer the consequences of Wisdom’s argument are very
worrying. If Wisdom is correct and if religious claims cannot be shown to
be true and false according to any facts, then there is a question about
whether religious statement and discussions have any meaning at all
•
Wisdom does not accept that religious statements are meaningless, but
Anthony Flew thinks this is exactly where Wisdom’s approach is heading.
• How damaging is this criticism?