Andrew Brown of the Guardian—whose continued tenure there remains a mystery to me—spends a lot of his time trashing New Atheism and telling us what’s good about faith.  Although he is, I think, a nonbeliever himself (correct me if I’m wrong), his regular and splenetic tirades against atheism cross the bounds of mere philosophical disagreement. I think the man has a sneaking desire to go to church.

But as I’ve followed him over the years, his columns have become not only more vitriolic, but more incoherent. Such is his latest:  “Science has nothing to tell us about the soul? I disagree.”

It’s a strange title, and gives no idea what he’s going to say. Certainly his respect for science isn’t huge, and so what is its connection with the soul?

It turns out that Brown just wants to diss atheism again, but also use “science” to tell us what the soul is not. He also throws in some incoherent philosophy-boosting at the end. His point remains unclear to the end.

First, Brown never defines what he means by “soul,” even though he says science tells us something about what its properties don’t consist of. But before he begins that disquisition, he takes a gratuitious swipe at “scientism”:

Generally, and like most of the RSA audience, I am wholly on the side of  [Iain] McGilchrist when he argues against scientism, as in his wonderful squelching of Steven Pinker:

“There is more truth about the human predicament in King Lear than in a thousand textbooks of genetics, irrespective of whether the play is a faithful account of the historical Lear or not, and indeed of whether there was ever a King Lear at all. And on whether there is a God or not, true science can have precisely nothing to say.”

If you wish, have a look at that “squelching.” It’s not impressive; just turf defense. What’s striking, about McGilchrist’s comment and Brown’s reaction, though, are two things. First, the notion that science has little to say about the “human predicament”. That’s not really the case. If our “predicament” involves bad behavior or selfishness of others, or anything that results from evolution or quantifiable effects of the environment, science can help with that. (The problem is that Brown doesn’t define “predicament,” either.) If you have a feeling of Weltschmerz or ennui, maybe antidepressants can help.  If our predicament is lack of food or affliction with disease, call on Mr Science. If we’re feeling alone, maybe we’re suffering from the need for social interaction that evolved in our ancestors. If we’re suffering from the nihilism of unbelief, as Brown wishes we would, ask why we feel a need for religion. Science has some ideas.

What King Lear can tell us is how it feels to descend into madness. It makes us think about modernity, senility, the loss of family.  It stirs us emotionally, but does it really inform us about the human predicament? If it has, how has it helped us solve that “human predicament”? And, indeed, scholars are divided on what the play really means.

This bears on the age-old question of whether art can tell us something about the world, or even about ourselves. (I’ll leave religion aside, as I think it tells us nothing meaningful about either the human predicament or the universe.)  What art does is enable us to experience—sometimes—what it’s like to be in another’s shoes; it tells us that we are not alone in feeling some emotions; and it makes us ponder and question our lives. It makes us see objects from other angles. It is, perhaps, a tool or incitement to gain knowledge, but is it knowledge itself?

But art sometimes simply (and I use that word lightly) incites our emotions in an ineffable way. I am deeply moved by some works of Beethoven: they stir in me some emotions that are ineffable—but some day might be understood by science! In principle, science may also be capable of telling us why some people, like me, are moved by Beethoven but not Mozart, for this may be a matter of neurology and life experience.  (Don’t expect such explanations to be forthcoming soon.) Science is at present unable to explain why we react as we do to art, music, and literature, but is that all really beyond its ambit? I wouldn’t hasten to say “yes.”

I would, however, be dubious about what the humanities tell us about “the human predicament,” for that implies that the humanities impart some knowledge about the world beyond what we could learn in other ways. Of that I’m not sure.

If you’re a regular here, you probably know that one of my favorite pieces of literature in English is James Joyce’s “The Dead.” But what does that tell me about the human predicament? I’m hard pressed to say. I am irked by Gabriel’s pomposity and moved by his realization of his own solipsism as well as the futility of life.  His wife Greta’s revelation that she once loved another man, and much more deeply than she loved Gabriel, tells us that we cannot really know others in the deepest sense, and that our knowledge of intense love may be deficient. Gabriel’s musings on the future death of his aunts reinforces our feelings of the ephemeral nature of life, and may make us resolve to live more intensely.

But does that help us with the human predicament? Is that really “knowledge”? For one can say “life is short” in much more mundane ways, and it tells us exactly the same thing. What moves me about Joyce’s last paragraphs—the most lovely prose ever put down in English—is the melding of scene, emotion, and character in beautiful and stirring words. It is the music of language. It doesn’t say much about the human predicament, but always brings me to tears.

But I digress—hugely, I’m afraid; but I always bristle when someone says that the arts tell us things that are beyond science. Perhaps that’s true—and readers can weigh in—but it doesn’t strike me as immediately correct. The arts provide satisfactions that science doesn’t, but that’s a different matter.

Back to Brown. He decides to tell us what science has discovered about the soul, or rather what it tells us the soul is not. (Again, he fails to define “soul”):

But the idea that science has nothing at all to tell us about souls seems to me clearly wrong. It can tell us a lot about what they are not. For one thing it seems clear that souls are not things on which arithmetic can be performed. Science can tell us that the soul can’t be found by scientific inquiry.

Not necessarily, for that depends on what you mean by a soul. If it’s something that has definite effects, or lives on after the brain, it is in principle subject to empirical study.

Science, or at least empirical inquiry, can tell us that there is no reason to believe in an afterlife.

Well, here Brown is on the mark. For the absence of evidence for an afterlife, when there could be such evidence (the return of the dead, credible messages from beyond, and so on) tells us that in all probability there is no afterlife. But if Brown agrees that the absence of evidence—evidence that should be there—is evidence of absence, why, then, does he sign onto McGilchrist’s statement that “on whether there is a God or not, true science can have precisely nothing to say.” For there is precisely as much evidence for a god or gods as there is for the afterlife—that is, none. That also goes for the soul (if Brown would only define it!) Let Brown add, then, that “Science can tell us that there is no reason to believe in God.”

He goes on with his apophatism:

Science tends to strengthen the argument of Aristotle that the soul is the form of a living thing – this is also the position of Thomas Aquinas, and so of classical Christian theology.

Wait a minute! If Brown hasn’t defined “soul,” how can he say that science strengthens its existence as something “living”? Without a definition, this kind of analysis is useless. Finally, Brown tells us that souls cannot be immortal:

Science, it seems to me, gives us reasons for supposing that nothing can go on for ever. You don’t need science to believe that. But at the very least the discovery of the big bang shows that the universe had a beginning and will have an end. This shows that while something might be eternal, it cannot be immortal, and that must go for souls too.

Well, yes, if our souls must remain within the universe (which most religious people don’t accept) then they can’t be immortal. But that holds only if they must disappear with the universe. How do we know that souls can’t transmigrate to other universes, or flee to a heaven that is beyond the universe?

In the end, I’m not clear what Brown is on about here. He claims that science can tell us something about the soul, but is nevertheless impotent before the equally nebulous and unevidenced notion of god. But on that he’s wrong. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Science also can tell us that “there is no reason to believe in a god,” and if there is a god, that he is either apathetic, powerless, or malicious.

In the end Brown rabbits on about the relationship between science and philosphy, but I can’t figure out what he’s trying to say (maybe he can’t either). He lapses into incoherence, and perhaps I have, too. But at least I’m not getting paid for writing this stuff!

I’ll close with a bit of doggerel:

Reading this palaver makes me frown;
Did He who made the lamb make Brown?