Dawkins the Epistemologist
Richard
Dawkins is often heralded as a brilliant scientist. Unfortunately he often
resorts to shoddy philosophy. Several examples of Dawkins’ philosophical
ineptness have been pointed out over the years, one of the more prominent being
that his self-described “central argument” in The God Delusion is not even logically valid.[1]
In a more recent book, The Magic of
Reality: How We Know What’s Really True, Dawkins again leaves the realm of science
(perhaps unwittingly) and tries his hand at philosophy. But regrettably the results
don’t fare any better.
The very title of Dawkins’ book
should cause us pause: The Magic of
Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. Notice the subtitle of this book
is philosophical in nature, i.e., How We
Know is an epistemological question, not
scientific. Epistemology
is a branch of philosophy (not science) which deals with how knowledge is
defined, what we know, and how we know it. It is an area of study Dawkins
simply isn’t qualified to address, and this becomes painfully obvious as one
continues reading. In chapter one, Dawkins summarizes his
view of knowledge which functions as the epistemological foundation for the
rest of his book:
