Did Elizabeth Anscombe really "trounce" C S Lewis?
Posted: Monday, May 17, 2010
by Robert Gibson
R&M Tutors
In various books and articles the legend has grown that C S Lewis got his comeuppance in the famous Oxford debate with the young lady who beat him at his own game. The legend is no doubt pleasing to those who regard Lewis as an intellectual bully. Strangely, however, I have found that those who allude to the incident do not bother to report the actual arguments used on either side - as though to do so might risk spoiling a good story.
Spufford's mental traveller's tale, which so fascinated me that that I more or less read it at one sitting, is not literary criticism but literary experience - the discovery of the world of books: the trap door through which you plunge into the mighty dimension of the Paper Web.
At one point, preliminary to discussing the chronicles of Narnia, Spufford gives his theory as to how Lewis came to write them. He thinks Lewis was put off logical theologising after his defeat by Anscombe, and turned to expressing his views symbolically instead.
When I came to this bit I thought at first: here we go again; another glancing reference to Lewis's defeat, taking it as a given thing, without any regard to what was actually said.
But, uniquely, Spufford actually takes the trouble to write about the debate in some detail, on pages 98-99 of his book. His is the only account I have found which does so. I am grateful for the information he provides, though I don't go along with his conclusions.
I have no doubt that Spufford's account is correct as far as it goes: Lewis was defeated, in the sense of being discomfited. But I shall argue that he missed a trick - that he lost only on presentation - that he could and should have won.
Hunt up Spufford's book and turn to page 98. When you've done that, read on.
You'll agree that Anscombe's argument sounds professional in tone. And it is certainly the case that the "this-worldly factors in our thinking" need not in themselves be destructive of our confidence in reason.
However, suppose we take a closer look at her key statement:
....a man who is explaining his reasons is not giving a causal account at all.
So he thinks!
But this is precisely the point: it doesn't matter what he thinks - for non-supernaturalists or monists believe that an explanation is just part of a chain of causation. In which case, so far as the man who is explaining his reasons is concerned, whatever he "thinks", he's just making predetermined noises.
Anscombe pays far too much attention to what people "think" - considering that she's supporting an argument that casts doubt upon the validity of thought itself. Her reasoning is therefore circular and self-refuting. It turns out to be merely a particular instance of the wider "Naturalist" argument which Lewis was in the habit of attacking.
That wider argument is not merely concerned with reason but with awareness itself. Any statement, any opinion, any argument, is - if the Naturalist argument be consistently held - mere noise. And no noise can be either "true" or "false".
The odd thing is that one might have expected Lewis of all people to allude to this wider context. Perhaps he was wrong-footed because he was used to having it easy and didn't expect any worthwhile opposition at the Socratic Club. It's still surprising that he allowed himself to be taken in by an argument that actually ignores a point he made far more effectively elsewhere - namely, that if Naturalism is true, all statements are merely expressions of one's own physical brain condition, to which the only apt reply is not "I agree" or "I disagree", but rather, "Oh, are you?"
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