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Seminar Papers
1. Complementary and Alternative Therapies: Distinctions without a difference or validly diverse world views?This paper was given by Geoff Heath in November 2003 to the Alternative and Complementary Health Research Network (ACHRN) which meets at Manchester. The author is not a practitioner of any of these forms of therapy but has been a member of the group for about three years, during which time he has provided some philosophical contributions to the discussions. In particular he has raised epistemological issues, and in 2001/02 prepared an Epistemological Audit Trail which was intended to provide a very detailed list of questions/issues through which to explore the underlying epistemological assumptions behind the wide range of complementary and alternative therapies. The 2003 paper had a similar intention, namely to challenge some assumptions behind these forms of therapy. The seminar discussion was lively and a number of crucial issues were raised, but there was little time to address them in depth. As a result Geoff Heath has prepared a follow-up Reflections paper for the members of the group in order that his own responses to these issues could be recorded with a view to exploring them in greater detail at a future meeting of the group. You can read the documents here:
2. The Validity of Complementary and Alternative Therapies: A Critical ApproachGeoff Heath gave this paper at the conference organised by the Alternative and Complementary Health Research Network held at the University of Nottingham on 1 and 2 July 2004. The aim of the paper is to explore the important notion of 'validity' as applied to C and A therapies. This is done by examining five forms of validity: cultural, experimental, experiential, regulatory and validity by fiat - by mere declaration. Validity of any form of therapy is obviously necessary in order to ensure that members of the public are only offered treatments for which there is evidence of effectiveness. This evidence should result from careful and appropriate use of researched methodologies. Therapies should not, he argues, be offered to the public merely on the grounds that the therapists believe them to be effective. Can they be demonstrated to be 'fit for purpose'? The second document which he prepared for distribution at the Conference is titled: 'Complementary and Alternative Therapies: Regulatory Questions and Issues and Organisational Audit'. The main aim of this document is to provide a potential framework for regulating Complementary and Alternative Therapies. Regulation is not for its own sake but for protection of the public, the exercise of a duty of care and building up public trust in therapies which are being offered for public benefit. The basic question which guides both parts is: Are these therapies fit for their stated purposes? The first part concerns issues such as the methods and processes which have been used to validate a therapy and the stated boundaries of the range of conditions for which the therapy is deemed to be a relevant treatment. The second part consists of detailed questions which are designed to explore the cultures and processes of the organisations which exist to provide training in the various therapies. Issues of transparency and accountability are addressed. You can read the documents here:
3. Has the advance of science made religion unnecessary?(A short version of this paper was given on 13 December 2004 at a meeting of the Multi-faith group at the University of Derby. I was invited to provide a humanist perspective on the question. The other speakers were a religious Jew and a member of the Bahá’i faith. The question had been provided by the committee which arranged the series of meetings titled: ‘This Week’s Big Question’). My approach to the question is that of a humanist. My humanism does not include belief in external, metaphysical sources of meaning, purposes, morality, codes or commandments for living. Nor does my humanism believe in any God as a source of divinely revealed facts about how the world works. Divine revelation is not a good basis for science. In other words, I do not believe in God. This paper suggests that science is essentially the expression of human curiosity which discovers things about the world, and in the process demystifies the world and is always sceptical and forward looking. Scientific discoveries are testable. On the other hand religions tend to look back to their founding scriptures, traditions and authorities. Religions are retrospective. Religious beliefs are untestable and adopted by a ‘faith’ stance. Some scientific discoveries have enormous impacts on our ways of understanding who we are. That is they have an existential impact. Evolution is one such example. We are animals with big brains. Religions tend to assume that we are the result, not of random evolutionary processes, but of a purposive divine creation. Religions tend to assume that we are the pinnacle of a divinely initiated creative process. Religions may be necessary because they meet needs for people. They are not necessary because they are true. Science is the best procedure yet devised for understanding how the world works. You can read the paper here:
4. Beliefs and IdentityWe are not born with beliefs. Our beliefs are learned and become so embedded that we cease to be conscious of them. They become habits of thought, feeling and behaviour. We are not born with identities. We are what we come to believe ourselves to be. To change our beliefs is to change our identities. To have our beliefs challenged is to have our identities threatened. That's why it's difficult to change our beliefs. It's also why competing beliefs cause so much conflict – identity is at stake. You can read the paper here:
5. Freedom of speech in a multicultural societyAre some people's beliefs so deep, so integral to their personal, cultural and religious identities that the people and their beliefs should be legally and morally protected? Is it the case that in a democracy there can only be legitimate government if any and all views can be stated, heard and challenged? What are the costs and benefits of freedom of speech in a multicultural society? You can read the paper here:
6. Regulation: Principles, issues, perils and prospectsRegulation is not for its own sake. Regulation provides a form of validity. The aims of regulation ought to be: the protection of the public; making it clear to the public that there are rigorous and transparent theoretical constructs allied to relevant research methodologies; clarity and justification as to the boundaries of effectiveness of a therapy; the responsible exercise of a duty of care and the building of trust in therapies which are offered for the public benefit rather than trust being assumed. An overarching principle is that of informed consent. Regulation would also have the benefit of improving public assurance at a time when increasing use of CAM therapies is in parallel with “which?” and “what for?”. Regulation would therefore improve transparency and accountability. The only ethical justification for offering therapeutic intervention is that it is demonstrably for the public benefit. This paper explores the terms in the title in both ethical and practical respects and makes suggestions as to how principles can be identified, issues addressed, perils avoided and prospects improved. You can read the paper here:
7. Giving up God: Losses and gains. An existential auditI decided to explore losses and gains in some personal detail because I sense that many people are anxious about the consequences of ‘losing’ God. Some seem to hold on to a belief that their fate is in the stars. Others hope that there is a vague ‘force which is greater than ourselves’ with assumed vaguely benevolent intentions. Others believe intensely and dogmatically – as if their life depended on their beliefs, which in an existential sense it does. Yet others may go along with the pretence of believing because they appreciate the social and communal life of their faith community. The idea of God seems to allow people to feel that they are somehow part of a bigger meaningful purpose in order to avoid the worrying thought of the randomness of existence. God is a sort of flow with which to go. To accept that we are on own and that we have to make every effort to make the best of it is, it seems, quite a daunting thought. From my own point of view the challenge when I gave up God was to revise and review what I thought that my life had meant hitherto and to create a very different sense of identity, meaning and purpose. It’s a very worthwhile task, but it is not easy. You can read the paper here:
8. Open Letter to the Bishop of Durham from an ‘ex-human’There appear to be increasing tensions between religious beliefs and actions and secular ways of thinking and acting in contemporary secular UK democratic society. I was surprised that in his book: For all the Saints? (2003) the Rev Dr Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, describes people like me – who with ‘settled intent’ do not believe in or worship his God – as ‘ex-human’. In addition he condemns such people to his version of Hell from which, he says, there is no way back to being human. The paper also addresses the explicit institutional homophobia of the Established Church of England which is clearly supported by the bishop. To call people who do not worship one’s particular version of God ‘ex-human’ is not a good basis either for dialogue or for a multicultural society. It is particularly worrying that Wright is a senior bishop with legislative powers, in the House of Lords, over those he considers to be ‘ex-human’. Unfortunately the Established Church of England, as other religious faiths, is allowed to exempt itself from UK legislation on equality of opportunity and from Article 14 in the 1998 Human Rights Act. This Open Letter explores the epistemological and ethical bases for Wright’s views. You can read the paper here:
9. University of Derby Islamic Society debate: ‘Does God exist?’I was invited to put a humanist perspective in a debate at the Islamic Society of the University of Derby where I had spent much of my academic life. I considered the invitation carefully and agreed to take part. It was an interesting occasion and quite a challenge for me to condense my views into a short paper. It’s difficult to know what impact my paper might have had – there was no vote! The debate confirmed for me that people have difficulty in distinguishing between ‘believing’ and ‘knowing’. I quoted the trenchant observation by the French philosopher Montaigne: Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known. I provided a brief statement of my own human values and explained why they did not depend on any version of God for their validity. I concluded with this quotation: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observation. (Human Rights Act. 1998. 9.1) This is an important, secular, democratic and humane statement. It creates space for valuing differences. Crucially, it creates at least the potential for societies to be based on equality, respect and inclusion. It was not clear to me that everyone agreed with its content. Women and men were segregated in the university’s lecture theatre. You can read the paper here:
10. Human nature(s), irrationality and ‘common good’In this paper I explore three very commonly used terms, each of which has a long history and each of which, I shall propose, hides more than it reveals. I shall deconstruct the key terms in the title of this paper. Along with numerous other frequently used ‘significant’ terms they are often used loosely and lazily. They only seem to solve problems. Our language is often assumed to solve problems, but if language is ‘the answer’ then what was ‘the question’? One reply is: ‘We need language to try to answer the question of meaning’. I shall argue that language cannot provide us with secure and certain meanings. Words are slippery. I shall also argue that when these three terms are carefully analysed they actually raise problems rather than solve them. I shall present arguments which may seem counter-intuitive. They may even seem strange. But then I have a view that language itself is indeed both familiar and strange. Language is anything but what it seems to be. In this view I have been very influenced by Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘language games’ and ‘forms of life’. You can read the paper here:
11. A response to Karen Armstrong’s book The Case for God. What religion really means (Bodley Head, 2009)When Karen Armstrong was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 Start the Week programme discussing her book I heard her state: ‘God is not a fact’. I decided that it would be interesting to read her book because, as a humanist, I too think that God ‘is not a fact’. I assumed that she may not think about the ‘non-fact God’ in the same way that I think of the ‘non-fact God’! Having finished the book I think that my assumption was justified. It’s one of those books which I read with sustained interest and which I regret having finished. I enjoyed it. I have produced a lengthy response to her book because I wanted to engage in some detail with her arguments in order to asses their validity – from my philosophical and personal point of view. She has often said that she appreciates dialogue, so this is my attempt to engage her in dialogue with myself, an ex-Christian and now a humanist. You can read the paper here:
12. Review Article: J. Sacks, The Great Partnership. God, Science and the Search for Meaning (Hodder and Stoughton, 2011)I bought Sacks' book and read it for three main reasons: I enjoyed his book The Dignity of Difference (2002 1st edition) and I wrote to tell him how much I had appreciated his inclusive and tolerant approach to other religions. I was dismayed at the vitriolic attacks made on him by some of his Orthodox Rabbi colleagues who were angry at his view that other religions than Judaism had some of the truth. They had 'The Truth'. Sacks produced a 'revised' edition in 2003. As a humanist I have been very interested in the history of science and contemporay science per se as well as various perceptions of relationships between science and religion. For many years I have been pondering issues relating to the different meanings which we construct and the sources which we variously deem relevant to our meaning constructions. In some respects I enjoyed Sacks' book but I decided to prepare a critique based on two main problems which I encountered. These are: epistemological and ethical. My conclusion is that he fails in the project of his book title. You can read the paper here:
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