Let's say that Bob and Alice go to the beach and see someone walking on water. Bob comments, "Wow, I don't understand how this is happening as it appears to defy all laws of physics. I wonder how he is doing it?"
Alice answers, "God is causing him to be able to walk on water."
Bob says, "But, first we must establish that God exists. How do you know God exists?"
Alice answer, "Just look at all the miraculous events in our world."
Anyone have a response to this?
Bob's position seems more intellectually honest: admission of ignorance to the cause of his observation. He honestly doesn't know how it is happening and he readily admits as such.
My response would be that you need to be careful when you imply that circular reasoning in itself is problematic apart from the methodology that we either find reliable or not. For example, discovering some form of consistency and then attempting to predict some unknown factors based on the assumption that such consistency would apply in this particular case... is an example of circular reasoning.
We can't focus on "circularity" as some deficiency, because our existence is that of "pragmatic agnosticism". We don't really care as to what's "true or not" when it comes to the ontology, as much as we care whether something is contradicting the consistently observable attributes that we can agree on. Hence our "methodological circularity" generally stipulates some demonstrable reliability within such circularity for it to be a viable method.
That's why I wouldn't quite focus so much on whether something is circular, as much as whether it's useful or reliable. I know it's a seemingly pompous answer
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