Philosophy Lounge

January 15, 2013

Over-reaching when we promote philosophy

Filed under: Critique of philosophy,Political Philosophy,Social Philosophy — jbernal @ 2:50 pm

by Juan Bernal

Over-reach:

When I was a mere neophyte in my humanities studies (late 1960s), some professors in my Literature and History courses would complain that too often people in philosophy talked as if only philosophers were the real thinkers (supposedly historians and literary scholars were not real thinkers) and complain also that philosopher all too often claimed credit for many beneficial developments in history, as if only philosophers had made major contributions to social progress and humanitarian development.  They must have had good reasons for complaining since I remember walking away from introductory classes in philosophy thinking that philosophy was where the real thinking took place and philosophy contributed a great deal to the development of civilization.  (I did not know any better!)

We hear the same prejudice expressed today when enthusiasts of philosophy claim that critical thinking is taught mainly, if not exclusively, in philosophy courses, ignoring the fact that students learn critical thinking in a variety of disciplines and courses of study.

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 We invented everything of worth! 

Some of your older readers might recall that during the Cold War between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union representatives of the USSR (e.g. Nikita Krushchev) would claim that scientists in the USSR had invented such things as electrical power and the telephone, contrary to conventional claims that Western scientists and engineers actually invented and developed those technologies.  Sometimes we even heard that the USSR invented democracy and equal rights for women.  Of course, any cursory look at historical accounts of how these things and institutions arose quickly refuted those fantastic claims by spokesmen for the Soviet Union.  The Soviets were simply exaggerating their role in historical developments and “puffing themselves up” so as to bigger than they really were.

Do we have a similar situation with the claims as to all that has originated from the work of philosophy by some enthusiasts of philosophy?  Don’t we often hear that the roots of science, democracy, and all progressive social developments are found in the work and rational arguments of some philosophers?

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Philosophers as Major Players in the Demise of Slavery – Another case of Over-Reach?   

At one of his musical performances, Yanni (piano-keyboards-band leader) declares that “everything good that has happened to people begin with just one idea in the mind of one person.”  Like many things that people say, this sounds good but probably will not hold up when applied to what has really happened in histories of societies and cultures.

In similar fashion, Rebecca Goldstein (“Speaking Prose All Our Lives,” Humanist, Jan-Feb 2013 volume) declares that

“all humanitarian developments started out as theoretical moral arguments.” (p. 19)

She states this in the process of arguing that rational moral arguments, like those offered by Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham, inspired the social movements against slavery and also against the long-standing denial of women’s rights.  She cites John Locke as offering the “first abstract argument against slavery and includes a passage by Locke:

“Freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, …. a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where that rule prescribes not; and not be be subject to the inconstant  , uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of nature.”

Is this an “abstract argument against slavery”?  Goldstein is correct to say that Locke’s reasoning can be applied against slavery, but it is just as likely that John Locke did not have slavery in mind at all, but was arguing for the liberty of Englishmen against the threat of a tyrannical authority (King or dictator).  At any rate, according to Goldstein,  Locke  makes a strong statement against the institution of slavery.  She would offer this an example of what she calls the

“provenance of the moral “intuitions” harbored within moral philosophy.” (see page 20)

But are these claims of the significance of philosophical arguments in the development of humanitarianism and the anti-slavery movement really credible?  How do they measure up to the historical events and social processes from which a more conscientious humanitarianism arose, and gave basis for the movements to eradicate the institution of slavery?  When you look, even cursorily, at the historical events and social developments that led to progress in these areas you find that philosophers – with their rational arguments – did not play the major role that Goldstein insinuates.   A cursory look at the history of anti-slavery and abolitionists discloses the involvement a variety of persons and the play of social-economic forces.

It is true that some philosophers, such as those associated with the Enlightenment who wrote of the rights of all people in the face of Royalist tyranny and others who emphasized the importance of human freedom, played a role in changing some peoples’ thinking on the status of some human beings as mere property of the slave owners.   But probably a greater role was played by political movements such as the French Revolution and by religious leaders who seriously questioned the compatibility of Christian values and the institution of slavery.  In England where the anti-slavery movement started we hear of the activism of Quakers (e.g., Anthony Benezet, a Quaker whose family moved to America in the late eighteenth century) and people like Thomas Clarkson, who was a great early organizer of abolitionists.  Neither of these men were philosophers and we don’t have reason for thinking they were inspired by abstract, philosophical arguments to take up the cause of anti-slavery.

In both England and America, many of the early abolitionists had religious motivation for their stand against slavery.  It would be hard to find philosophical abstract arguments motivating an abolitionist like John Brown and his followers, who resorted to violence to fight slavery.  And we cannot overlook the role that victims of slavery themselves played in bringing about changes that inspired society to oppose slavery:  the Haitian slaves’ insurrection of the 18th century, for example.  The writings and activism of former slaves like Frederick Douglas and the example of Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831.  These people were not acting because of “abstract moral arguments” by some distant philosophers, but acting from the horrors and suffering that the institution of slavery brought to them and others like them.

Moreover, most probably economic forces and social change (having nothing to do with philosophy) played a big role in bringing about an atmosphere (in thinking, values, and political processes) that led to the end of slavery as an accepted institution.  When commerce and manufacturing resulted in a decrease in the profitable use of human slavery in some advanced societies, the entrenched thinking and ideologies that had supported institutionalize slavery for many centuries begin to weaken.  You don’t have to be a Marxist to recognize that economic forces and commercial interests play a greater role in changing the direction of societies than do the abstract moral arguments of philosophers, not to mention the role that religious faith play in shaping peoples beliefs and values.

Consequently, it seems that Goldstein over-reaches on behalf of the relevance and effectiveness of rational argument and the role that philosophers – with their rational arguments –  played in bringing about an end to slavery and the plight of women (regarded as second-class members of society).  Like with Yanni’s grand statement, so with Goldstein’s declaration of rational philosophy being the starting point of humanitarian developments, when we test the grand statement against the actual social and historical developments we find much reason for doubting and rejecting them.

The humanitarian movements that have helped to bring about the end of the institution of slavery have included social, historical, and economic forces not at all philosophical in nature; and have been executed by different people of different backgrounds, most of whom were not inspired by the “theoretical moral arguments” of some philosopher or other.

October 9, 2011

The Judeo-Christian God and Poseidon – Are they equally mythical beings?

Filed under: Critique of philosophy,critique of religion — Tags: — jbernal @ 10:02 am

By Juan Bernal

Proposition: We have as much reason for thinking that the Judeo-Christian God is real as we do for supposing that the god Poseidon, of Greek mythology, is real. In short, neither is real.

This is affirmed by a number of the new atheists (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins), by my fellow blogger, Chuck R., and by me. However, one of our colleagues from the world of philosophy, Pablo, strongly disputed the proposition at issue. I shall take a close look at his contention.

I am not a great defender of Dawkins and Harris with regard to their harsh views of all things religious. (I won’t rehash here my arguments on this subject.) However, despite my problems with Dawkins, Harris and other “New Atheists,” I am sympathetic with their views concerning much of theology (especially attempts to ‘prove’ existence of a deity). I share their suspicions about the intellectual pretensions of Christian philosophers and other theistic philosophers.

It’s in this context that I took special interest in the following statements by Pablo in an recent e-mail exchange of views. Let’s look at what he says in response to the proposition above. To quote Pablo:

Nothing new here but I’m getting to see more clearly why so many disdain Dawkins’ view of religion. Chuck seems to agree with Dawkins and Harris that the empirical status for God (we still need to distinguish between the God of Abraham and the more refined view of the scholastics) is no better than that of Poseidon. I have never heard anyone argue for any evidence for Poseidon as they have for God which I have cited on more than one occasion. Juan asks how I know this. It’s not up to ME to find evidence for this, but him! I deny on a number of grounds (historical, unclear concept of Poseidon and his nature, lack of interest except, perhaps, to scholars of Greek mythology, etc.) For some 2 thousand years, now, theists have been searching for evidence for the existence of God. This is far more substantial than any for Poseidon or any of the other Greek gods. To conclude that all these scholastic thinkers were mere ignorant mortals (Harris had so stated) despite their use of reason and logic, the same used by scientists, philosophers, legal experts, and on and on, is a bit more than I can bear! Have these critics of theistic arguments been deluded? Are they rationalizing, what?

Pablo main concern seems to be the “existential status” of God. He is convinced that the “God of Abraham” has a more substantial claim to being real than does Poseidon, the Greek God of the ocean. On the other hand, Harris, Chuck R, Dawkins and I would say that they don’t differ at all with regard to their existential status. Pablo refers to their relative “empirical status.” But what exactly is meant by the claim that ‘X has empirical status’? Does this mean that X in fact exists? Or is this just an obscure way of saying that we have empirical evidence for believing that X exists? This is not completely clear. But we should not be surprised to hear a ‘philosopher’s’ speak this way. Philosophers often resort to strange locutions in their talks and writings.

At any rate, given either interpretation, the skeptics on this issue are surely correct: the God of Abraham and Poseidon do not differ one iota in this respect. Neither exists as a matter of simple, empirical fact (otherwise why would we spend so much time with ‘arguments’ for their existence?) and there is no incontrovertible empirical evidence for the reality of either one. (We’re still waiting to hear back from Pablo on this point.) The ‘facts’ that Pablo cites — that for two thousand years theists have been searching for evidence that the God of Abraham exists and that “the scholastic thinkers used reason and logic” – do not support his claim that one has more “empirical status” than the other. There aren’t any reasons (that would pass the test of scientific, rational objectivity) or incontrovertible evidence for the existence of either claimant to the title “God.” The history of philosophy and religion shows that experts often spend hundreds of years promoting and defending a theme which eventually proves to be wrong; history also shows that even those who resort to “logic and reason” often get things wrong. In short, logic and reason, which are undoubtedly crucial in most projects, do not insure that one will always hit upon the truth.

Ultimately, all that Pablo does is remind us that there have been a great deal of theology and philosophical apologetics on behalf of the Judeo-Christian deity, and not much, if any, for the ‘god’ from Greek mythology. “Yes, this is likely true,” we could reply to Pablo, “but so what?” Nothing whatsoever about the “existential status” of the Judeo-Christian deity follows from this. Furthermore, Pablo’s complaint about Harris’s reference to theologians as “ignorant mortals” does not seem to be relevant to the claim about the relative status of the gods at issue. It surely is not relevant to anyone’s (including my) general skeptical views about the value (intellectual or otherwise) of theological efforts to prove existence of the deity. Many who hold such skeptical views regarding theology in general (e.g. John Dewey, Walter Kaufmann, Daniel Dennett) do not see any reason for insulting or denigrating religious faith, religious culture, and religious philosophy en toto. Pablo is simply mixing separate issues here.

Speculation on what really underlies Pablo’s strong views on this matter:

Pablo might simply express the views of someone raised in the culture of Western religion whose thinking is conditioned somewhat by the religious Judeo-Christian culture. This excludes all second- and third-generation non-believers and enlightened atheists. But those in the first group (I’m included), regardless of our philosophical training cannot help thinking that, as Pablo states it, the case for the Judeo-Christian God “is far more substantial than any for Poseidon or any of the other Greek gods.” After all, we grew up in a culture that takes for granted that the God of the Old Testament and the Christian God (Christ?) have far greater claim to being real than the characters (including ‘gods’) of ancient Greek myth. Great religious cultures (Judaism and Christianity) are based on the reality of this God (or is it “gods”?). Some of us may even find it insulting that someone would place the Judeo-Christian God on the same level with a mere mythical figure like the Greek god Poseidon. Hence, Pablo’s strong and emotional reply to what seems to be a simple observation, namely, that when referring to the existential status of any supernatural being or ‘god,’ there really is no difference between the Judeo-Christian god and any of the gods of Greek mythology.

August 29, 2011

Body Snatchers; Learning outside the Field; and Big Tent.

Filed under: Critique of philosophy,humor,Irony,Personal Experiences and Reminiscence — Tags: , — jbernal @ 2:27 pm

by Juan Bernal

Invasion of the Body Snatchers:

After working hard at a recent group discussion to fend off the aggressive thrusts of some philosophical Dualists (those who believe that the body is an incomplete and inadequate reality without a dual non-material reality, e.g., soul, mental ego, or independent mind), I was struck by the similarity between such Dualist campaign to downgrade physical views of human beings and the story of aliens who snatched the bodies of human victims and replaced them with strange facsimiles. Of course, it may not appear that dualists and spiritualists are out to snatch away one’s body and replace it with an alien likeness (a strange pod which ‘hatched’ into a strange in-human likeness of the original), as were the aliens in the popular movie. But they do seem intent on reducing the human body-brain to mere matter-in-motion, a primitive form of material existence that cannot support the complex and high level of activity that we justifiably credit to our corporeal nature. If we argue that evolved human animals with their large brains are very much capable of reason, language, and culture, the Dualists reply that materialism is committed to the view that such animals are nothing but “matter-in-motion” which, of course, is far from being capable of reasoning, language use, and development of culture. So in a way, they have metaphorically “snatched away” our real bodies-brains (impressive organisms capable of great deeds) and replaced them with a strange pod of mere “matter-in-motion” capable of nothing but motion and mechanical interaction with other bits of matter-in-motion. Hence, they draw their invalid inference that a scientific materialistic philosophy either paints a frightening, alien picture of human beings or falls into obvious contradictions when applied to human, social reality. But, of course, this is definitely an invalid inference.
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Those Outside the Field Have been my Teachers:

Since my early days as a college student when I first developed an interest in philosophical thought and inquiry, after I accidentally came upon Walter Kaufmann’s Critique of Religion and Philosophy, I have gravitated to writers outside the mainstream of philosophy. It is the works of such writers such as Walter Kaufmann, Friedrich Nietzsche, Spanish writer and philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, the American-Spanish writer, George Santayana, and others who are more literary figures than academic, professional philosophers, that have given me the nourishment to sustain a life-long interest in philosophy. Although Walter Kaufmann was a philosophy professor at Princeton University, he was better known as an interpreter and commentator on Nietzsche and Existentialist thought, and as a scholar of religious history and scripture, than as an academic philosopher.

Later, while working on graduate degrees in philosophy, I developed great interest in the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the author of the Philosophical Investigations. As anyone familiar with the story, Wittgenstein was an engineering student who became interested in some problems in the philosophy of mathematics being worked on by Bertrand Russell. With little or no background in philosophy, Wittgenstein became Russell’s student for a time, before breaking with him to lead not one, but two, innovative philosophies of analysis and language. But he mostly worked independently and outside the academic environment of most professional, academic philosophers; and was often very critical of the mainstream English-German analytical philosophy of the twentieth century.

After my years in philosophy graduate programs ended, I went to work in the computer field as a business applications programmer and was able to reflect on the field of philosophy from the outside. My interests then became those of the logic of computer languages, the relationship to logic, linguistic analysis and natural languages, an amateur’s interest in the new field of artificial intelligence, and some curiosity as to how all this related to the philosophy of mind.

Later as I had more leisure to pursue “philosophical issues and questions,” it was the sciences that provoked my interest more than academic philosophical topics and research. First it was the physicists, with their deep puzzles and maddening paradoxes of modern physics (Einsteinian Relativity Physics, Quantum Physics), that drew my attention. How did all this affect traditional views of physical reality? How does all this affect our traditional philosophical thought? (Taner Edis’s book, The Ghost in the Universe, was very helpful here.) I did not see much in traditional philosophy that answered or even clarified the mysteries, finding more help from scientific writers such as Taner Edis and George Johnson. Then it was evolutionary biology and Darwinian evolution by natural selection that gave me an entirely new orientation to philosophy. Here I owe an intellectual debt to an academic philosopher, namely Daniel Dennett. His book, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, was as much an “eye opener” for me as the Walter Kaufmann book had been twenty five years earlier. But it was Dennett, as a scientific-oriented philosopher, not one focusing on mainstream philosophical issues, who proved to be such a great influence on my thinking. It was Dennett working outside the philosophical mainstream that I found so instructive, provocative, and inspiring.

After my initial look at the importance of Darwinian thought to many crucial issues in philosophy, I went on to read works by such neo-Darwinians as Richard Dawkins and Ernst Mayr in order to get at least a layman’s grasp of Darwin’s revolutionary insight – his theory of evolution by natural selection. This was followed by an interest in related evolutionary sciences – such as evolutionary psychology and anthropology. All this eventually led to the contemporary works on the philosophy of mind (Dennett, Doug Hofstadter), on neurological work as it relates to philosophy (Antonio Damasio), artificial intelligence and the incompleteness theorem (Doug Hofstadter) and the cognitive sciences (Steven Pinker).

Add to all this my discovery of a self-taught writer, Eric Hoffer, and his most insightful book, The True Believer, and we see that I had an uncanny tendency to seek out non-philosophers and non-academics when looking for enlightenment and intellectual stimulation.

Finally, in the past year I accidentally came upon a long book, Philosophy in the Flesh, by George Lakoff (linguist) and Mark Johnson (Philosophy Professor), in which the authors argue that a philosophy of an embodied mind which bases itself on the empirical findings from the cognitive sciences — instead of a-priori philosophical assumptions — yields a revolutionary perspective on much of philosophy. Here I found many of the ideas which I had only previously seen obscurely, ideas which the authors expressed, developed and argued impressively. Again, I am influenced by a scientist and a philosopher working outside the mainstream of philosophy.

Although I studied and earned degrees in philosophy, I am drawn to sources and teachers outside the field in my effort to reach some degree of philosophical understanding.

Go figure.(?)
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“Big Tent” Philosophy:

Sometimes I see the field of philosophy as a big tent which holds a variety of inhabitants; and sometimes I’m impressed by the strange variety of philosophical species that share this tent. The inhabitants are so strange and exotic that it is a wonder they can ever communicate at all, much less engage in meaningful discourse. Consider the variety of tent inhabitants that we find inside the tent: academic and non-academic scholars of philosophy; people interested in the history of ideas; Libertarians and those who look to Ayn Rand as a great teacher, Socialists and Marxists, those engaged in Christian Apologetics; Thomists; enthusiasts of some far eastern religion and mysticism; promoters of the Ba’hai; Phenomenologists who still value Husserl, Hegelians, Kantians, Cartesian Dualists, Empirists, Promoters and defenders of Atheism, Theistic philosophers, Naturalists or those who are scientifically oriented; mathematicians who are Platonists, Humanists, Skeptics, Logicians and Analysts, Wittgensteinians, Heideggerians, Pragmatists, Spiritualists and Idealists, Existentialists, Post-Modernists, and so on. (This does not list all the wonderful species and varieties; I just got tired of typing!) It is a wonder that those who call themselves “philosophers” or more realistically, see themselves as students of philosophy, can even talk to one another. As it happens, sometimes they really cannot; and sometimes it is a mystery why all fall under the heading “philosophy.” Besides claiming the label “philosophy,” I’m not sure they all have much in common; in fact, I’m fairly sure they do not.

June 26, 2011

No, We don’t attain Perfection, but what is Perfection?

Filed under: Critique of philosophy,critique of religion,humor — Tags: , — jbernal @ 2:33 pm

Years ago my high school, home town buddy, Alex, once had an error-free performance on a ninth-grade algebra test — i.e., he solved every problem correctly, no errors whatsoever — but when his test was returned by the algebra teacher, Sister Michele, a nun teaching at the Catholic high school we attended, the paper had a ‘98’ score instead of the expected ‘100.’ When he questioned Sister Michele regarding the two points deducted on his test score, she replied that only Jesus was perfect. Understandably, my friend was upset by this, but what could he do? After all, only Jesus is perfect! [In retrospect, we should have replied that Jesus did not take the exam! But in those days we did not dare question the authority and greater knowledge of the Church.]

I thought about this humorous incident as I thought about the issue of perfection and the tendency by some philosophers to evaluate facts and events in the world on the basis of a putative perfect condition. Many times this tendency comes in the context of an ideal or spiritual metaphysics in which all things that are material and corporeal are seen as second-rate when compared with the perfect realm which is seen as having a greater reality. Plato’s theory of forms comes to mind, along with the spiritual metaphysics of Christian doctrine. The things of this world are nothing but appearances and temporal phenomena; they are nothing compared to the other, greater realm. The world we experience is imperfect; the other world (the realm of forms, for Plato; or God’s spiritual realm, for the Christian) is where perfection is realized.

Before the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the democratic revolutions and the rise of science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this metaphysical idea of an imperfect, less-than-desirable world of the senses and of perfection residing in a realm beyond the reach of human reason and intelligence served to preserve the privileges of the ruling classes and their priestly allies. Anything resembling perfection – such as wealth, knowledge, and material privileges – were limited to those who directly served God and represented his authority in this world and to those favored by God (monarchs, royalty, and aristocrats) for some unexplained reason.

For many philosophers, the other worldly perfection was reflected only in the disciplines of geometry and mathematics. A deductive system of logic could be perfect in the sense of being without error. My friend, Alex, would have been surprised to know that our pious high school algebra teacher either did not realize this or chose to ignore it when she deducted two points from his otherwise “perfect” test.

The other consequence for much of traditional Western philosophy was that genuine knowledge was not attainable in the sensible world of ordinary experience. As the arguments in Plato’s dialogues tell us, the most we can achieve in the world of the senses is opinion, which might have a degree of reliability but will never reach the status of genuine knowledge. The only exceptions were geometry and mathematics, both of which served as models for knowledge. For the Christian philosopher, many of whom followed Platonic thought, ultimately only God had knowledge of the world. Human ‘knowledge,’ at best, was only practical and provisional, always incomplete and subject to error. But God’s knowledge was perfect and complete.

With the advent of evolutionary philosophies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this idea that perfection marked every area of knowledge started to weaken. Or at least, the idea that God, being the perfect Being, had created a static, perfect world became questionable. Geologists, naturalists and historians began to develop theories of reality on basis of their observation that the world is subject to change, deterioration, improvement and evolution. In short, the world was revealed to be anything but a static, perfect world. But even with respect to biological evolution, the notion remained that everything changed for the better, moving toward a final and perfect harmony. So the idea of perfection was still retained in the prevalent perspectives of reality. It was only when Malthus gave a more realistic view of the struggle for survival and Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection that many people began to notice that the idea of perfection really did not apply to the biological and social world. Only then did some philosophers and physicists begin to question the equation of knowledge as an absolute, perfect knowledge.

Surprisingly, some people in and out of philosophy still think in these terms. I argued recently with a retired philosophy instructor who insisted that what we take as knowledge of events, contemporary or historical events, is not genuine knowledge because one can imagine alternative scenarios being possible. In other words, unless what we affirm in our claim to knowing something is absolutely and perfectly true (no possibility of error or alternative account), we cannot claim genuine knowledge. His claim is that our ordinary, empirical knowledge (as well as much of our scientific knowledge) is always based on a specific conceptual scheme or framework and is, therefore, not a completely objective form of knowledge. In short, we cannot attain perfection in our claims to knowledge. We only have perspectives and beliefs based on those perspectives which we take as knowledge and which may be practical enough; but we never attain genuine knowledge. I’m willing to grant this may point to genuine problems in epistemology and issues of rational skepticism; but it has all the tell-tale signs of a pursuit of perfection or the rendering of philosophical judgment on the scale of perfection.

Loosely related to this tendency to aim for perfection, on the part of many philosophers, is the equally erroneous idea that genuine knowledge requires proof, as in logical or mathematical proof. Hence, we have the misguided form of skepticism which doubts everything that cannot be mathematically or deductively proven. Of course, this is an untenable form of skepticism, good only for those ‘thought experiments’ so beloved by many enthusiasts of philosophy.

Contrary to this “hunger for perfection,” I agree with the many biologists, historians, and political scientists who deny that the idea of perfection as an absolute by which we evaluate human knowledge has any place in our natural, social world and can at best serve only as a limiting concept. Granted, we often refer to something as being “perfect” and hold that this is an accepted form of expression [*] ; but we should not confuse our way of talking with affirmation of other-worldly metaphysics. We don’t dwell in an ideal world where perfection is to be found; and my friend should damn well have gotten a ‘100’ score on his algebra test.
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* Of course the terms “perfect” and “perfection” have legitimate roles in our language. We often speak of the “perfect day” or the “perfect trip” as a way of emphasizing that the day had nothing but good qualities or emphasizing that the trip to Tahiti was great without any problems or complaints. Someone may speak of the perfect match between a man and woman (match “made in heaven”) or refer to a very good applicant for a job as “perfect for the position.” These are just ways of emphasizing that Bill and Mary are not just very compatible, but compliment each other in many ways. The applicant may not simply satisfy every requirement for the position, but be such a good fit that he will perform beyond the expectations of the job function. We may say that musicians performance was perfect as a way of expressing our view that there’s no aspect that needs improvement or could be criticized. But none of these forms of expression imply anything about the type of absolute existence or absolute property so beloved by many theologians and traditional philosophers.

June 25, 2011

More “knocking about” on the notion of philosophy

Filed under: Critique of philosophy — Tags: , , — jbernal @ 5:38 pm

For some of us (fortunate ones or otherwise) there is a tension in our thoughts about philosophy: We vacillate between the idea that filosofía is our most important possession and the contrary idea that most of the work of philosophers is irrelevant to the important concerns of life. We suspect that philosophy is mostly a pastime for the privileged, well-to-do, class; and of little use to those who must struggle for economic and political survival.

Consider another point of tension: whole peoples suffer mass extinction (Jews in Nazi Europe, the victims of Stalin’s purges in the USSR (1930′s), Africans at the mercy of the slave traders and slave masters, native people of America’s in face of European invasion, 1970′s genocide in Cambodia, periodic famine and political killings in Africa, oppression and mass killings in former Yugoslavia, and so on. Then ask:

What good are philosophy, ethics and moral philosophy, religion, poetry, music and other sides of the higher culture when entire populations are annihilated, tortured and repressed? What good the religious culture and “high morality” of advanced nations?

How do our moral philosophers, religious and political leaders explain the great suffering and injustice that are part of the day-to-day reality for millions around the world?

We have a tension and paradox here, but hopefully we won’t have to throw away our beloved philosophy. Maybe there’s some saving grace here. (Maybe or maybe not.)
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The term “philosophy” is a general, vague term that can mean different things. There is not any one thing that alone counts as ‘philosophy’ to the exclusion of everything else. Any attempt to give the final, over-arching definition of philosophy is bound to fail; the best that one can do is to stipulate a working definition of philosophy.

Let us say that there is a family of activities (related in certain ways) called philosophic work; imagine a loose network of activity such as study, research, analysis, writing, teaching, socio-political work, religious thought. Some of this work will turn out to be important to those who attempt to build and sustain a democratic society, and some important to those among us who desire to develop our intellectual, moral, creative and religious capabilities.

Corresponding to our loose family of activities, there will be a class of individuals practicing philosophy in some way and who are sometimes referred to as “philosophers.” There will be great variety among these people and very different views as to the nature of their work.
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9/20/91: Here we have one attitude [an echo of the character, Thrasymachus, in one of Plato's dialogues]:

“Philosophy”? What does it mean? It is a word, that’s all.
There are ways of thinking, certain studies and interests. We call some “philosophy.”

“Justice”? There is little justice in the world, practically none. I challenge the churchman, moralist, or philosopher to demonstrate that justice found in any significant degree in our world. I challenge anyone to show me that the cause of justice drives much of people’s actions or thinking.

There is little or no justice. Some people enjoy lives; most people suffer great deprivation. … That’s all there is to it. That’s how the world is.

The term “philosophy” simply refers to certain ways of talking and thinking, mostly limited to the privileged classes. But the term doesn’t play a significant role in the lives of most people.

Thrasymachus was correct. All that matters are power, the attainment of wealth and material comfort. All that matters is getting your share of the goods and holding on to it. …making your share grow and produce more wealth.
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DESCARTES, EPISTEMOLOGY & SKEPTICISM

Only a fool, ignorant of the development of philosophy in the West would deny that Rene Descartes played a very significant and positive role in that development. However, it is also true that in several important ways, Descartes influence has been unfortunate; one might even say that Descartes has misled many philosophers in Western culture in three important ways.

1. The idea that knowledge requires absolute certainty, such that any possibility of doubt precludes knowledge.

2. The idea that the starting point for gaining knowledge about our world is the individual thinking mind with nothing but its own ideas.

3. Dualism: the idea that the human person is comprised of two substances, the corporeal and the mental.

(Of course, these did not originate with Descartes, but in Western thought Descartes gave these ideas significant expression.)
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Apr. 2000

The critical philosopher’s work is to sort out and interpret the theories and discoveries of natural science, interpret and criticize the doctrines and ideas of his culture, and by so doing come out with some statements regarding the reality and activity of human beings.

Does the scientist (the theorist) discover order in nature, or does he impose order with his theories? I find this to be a philosophically significant and profound question. How much of the work of theoretical physicists, astrophysicists and scientific cosmologists are acts of discovery? How much are they creative work?
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The critical reflection on human existence and experience that philosophy encourages is relevant to the outlook of secular humanism. (Here I’m talking about a critical evaluation of our cultural myths, beliefs, presuppositions, values and so on.)
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To a large extent, our experiences (our growth, training, learning, suffering, tragedy, successes, failures, wealth, poverty, health, love, indifference, illness, etc.) determine our philosophical outlook and values. But often our stated outlook is conformist, habitual and lacking in any meaningful reflection.
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04/18/2000

Science and mathematics are creations of the human mind, itself a result of biological evolution, the evolved nervous system (brain, sense faculties), and culture.

Presumably, science and mathematics are the tools for discovering the laws of nature. Or are they merely the way that scientific human culture maps reality?

Experiments, testing, verification, prediction … leading to some control over aspects of nature and to successful technology are supposed to imply something about the objective features of nature. How confident are we that the natural sciences and applied mathematics disclose the objective laws of nature?

Raising such questions may lead some to conclude that science is simply one way, among many ways, of describing reality. But this would be a mistake. For it is misleading to say that science is merely one way of looking at the world, on a par with religious myth. (Let us not lose sight of this simple truth.)

After all, some ways of mapping reality are much better than other ways. Science is our best way of gaining knowledge of our natural and social environments. To survive and be successful in the evolutionary struggle we need to apply a reality factor.

History has shown that myth and fiction can have practical value; but they will, at best, only take us a part of the way. And often they have taken us in the wrong direction.

Yet, the use and exploitation of myth and fiction can be profitable. Consider the enduring strength and success of established religions.
——————

Should philosophers strive to be scientific? Maybe not completely, since they’re philosophers and not scientists. But a philosopher ignores the sciences at his/her own peril.

March 7, 2011

What is philosophy good for?

Filed under: Critique of philosophy — Tags: — jbernal @ 11:47 am

Back a few decades ago (more than I care to admit) when I was a neophyte philosophy graduate program at the University of California, Irvine, the graduate faculty put in my candidacy for a Ford Foundation Grant to fund one year of my graduate work. I took a flight to San Francisco to be interviewed by a committee charged with scrutinizing applicants for the grant. The grant was one for minority graduate students; so the committee was composed of people dealing with minority advocacy programs both inside and outside of academia. I thought I was handling their questions well until a woman (probably a social worker) asked me, Why would anyone study philosophy? “What good is philosophy in the struggle for civil rights and social justice?” she asked. Unfortunately I was not prepared for that question. I simply assumed that philosophy was a subject worthwhile pursuing; and that I did not have to defend it as a subject worth studying. Nor had I given much thought to the role of philosophy in the context of political and social problems in American society at that time (1970 decade).

Reaching for some kind of response, I mumbled something about philosophy teaching the student how to think critically; and critical thinking, after all, was valuable in all fields and activities. I was not surprised that the questioner was not at all impressed. Even I was embarrassed by my stock answer. Needless to say, I was reaching. At that point of the interview I figured I had blown my chances of getting the Ford grant. I figured I would be returning to my work as a teaching assistant to support my continuing graduate studies. And this is how things turned out.
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Later I would entertain the question: What is philosophy good for? In trying to come up with answers to that question, I had to try to state what philosophy is, which is not an easy task. But I jotted down a few ideas as to how we might describe or define this ‘thing’ we call philosophy.
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Of course, the easy answer is simply to refer to philosophy as an academic discipline taught at most colleges and universities. But the question as to the value of the subject would ask why colleges and universities bother to include philosophy as a discipline in their curricula. Surely it is not simply that traditionally a liberal arts program at a university includes a department of philosophy. That answer won’t do. Even if we accept the frequently stated claim that studies in philosophy are great preparation for students who are going into other professions such as law, economics, business, politics, social theory, education, and diplomacy, the question still remains, why would anyone pursue a major and graduate degree in philosophy? What social value, if any value, is realized by specialization in the field of philosophy?
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Most people who major and go into graduate studies in philosophy do so as preparatory to becoming members of some teaching faculty in philosophy. So the social value of such studies comes down to the value of perpetuating the teaching and study of philosophy. Does any significant social value result from the study and teaching of philosophy?

So the question bounces back to us: why perpetuate this social institution called “philosophy”? What good does it bring about? At this point one would try to say what the activity of philosophy might be, in order to decide whether or not there is any social value there.
—————————————–

If we think about it we will realize that people who do philosophical work, whether in academia or outside, whether teaching, writing and publishing, or just personal study, reflection and discussion, such people do a variety of different things. Despite the many attempts to define philosophy, there is no essential qualities that define philosophy, other than very general tendencies. Whether we look at the vertical development (history) of philosophical work or at the horizontal (current trends) aspect, philosophical people do very different things and have very different ideas about ‘philosophy.’ There is the more technical, logical, and linguistic philosophy practiced in England and other English-speaking countries. There are the philosophers of science who see philosophy as primarily the work of analyzing and exposing the results of the natural sciences. (For example, what are the implications for our view of physical reality from the latest theories in particle physics?) In the twentieth century we saw Pragmatism, Existentialism and Postmodernism as other trends that attracted much following. There are those who see philosophy as a version of literary expression. Historically, philosophy has been closely identified with theology and with religious thought. And this very limited statement of the variety of philosophical thinking applies only to Western culture. When we attempt to state the forms of philosophy practiced in other parts of the world, our variety expands even more. Borrowing an idea from Wittgenstein, we can say that philosophy consists of a wide family of loosely related activities, with no essential core that defines them. In a sense, one way of trying to ‘define’ philosophy is to point various types of ‘philosophers’ and philosophies and survey some of the great variety of work that falls under that category.
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When anyone gives you his/her idea of philosophy, you must always remember that this is only that person’s perspective. Nobody can state the essential definition of philosophy that will accurately characterize all philosophical perspectives and work. (“Love of wisdom” and “search for truth” just won’t take us too far.) Any statement of the nature of philosophy is only a perspective. When I give my perspective, there will be many others who engage in philosophy who will strongly object. But this does not imply that such a statement is without value. It can still be helpful in our attempt to gain some understanding of the subject.
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One perspective: Philosophy is the attempt to make sense of things, to sort out ideas, beliefs, concepts, and theories about our reality. It is the attempt to clarify our thinking and reach some understanding of our world. This will involve criticism and evaluation of our beliefs, theories, doctrines, and values. But it will also involve the attempt to assemble a picture of our reality; to tell an apt story.

As such, philosophy will have some similarities (but significant differences) to
• Literary criticism
• The natural sciences,
• Work in logic and mathematics,
• Psychological counseling (both as counselor and patient),
• History and the social sciences,
• The work of a courtroom lawyer,
• Police investigative work,
• Computer science and Engineering,
• Expression of the novelist and the poet,
• The work of theologians and mystics, and
• Satire and political analysis/commentary.

———————————————-
If philosophy, as a discipline, has anything to offer (in the 20th, 21st century), it may be in terms of examination and sustained critiques of some of the following:

• human existence (nature of .., meaning of…, value of ….)
• the mind (nature of thought, consciousness, ….).
(Have the cognitive sciences taken over here?)
• religion (theism, mysticism, supernaturalism, biblical study and criticism)
• nature and function of the natural sciences
• nature of mathematics
• scope of human knowledge (Epistemology, Psychology)
• concepts of truth and reality
• logic, linguistic clarity, metaphor and the uses of language
• implications of evolutionary sciences
(biology, anthropology, psychology).
• theories in contemporary physics and cosmology
• evolutionary biology, anthropology, & psychology
• moral values and behavior (Can war be justified?)
• culture, politics, history, economics, governmental. policies

And of course, there are the studies of the great figures in philosophy and the history of philosophy. Such concentration can teach us much about how others have dealt with difficult questions that life and history present.
———————————————–

So, besides possibly being a great intellectual adventure, what is all this (‘philosophy’) good for? Maybe the answer is that it is not worth much, if you’re the type of person anxious to act in resolving our many social and political problems, or if you’re the type who wants to go about earning a fortune and acquiring power. (For such types philosophy is likely a waste of time.) But if you’re the type of person who is not satisfied with society’s standard answers to difficult question and if you’re the type of person who has advanced from childhood (where parents prop you up in your walking and the experts do your thinking,) and you desire to walk on your own and think on your own, then maybe study, reflection, and interaction in philosophy is the thing for you. Maybe philosophy is good for something after all.
—————————

Final Note: This satisfies me, but I doubt that the Ford Foundation Committee would have been moved. Most likely – even after hearing such a spiel as I’ve outlined, they would not have awarded me the grant!

January 27, 2011

Irony: A philosopher who cannot detect nonsense

Filed under: Critique of philosophy,Irony — Tags: — jbernal @ 11:33 am

Spotting Bullshit: A conversation with Stephen Law – (Free Inquiry, Feb/March 2011)

In the latest issue (Feb/Mar. 2011) of one of our better publications for the secular community, the periodical Free Inquiry, features an interview with philosopher Stephen Law, of Heythorp College, University of London. Law describes himself as a “liberal, a secularist, an atheist, and a humanist” and replied to a series of questions regarding his views on a variety of subjects including secularism, humanism, and atheism. But the questions which caught my attention related to his view of philosophy. The first one asked: What is Philosophy?

Law’s reply: “Philosophy is about applying our powers of reason so far as we are able to certain big questions, the answers to which at least appear to lie beyond the reach of science. For example: the metaphysical question “Why is there anything at all?” the ethical question: “What is right or wrong?” the epistemological question “How do I know that other people have minds?” or another metaphysical question: “Does time travel even make sense?” (Free Inquiry, Feb/March 2011, page 46)

With the exception of the metaphysical question, this is fair enough as an attempt to say what some of philosophy engages. But we should understand that these question are mostly conceptual questions and – in the case of the ethical question – a question regarding value judgments. These are not questions which “lie beyond the reach of science” in the sense that they attempt to probe a reality beyond the reach of science. To understand the role of philosophy in this way would be to revert to the delusion that somehow the philosopher’s thinking or reasoning can achieve a deeper knowledge of reality than the sciences. This is the delusion of traditional, metaphysical philosophy; it is not one which we should associate with the work of philosophy today.

Another question that I found surprising for an interview in a respectable publication was the question: What is the biggest problem in philosophy? — Law gave the following: “I’m not sure. Maybe the mind/body problem, or the question “Why is there anything at all?” (Free Inquiry, Feb/March 2011, page 46)

Trying to specify “the biggest problem in philosophy” can be an interesting exercise for undergraduate students of philosophy; but I’m inclined to classify it with such questionable, idle exercises as trying to say who the greatest philosopher is; or whether Shakespeare or Cervantes was the greater writer. The big problems in philosophy will vary depending on the philosopher and the area of philosophy in which he/she works. A philosopher of science will not list either one of Law’s candidates as the “greatest problem”: and someone specializing in social-political philosophy will surely not specify the metaphysical ‘problem’ of trying to say why there is anything at all instead of nothing.

So both the question and Law’s attempted answer surprised me. I was surprised that the interviewer — a philosopher himself (Floris Van Den Berg) and Law would seriously engage in such a dialogue. (After all, the interview is titled “Spotting Bullshit”) Furthermore, although the mind/body issue is an important problem for the philosophy of mind and for metaphysics meriting much attention and discussion, the second “great problem” – namely the deep question: Why is there anything at all? — mentioned by Law is surely a pseudo-problem, unless you happen to engage a certain type of metaphysics or theology. The question, insofar as it is one for modern thought, is one that is engaged by scientific cosmology and theoretical physics. Philosophy and theology, despite their pretense, are not in position to advance any significant theories (i.e., scientifically based theories) about deep reality, as would be required were we to take any proposed ‘answer’ to this somewhat vague question seriously. For the most part philosophers’ and theologians’ answers to the deep question fall into the category of the excreta of bulls. Neither the philosopher Stephen Law nor the publication Free Inquiry shows me that they are adept at spotting such product of the bull.

December 19, 2010

Is Philosophy a Footnote to Plato?

Filed under: Critique of philosophy,philosophy history,philosophy quotes — Tags: — jbernal @ 12:03 pm

Spanos states his case:

In your essay, “Is Platonism the model for philosophy?” (in this blog) you put “the question of Platonism”: Is philosophy (in general) a form of Platonism (or as Whitehead said, “a series of footnotes to Plato”)? You also quoted Whitehead’s famous statement in full:

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”

You overlooked a few things. First, a characterization of the European philosophical tradition is not necessarily a characterization of philosophy in general. Second, footnotes to Plato do not have to reflect agreement with Plato’s philosophy. Finally, the “safest general characterization” is not necessarily a completely safe general characterization. These oversights could lead to a straw man argument against Whitehead.

I’m not sure what exactly Whitehead had in mind. According to my best guess, he was thinking that the central theme running through the history of European philosophy from Plato to the present is realism. Most European philosophers have assumed one form or another of realism. In other words, they have assumed that reality has a structure that can be captured in language or represented in terms of the categories that form the basic structural units of language. But there have always been dissenters to this view, and it was the central issue throughout the history of medieval philosophy. Duns Scotus was a particularly noteworthy defender of realism, while William of Occam was an extremely influential dissenter. The twentieth century debate between Einstein and Bohr over the interpretation of quantum experiments is one of those footnotes to Plato in which Einstein insisted on a realist position while Bohr took a rather ambiguous position that smacked of anti-realism (e.g. instrumentalism or pragmatism). At the turn of the century, of course, anti-realism was well represented by Richard Rorty and his fellow post-modernists. Meanwhile, realists were spread out over a range that included both transcendental and materialist versions.
————————–

My reply:

I also ask: What exactly did Whitehead mean by his statement that we can characterize European philosophy as a series of footnotes to Plato? To me this surely suggests that the old metaphysician, Whitehead, was asserting that we can look at European philosophy as a continuation of Plato’s philosophy. After all, what is a mere footnote to the main thesis? It is just a footnote and does not question or reject the main thesis. So now ask yourself, can we characterize the philosophies of the many ‘philosophers’ who are found in the European stream of philosophy as just elaborations on Plato’s philosophy? I submit that the obvious answer is a negative one. Not even the work Plato’s student, Aristotle, who went on to develop his own philosophy, can meaningfully be characterized as a mere footnote to Plato. The same can be said for a large set of philosophers in the European stream.

The fact that the issue of ‘realism’ (e.g. the issue of the status of universals) is an issue that occupied many of those philosophers does not show that their work is just a “footnote to Plato” or a continuation of Platonism. As I tried to show you in an earlier email, and as you seem to have forgotten, there’s much more to Platonism that just preoccupation with the metaphysical issue of ‘realism.’ Affirming that ” that reality has a structure that can be captured in language or represented in terms of the categories that form the basic structural units of language” does not make one a Platonist and does not affirm Plato’s philosophy. At most it shows one point of similarity in very different philosophies.

At best, Whitehead’s famous remark can be taken as a figurative way of saying that many philosophers in the European tradition proceed in somewhat of a spirit of Plato. But his figurative language is surely more misleading than insightful, even when taken as a metaphor.
——————————
Spanos comes back:

This is a problem in hermeneutics! A key principle of hermeneutics is the principle of charity. It applies to situations where we must choose between different possible interpretations of a text. It requires that we choose the interpretation that seems most reasonable or most defensible. You seem to me to have chosen an interpretation that is not very reasonable and not very defensible. We should always try to give the writer we are interpreting as much credit as we can within the constraints of the language he or she uses.

————————————————–
My reply:
Principle of charity, huh? Just how charitable do we have to be? Carried far enough, the principle of charity would excuse any foolishness that a writer asserts, especially when the writer is a respected professor of philosophy. And your qualifier surely calls for clarification: “as much credit as we can within the constraints of the language he chose to use.” Exactly how do you determine these “constraints” if you’re not to read what is written as meaning what is written, but go out looking for a charitable interpretation to rescue those writers you favor?

Apparently you were applying this principle of charity when you interpret Whitehead’s remark on “philosophy as a footnote to Plato” as just referring to the fact that a number (and only a minority, really) of European philosophers have been preoccupied with the problem of ‘realism’ (“realism” in the sense that universals and general categories have real, independent existence). You might think this is just the principle of charity (oh, that grand “hermeneutics”!) applied. But it strikes me — as I’m sure it strikes many people — as a case of reading into the text what you want to find there. This is similar to a case of the President’s press secretary telling reporters what the President really meant to say when he committed some blooper or other.

Look man, if I tell you that ‘B’ is just a footnote to ‘A’, I’m surely implying that at best ‘B’ is just commentary or clarification of the main thesis ‘A’; if one is using these words in a figurative sense to say something about how we who indulge in the activity of philosophy are in a sense children of Plato, then one should signal more clearly that this figurative language is not to taken too seriously. But this special interpretation would be just that, a special interpretation. It flies in the face of a fact of our linguistic behavior: we use such expression to elevate the main thesis ‘A’ at the expense of ‘B’.

At any rate, even on your charitable interpretation of the Whitehead statement (philosophers are children of Plato), there are great problems with the amended statement about footnotes and Plato; and it is an amended statement, not a case of charitable interpretation at all.

(When in doubt invoke the principles of textual interpretation and that ugly word, “hermeneutics.”)

December 17, 2010

Do we perceive real things, or just our representations of them?

Filed under: Critique of philosophy,metaphysics,theory of knowledge — Tags: — jbernal @ 12:10 pm

First Part: Spanos presents his case challenging the naïve view that we perceive real things as they really are.

I’ll put my questions in the context of a story told by Leonard Mlodinow and Stephen Hawking in “The Grand Design“:

A FEW YEARS AGO the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved goldfish bowls. The measure’s sponsor explained the measure in part by saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality.

This raises an interesting question. Do the curved sides of the bowl distort the fishes’ view of reality? Would they, under normal circumstances, have an undistorted view of reality? The Mlodinow/Hawking response to this is equally interesting. They chide the sponsors of the measure for assuming that our own view of reality is undistorted.

But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality? Might not we ourselves also be inside some big goldfish bowl and have our vision distorted by an enormous lens? The goldfish’s picture of reality is different from ours, but can we be sure it is less real?

The point made by Mlodinow and Hawking is that it doesn’t make any practical difference to the fish whether the bowl is curved or straight. In either case they adapt their responses to appearances. What does make a difference is whether their responses work. In order to make their responses work, they do not need a true, undistorted picture of reality. All they need is a reliably consistent picture of reality. And evolution has given them the ability to produce such a picture. Evolution has even given them the ability to adapt their responses to changes in appearances such as would be caused by putting them in a fish bowl with curved sides.

In the light of such considerations, I’m not sure how to interpret what some people claim: namely that there is no distortion of reality taking place. For example, a colleague argued that

“if we (or other creatures) didn’t actually perceive objects (‘things’ to use your term) as they really are, we would not have survived this long in the evolutionary process. Yes, misperceptions (faulty interpretations) often occur but rarely as often as you seem to imply in the above quote. Our perceptions rarely lie to us.”

Spanos continues: Must we assume that we wouldn’t be able to survive without a true, undistorted picture of reality? If fish can survive without it, why can’t we? It’s true that our perceptions rarely lie to us. But what do they tell us? Do they tell us what reality really is, or do they only tell us whether the current situation is one that requires a particular kind of response? Perhaps the lie, if there really is one, is the lie we tell ourselves when we assume that we have a true, undistorted picture of reality.

But it’s not a lie if we only mean that we have a generally true, undistorted picture of empirical reality. (By “empirical reality” I mean “the way things appear to us.”) It’s only a lie if we mean that we have a true, undistorted picture of transcendental reality. Here is Kant’s definition of “transcendental.”

“certain of our cognitions rise completely above the sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions to which there exists in the whole of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range of our judgments beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investigations of reason, which on account of their importance, we consider far preferable to, and as having a far more elevated aim, than all that the understanding can achieve within the realm of sensuous phenomena.”

Prominent among these cognitions that “rise completely above all possible experience” are the concepts of reality and truth. We feel the pressure of these cognitions whenever we are aware of our own fallibility. I don’t think fish have these cognitions, and it is a mystery why we have them.

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Second Part: My slightly annoyed reply:

You want for us to accept the proposition that we can talk about a “true, undistorted picture of transcendental reality,” which is different from “empirical reality” and which we don’t experience at all? The true, objective reality is not something we perceive or with which we can interact with it. But is this really what Kant holds? With Kant it is never clear, for he seems to say that “transcendental reality” is the “investigation of reason.” Assuming this is human reason, does he allow that humans have “rational access” to this “transcendental realm?

Moreover, there’s ambiguity in the description of “empirical reality.” On the one hand, Kant seems to admit that reality that we ordinarily, naturally experience (the reality explored by the sciences); we are told that this is “reality as it appears to us.” But reality as it appears to me does not imply that my perception fails to inform me about the real world. For although reality-as-it-appears-to-me might differ a bit from things-as-they- really-are, it can be corrected by scientific investigation, by careful analysis and relevant investigations, by corrective lenses (i.e., eyeglasses), etc.; this gives us a distinction between “reality as it appears to us” and “a corrected version (or reality at a different level of analysis) of reality.” Both are accessible to human experience, insofar as we allow that experience to be ‘extended’ by the instruments of science, rational inquiry and analysis, technology, and so on. This common-sense distinction has nothing to do with the distinction between the world accessible to human inquiry and a ‘transcendental reality.’

At any rate, all this talk of “transcendental reality” distinct from “empirical reality” (the reality investigated by science and experienced by humans) is suspect, to say the least, unless you happen to be a Kantian or believer in transcendence of some kind.

Here’s what Richard Rorty writes concerning this distinction between “empirical reality” and “transcendental reality.”

The antirepresentationalism common to Putnam and Davidson insists, by contrast, that the notion of “theory-independent and language-independent matter-of-factual relationships” begs all the questions at issue. For this notion brings back the very representationalist picture from which we need to escape. With William James, both philosophers refuse to contrast the world with what the world is known as, since such a contrast suggests that we have somehow done what Nagel calls “climbing out of our own minds.” They do not accept the Cartesian-Kantian picture presupposed by the idea of “our minds” or “our language” as an “inside” which can be contrasted to something (perhaps something very different) “outside.” From a Darwinian point of view, there is simply no way to give sense to the idea of our minds or language as systematically out of phase with what lies beyond our skins.

I also have great trouble accepting the claim by some people that they can “climb out of their minds” to the realm of the transcendent (whether this is a philosophical, metaphysical, or mystical claim); hence, I stand with the thinking of Richard Rorty, John Dewey, William James, Hilary Putnam and Donald Davidson on this issue.

The fish-bowl analogy cited by Spanos (gotten from Hawking-Mlodinow book) is interesting, but misleading insofar as it perpetuates the inside-outside model of human experience: we are ‘inside’ looking through a lense (or window, as Spanos suggested in a previous discussion) which distorts the real nature of the ‘outside.’ There is not much of a compelling argument for this model. And the fish-bowl analogy does not offer much of a new insight to this age-old issue.

(But maybe I’m just blind and need those corrective lenses that Dr. Kant provides.)

November 13, 2010

Philosophers’ Confusion: Why something rather than nothing?

Filed under: All,Critique of philosophy,science and philosophy — Tags: , — jbernal @ 2:52 pm

They muddy the water to make it appear deep — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Why is there something rather than nothing?” the confused philosopher asked. The scientist smiled, ignored the question, and went about his business.

I shall argue that the scientist is right to ignore the philosopher on the alleged “Deep Question.” But first I shall relate two scenarios to help set the stage.

First story: Suppose that you’re driving a mountain road with a friend as passenger and you come to a turn in the road where a large boulder blocks the road. You’re blocked and unable to get to your destination. Your friend wonders why this has happened. You point out that recent rain storms have saturated the hill alongside the road, undermined the base on which the stone sat and caused the stone to roll down the hillside and onto the road, blocking the way. Your friend is not satisfied and asks, “But why did it have to happen now?” You’re bewildered and cannot imagine what kind of response could satisfy your friend. You explained how the rock happened to block the way. To ask why it happened is just to express frustration or to betray a basic confusion.

Second story: Suppose you’re a parent of a son in his teens and have forbidden him to attend a Saturday night rave. At a very late hour that Saturday night a friendly policewoman knocks on your door with your underage teenager in tow. He had been found at the rave with a small amount of marijuana. You thank the policewoman for retrieving the errant teen and then ask him what was he doing there. He replies by telling how he got there: he sneaked out of the house and an older friend drove them to the rave. But you were not interesting in how he got there, but why he chose to disobey you and attend the rave. Obviously, your son wants to avoid the why response.

As these little scenarios show, asking how something happened is clearly different from asking why something happened in cases where someone brought the happening about. There are appropriate circumstances in which one or the other question is appropriate. In some situations, both questions might be applicable; and in some, the why question is clearly not applicable at all.

This distinction gives us a quick way of defusing the notorious question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and exposing the unsound reasoning behind it. But first let’s consider a few more preliminaries.

When does it make sense to ask: “Why A rather than B?” Surely it is when the question refers to the action of an intelligent agent who may have reasons, motives, or purposes in acting as he did.

Consider a few cases of such why questions:

Either I say something or remain silent. I decide to speak up. Why did I speak rather than remain silent?
Either we do something or do nothing. Suppose we opt to do something. Why something rather than nothing?
Either the administration decides to invade Iraq. It decided to invade. Why did it invade instead of not invading?

Here the why question makes sense. We can imagine what would be relevant responses (in terms of reasons, motives, purposes, etc.,) and what would not be relevant.

But suppose I ask

why (requesting a motive, reason, or purpose of an intelligent agent) a deadly hurricane hit the Louisiana coast?
Or why a landslide buried the village killing hundreds of people?
Or why a drought happened and ruined the summer crop?

The “why” has no place here, unless you believe that an intelligent agent (a god?) causes these things to happen. By contrast, the how question, which asks for the natural, material processes that led to these events, makes sense. This would be the question which scientists ask and attempt to answer.

Many times the how question (question requesting the natural processes and conditions that explain a happening) is stated as a question with the work why when reasons and purposes are not assumed. For examples, consider the following set of questions, all stated as “Why did A happen instead of B?”

Either the continents are permanently fixed in place or they float on tectonic plates. That is, Either the continents have moved or they have not moved (permanently fixed in position). Scientists have evidence that the continent have moved.
Someone could raise the question:
Why has there been continental movement rather than no movement?
Or as another set of questions:
Why is there an island X in the Pacific Ocean rather than nothing?
Why is there a moon orbiting the Earth instead of no moon at all?
Why did the solar system come to be rather than nothing?

All of these questions are how questions disguised as why questions. Understood as questions about natural processes and conditions, which are the subjects for scientific investigation and theory, these are really questions that ask “How did A happen, and not B?”

Now consider the famous philosophers’ question: Why is there something rather than nothing? The question has been restated in modern times as “Why is there a universe rather than nothing?”

Let’s call this question (Why is there a universe instead of nothing?) the “Deep Question” of metaphysics and theology. As I noted, sometimes this is posed as: Why is there something instead of nothing?

The famous ‘Deep Question’ — insofar as it is a question for philosophers and theologians — is a why question; it implies that one can find cosmic reasons and purpose to explain the origin of the universe. Reasons and purposes imply an intelligent mind (creator) who can provide those reasons and purposes. It also presupposes (invalidly) that the existence of the something (e.g., the primordial universe) requires explanation; whereas, a state of nothing would be natural and does not require explanation. As a number of scientific critics (e.g. Adolph Grünbaum, Victor Stenger) have noted, this presupposition is an invalid one.

Many people assume that when scientific cosmologists and theoretical physicists investigate the primordial conditions of the universe and advance theories purporting to explain how the universe may have originated, they are dealing with the philosophers’ Deep Question. But they are not. They are not investigating the why of the universe (as if they could find reasons, motives, or purposes behind the primordial conditions leading to the Big Bang). Instead, they investigating and advancing theories of how the universe may have originated. They are not dealing with the philosophers’ “Deep Question” at all.

Someone who thinks that the philosophers’ Deep Question is validated by the work of scientific cosmologists is being as evasive as the teenager who explained how he traveled to the rave. And the person who thinks that scientific cosmologists are dealing with the philosophers’ deep question is as confused as the friend who requested to know why the stone blocked the road.

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