It’s 3.30 am, and I smoke a final cigarette as a bookend to the day. But like all good late night smokes it does not silence thought but encourages it. The day I sought to finalize refuses to die, and difficult questions bombard my mind in a frenzied whirl. My mind is not centered on the specific—tired thoughts do not tend towards the finely grained. They have a habit of calling forth in large sweeping stokes a bigger picture. No monster in the closet, but in its place stands the monstrous thoughts that are hidden from view by the minutia of the day. When all the specific concerns fade, holding no bearing this late, I see the looming giants on the horizon of the mind.
We seek to live our lives authentically and truthfully. No sane person holds on to an obviously wrong opinion or belief. The search for truth demands this evaluation and disposal. Here lies the basic call, to live by truth and reject what is false, but how. If there be an objective truth, an unequivocal right and wrong; one that stands whole and complete even if the world around it collapse and only the cockroaches are let to bear witness, we sit in dire straits. None of us hold truth in it completeness; none of us may stand before the rest and claim that they bear no single falsehood. In that lies the unsettling thing, we are all wrong in some sense. What remains is to identify and purge that falsehood. Who am I to judge? By what right do I declare what is right and wrong? If this were even possible then how could I be ignorant of my own falsehoods? No, by myself there can be no progress. So then I must turn to a standard, a guide. Let it then be my Christian faith, in her lies a path to enumerating what is false, and the wisdom to purge it. So I have stepped back from myself, into a larger perspective in which to judge. But, what of another step back? Doesn’t the very path I choose to let judge me, stem from just that, my choice? I believe that this Faith is correct, I do not know it. Some would say that yes we do know! If so it is a different ‘know’ then required. I do not ‘know’ it to be true, like I know that chair to be there, or like 2x2 is 4, or even like I know my thoughts are troubled. I know through faith, through belief. Don’t I come to that belief in the same way the Hindu or Muslim came to theirs? Not in the practical sense of course, for each life is different, but in the sense that the same epistemic facilities bestowed my belief that gave the other theirs.
Objective truth is hard. Not because it is held fast through existence, but because I am not equipped with the tools to grasp it in pure clarity. I am always preaching of the solid ground from a raft afloat. Objective truth is black and white, but we can only ever with any certainty say that something is grey. Every time I go to declare that finally I have black. I must, if I am honest, recoil by the fact that my reasons can stand on the same grounds as my doubt! I don’t think relativism is appealing because it saves me the discomfort of saying someone else is wrong. It is not appealing because of anything I may say of others, but what it saves me from saying about myself. Objective truth demands a deep pride of me, which proclaims, “I AM RIGHT!” if I cannot proclaim that, then I must say that I am wrong, and dispose of the belief. What way but of arrogance lets me say that? When every belief I have is tainted by subjectivity how am I supposed to apprehend the objective, and so truthfully and without pride claim “I am right!” It is not enough to be convinced, to be persauded, but that is all we seem capable of. I do not want to be convinced, I want to be right.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Here’s a snippet of my thoughts concerning your anxious post, Mr. Porch Rat. Aren’t we getting caught up again by our lack of ability to prove things? You say “I do not ‘know’ it to be true, like I know that chair to be there…” But we don’t even know that the chair is there. What can we actually “prove”? Nothing. There is no meaning or worth to these questions and thoughts. Now, is this thought something we can live by, order our lives by, or set up a philosophy? No; and I don’t mean for us to enter the whirlwind of empirical doubt or the persistent drag of skepticism by stating this. I simply say it in order to remind us that nothing is truly provable by means of the Scientific Method, etc. Our whole pool of knowledge, including even the hard sciences, is based on subjective reliance on assumptions. The post-modernists and deconstructivists came to this conclusion a century or so ago. We can use this knowledge to whine and moan about the futility of man’s limited sensory and reasoning capabilities; or we can use it to realize that this is not where we need to be focused. Can I prove that I am right and a Muslim is not? No, it’s epistemologically impossible. We can respond to this knowledge by whining, continuing to try to prove it, or moving on to more meaningful questions.
ReplyDeleteMy beliefs in the Catholic Church and Christ as my personal Lord and Savior are bound up in faith; but so are the sociologists’, the psychologists’, the mathematicians’, the atheists’, etc.
Now, does this mean that we shouldn’t (or don’t) feel some sort of anxiety concerning this un-knowledge? No. It is true that we are preaching of solid ground from a raft afloat; the dizziness is normal. So if you want to be RIGHT, I would suggest trying not to be human.
I apologize, my friend, Mr. Porch Rat, if my last reply sounded rather angry. It was simply that your post reminded me of my own philosophical meanderings --- meanderings that always lead me to the same place. As such, I was replying more to myself than you.
ReplyDeleteI think my post wasn't as clear as I would have liked it to be, which is to be expected given the spontaneous nature of it and my poor writing ability. But that is neither here nor there.
ReplyDeleteJonas, I think you are right to say that we are unable to reach an absolute certainty in this life at least. Every belief, or method, or theory eventually ends up at unprovable postulates, which are accepted on faith. This is the nature of the world and our connection to it. Now, I would be more then willing to accept that but Objective Truth does not let me.
The burden that the concept of objective truth is just in that it demands a standard from us that we cannot give. I cannot honestly utter “I am right” in any objective sense, without certainty. But certainty is denied to me by the world. In another way, relativism is appealing because it does not demand from me that certainty. It needs nothing other then my willingness to believe or to disbelieve something. Certainly relativism has its’ own problems, such as being self destructive, but that’s not the concern here. The demand of objective truth is more then I, or any of us can deliver honestly. Without the certainty, we can only utter, “I am right,” in arrogance and pride. How could I utter it with anything else but pride? I am not ignorant of my wrongness, or rather I perfectly understand that I could be wrong—that I lack certainty. So what but arrogance and pride could allow me to say with certainty that I am right? Modern philosophy may have veered off course in its method, but I can relate to Descartes’s brutal search for certainty. It’s not just nice to have, objective truth makes it almost a necessity, a necessity that we cannot fulfill. Perhaps the ending sentence of my original post should read instead, “if there is objective truth, I cannot just be convinced, I must also be right”
Once again, I could go into depth here, but I choose to be simple and quick. First, I appreciate your questions and dilemma, Mr. Porch Rat. I think the intellectual and emotional battle here is important.
ReplyDeleteQuick comment: Believing in something objective doesn’t mean that you need to be able to prove its objectivity --- if you’re talking about “proving” in the empirical or reasoning sense. If this were the case, we couldn’t believe in anything objective. Case closed. This discussion would be over. [Anyone can feel free to disagree with this point. This could be a nice argument.]
Quick question: Knowing that we can’t prove anything objectively --- and granted we are fine with believing in something objective without proving its objectivity --- should we linger on the question? What is left to wonder? Using empirical and reasoning abilities, we can’t prove beyond a doubt God’s objectivity nor His existence. Either we are fine with this and move on, or we reject God for this sake. But if we reject God for this sake, we should also reject the fact that anyone exists beyond our own consciousness, for this too can’t be proven empirically.
PS Believing in something’s objectivity and existence without empirical proof…enter stage left: Kierkegaard’s anxiety.
PPS This why God gave us more than our senses and reason. We can’t prove him in the scientific sense. But even science can’t prove science in the scientific sense. We have more “senses,” although perhaps there is a better word to use here. But…this is discussion for a WHOLE different post.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJonas, once again the comments are appreciated and helpful, thank you. on the book keeping end, the two above deleted posts are due to a quick bit of clarifying i felt were needed. OK, first there is again agreement on my part on all or at least the majority of your points. Certainly, there can be no beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt proof of the objective. I have no problem with that and think you are indeed spot on. How that plays in I’ll discuss in a second. Second, I am less concerned with worrying about that fact that we cannot prove the objective, than I am with the necessary consequences of that position. It is not worry over the unchangeable it is the unrecognized consequences of it that are troubling. Or perhaps the issue is in that I am seeing something deeply troubling in said consequences that I previously pushed off as superficial or minute.
ReplyDeleteLet us attack the problem from the opposing position, relativism. Generally speaking relativism is self-defeating. “All truths are relative, except of course this one!” by negating any objective truth you destroy the logical possibility for relativisms fundamental maxim. If “All truths are relative” cannot be true by its own admittance then what hope is there? As is often the case Aristotle says it best.
“For by asserting all is true we assert the truth of the contrary assertion and consequently the falsity of our own thesis (for the contrary assertion does not admit that it can be true. And if one says that all is false, that assertion is itself false. If we declare that solely the assertion opposed to ours is false or else solely ours is not false, we are nevertheless forced to admit an infinite number of true or false judgments. For the one who expresses a true assertion proclaims simultaneously that it is true, son on ad infinitum” (Metaphysics 4.8)
Relativism is, in a sense, self defeating because it claims something that cannot be delivered, i.e. itself. It offends logic, because it assumes the opposite of its claim, that there is an objective truth so that it can say there are none. How then does this concern relate to our original dilemma? I submit that in a similar (although in an admittedly different) way objective truth is self defeating; not in the logical sense as with relativism, but in a practical living sense. This is seen through the contrast between objective truth itself, the World, and us. On one hand we have (for the sake of argument) an existent Objective Truth. In the other hand is the World, which disallows the proving of said truth (to a certainty). We are stuck in the middle in a troubling position. When it comes to our assertion of our beliefs are true, if we honestly recognize our position, we cannot say anything more then “I believe, and am convinced that my beliefs are true,” not “they are true.” And in the recognition of our position we can only say of others’ different beliefs that, “I believe and am convinced that they are wrong,” not “they are wrong.” ‘Objectively’ speaking we are saying not much more then I cannot honestly judge the truthfulness or falsity of beliefs, mine or others. That is, if we for a moment step out of our belief and truly recognize the position we are in—that I may be wrong, and they may be right, for without certainty we must admit that if we are to be honest. Now the scene is set and the question is, whether or not it matters, and I contend that it does, profoundly.
For Objective truth to be meaningful to us we must in some way be connected to it. That entails that both, it exists, and that I can know it in some sense. If we did not know it in what way could we be connected to it or held to it (fairly, that is); it would be a distant nothing to us. Now, we may appeal to degree, saying well in some way we can know it, perhaps, but that is not enough. Objective truth demands more. A true knowledgeable connection must entail a certainty, for it is true and false, black and white. Even dim perception of it would confer certainty, even as (knowing there are only two choices: black and white) vaguely perceiving black could not be misconstrued as white. Even as seeing one quality of something would never lead to concluding its opposite. True is as far from false as can be in the objective sense. If we were to gain an ounce of a Truth we would in that moment gain its whole. Furthermore on our end, we can never honestly judge the degree in which something is near to truth or fallacy because the faculties of judgment that lead us to our conclusion is itself built on that belief, or another belief, and not on any objective standard of judgment. You are right in saying everything is built on assumptions, but in the case of science it at least plays out in predictability, in consistency, etc. Such a method of judgment does not work for religion or not Christianity at least, because the information that could lead us to a fair judgment is beyond the veil of death, which we may not pierce. We cannot count the Christians in heaven, and in hell. Do not take from the previous statement the false impression that I think that religion must be judged empirically to be judged correctly. I am merely pointing out a substantial difference between it and science. Certainly science has its assumptions but somehow, in a deep sense, that is more acceptable to us. The very fact that religion cannot be judged (at lest not wholly or even meaningfully) by empirical methods places it in a different category. We are compelled to offer different methods of judgment, but also place them with the same solidity as that of ‘empirical judgment’ in the human mind. Certainly empirical judgment is not the method we are going to be able to use, but without a full certainty all other methods fall short in the same way. Maybe we can find one that does other the same common sense appeal as the empirical one but, I don’t think so. I think there is something distinct about “The Empirical” that appeals to our minds, but that is the beginnings of digression. Take at least that my concern is not that the empirical method falls short, but all methods do, and many times far shorter then the empirical one.
Without a connection to objective truth what do we have? Practically speaking the position is little more then an arrogant form of relativism. I say arrogant because the relativist fully recognizes and asserts his inability to judge the others belief, whereas the former cannot honestly judge the validity of the others beliefs but asserts their falsity or truthfulness nonetheless. And here is the crux of my worry. Are we not just relativists (primarily epistemic ones, but that entails deep relativistic metaphysical consequences as well) with a far reaching and deeply profound arrogance and pride? If we cannot make a more assertive claim about objective truth other than, “it may or may not exist (for any amount of degree leaves true possibility for its contrary), and I believe it does” How are we different? If we are not, then we stand in a scary place, we have only justified our relativism, and perhaps taken it out of the grips of a logical self-defeat, but we are not in a different place. And if we are to die and land at the throne of judgment, can we not say to he who sits upon it, “How dare you judge me on what I could not know! I chose belief despite the uncertainty, but if I was wrong it was because I guessed what land was, having only ever seen the water.”
Phew… OK, a lot here but I will end this morbidly depressing and hopeless piece on a hopeful note. From my end I see hope in the figure of Christ, and the concept of a God who shared in the experience and our position in this ridiculous world in a real and full way. I do not only see a hope in a God who became man but rather am profoundly convinced that this bit of Christianity, is more than a good story, or even a good source of revelation to Man, but a logical, practical and existential necessity for the story of God. in Christ must lie a deep truth and answer for the state of Man and his connection to the world. And without it we are left with very little to comfort us. Frankly I do not think these worries are to be dispelled but in some way necessary to our relationship to God, the importance of the Mystery if you will…
ReplyDeletePorch Rat, I take a moment here simply to say that your words/dilemma have been marinating in my brain. I am swamped at the moment, but I do plan on responding in the nearish future.
ReplyDeleteMy only response now is to say that perhaps the approach you are taking to the issues is your problem. You seem to be setting up and discussion an argument that neither side can logically win. Let me give an example: trying to prove freewill is real. In order to do this in one sense, you need to prove that NOTHING else directly causes our “choices.” But how can you prove this? Not finding anything else that directly causes our “choices” is not the same as proving that they don’t exist. It’s like trying to prove that there are definitely no extraterrestrial life ANYWHERE. These proofs are logically impossible.
How this applies to your argument…perhaps you can make the connection, but I will expound at a later time. Suffice it to say that I feel that you have set up a dilemma that cannot be solved. One way to respond to this is to allow this conclusion to stagnate thought/action; and another response is to see the insolvability as a reason to think that the dilemma is not worthwhile beyond being a nice brain-teaser.