The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas: Part 3: Can You Prove God’s Existence?

As mentioned in the last lecture, Thomas presents five ways to argue for the existence of god.  Rather than calling them proofs, Thomas wants these points to lead people to believe that god exists.  Also, since the lecture series is following the Summa Theologiae these are only short summaries of the arguments presented in the Summa Contra Gentiles.  Before looking at Thomas' arguments Prof Kreeft asks the question, why is this an important question?

Why is belief in God important?  To answer that question Prof Kreeft quotes Nietzsche:

Where is [g]od? I shall tell you. We have killed him, you and I . . . But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we all moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? . . . Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it?

And Sartre:

God does not exist and we have to face all the consequences of this. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain kind of secular ethics which would like to abolish [g]od with the least possible expense . . . something like this: [g]od is a useless and costly hypothesis; we are discarding it, but meanwhile, in order for there to be an ethics, a society, a civilization, it is essential that certain values be taken seriously and that they be considered as having an a priori existence. It must be obligatory a priori to be honest, not to lie, not to beat your wife, to have children, etc. etc. So we’re going to try a little device which will make it possible to show that values exist all the same, inscribed in a heaven of ideas, though . . . [g]od does not exist . . . 

Without god there's no source of a priori goodness, no foundation for any moral system.

Of the three types of arguments for god, cosmological, experiential (moral), and ontological, all of Thomas's five ways are cosmological arguments because they deal with cosmology, how we see the universe. Thomas rejected St. Anselm’s “ontological argument” which totally makes sense to me.  All five of the ways are approached in basically the same format, they each start with an observation of one of five features of the universe: motion, causality, contingency, imperfection, and order.  Then, after considering the only two answers possible (either there is or isn't and uncaused first cause), it explains how one answer fails to explain the universe.  Then the opposite must be true.  After both sides are considered and one comes out wanting, Thomas adds a tag, "this is what people call 'god.'"  As I countered Prof McGinn's arguments before, Thomas isn't trying to prove the God of the Bible, just make a way towards showing that a god exists and therefore secular humanism is wrong.

Way #1: Motion/Change

This is his longest, partly because Thomas feels it's the most manifest and probably because the others are related to the first so some of the others can be included in this argument.

It is certain and evident to our senses that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality, and nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, such as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves it. Thus whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another.
Now if that by which it is put in motion is itself put in motion, then
this also must be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first (unmoved) mover, and consequently no other mover, seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover, as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand.

Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other.

And this everyone understands to be God.

The "first mover" can't be the universe itself, because neither a thing in itself can't move itself nor can the complete chain of events start itself.  Like a chain of dominoes, someone has to push the first one, no matter how complex the chain is.

Everything in the material universe needs some kind of explanation.  Even miracles need a sufficient reason, and that reason is a miracle maker.  He uses the example of a rabbit...  If a rabbit suddenly appeared on your desk, you'd immediately start looking for a reason.  Did it fall from the ceiling, jump up from the floor, magician pull it from a hat, or God just create a rabbit on your desk?  There has to be a reason for its existence.

Way #2: Existence

In the world of sense we find that there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known, nor is it possible, in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for if so, it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.
Now in efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate cause is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several or one only. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, either will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

 Prof Kreeft's analogy for this one is a book (=existence).

Me: There's a book that explains the entire universe.
You: I'd love to borrow it.
M: Well, I don't have it I have to get it from a friend.
Y: Okay.
M: Well, he doesn't have it, he has to borrow it from the library.
Y: When will that happen?
M: Well, it's not at the library they have to get it from the store.
Y: Is it coming out sometime then?
M: Well, no one really has it...

My children have existence because I gave it to them (in a way, really I just played one small part).  I got my existence from my parents and so on.  The same is true with the entire universe.  Nothing that is created can create itself or else it must have existed before it created itself which is impossible.

Way #3: Contingency

We find in nature things that are able to either be or not be, since they are found to come into existence and go out of existence, and con- sequently they are able to either be or not to be. But it is impossible for any of these beings to exist always, for whatever has a possibility not to be, at some time is not. Thus if everything has the possibility not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. But if this were true, then there would not be anything in existence now, because that which does not exist cannot begin to exist except by means of something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist, and thus even now nothing would be in existence—which is absurd. Therefore not all beings are merely possible but there must exist something whose existence is necessary.

This one is tough.  If there is no god, the universe could have no beginning - infinite.  If the universe is infinite then all contingencies would be possible, including the end of all things.  So, given an infinite amount of time everything ends and if everything ends then the universe would be nothing and it cannot restart itself because nothing comes from nothing.  I've used a similar type argument using entropy, saying that everything is moving from more ordered to less ordered.  Given an infinite universe there should be nothing left.  Also, given that whole galaxies are moving (the so called "red shift") then given an infinite universe they should be an infinite distance away by now.  The so called, god cannot have a beginning, he is a necessary being that has his existence of himself alone.

Way #4: Imperfection

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum

. . . so there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest, and consequently something which is uttermost being . . . And this we call God.

This only works if one accepts a ranking of things.  If humans are no better than vegetables, then one that holds that view, would reject this way out of hand.  However, Prof Kreeft quips that if you hold that humans are not better than vegetables, please don't invite him over to dinner.

Way #5: Design

By far his most popular argument I've seen this argument used alone and Prof McGinn treated this as its type of argument for god.

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always (or nearly always) in the same way so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not by chance but by design do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move toward an end unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence, as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

Prof Kreeft uses the arrow analogy, the universe is like an arrow flying along a specific trajectory, it's not random everything has a design or an end that is seeks.  And the book analogy, the universe (I'd say most evident is DNA/RNA) is more like a book than an explosion in a print factory.  He brings up a good point, the more design you find the less likely things have happened by chance.  Like a letter 'S' written in the sand, sure wind/waves/the elements could form the letter, but if you find "SOS" you're more certain you're looking for an intelligence, even more so if you find the first page of Hamlet written in the sand.

Prof Kreeft shoots holes in the famous (possibly Bertrand Russell) quote about a million monkeys with a million keyboards for a million years, could type out Shakespeare.  It's possible but no one says that's the explanation of Shakespeare, why would we make the same assumptions about the universe?  Also, Prof Kreeft mentions that a mathematician actually crunched the numbers and said it would take more like a trillion monkeys a trillion years to get just the first paragraph.

One last comment, "intelligent design" scientists claim that irreducible complexity scientifically proves this point.  Prof Kreeft says that he thinks Thomas would not have agreed, that this is a philosophical proof, not a scientific proof.  Prof Kreeft thinks that Thomas would have accepted Darwinian evolution as the design tool that God used to make humans/life as we know it.  As such he wouldn't get the intended insult of the metal bumper emblem of the fish with Darwin's name in it.  He would think it's an argument for theism.  I don't know about this last point and I disagree in general (based mostly on faith/theological interpretation of the Bible, I've written about it before), but that doesn't lessen the impact of the arguments, and I'm sure Francis Collins would agree with these assessments/arguments.

The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas: Part 2: Philosophy and Theology, Reason and Faith

This lecture greatly appealed to me personally because I feel that this is one of the biggest challenges to faith today, that is the rational relevance and integration of faith in a rational person.  I've written about these topics here and part 2, as well as this entry about the Higgs Boson and this one about Gen 1.  Those are just some samples of how this topic has come up as discussion points, but if you're a regular reader you know that I discuss terms of faith in relation to rational thought all the time.  So, this lecture is all about Thomas' approach to how rational thought works with faith and not against it.

Thomas, as a theologian first, made his life's most important work the Summa Theologiae.  This lecture series is going to, more or less, follow that work's pattern and flow.  To Thomas, there were only three things that were important philosophy, theology, and the scriptures.  His primary goal in writing the Summa is theological education without a loss of logical integrity.  As such Thomas starts off the Summa focusing on God as the origin of everything, then moves on to the creation, mankind.  He focuses on mankind's uniqueness in free will and reason, and mankind's ultimate goal to be reunited (to use Bonhoeffer's terminology) in God's goodness.  I like Prof Kreeft's analogy (I'm not sure if he takes it from the Summa or if it's his own envisioning of the text) of the whole of creation being like a circulatory system with God at the heart and His love as the blood that God pushes out through the body, but then it returns from mankind loving God back.

So, the first question to deal with is the relationship between faith, the source for theology and reason, the source for philosophy.  Thomas sees it as a marriage, a combination of two great sources of knowledge.  Philosophy is based on human reason alone, though there is a branch of theology that relies on human reason, it's called philosophical theology, or natural theology.  Thomas' five ways to prove God's existence fall into this category, it seems to me that apologetics fits this description as well.  There are still parts of theology that are founded on faith, though that's not to say they're irrational beliefs, rather that the point of theology in general is the understanding of God's Word and the Church's interpretation of it throughout history.  Thomas uses both types of theology in his masterwork but there's a distinction between them.

The structure of his work is five parts:
First a question with only two possible answers
Then the opposition's answer summarized fairly, strongly, clearly, and succinctly

Thomas' answer starting with a quotation from authority either human or divine

Then a purely rational argument for the answer

Lastly his answer to why the objections are somewhat right but overall wrong

His first question: Whether, besides philosophy, any further teaching is required?  It may be surprising to know that he answers "yes."  Here's part of a quote about why Thomas says yes, "For man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason. But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation."  It's awesome to see when great thinkers agree.  Here's a quote from Ravi Zacharias in The End of Reason, "The worldview of the Christian faith is simple enough.  God has put enough into this world to make faith in him a most reasonable thing.  But he has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason alone."  You can't just use reason, and you can't just rely on faith.

Some might object that this isn't philosophy at all, but that's not how Thomas sees it.  Philosophy is the tool of theology.  And of course that's the intent, this is after all the Summa Theologiae not the Summa Philosophiea.  There are two sets of propositions being dealt with here, truth as perceived by human reason alone and truth received through divine revelation alone.  Both sets are truth and therefore cannot be contradictory.  If there's a contradiction it's not in the sets of truths, rather there is a misunderstanding at some level.  Two sets 'A' and 'B' can be related in five different manners: Some of A is B, Some of B is A, Some of A is B and some B is A, ALL A are B and vice versa, and B is contained within A.  Which is the case with reason and faith.

Some truths are known by faith, the Trinity, while some by reason alone, natural science, and some by both, the existence of God, freedom of the will, and immortality of the soul.  Kant referred to these as the "three fundamental postulates of morality."  Both are truth and truth cannot contradict truth.  Here's a quote from Prof Kreeft about this: "[Thomas held that] religion is not just a set of moral commands or ideals or psychologically helpful and hopeful hints, but a set of propositions that are just as objective as those of science and common sense, though they're known not by the scientific method or by sense observation but by faith."  The second half of the argument is from a Christian perspective that God is the teacher of both reason and faith and God doesn't lie therefore both are true. Therefore, we conclude: "whatever arguments are brought forth against the doctrines of the faith are conclusions that are incorrectly derived from the first and self-evident principles. . . . Such conclusions do not have the force of demonstration; they are arguments that are either only probable or fallacious. And so there exists the possibility to answer them."

Christians can feel comfortable in their intellectual and rational integrity faith and rationality are not mutually exclusive as modern atheist philosophers like to claim (Sam Harris in The End of Faith, and Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion among others).

One final note. St. Bonaventura, one of Thomas' contemporaries, criticised Thomas' use of Aristotle saying that he was diluting "the wine of the Gospel by the water of pagan philosophy."  To which Thomas replied, “No, I am transforming water into wine.”  All reason is the ally of faith because all truth is God’s truth (list of verses about truth here).

Our puppy, Lexie, and her first experience of the beach.  She LOVED it!

The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas: Part 1: Aquinas’s Importance and a Short Biography

Before I start to tackle summarizing this first lecture on Thomas Aquinas' philosophy I'd like to introduce the professor that's giving these lectures. Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College, and he has written over fifty books.  He's a passionate fan of Aquinas' work and makes no apology for his passion.  It makes sense because, and I agree with this sentiment, one learns the most about someone or something from someone who passionately agrees with that subject.  The teacher that disagrees with what he or she is teaching will never give the topic a fair shake.

Introduction: Why is Thomas important?  Well, the answer is fairly easy, almost every philosopher agrees that in the almost two thousand years that passed between Aristotle and Descartes, he was the most influential philosopher.  The fact that Thomas was a Catholic theologian does nothing to lessen his impact as an influential philosopher.  Also, his philosophy and teachings don't just appeal to Catholics, I'm a protestant (an aint-a-baptist, but that's another story) and I'm a big fan of Thomas for his theology and his philosophy.  This course will be seeking to deal with his works from a philosophical perspective.

Prof Kreeft lists eight things that make Thomas a great philosopher.  First and most importantly is his inclusiveness.  I love this particular concept as I try to use the same methods in developing my own philosophy. Unfortunately in modern philosophy there are so many dividing lines: rationalist/empiricist, idealist/realist, ideologically Right/Left, but for Thomas everything was middle ground.  I (more or less) agree, there are so many things where it's best to take a stance somewhere in the middle.  Obviously, there is still right and wrong, and I believe that one needs to seek truth and stick with it.

Second and related to the first is Thomas' ability to show how faith and reason, religion and philosophy are all perfectly compatible, in fact they are mutually beneficial.  He's a master synthesizer of views philosophical and religious.  He draws from virtually every philosopher and the many different views of those philosophers and combined them together before the modern age came and divided the different philosophical pursuits again.  Prof Kreeft also admires Thomas' ability to write both profoundly and clearly, though I don't have any personal knowledge of that idea.  I will probably pick up and read some of Thomas' works as a result of listening to these lectures.

Thirdly, is Thomas' longevity in his philosophical works.  Not only was he able to combine all those that came before him, but he set up philosophical ideas that are still applicable and moldable today.  It's a living philosophy that is able to include "new" ideas and keep changing and yet stay the same.  Fourth, is his patients and ability to slowly process things and then give the best most practical answer without oversimplification or over-complication.  The fifth is related, in that he had so many practical answers and a strong grasp on common sense.  I love Thomas' cure for depression "three things: a hot bath, a large glass of wine, and a good night’s sleep." (Quote from the modern scholar lecture notes.)  That seems so practical to me, and for all his aloofness Thomas seems very down to earth at the same time.

I also like this quote from the lecture notes, "[T]here are only three meanings to the term “good,” only three kinds of things that are really good, and thus worthy of our desire and attention: the moral good, the useful good, and the delightful good. So if it doesn’t make you a more virtuous person and if it isn’t a practical necessity that you really can't do without, and if it doesn’t give you pleasure, fagettaboutit!"

Next (sixth) is his simple, clear arguments.  He speaks quite a bit in syllogisms, the most basic form of logic.  Seventh, is the profound topics Thomas deals with, now to be fair philosophers often think about profound topics and Thomas is no exception.  Topics that are prevalent throughout his works: "God, man, life, death, soul, body, mind, will, passions, good, evil, virtue, vice, truth, beauty, time, eternity, being itself."  Amazing to think he was able to take such deep concepts and put them into simple syllogisms.

I'm not going to include all the biographical information Prof Kreeft talks about but if you're interested, read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Thomas, Prof Kreeft's book Summa of the Summa, and/or G.K. Chesterton's St. Thomas Aquinas: 'The Dumb Ox'.

I'm really looking forward to continuing this lecture series!

New Series or What to do Next

In case you're just joining me, welcome, and we're just finishing up the Discovering the Philosopher in You lecture series (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13 response, 14) by Prof Colin McGinn.  My plan is to start a new series on the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas by Peter Kreeft so far I've only listened to the first two episodes and I will write an entry about them as I have some time.

Other than this promising looking philosophy series are you, my readers, interesting in hearing from me on a specific topic?  I've solicited recommendations before but that has always been one of the things that constantly disappoints me in these entries.  I know I have readers, people have told me that they read my stuff and Google tracks pageviews and it says I have just over 13,000 pageviews.  I've written on Medium.com about trying to earn money with my writing but I haven't made any headway on that front.  I'm not thinking that I can quit my job in the Air Force and write full time or anything, just that turning a hobby into a paying gig is one of my dreams.  Since I doubt anyone will pay to see this fat guy run, and I'm not good enough at chess or photography to get people to buy my services.  I think my best chances of selling my intellectual property comes through philosophy (and maybe a book on language learning).

I hope you'll stay with me for this next series because it looks to be very interesting.  Thomas Aquinas was undoubtedly one of the greatest philosophers and definitely the greatest of his own time period.  I look forward to sharing my thoughts on this great man's philosophy throughout the next few months.  As always, I appreciate your appreciation of my sharing on this simple blog.

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Discovering the Philosopher in You: Part 14: The Meaning of Life: What Gives Human Life Value?

As we move on from the discussion of the reasonableness of the existence of God.  We come, finally, to the summation of this lecture series, The Meaning of Life.  To me this is really what philosophy should be all about, trying to find meaning in life and it's appropriate that Prof McGinn saves it for last.  (Note: throughout this entry and the lecture I'll be using the ideas of meaning and value interchangeably, Prof McGinn used the terminology that way.  I understand that there can be a subtle difference but for my purposes I'll use them as the same meaning.)

There are two separate categories in the search for meaning in life, one says that meaning is only gotten from an external source, that is God.  Meaning in life cannot be found in doing or in gaining anything.  In this view, if there is no god then there is no meaning to life.  In opposition to this idea Prof McGinn tries to push the argument into an infinite regression.  If meaning can only be gotten from an outside source, then who/what gives god meaning, another god?  Obviously, that leads to infinite regression because the next question is obviously who gave that second god meaning?  (I was about to type a response but I'll save it for later.)  The argument might be that there is an internal source of meaning that god has, and the answer that Prof McGinn offers is that mankind also has internal sources of meaning in life so that there's no need for a deity to confer upon us meaning.  On the internal sources for meaning in life there are three different ideas: hedonism, virtue, and philosophic pursuit.

Hedonism is quite simple, pursue that which makes oneself happy.  Food, drink, sex, nice stuff, knowledge, money, etc. though there seems to be different levels of desires.  Like the base/natural desires of food, drink, sex etc. as compared to the higher desires knowledge, understanding, etc.  The hedonist sees meaning in these types of things.  One has meaning in life if one gains things and does or is able to do whatever one wants all the time.  Prof McGinn points out, and I'm sure you also see that this is an incredibly selfish view.  It cannot by itself provide for a meaningful life because there's something missing.  This kind of view leads to an evil life bent on only seeking one's own desires and has no problem squashing anyone that gets in the way.

Which then leads to the life of virtue.  This idea says that the meaning of life is in virtuous actions.  It's no doubt that virtue is a good thing, that's an obvious tautology.  But, is the meaning for life found in merely being virtuous?  This view is a pendulum swing on the complete opposite side from hedonism.  the meaning of life is in serving everyone else and putting down oneself.  This seems like a decent way to find meaning but also ends up oddly empty because if you spend your whole life seeking to serve others you'll never enjoy life yourself.

While those first two ways to seek meaning in life are obvious to many people, this last one is less familiar except to those that have studied philosophy.  It comes from Plato, that the highest meaning in life is the pursuit of and love of knowledge, and that the highest pursuit of knowledge is philosophy.  This type of meaning is found in seeking and loving knowledge.  Those this too has its problems, because it seeks meaning at the abandonment of living life.  This kind of meaning in life doesn't look at life itself just at the pursuit of knowledge.

Prof McGinn's answer to the problems of each aspect is that one must have a balance in life of the three pursuits.  One should pursue pleasure but not at the expense of knowledge and virtue.  One should pursue virtue but not at the expense of the other two.  And, when the different pursuits are in conflict there is no wrong answer.  Everyone, has meaning this way.  Some are more virtuous than others, some more hedonistic, and some more philosophical, but everyone has meaning.

By way of rebuttal I'd like to point out a few things...  First, making the other side fall into infinite regress is not a valid argument.  He's misrepresenting the external source of value as only contingent on the existence of an outside source for meaning.  Meaning that is imbued upon creation is a natural side effect of being made by a loving creator.  It doesn't require the creator per se, it's just a side effect.  Just as God is the source of all creation, He's the source of all meaning otherwise meaning if you try to give yourself meaning it's hollow worthless meaning.  No matter how much a man insists he's important doesn't make it so.  True meaning can only come from the outside.  Parents give children some of their meaning but even without parents a child has meaning.

Secondly, all these examples cannot be universally applicable.  Here's a few examples:

For hedonism, what about the person born into poverty or born as a refugee?  That person, most likely, will never be able to enjoy any level of hedonistic pleasures.  Is that person no longer valuable?  With extrinsic value, yes he or she is still just as valuable as anyone else.

Take virtue, (this is the easiest one to deal with) in a humanist mindset there is no immutable standard for morality or virtue, so the goalposts are always moving.  Does that mean that different people are valuable at different times?  Also, how virtuous is virtuous?  Is Mother Teresa or Ghandi the only ones that measure up?  Is everyone else worthless?  Where's the line?  The rules are constantly subject to change and so is the line of who is virtuous enough to have meaning.

Now, philosophy.  This is the most difficult one to answer but it's still subjective.  Take the child born into a small primitive tribe in Papua New Guinea or someplace like that.  That child will probably never have the chance to study philosophy or science or any other learning outside that little tribe.  Does he or she have meaning?  Arguably not, at least according to these standards.

I think I know how Prof McGinn would answer these questions though, so I'll give his presumed answer and then respond to that as well.  I assume he would answer with some kind of reference to balance in life.  Like the child born into poverty, as long as he/she did his/her best to enjoy the pleasures available that's meaning, and if meaning found in a balance between all of these pursuits, perhaps that child could find meaning in life by doing his or her best on the other sources of meaning.  To the question of virtue he'd probably respond similarly, that as long as one does one's best in whatever situation they're in they'll find meaning in life.  Same with the pursuit of philosophy, as long as you do your best with what you have you'll live a meaningful life.

To which I'd respond, then Adolf Hitler lived a full meaningful life.  He did what he thought was right and he did it to the best of his ability.  So much so that he led his country in a victorious conquest of most of Europe and through his allies a large portion of the world in general.  He led the extermination of weaker people that didn't deserve to live (at least in his view).  He was also well read and his book is still read by many to this day.  So, by all accounts he lived a meaningful life.  Basically, by these arguments everyone lives meaningful lives.  Again, without an immutable standard of morality there's no such thing as a virtuous person.  And, nothing can give itself meaning without being completely selfish.  These anthropocentric sources of meaning and virtue ring hollow and even the most powerful rich and seemingly most meaningful lives are reduced to nought at the end.  As Alexander the Great's final orders clearly showed, even one of the most powerful, wise, hedonistic (after the higher pleasures), wealthy, and philosophical rulers of the world ended his life empty and meaningless.

Discovering the Philosopher in You: Part 7: Happiness and Right Action: How Are Morality and Human Welfare Related?

Continuing the series on discovering the philosopher in yourself.  While the last part of the series was about ethics and moral truth, the fact that there is a right and wrong and that we can know it, this entry goes further down the road of morality and its relation to happiness.

The first three-quarters of the lecture it seems like Prof McGinn is defending the idea of Utilitarianism, and how morality is linked to happiness like a sort of mathematical equation.  It seems like he's defending utilitarianism as the best way to describe right actions, but it seems obvious to me almost immediately that it's not going to work.

Here's how Prof McGinn describes utilitarianism: on the surface it seems like a very fair, no-nonsense system.  Because who doesn't like a system where the sole determination of right action is based on producing the most happiness?  So utilitarianism says that the right action is the one that will produce the greatest amount of happiness.  My first thought is how do we measure an amount of happiness, and  Prof McGinn says he'll discuss that concept later in the lecture.  He really doesn't say much about it, other than asking that same thing, how does one measure happiness?  So, the example Prof McGinn uses relates to choosing one charity over another.  The only criteria for choosing which charity to support is only determined by which charity will produce the most happiness.  This flies in the face of almost all other systems of morality, which is highly controversial.

It's an apparently egalitarian view and quite democratic.  Taxes, this system of morality says that all tax systems must be inherently designed to spread out wealth so that the most people gain the most happiness.  It's also democratic, because the best way to find out what makes the most people happy is to allow people to choose for themselves what makes them happy.  This system is purely mathematical.  There's no room for motivation or character.  It doesn't matter if a person has the worst (or best) of intentions.  It doesn't matter what your motive is, as long as more happiness is produced it's a good action.

There are many implications and arguments that have come out of utilitarianism, including (supposedly) abolishing slavery and arguing against animal cruelty.  The system isn't without it's shortcomings though.  Here's one that Prof McGinn points out: one innocent man knows the location of a billion dollars, and the happiness of ten wicked men can be greatly improved by torturing the one innocent man.  By utilitarian standards, that would be acceptable.  Here's another one, supposedly utilitarian arguments led to the end of slavery (at least in many parts of the world).  Here's my issue with that, if there are fewer people being enslaved and usually that's the case, hence minorities are typically the group(s) being enslaved, then utilitarian ideas say that it's right/good to enslave the few to improve the happiness of the many.  As long as the slaves are outnumbered by the enslavers, and their happiness is increased by the slavery.  Here's another one, murder or even mass murder, like the Nazi genocide attempts, are permissible under utilitarian morality as long as the group being exterminated is fewer in number than the exterminators and the extermination of the minority will lead to the happiness of those doing the killing.

In the end I'm not okay with a system of morality that can excuse mass murder, torture, and slavery.  I've said it before and I'm sure I'll probably say it again, any moral system that excludes God leads to moral relativism.  Utilitarianism cannot be a complete system because it leaves out too many variables that are inherent in morality.

Faith vs. Science: Checkmate (part 2)

If you missed part one of this discussion you can read it here.  Also, as I mentioned in that entry there are two sections of Dr. Lennox's lecture here and here.  I highly recommend you listen to his words as he is much more eloquent that I can convey here.

Part one started from the position of fear, but this part is about how even science requires faith.  He gives several quotes about how scientists all have to have faith that there is something out there in the universe to be understood.  Atheists all have faith in the rational intelligibility of the universe, and that human powers of reason have a certain power of validity.  What reliability do our cognitive faculties have if we're nothing more than a collection of accidents?  If our thoughts are just the movements of atoms in our brains then why should we trust them at all?  C.S. Lewis uses this type of argument as well.  If there's nothing more than materialism then we have no reason to believe what we believe.

Here's a powerful quote from the lecture:  "If Dawkins is right, that we are a product of mindless unguided natural processes, the he has given us strong reasons to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce, including Dawkins' own science and his atheism."  Why do the New Atheists seem to claim that it's more rational to believe that a random series of mutations and natural selection led to our faculties of reason and the ability to discern truth, and on the other hand claim that it's irrational to believe that those abilities were endowed by a creator?

Dr. Lennox says that his reason for rejecting this idea of materialism of Dawkins, Hitchens and others when it comes to science, is that it destroys science not just belief in God.  Of course their goal is to destroy faith in God and so by definition they destroy peoples' belief in God but they also take down science.  Apparently that is a price they are willing to pay for their beliefs.

So many of the fathers of Western science saw the power of the biblical view of God and it led them to seek out reasonable answers for their questions.  They expected law and logic in nature because they knew of the Law Giver.  The history of science shows how important the biblical worldview has been in the rise of science in western culture.  Even secular historians agree that the historical evidence given against the biblical worldview is worthless.

The heart of the issue according to Dawkins in his book The God Delusion, is in the assumption that introducing God would mean an end of all science.  His logic behind this idea is quite convoluted and (as Dr. Lennox argues) wrong.  According to Dawkins, God cannot be an explanation for the universe because God is by definition more complex and therefore less probable than the thing being explained.  Secondly he adds the idea that God was always there and you might as well say that life was always there and DNA was always there and leave God out of it.  To sum it up, it's two arguments, the explanation for something cannot be more complex than that which is being explained, and the schoolboy argument; who created God?

In answer to the first portion of the argument Dr. Lennox talked about the idea of one finding a book called The God Delusion and then looking for an explanation for the book's existence.  It's a fairly complicated book, over 400 pages, and one finds that it's written by a man named Richard Dawkins and a human mind is by far more complex than any book.  So, by Dawkins' own rules, this idea would bring an end to all science.  This is true of a great many things, often the explanation for a thing is much more complicated than the thing it explains.  He uses a similar example with two scratches on the wall of a cave in China.  The scientist that finds them says, look, I've found human intelligence.  To which Dawkins must respond, using this logic, that to postulate human intelligence would mean an end to all science even though it's clearly the Chinese symbol for man (⼈).  The rational scientist understands that this is the start of all science, one makes these types of observations, postulates part of the answer, then seeks out the rest of the answers.  Obviously, the real answer is that explanations aren't always more simple than the things being explained.

The second part of the argument (who created God?) is refuted, simply in definition of God.  God is the uncreated, creator.  Therefore, the question, "who created God?" is futile.  If the book had been The Created God Delusion no one would care, because most everyone agrees that man-made gods are delusions.  The uncreated God is a totally different idea. That's the whole point of John 1, "In the beginning was the Word" and "all things came into being through Him."  Any other type of god is a delusion.  The universe is not primary, it is derivative God is NOT derivative He is primary.  If the question, "who created God?" is a legitimate question, then how about, you believe the universe created you, then who created the universe?"

Another powerful argument from design...  If you're walking on the beach and see the first couple letters of your name written in the sand, you assume that some intelligence wrote those letters there.  Then later you're analyzing the human genome and you see the ATCG sequence of genes, over three billion of them in exactly the right order for it to work and you ask what the origin of that complex code is, and the answer, from an atheist point of view must be, chance and necessity.  Why, in the instance of seeing part of one's name written in the sand one postulates an intelligence, but when seeing the unique encoded design behind all life as we know it, does one postulate chance and necessity?

Both the atheist and the theist end up believing an Ultimate fact either the universe or mass energy or some other physical thing, or, for the theist, it's God.  The key question of life is not that there's an Ultimate fact, but which Ultimate fact is correct?  Two world views... in the beginning, mass energy or gravity or some other thing (it doesn't say where that came from), or in the beginning, God.

One thing that's come to my mind since I read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, it seems to be that the Gödel Incompleteness Theorem would add to the teleological arguments that Dr. Lennox and others have made.  In my simple, basic understanding of the theorem that mainly applies to the philosophy of mathematics, is that no system, if it's sufficiently complex to make a statement, can be complete.  Take Euclid's theorem that there are an infinite number of prime numbers there is no way to sufficiently list all prime numbers, that's part of what infinite means.  There's no way to count to infinity, so even though there are a couple of proofs for an infinite number of primes nothing in mathematics can explain all possible combinations of numbers.  Here's where the idea of God makes sense.  Take the set of the whole universe, we cannot get outside this logical set, but as Gödel implies, there must be something outside that set.  In Hofstadter's book he uses his characters in the book reading a book about a book about a book in which they're having adventures.  In the course of the story within the story within the story (you get the point even if I didn't match up the number of stories!) the characters pop out of each story till the (almost) get to the top level.  Well, God is outside all levels, and the sets all stop with Him.  The uncreated, creator that makes all logic make logical sense.

Faith vs. Science: Checkmate (part 1)

Just a quick interlude in my Discovering the Philosopher in You series.

I recently listened to an intriguing podcast of a lecture from a Dr. John Lennox part one here and two here if you care to listen.  The first quote mentioned in the lecture from Bertrand Russell, "What science cannot explain, humanity cannot know."  Dr. Lennox retorts, "that statement is not of science, so if it is true it is false."  I've written of the conflicts between science, philosophy, and religion before in this entry, and this one, and here about the Higgs boson, and it seems like a common theme in my life, so this lecture was right up my alley.

He starts off with a quote from Psalms 91:5 You will not be afraid of the terror by night, Or of the arrow that flies by day.  We all have fear.  Especially in this context of that there's someone somewhere that's smarter than you.  In defense of one's faith this is terrifying, I know I've struggled with this at times.  I know I'm not really all that smart, I'm not as well read as I'd like to be and I'll never catch up to others that have focused their lives their studies.  The context of 1 Peter 3:15 [(NASB) but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence] is one of fear.  Fear of not having all the answers when someone asks.  Dr. Lennox says that he's afraid in this area, which seems crazy to me to hear that from this powerful apologist.  He gives the story of Peter's denial of Christ, and how even this giant of the Church (at least in this story) is afraid and when accosted about his association with Jesus and he denies it three times (vs 34)!

The good news of Dr. Lennox's message is that we (as Christians) don't need to fear science's attacks because in reality there is no war between science and Christianity, the real conflict is between belief in God and disbelief in God, and the conflict has been going on at least since the beginnings of Greek philosophy.  The atomists, and their assertion that the universe is all there is, non-derivative against Plato, Aristotle, and others that believed god or gods were responsible for creating the universe.  Now obviously I believe the Greek gods were wrong, and I think history has proven that.  If the Greeks were right about their view of creation then their religion wouldn't have died out so many years ago.  The New Atheists are waging war against religion/Christianity using the power of science, and for a quite a while now they've been succeeding.  Some seem to think that science excludes faith, but that isn't borne out in reality.  There are so many prominent scientists that have powerful outspoken testimonies for Christ.  I've read Dr. Francis Collins' (Dr. Lennox mentions Dr. Francis and other preeminent scientists that have powerful faith) book and I've written about it on two different occasions, and while we have our differences, his testimony is powerful and he's obviously a consumate scientist.  So obviously scientists can, and many do, have faith.

Authorial intention...  I love Dr. Lennox's anecdote about authorial intention.  He talks about meeting with a man that had written a book about the idea that there is no such thing as authorial intent.  To which he replies, so, if I read your book I'll be convinced that there's no such thing as authorial intent?  Then I'll pass.  (**laughter from the crowd**)  In case it's not obvious, if the book has no authorial intent, then there's no point to the book.

Here are the limitations of science, and they're clearly shown in science's inability to answer the questions of a child; why am I here, where do I come from, and what is the purpose of life.  Scientist cannot give us morality either.  There are ethical foundations of science but not the scientific foundations of ethics, and looking back in history (his not so veiled reference to Nazi eugenics ideals) we can see what ethics are like when based on science.

Dr. Lennox also references what is commonly called an argument from design or a teleological argument.  His example goes like this, say you have a Ford Galaxy like this one:

Now, looking at this car and you're forced to choose an explanation for the car.  New Atheists say you must choose either the laws of physics, mechanics, engineering, and internal combustion, but on the other side you have Henry Ford.  Obviously you can't choose just one, both are required.  The idea is that one has to choose either science or faith, which is a false dilemma.  One of the reasons for this dangerous disagreement is the idea that God is only a god of the gaps, the idea that God is only good for explaining what we don't understand. This is a flawed view of God, because He's the reason for everything.  Science is about studying a given with a given.  Because neither science nor the scientist created the universe.

These problems stem from a misunderstanding of laws and mechanism and agency.  Newton's Principea Mathematica was written so that the thinking man would believe in God.  The more you know about a thing the more impressive one's understanding of what you're studying.  The more you know about art the better you can appreciate Rembrandt; the better you understand mechanics the more you appreciate a Rolls-Royce.

New Atheists are confused about the nature of faith.  It's not about belief without evidence.  It's about belief where there is evidence.  There are so many reasons to believe and there is evidence.  Belief without evidence really is dangerous.  It's where suicide bombers come from.  When Jesus blesses doubting Thomas for his belief, He isn't saying that we should believe without evidence, He's saying that many will do so; it's true there are millions of people even today that still believe in Jesus without seeing Him.  Not without evidence, but just the simple logistics of not seeing Jesus.

I know you all love when I loquaciously carry on, but I'm going to have to divide this into two parts.  I've only covered the first half of the lecture and there's so much more he has to say that I want to pass on to you.  So stay tuned for part two.

Such a beautiful place to live

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 5: Knowledge and Experience: Where Does Knowledge Come From?

Continuing the series on Discovering the Philosopher in You with Prof McGinn, lecture five is on Knowledge and Experience: Where Does Knowledge Come From?  Here Prof McGinn says that we're going to move on from the basic building-blocks of philosophy and getting to the more meat-and-potatoes questions of philosophy.  So here we are and where does what we know come from?  This is a question from epistemology (the theory of knowledge).  In the lecture Prof McGinn talks about two specific sides of this argument, the empiricists and the rationalists.

Before we cover those two sides of this issue, let's first talk about what we mean by knowledge.  It's not what you and I know.  It's more like how people attain knowledge in general.  One of the ideas set forth in different theories of knowledge is that we can and do know certain things without experiencing them.  Keep in mind this is not that you learned something without experiencing it.  Take math, you say you learned it from your teacher, which is a type of experience, but that's not what we are talking about because that teacher learned it from some other teacher.  What we're trying to get at, is where the first person learned math.  That's one way of looking at it; another is the idea that to know that 1+2=3 doesn't take experience.  Think about it.  How do you experience the numbers 1, 2, or 3.  The concepts of plus or equals?  It's not like you can experience these things like this cup of water I'm drinking.

The empiricists, notably all British, claim that knowledge can only be attained experientially.  One of the first things Prof McGinn mentions about the empiricists is one of the main things that makes me doubt their views and neutrality on philosophical questions.  He talks about one of the primary motives behind the empiricists was a desire to depart from religion.  If one starts out with a specific motive it's hard to stay impartial.  I know I'm not, but at least I'm honest about it, and I try to maintain impartiality in most things.  So, in order to get away from the ideas of revelation that religion relies on, which it does at least in some ways it relies on the idea that God reveals knowledge to His followers that is outside the realm of experience for those not involved in the revelation.  So to empiricists all knowledge comes from someone's experience.

The rationalists held an opposing view that at least some knowledge doesn't come from experience.  They don't deny experiential knowledge, that would seem counterintuitive.  However, they held that some knowledge is not derived from experience.  It's commonly referred to as "a priori" knowledge.  As opposed to "a posteriori" knowledge, which is experiential knowledge.  So, as opposed to the empiricists' claim that all knowledge comes from someone's experience, the rationalists claim that at least some knowledge is innate and cannot come from experience.  This other source of knowledge is often called "pure reason" hence Kant's writing The Critique of Pure Reason and a Critique of Practical Reason.

For this discussion I've always liked the example of the dark side of the moon.  Now I know astronauts have landed on and encircled the moon and they have experienced that in a way, but before they did.  Did we know experientially that there was a dark side of the moon?  No.  No one had ever experienced it or seen it or photographed it.  So at that time we knew from logical conclusions that if an object has one side it must also have another side, and even though we may have never seen it, we know it's there.

Photo Courtesy of: Blogs Voice of America News

Others argue that language is an a priori knowledge.  Most notably the famous linguist Noam Chomsky who argued that some form of grammar and linguistic ability is innate/a priori.  I tend to agree with this concept of a priori, except that it doesn't seem like it'd be knowledge as we typically think of knowledge.  More like skills or abilities, or even ways of thinking and pattern recognition, not necessarily knowledge.

One last comment...  The discussion of a priori (about which I had some interesting comments from a Google+ discussion) is NOT exactly like the debate of nature vs. nurture.  Also, genetically hardwired instincts technically don't fit with a priori knowledge either (sort of).  Whatever your view these are all very interesting questions about knowledge and while the debate isn't as heated as in the days of John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume (British empiricists) with René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Immanuel Kant (not all rationalists but mostly), it is still an interesting discussion in epistemology.

I love sushi!  And getting good sushi is easy here in Japan

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 3: Truth: What Is the Nature of Truth?

As I move through this lecture series by Prof Colin McGinn on discovering the philosopher in each of us and dealing with the big questions in philosophy, I'm liking this prof more and more.  As far as philosophers are concerned, he seems quite down-to-earth.

Today's topic has to do with truth and the analysis of truth.  In the last lecture, we used the word truth several times and now we're dealing with analyzing truth itself.  According to these lectures, there are three common theories behind truth, the coherence theory, the pragmatic theory, and the correspondence theory.  One thing I have noticed though is how Prof McGinn seems to make powerful claims when most other philosophy teachings I've heard don't make simple straightforward claims like Prof McGinn.  Claims like, how there are these three theories but how the correspondence theory is the correct one and that the others are just quaint ideas that we discuss almost out of hand just to be kind to the ideas because they're wrong and there's no two ways about it.  I find this approach to philosophy surprising and slightly refreshing.  Anyways, on to the different theories.

Coherence theory: leaves out the world in so many, potentially dangerous ways.  Basically it says that something is true if it is coherent within a set of beliefs or belief system.  If a fact is consistent with your other beliefs or a web of belief systems, then it is true.  A slightly more basic way to put this is, if something is consistent with a large group of people's belief then it is true, like if enough people believe something is true, then it is.  Of course this goes against one of the things Prof McGinn has said a number of times, that one cannot force oneself to believe something that isn't true.  Of course technically, in this concept of truth, it's completely relative to the person/people involved.  This concept has no grounding in reality, which I'm sure is why it's considered a poor theory of truth.

The pragmatic theory: this (kind of) leaves out the world as well.  The basic idea is that whatever is good for one is true.  Like if I jump off this tall building it will be bad for me, and therefore it's true.  While this at least relates truth to reality there's an important distinction to be made.  The example in the lecture is of living under a despotic tyrannic government.  In a place like that it would be good for one's health to believe the propaganda that the government is good and wonderful.  If you truly believe otherwise, the secret police would be knocking on your door.  But that doesn't change the truth of the evil tyranny you're living in.  (Not that all tyrannies are evil.)

Last but not least, the correspondence theory: this is the most simple, straightforward of all these theories of truth.  It's simple, the truth is what actually is.  The statement that snow is white, is true, not because it is coherent with what I believe about snow, or the fact that believing snow is white is good for me in some way, but because snow actually is in fact, white.  The truth of the matter has nothing to do with one's beliefs or wants.  It is subjective, that is, outside one's wants or ideas.  Well, this concept brings up the topic of tolerance to which the professor gives a very good response: "Tolerance is not a matter of allowing that everyone believes the truth, no matter how much they disagree; it is having the policy of not persecuting people for their beliefs even when they are egregiously false."  Stating that truth is subjective is not intolerant, it's a fact.  It's not putting people who believe otherwise down, it's simply stating a truth about how facts correspond to reality.  There's no such thing as something being "true to me, but not true to you."  That's not how this works, it's either true or not, those types of statements are faith statements value statements relating to one's beliefs, not to truth or falsehood.

One last thing to say on this topic, there are different types of truth.  This discussion has been about factual truth.  I'm sure that later discussions/lectures will deal with value statements and moral truth.  That will come later I'm sure, so stay tuned!

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 2: Knowledge: How Should Knowledge Be Analyzed?

For those of you that missed my last entry, I'm working my way through a series of philosophy lectures by Prof. Colin McGinn of Rutgers University.  I find it kind of interesting that Prof McGinn chose to lecture in this order because in lecture one about skepticism the idea that we have knowledge or certainty (I'll be using the term knowledge for this entry but the two are more or less interchangeable in this context) is assumed.  I would think it might have made a little more sense to cover what is knowledge before questioning and being skeptical that one can have knowledge at all.  Nonetheless, we're on lecture two now about analyzing knowledge.  I apologize in advance because some of this stuff is considered dry compared to some other topics within philosophy.

Some of the first things we must consider when starting a philosophical analysis of something is what are the necessary conditions and what are the sufficient conditions for the idea being considered?  In this case, what is necessary for one to have or do to know something?  And, what is sufficient for one to have or do to know something?  The traditional answer to this question goes back to Plato's time (though I haven't personally studied Plato's epistemology), that is, a true, justified belief.  Belief, in this sense isn't the same as a religious or political belief (per se), rather a stab at the truth in thought.  One cannot think something is false and yet believe in it.  So, belief in its nature includes at least the attempt at truth, though one can guess at something and end up getting it wrong.  Justification is important for knowledge because, if one is to be rational, one cannot just say, "I believe this or that just because" or if one refuses to consider objections to one's beliefs they're being irrational.  Also, without justification things can end up being true by guessing and that's not complete knowledge either.  These things seem to be necessary conditions for knowledge, but as we'll see with the examples they aren't necessarily all the sufficient conditions for knowledge.  Let's move on to those examples because, to me, they're the fun parts of this concept.

Example number one to show how having simply true, justified beliefs are not enough to claim knowledge.  Suppose my brother comes to visit me every Tuesday afternoon, and it's a Tuesday and I'm expecting him and my friend, who is generally trustworthy, tells me my brother is at the door.  However, for whatever reason, my friend happens to be lying this time (the reason for the lie is not important), and my brother is not at the door.  At first we have an untrue, but justified belief that my brother is at the door.  However, as I'm going to meet my brother at the door, unbeknownst to my friend, my brother shows up at the door.  Did I know my brother was at the door?  No, not really even though it was true that he was at the door and I was justified in that belief.  But, no I didn't know that he was at the door at any time.  The second one is better (at least I think so).  You're driving through the countryside and you're seeing all the typical things one would expect to see, fields with bales of hay or straw, barns, livestock, etc.  Then, without realizing it, you are driving along and the things you've been observing, are now all fake.  So here we have justified beliefs (that the things we're seeing are real) but they're not.  Then, without your knowledge of it being so, there's a real barn in amidst the fake.  There, you have a true (at least about that one real barn) justified belief.  But that doesn't seem to be enough for knowledge in this case.

So there you have it, true, justified beliefs are required to have knowledge of something, but apparently are not the only things necessary to know something.  There have been many arguments and there doesn't seem to be any clear answer to what else needs to be added to true, justified beliefs to comprise true knowledge.  I certainly don't have the answers, again I'm just bringing up the question.  According to Prof McGinn's lecture it seems that there has to be some kind of causal relationship the truth and the belief(s) to be true knowledge.

Here's my only divergence from Prof McGinn.  I'm not saying that it's true knowledge, but I would posit that having a justified belief can lead to one believing that something is true to the point that it's true to that person.  Take the characterization of the mathematician, John Nash, in the movie A Beautiful Mind, the character played by Russel Crowe is plagued with delusions so powerful that he truly believes that they're real.  So, in effect, they become real to him.  It may not make any difference in reality, but to the individual things that are not true, with enough justification and powerful enough belief it can become real to that person.

What does this mean to you and me?  Honestly, not much.  I believe that there's a personal creator God.  There are many different justifications for that belief, they're generally covered in apologetics.  No one can prove or disprove the truth of that claim, but at least two of the necessary conditions for knowledge have been met for me.

Hiji Falls

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 1: Intro and Skepticism: What Do You Really Know?

I'm going to try something I've never done in this blog before.  That is, write a series of posts along the same vein.  This idea was sparked by a philosophy podcast from learnoutloud.com entitled "Discovering the Philosopher in You."  Well, the introductory podcast was very interesting, it's a series of lectures from a professor Colin McGinn about all the "big questions" in philosophy.  So, I've decided to write parallel blog entries for each of the lectures.  I downloaded the study guide as well, so I'm referencing that guide as well as the lectures. Without further ado, introduction and lecture one, Skepticism: What Do You Really Know?

By way of introduction I'll mention that these lectures and parallel blog entries are not in chronological order.  That's intentional, as Prof McGinn says, because all of the questions in philosophy are ancient questions that can't be answered.  It's not like we're coming up with new issues for philosophers to ponder over all the time.  Though I would say that doesn't mean that new problems don't come up every so often, but I'd say that these new issues are just new twists of old problems. Some of these questions include, what the ultimate nature of the world is, what the self is, whether we have free will, how our minds relate to our bodies, whether we can really know anything, where ethical truth comes from, what the meaning of life is, and whether or not there is a God.  These are some of the topics that I'll be covering over the next fourteen (or so) entries.

One thing of note in the lecture is how Prof McGinn describes Plato's famous cave parable.  The way it reads in the Republic is pessimistic.  It's like someone has chained the poor people in the cave and are manipulating their perceptions by walking behind them with stick-borne puppets making shadows on the cave walls.  The way Prof McGinn describes it is much more optimistic, that they aren't chained and that the people casting the shadows are just passersby.  I don't know the reason for his oversight, perhaps it's not oversight and that's the way it's described in other platonic writings.  I don't really know, but I thought that minute mistake, if it was one, was interesting.

The skeptical questions of what do I really know, leads down a long path ending with solipsism, and the other minds problem.  If you don't want to read those links, I'll summarize those ideas, solipsism is the idea that nothing else exists other than your own mental state.  There's also a temporal version of solipsism where we cannot know for certain that there was anything in the past or that there will be anything in the future.  All we can know for sure (sort of) is that we are knowing something right now.  The other minds problem is related to solipsism though more specific.  It's the idea that one cannot know that anyone else's mind exists.  We see others' bodies and actions and assume that they are analogous to our own minds but we can't know for sure that they're not just cleverly devised automatons or robots.  The problems that the skeptics, like Descarte raise, are many and there aren't complete answers to all of their questions, and on the surface it may seem like madness that can neither be proven nor disproven.  Prof McGinn talks about an interesting problem that skepticism can bring with its questioning all knowledge.  I'll try to summarize his points.

Suppose you had $10,000 in the bank, then when you check your balance, you suddenly find, without reason or expenditure that you actually only have $.10.  How would that make you feel?  Consider knowledge in the same manner.  We think we know so much, we think we have an intellectual bank account with 10,000 pieces of knowledge and with just a few jabs from skeptics we find that we actually only know 1 thing.  As Descarte argued "I think therefore I am."  Doubting is thinking, which is an action that only something that exists can do, therefore I exist.  But, with solipsism and the skeptical issues that's all we can know for sure.  Prof McGinn seems to say that these skeptical issues are detrimental to a one's intellectual wellbeing.

My personal views on this problem are a bit contradictory.  I love to play around with skepticism, but it's just childish play to me.  Are you reading my blog?  How do you know you're reading my blog?  How do you know you're not dreaming?  (Maybe because in a dream the writing would be better, haha!?)  The Matrix brings a scifi twist to skepticism.  How do you know that you're not plugged into some supercomputer that's feeding you all you think you're sensing?  Can you trust your senses?  Are you sure you're seeing red as I'm seeing red, or are you just calling purple red because that's what you've always been told?  These are fun but silly to me.  On the deeper issue of skepticism intellectually bankrupting people, I don't really see how it changes things or people for that matter.  I mean think about it, what if right now, the only thing that you actually know and can know, is your current thoughts?  So what?  Are you going to behave differently?  I presume not.  Therefore, if not knowing anything that you thought you knew doesn't actually change your life why worry about it?  I certainly don't and I hope you don't either.

Time

WOW deep stuff!  There's a whole Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article (sixteen pages long in 12pt type!) about time.  Needless to say, my entry won't be anywhere near as comprehensive.  Which I'm sure you'll all agree that's a shame.  Ha!  Well, here goes.  As usual this discussion was inspired by the History of Philosophy podcast, this time it was an episode about Aristotle's view of time.  I've done a quick search on my blog alone and found that I've used the word "time[s]" approximately 126 times (before this entry of course, I've used the word six times in this entry alone!).  Of course not all those usages were the simple noun, time.

We use the word all the time, but what do we really know about time?  "I don't have enough time."  "I ran out of time."  "A stitch in time saves nine."  "Time flies."  Numerous other casual references to time pop up in conversation all the time.  What do they all mean?  Is time measurable movements as Aristotle seems to define it?  Is time an empty void to be filled as Plato seems to define it?  Both seem to be acceptable ideas/definitions of time.  And when it comes down to brass tacks does it really matter?  The argument is, sort of, moot.  It's a discussion piece but it ends up in the same regression to which epistemology eventually runs, there's the skeptical answer that no matter how you slice it, you can never know for certain that you're experiencing what you're actually experiencing and that it's not all a figment of your imagination/dream/Matrix/brain-in-a-vat.  It's very similar when it comes to time.

We can number or measure time, we call it a watch or clock.  We experience the passing of time, assuming that we can trust our senses, at least we can see change over time which is how we perceive as time changing.  Is that what time is?  Change?  Something more substantive?  Does time actually exist?  If there weren't any minds to perceive time, would it still exist, if it exists in the first place?  I certainly don't have any answers, in fact, I really only want to bring up the questions about this.  What do you all think?  Do you have the answers?  Sorry to be pessimistic, but philosophers have been arguing/considering these thoughts for years and no one really has all the answers, so I doubt you (though you altogether form a formidable intellectual force) will be able to answer these questions.

One parting thought, these questions of the existence of time bring up the concept of infinity that I've discussed before.  Aristotle, because his concept of time relates to movement requires that time be infinite.  Here's my synopsis of the argument.  If time is the measurements related to movement then it has to be infinite, because if there was something that moved the first movement of time, then there had to be time before time.  So, if time is something moving or at least related to movement then it must be infinite.  I'll sum up my view, as I've already mentioned.  Infinity in time is related to space in that physical universe cannot be infinite and therefore time cannot be infinite.  God, however, is outside space and time and is the infinite unmoved mover, and uncaused first cause of all causes.  That's just my view, no real answers just what I think.  Good luck with your search for your answers.

If the tsunami/waterlevel ever gets this high, pretty much the whole island is screwed.