Since you made me enter into this discussion with you, if you have got the better of me and not I of you, are you indeed right, and I indeed wrong? If I have got the better of you and not you of me, am I indeed right and you indeed wrong? Is the one of us right and the other wrong? are we both right or both wrong? Since we cannot come to a mutual and common understanding, men will certainly continue in darkness on the subject.
Whom shall I employ to adjudicate in the matter? If I employ one who agrees with you, how can he, agreeing with you, do so correctly? And the same may be said, if I employ one who agrees with me. It will be the same if I employ one who differs from us both or one who agrees with us both. In this way I and you and those others would all not be able to come to a mutual understanding; and shall we then wait for that (great sage)?
- Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu)
Zhuangzi, one of the most important figures in philosophical Daoism, echoes my frustrations well. In context (at least, in the translation which I had to work with) he tries to settle the matter with an appeal to the Dao (alt. Tao), a "pivot" between the conflicting views. At any rate, even with this way out, he still thinks that reason has its troubles.
The problem is this: if I get into an argument, does my winning or losing mean anything about the truth of the matter? Does my extended winning or losing in a series of arguments show anything other than that I am brilliant or a dunce? I can out-rationalize many people, but I can never seem to get that perfect argument which can tell me which path to follow, which can clear away the obstacles and give me enough to stand on so that I can commit myself without the omnipresent doubts.
If I take side A seriously, I start to realize that some people on side B have as well, and thought up good counter-responses. But then, side A has thought up counter-counter-responses, and so on. Even if one side appears weak, this may be because either I have not found good sources yet, or because that side has not had any home-grown intellectuals as of yet. Neither seems to intrinsically count against that position. I can take the arguments of Protestants against Catholics, Catholics against Protestants, Orthodox against both, around and around again without ever coming to a firm answer.
9 comments:
What is the proper aim of Socratic dialogue, properly conducted?
Is it to gain true beliefs and discard false ones (about matters important to us)?
Is it to gain an appreciation of our lack of real knowledge/ wisdom/ understanding?
Is it to cultivate a character in ourselves and others of subjecting our beliefs and behaviors to rational scrutiny?
Is such rational scrutinizing valuable in itself or only as a means to gaining truth?
Is gaining truth just as valuable when we gain it apart from "proper" use of reason as it is when we are "justified" in the way we gained it?
I feel like the victim of a drive-by Socratizing! ;-)
I think that the rational search for truth is, when properly conducted, about gaining character and humility. However, it seems that we also go about it for our specific goals in given circumstances, and my concern is that the goals for which I pursue rational discourse are disconnected from the actually attained goals. So, it is worthwhile, but it feels sometimes like I can only pull it off if I look the other way when the question of feasibility arises.
You said: "I think that the rational search for truth is, when properly conducted, about gaining character and humility." That makes it sound like you think that the alethic aim of rational discourse is essential to the nature of such discourse, even if character-building is also, and perhaps equally, essential.
My frustration is that the alethic aim is necessary, but I don't know whether it's attainable. So, I pursue understanding for both truth and character, and will never know (at least in this life) whether I will have achieved the former. So I have to pretend that I can find the truth, and that my own convictions concerning it mean more than most other people's who espouse opposite views, or I can never hold to the proper aim.
I've been thinking about it in relation to philosophy of science lately; there seem to be a lot of parallels. My problem is that I can falsify views, but I can't seem to find what's correct in their place. And research programs don't seem to work as well in philosophy or theology as they do in science.
I'm not sure that you can falsify views, in science or philosophy, either be experimentation or elenchus.
Not that you aren't familiar with this criticism, but you can point to problems with grand theoretical schemes, or sets of hypotheses, but how do you know which individual belief is the false one? Just because we can show that A is not supported by everything we once thought supported it, doesn't mean we can show A is actually false.
I'm not sure that you can falsify views, in science or philosophy, either be experimentation or elenchus.
Not that you aren't familiar with this criticism, but you can point to problems with grand theoretical schemes, or sets of hypotheses, but how do you know which individual belief is the false one? Just because we can show that A is not supported by everything we once thought supported it, doesn't mean we can show A is actually false.
I'm not sure that you can falsify views, in science or philosophy, either be experimentation or elenchus.
Not that you aren't familiar with this criticism, but you can point to problems with grand theoretical schemes, or sets of hypotheses, but how do you know which individual belief is the false one? Just because we can show that A is not supported by everything we once thought supported it, doesn't mean we can show A is actually false.
Well, we can falsify specific propositions. For example, if I say, "all rabbits are white," and I see a black rabbit, then I have a falsification (ok, putting aside possible sensory errors and whatnot; maybe "rabbits are logically necessarily white" falsified by the self-coherent vision of a black rabbit?). Practically, this could be the only black rabbit in the world, and so the initial proposition was darn close to being true, but it, as a logical proposition, is false.
Similar, I can deny the conjunctions of certain propositions, or simply show that they are inconsistent. Maybe one could take very similar approaches, but that method of formulation is shot. So, for example, I could take the version of Scriptural inerrancy (the one with a "literal" hermeneutic) that I would get back in Detroit, and claim that what they are asserting is incoherent. If they were feeling reflective, they could try to come up with a better formulation which is close enough. But I at least was able to shave off a chip.
However, this really doesn't go anywhere fast, and you're right in saying that falsifying that view in general (without many of the specific attachments) isn't really possible.
The only response that comes to mind right away to your comment is: how do you know the black rabbit is really a rabbit?
But I'm not sure if I mean that seriously.
I think I agree with what you said otherwise (i.e. about showing the incoherency of a certain systematic theology of scriptural inerrancy)
Post a Comment