The Beginnings of Philosophy

Aristotle said that philosophy begins in wonder. Sometimes, I find that my own philosophizing begins in dread.

Quite honestly, I am afraid of the world. I am trying to make due with life the best that I can, and adapt myself to it; but I'll never have enough information to be able to be sure that I know everything that would really matter to me. But I know that at any given point, I don't have enough understanding, and so I must keep going. I start off with a lack, and will always have a lack.

If philosophy starts with wonder, as my learning used to do when I could still believe in certain demonstrations and such, then we begin in a plenitude and explore it. We are not driven to do so, but we learn about the world because of the sheer joy of doing so.

Now, I can't just go back to that stage of wonder, as much as I may need it psychologically in order to get through my work. When one runs about against religious and moral problems which call for changes in life, one can't pretend that it's all about the thrill of exploration any longer, and one even starts to wonder whether chasing that thrill for its own sake is a self-centered enterprise.

Maybe Diotima's speech in the Symposium is a way of bringing these strands together. Eros is the child of Craft and Poverty, and is also chasing after Aphrodite. Eros himself has nothing; desire comes from lack. But, he is also enraptured by the object of his desire. Similarly, the philosophical pursuit is always situated in lack, but always desirous of its object as well, rendering unto it equal parts dread and wonder.

Jesus and the Delphic Oracle

Returning to the discussion of the True vs. the Good: One way of looking at it could be be through the lens of two maxims, "Know Thyself" and "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Self-knowledge without love is sterile, love without self-knowledge is blind. We can all point to people who, through lack of wisdom, harm with their love; this is often the criticism of the golden rule as a moral mandate. Therefore, love requires knowledge, and I would venture to say that it requires us to know ourselves well so as to properly relate to others. At the same time, Socrates could not accomplish his task of finding self-knowledge without a partner, and often a relatively inconsequential one according to matters of wisdom and virtue. From this one can see how love and humility are essential for the quest of knowledge.

Why Not Pluralism?

I must admit, religious pluralism is tempting me an awful lot; I have no reason left for believing the Christian story, other than that I don't have an alternative yet (or rather, perhaps that elements of my upbringing still cling); and despite Pascal's advice to participate in church and soon you'll start believing, I find myself sickened by the intellectual (and concomitant moral) laziness I see every Sunday, unless I interpret it through a mythological lens. But I don't have any arguments for pluralism, merely reasons why it is not as contradictory as I hear people say. So, here's at least the anti-criticisms:

Sometimes I hear that claim that pluralism says that everyone is right by saying that everyone is wrong. But the non-pluralist is saying that the vast majority of people in the world are simply dead wrong, and that even members of her own religion are usually only right in a practical sense (almost everyone in the pew is a modalist, tritheist, and docetist, I bet). So the pluralist really seems to be no worse off then anyone else; every view says that only a few people are really right, and at least the pluralist works out how most everyone else has some part of the truth. What is denied is that truth is merely binary, that everyone who does not have the truest expression of reality is thereby completely wrong; people can approach truth, and pluralism allows more people to do so.

Another problem that I here is that "Religions obviously conflict, so they can't all be true." To be perfectly blunt, this is a poor, lazy excuse for a criticism, and reveals immediately a lack of willingness to engage with the subject. The pluralist denies that the straightforward, literal truth of the different religions is what matters; there aren't any terribly strong arguments for any given metaphysical or historical truth, except those agreed by everyone (i.e. everyone can agree about basic facts of Muhammad's life, whether or not they are Muslims), and so for most people, the actual effect of such propositions are either (a) in virtue of their reality, or (b) in virtue of how they shape worldviews. If the latter, this is perfectly compatible with a mythological approach. If the former, someone had better do some significant empirical study to show this; without some empirical evidence, we are still left with (b) for most people, and myth again is how most people operate irregardless of metaphysical and historical concerns.

Another criticism one could hold is that pluralism negates God's grace. First, though, this seems to come from a grace/works dichotomy that in its eschewal of works as any practical dimension reflects the Reformation more than the New Testament; recent scholarship has shown that the Jews against whom Paul was arguing did not have the notion of works-based salvation which has been imputed to them, and so Paul's own conception of faith and works needs to be revised. Second, what sort of cheap grace is it which demands that God has grace so that less people can be saved? But then, why can't God have grace on people outside of his chosen religion but yet less than everyone, for one reason or another?

Clifford, James, and Communities

So we all know the story: Clifford comes out and says that it is wrong everywhere and at all times to believe something without sufficient evidence. James says that that isn't so; you can either try to avoid being wrong, and possibly get very little right, or you can try to take a more maximalist approach and possibly get a lot wrong. Further, we have live options which are up for discussion, and other options which are not; we do not simply argue through all ratioanlly possible options to come to a decision. So far, so good; I can't really see any other way of dealing with individual matters of belief than the way James puts it (although, even James admits that he would have put things differently if he had been talking to a bunch of Salvation Army people as opposed to Princeton-ites). But what about communities?

Can we say that within a community, there should not be some people, the intellectuals of the community, who should take more of a careful approach? I think what the matter boils down to is whether fideism is morally appropriate.

Now, by fideism, I mean that the believer has not rational basis. However, expert testimony is a rational basis for belief, and so the average believer would seem to be justified in trusting the intellectuals of the community. But what if the intellectuals have failed to do their job, and due to intellectual laziness, stubborness, hubris, or whatnot, have not adequately searched out the options?

A parallel situation I think can be seen in the military. The more that a person submits her will to the superior, the more the superior makes the moral decisions for the subordinate. Since I'm pretty sure that most of us would deny that "Just following orders" is a moral excuse, it follows that a bad decision on the part of the superior funnels down to the subordinate, and so the subordinate relinquishing of her decisions leaves these up to the other; she is not justified no matter what for her relinquishment.

So, if the average believer decides to get on with her life doing her thing and so gives up her intellectual decision to the intellectuals in the community, why should I say that she is justified if they are not so? Therefore, it would seem that bad intellectuals destroy the justification of the community.

But, if this is the case, don't these intellectuals have a duty to the community to search out matters as strictly and carefully as possible? Don't they have a duty to truly be experts in their fields, and so engage in the necessary self-criticism and the equally necessary searching out of all the other possible and well thought-out views?

What is required of the intellectuals of the community, then, and how spread-out do they need to be? Is a (local) church unjustified if it lacks an intellectual? Does it depends on the church hierarchy? Is it at all justifiably to adopt a Reformed Epistemology if there is no reason to support such an epistemology, just to have an ad hoc justification for the average believer when all else fails?

What should communities do when their arguments are terribly unpersuasive to everyone else? For example, as much as Christians talk about how no one else seems to recognize the seriousness of sin, everyone else who believes in a God has no problem seeing how God could forgive anyone God wants (whether or not God would and does are separate questions). How does this reflect on the community? If what they hold is rational, shouldn't they be able to explain it persuasively to at least some other party, even if not to everyone?