Outside the Mendacious Box
I had a conversation this morning with my step-son the gourmet chef. As usually happens when we get together, the talk got around to "deep and meaningful issues." After a few warmup tosses he proceeded to tell me how it is that we can never know anything to be the absolute truth. He amassed five minutes worth of twice-told tales to make the matter certain. (Forget the paradox.)
I pretty much agreed with him (and the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who sealed tight the door that will never open on the ultimate truth). But Ludwig was at least honest enough to admit: "If my philosophy is true, it is certainly false." You may recognize the form of his confession as a variation on the famous paradox . . .
1. Statement 2 is true.
2. Statement 1 is false.
The way out of the paradox is a long story, so I'll have to save it for another day. (Think, or visualize, almost any M. C. Escher drawing.) But the way around Wittgenstein that I laid on the gourmet chef this morning made so much sense I thought it worth taking the effort to blog.
I asked him: "All other considerations aside, do you think your life is important to you?" He thought for a long moment, probably thinking I was setting some sort of Wittgensteinian trap. (I wasn't.) He finally answered truthfully.
"Yes, to me my life is important."
Any sane person would have said the same thing. Then I asked him to broaden his view a trifle. "Do you think that we, you and I, thinking of ourselves as one group, would consider the life of our group important?"
That question took a bit of clarifying. "I mean, if you and I, laying all other matters aside, were to think of ourselves as a group, would we think that the life of our group would be important?"
He answerd quickly. "Yes."
I didn't have to add much more. The hard work had already been done. He saw immediately that if I continued expanding the size of the group, it would eventually include all human beings, and if that group were sane, it would answer as my step-son had, "Yes, the life of the human species is important to it."
From that "species-specific truth" the ultimacy of the truth becomes less important than its practicalities. It may or may not be true that what is good for the human species is the ultimate good, but it is true that humans should conduct their lives as if they had answered "Yes" to the important question. Once we work our way through the implications of that confined definition of "the truth," Wittgenstein's paradox takes on the meaning Ludwig must have held in his mind (but failed to record on paper): "If my philosophy is true, it is true only for human beings."
But then, what but a human philosophy is possible for human beings . . . ?
We can call this one, "Humanism in a nutshell."
But we crack the shell, and the smartass Mouse inside asks us to add the earth itself to our group . . . .
This truth doesn't make the life of the human group a whole lot easier, but it does help us to lay aside certain "deep and meaningful issues."
I pretty much agreed with him (and the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who sealed tight the door that will never open on the ultimate truth). But Ludwig was at least honest enough to admit: "If my philosophy is true, it is certainly false." You may recognize the form of his confession as a variation on the famous paradox . . .
1. Statement 2 is true.
2. Statement 1 is false.
The way out of the paradox is a long story, so I'll have to save it for another day. (Think, or visualize, almost any M. C. Escher drawing.) But the way around Wittgenstein that I laid on the gourmet chef this morning made so much sense I thought it worth taking the effort to blog.
I asked him: "All other considerations aside, do you think your life is important to you?" He thought for a long moment, probably thinking I was setting some sort of Wittgensteinian trap. (I wasn't.) He finally answered truthfully.
"Yes, to me my life is important."
Any sane person would have said the same thing. Then I asked him to broaden his view a trifle. "Do you think that we, you and I, thinking of ourselves as one group, would consider the life of our group important?"
That question took a bit of clarifying. "I mean, if you and I, laying all other matters aside, were to think of ourselves as a group, would we think that the life of our group would be important?"
He answerd quickly. "Yes."
I didn't have to add much more. The hard work had already been done. He saw immediately that if I continued expanding the size of the group, it would eventually include all human beings, and if that group were sane, it would answer as my step-son had, "Yes, the life of the human species is important to it."
From that "species-specific truth" the ultimacy of the truth becomes less important than its practicalities. It may or may not be true that what is good for the human species is the ultimate good, but it is true that humans should conduct their lives as if they had answered "Yes" to the important question. Once we work our way through the implications of that confined definition of "the truth," Wittgenstein's paradox takes on the meaning Ludwig must have held in his mind (but failed to record on paper): "If my philosophy is true, it is true only for human beings."
But then, what but a human philosophy is possible for human beings . . . ?
We can call this one, "Humanism in a nutshell."
But we crack the shell, and the smartass Mouse inside asks us to add the earth itself to our group . . . .
This truth doesn't make the life of the human group a whole lot easier, but it does help us to lay aside certain "deep and meaningful issues."
posted by Benedict S. at 4:10 PM
9 Comments:
How true that all life is important.But how do cultures,societies,groups, or individuals safe guard the sanctity of life in the face of cultures, societies, groups, or individuals who value causes greater than life? To bring the argument back down to its most personal denominator, are you willing to allow someone to take your life because of the value you place on the life of one who would , given the chance, murder you? Or would you fight for your life, even to the point of taking the life of another ,if necessary, to save yourself?
hard 2 magine anybody sitting idle while being murdered. u must be missing something .
Anon-1: Read and pay careful attention to the last paragraph of the message. Knowing what should be ultimately important to us does not solve the problem of knowing how to manage the affairs of people and nations. Life's still a bitch.
Anon-2: Once the difficulties are seen for what they are, we more completely understand how we have f__ked things up. Spinoza seems to have grasped that the way he was describing was only a way for individuals to live their lives in relative peace. He makes no reference to what might happen when and if the number of such people reaches a critical mass.
I suppose the problem with philosophy is that it isn't always practical. a-1
The love of knowledge (the literal meaning of "philo-sophy," may not, in itself be practical, but the product of the love, though often "fragmented, confused, and incomplete," ecxceeds in value the rewards of most of lfe's other pursuits. [I say "most" because I am too lazy to try to prove the use of "all.")
Is that love the "immoral agape" love or the regular moral love that requires the object of its affections to be worthy.Because if it is the latter, the answer to my original question:"To bring the argument back down to its most personal denominator, are you willing to allow someone to take your life because of the value you place on the life of one who would , given the chance, murder you? Or would you fight for your life, even to the point of taking the life of another ,if necessary, to save yourself? " ( which you dodged by the way),is that you would kill another to save your own neck in a heartbeat. Frankly, if it is not the agape love you must believe that your life is exceedingly more important than the lives of others, unless of course you believe yourself unworthy of living.In a "nutshell", that is apparently where humanism falls short in regard to how far we are willing to go on behalf of our fellow man.
I thought anon-2 had done a good job of answering your question. Sorry. I should have answered for myself. Only a fool would do nothing in the face of danger. The better question, I think, would be to ask how I would recat if someone were threatening to harm those I love. And the answer depends on just how couageous I might be at the time, and how able I might be to affect the outcome. Can't say, but clearly a moral question would be faced.
My question hilites the meaning Spinoza placed on the word "love." Right today I am hearing of people being killed by others, and for the life of me I cannot bring myself to feel much more than moral outrage. In no way do I feel compelled to risk my own life to save the innocents being slaughtered . . . and I do not doubt that most people feel the same.
I value my love ones more highly than I do unknown innocents. That's a fact. So the moral question I face when confronted by the deaths of, say, Iraqi children is not so significant as it would be if the children were mine.
Most so-called moralists deal with men as they (the moralists) wish they were. I believe (and hope that I do) deal with people as they are. First step ion that process? Deal with my self, know what I will and will not do.
It seems to me that by your definition of agape you would make no distinction between yours and others'. I freely confess that I do, and believe that you do too.
"It seems to me that by your definition of agape you would make no distinction between yours and others'. I freely confess that I do, and believe that you do too."mm
I aspire to one day act out agape in all of my deeds- to break free of this Christianity I hold in my thought life, to transcend philosphy and to really live what I say I hold so dear- to love the unlovable, to embrace the wretched, to give without thought of the cost... at this point however, I humbly admit that I all too often fall short of my goals, as frustration or pride or some other emotion grabs hold of me and I act out of it rather than acting out of agape- but don't blame my failing on agape- Agape never fails......and I am left to whisper a prayer so often repeated by men and women so much better than me,"Lord have mercy on me, a sinner."
There is an old woman who lives in my town- she walks the streets in the winters bitter cold and the summers brutal heat- she is dirty and she looks sick- I speak to her when I can, I smile and ask after her health- once she asked for some money , unusual for this lady who usually refuses offers of help,I quickly dipped into my pocket to hand her what I had feeling happy that I could help in some small way. Several days later I saw a brother in Christ in the local convenience store, we spoke for a while extending pleasantries and asking after the family, and then there she was and my friend walked over and hugged her asking how she felt and I was ashamed- because I could never hug her..........
As I said, we must deal with ourselves as we are, not as we wish we were. That ideal you wish you could someday attain would be easy if all the world's people were as lovable as, say, you are. But, alas . . .
By loving the lovable we do the best we can for the unlovable. We create a world with values. To love the unlovable -- well, let's say it differently, (for effect). By loving those who manifest evil, we create a world of ambivalent values. The evil may actually begin to think of themselves as the good.
Granted, knowing what is truly good and truly evil is difficult, but to pretend that such do not exist and to love all indiscriminately, would be, in my opinion, to abdicate our freedom. If that last word has any meaning, it must be that we are free to love the good and abhor evil.
And that attitude represents, to me, the highest form of love -- loving the world so much that we are willing to take a stand against those parts of it that seem to love it not at all.
Hence, the human condition . . . seeking to avoid evil as best we can, we often, in ignorance, destroy the good.
Perhaps that is the difference we find between us. I can love (agape the world, even all of it, knowing that my idea of the good may be wrong, and that the man I regard as evil, may be a manifestation of the good. Holding such doubts, it takes great courage nonetheless to act as if we know the good.
Yeah, complicated. But then, "the way to salvation must be difficult, else how explain why so few have found it."
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