There's a Mouse in the Nous

As I mentioned here (or somewhere) on another occasion, and as Spinoza made fundamental to his philosophy, reason, as practiced by thinking people, is the second highest (and also second lowest) of the three forms of knowledge. The lowest, which the philosopher refers to as “opinion or hearsay,” consists of things we know by our observation of external objects and unquestioned ideas, or by our understanding of symbols or words. The top spot is reserved for intuition, that faculty by which we understand certain things that require no proof. To illustrate:

(1) We know by knowledge of the first kind what an automobile is. We may have come to that knowledge by seeing one and being told the name (word) that others have given it.

(2) We know (or learn) by reason how an automobile works, how it is that energy in the form of gasoline is converted into motion.

(3) We intuitively know that what we truly perceive and call an automobile actually exists. We cannot remain sane while doubting the existence of things that actually exist. We need no proof of existence.

Psychologists, think and write volumes about the deceptions of opinion and hearsay. E. A. Brill defined neurosis as a pathology in which the patient derives more pleasure or pain from a situation than is actually in it; they form a false opinion and generalize from that opinion to knowledge that can properly be reached only by the higher kinds of knowing. Abnormal results follow.

Research scientists and engineers exercise their minds to produce knowledge of the second kind. They analyze objects to determine the “how” and “why” of their existence, and produce an understanding of reality not available to us by mere opinion, not even by intuition. We do not grasp the workings of an automobile by mere sensation or heresay, and we certainly do not know it by intuition. The processes by which reason produces knowledge involve logic, but logic is not in itself knowledge of the second kind, though we may study the rules of logic in order to make better use of them.

The study of intuition as a means of knowing falls within the purview of philosophy, primarily that area of philosophy called epistemology – the study of knowing as knowing – but also falls within the broader area called ontology, the study of being as being. The epistemologist may ask how it is that we claim to know that the rules of logic actually operate as our intuition suggests; how do we know, for example, that qualities possessed by all things are possessed by a particular thing. You can see that questions of that sort overlap the study of being. The ontologist may ask how is it that we claim to know that existence is real; he may approach that question any number of different ways, and some of those ways may even convince some ontologists – candidates for straight jackets – that we cannot make such claims.

That last remark gets to the heart of the modern dilemma. Beginning with the first Critique of Immanuel Kant and continuing through the skepticisms of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Kurt Gödel, an assault was made on the entire array of knowledge obtained intuitively. Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, influenced by Wittgenstein’s brand of logical positivism, concluded that the scientific method produces nothing like truth, but only propositions that have not yet been proven false. That notion actually predates Kant, having been clearly deducible from the skepticism of David Hume. That young man – regarded by his own mother as an “impetuous child” – decided that science’s most fundamental assumption, the law of causes, cannot be known to be true, hence, nothing derived by reason can be trusted. Some argue that Kant’s entire project was an attempt to escape the iron jaws of Hume’s “logic.” [I put the word in quotes since if Hume was right, logic would be destroyed right along with science as a source of knowledge.]

The Mouse’s “adversary” over on the One Cosmos blog, harking back to Gnostic teachings that were prevalent in the first three centuries A. D., answers the modern skeptics with the claim that all of what has been called the human spirit is informed by the great light of wisdom, an innate ability to know the truth. I am as yet unclear as to how this light manifests itself, but I think it must abide, if anywhere, in or as the third kind of Spinozistic knowing. It is the most inclusive of all the intuitions , the one by which we know that intuitive knowledge needs (and perhaps has) no proof. It would thus be the highest form of knowing of the third kind. It is an admirable and completely justified answer to the Hume-Kant-Wittgenstein skepticism. How do I know that intuitive knowledge is true? I just know it and it’s up to you to prove that I don’t (an impossible task). [The interested reader may find the counterpart of this conclusion in Spinoza’s Ethics, Part Two, proposition 47, but “go not gently into that dark night;” the proposition is a study in itself.]

I do not mean by the parenthetical “an impossible task” that One Cosmos is impervious to persuasion (though he might be). I do mean that it is essentially impossible for the laws of genuine intuition to be questioned. To ask whether the law of causes – or any of the other predominant axioms of human understanding – might be false presents a direct paradox. We cannot question the law of causes with any expectation of success unless the law of causes is true. If the law of causes is false, so is the statement, “the law of causes is false.”

But our knowledge of intuition itself tells us absolutely nothing about the relationship of real things. We may know for certain that “equals added to equals produce equal results” but until we use our intuitively informed minds to reason upon such things as the properties of gasoline and other forms of energy, we will learn nothing useful of those things. On the other hand, as One Cosmos suggests, if we approach the world of things believing that the laws of intuition can be abrogated to suit our immediate needs, we will find ourselves living in a world that simply doesn’t work.

It is difficult to say to what extent the problems we are currently experiencing in the world can be traced to the mistaken notions of those who have taken Hume-Kant-Wittgenstein seriously. We can say that a world which directly and openly questions the existence of intuitive absolutes is bound to be a world that seems empty of real meaning. The same may be said, however, of a world in which the truth is projected outside the realm of being. If the content of intuition remains forever expressible only as a metaphor, never expresses itself as language, never becomes real in a practical sense, then the possibility of doubt will forever exist. We can believe in the ineffable only up to a point. Beyond that point . . . ?

Well, perhaps that’s where we are today. The truth of reality was for at least five-and-a-half millenia stoked by the wishes and dreams of superstition and religion. Humans were asked to believe what they could only believe by a suspension of reason. But to deny reason is at the same time to deny its substrate (I love that word!). If we intuitively understand the law of causes, without proof, then we are certain to be confused by ideas that demand causeless effects. If we are to understand that there truly exist properties of being that can metaphorically be likened to a great light, then the light must unfold in our lives as a believable possibility. We must, as ordinary, everyday individuals, be able to say such things as, “Oh, yeah, I know all effects have causes,” and truly mean it. “Oh yeah, I know the world is real,” and not permit the barest hint of doubt to be taken seriously.

Some reaoning is wrong. Maybe it was based on false premises, or resulted from bad logic, or bad observations of things. But any “reasoning” that questions the basis of reason cannot rightly be understood as a product of reason. I suppose, if we need a metaphor for such ideas, we could say they occur only in minds possessed by “the evil one.”

So, “Come,” as the man said, “let us reason together.”