A Mouse in Wolf's Clothing (Part I)
I have burnt out 23 brain cells trying to identify and communicate a way out of the difficulty Plato let us in for with his dialectic. He asked us to question our beliefs, but the demonstrations he gave us (Socrates versus the world) involved a smart guy questioning the beliefs of lesser men. This set us up for rule by elitist deception, a solution most folks would not choose. Philosophers don’t even know what “dialectic” means. Plato said it was the key to genuine knowledge, and yet never in so many words described it. The Greek word for “dialectic” means conversation, something like dialogue, and sure enough, Plato presented all of his ideas as conversations. But then came Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, telling us dialectic is nothing more or less than formal logic, a conclusion which, if correct, would put an end to the Greek meaning of dialectic; logic resembles conversation only when carried on among pointy-eared people.
After Aristotle’s assessment of dialectic as “nothing but” logic, skeptical people began to doubt that any form of human reason could lead to unquestionable truth. We learn nothing from logic we did not already know from our premises. We declare that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man, so add nothing new when we conclude that Socrates is mortal. Aristotle realized this weakness. He felt logic could be used only to test hypotheses, not to form new ones. Logic is thus a one-eyed guide similar to Socrates’ Daemon, telling us when we are wrong, but saying nothing about what’s right. Driven by the emptiness he perceived in logic Aristotle came to believe that the path to true and everlasting knowledge had to start with self-evident first principles that needed no proof. Properly applied logic would then assure that we admitted as fact only those ideas derived from “absolutely true” first principles. Aristotle called his most famous first principle, “First Cause,” by which he meant God.
Several centuries before Aristotle went into the philosophy business, people living all over the world had found a different path to knowledge. Driven by the same desire to know that drove the Greeks to their philosophies, an even more ancient inquisitive people had also asked the what-and-why-fore of the world around them. Thinking that everything must have a cause, and unable to see the cause of many things (like their own existence), they derived their own first cause and also called it God. Aristotle got to the supreme being by reason, the prophets by revelation. They both had found ideas that were too good to doubt.
Many people regard revelation and reason as remarkably different concepts. Actually, they’re not too far apart. Both begin with an idea that supposedly needs no proof, and their proponents believe nothing that cannot be shown to be consistent with that self-evident idea. Reason and revelation finally drift apart, but not because either of them is illogical. Neither is. They diverge because the God revealed to the prophets was almost invariably a “person” who was concerned for those to whom He had revealed His truth.
And why not? God would surely not have bothered to reveal Himself to human beings unless He cared for them. A neutral God might as well have remained silent. But God was not neutral. He spoke to His prophets, and they spoke to the people’s leaders. The nations were thus ruled (more or less) by the indirect word of God. I say “more or less” because, politics being what it is, the kings often disregarded the prophets’ advice, and this always led to trouble. God cared for His people, so He was often forced to chastise them for the acts of their disobedient rulers. He thus became not only the First Cause, but also, on occasion, became the immediate (or proximate) cause of things that happened in the world. He parted the Red Sea. He caused the sun to stand still. He sent His son into the world. Involvements of that sort do not follow from Aristotle’s version of First Cause/God.
Aristotle’s God has another name, Prime Mover. When God goes by that name He can be recognized as a God who, after setting things in motion, steps back from His work, no longer concerned. This is the God of many of our nation’s Founding Fathers, the deistic God, the Masonic God, and perhaps the God worshipped by scientists who claim to worship God. Whoever they are, those who believe in the deistic God believe that the causes of things can be found, not in the willful acts of God, but among things themselves. The scientists in particular, would frown upon a God who changes the laws of Nature. How could they ever figure things out if the rules were continuously changing?
[This will -- I think -- culminate with an explanation of why people fly airplanes into tall buildings.]
After Aristotle’s assessment of dialectic as “nothing but” logic, skeptical people began to doubt that any form of human reason could lead to unquestionable truth. We learn nothing from logic we did not already know from our premises. We declare that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man, so add nothing new when we conclude that Socrates is mortal. Aristotle realized this weakness. He felt logic could be used only to test hypotheses, not to form new ones. Logic is thus a one-eyed guide similar to Socrates’ Daemon, telling us when we are wrong, but saying nothing about what’s right. Driven by the emptiness he perceived in logic Aristotle came to believe that the path to true and everlasting knowledge had to start with self-evident first principles that needed no proof. Properly applied logic would then assure that we admitted as fact only those ideas derived from “absolutely true” first principles. Aristotle called his most famous first principle, “First Cause,” by which he meant God.
Several centuries before Aristotle went into the philosophy business, people living all over the world had found a different path to knowledge. Driven by the same desire to know that drove the Greeks to their philosophies, an even more ancient inquisitive people had also asked the what-and-why-fore of the world around them. Thinking that everything must have a cause, and unable to see the cause of many things (like their own existence), they derived their own first cause and also called it God. Aristotle got to the supreme being by reason, the prophets by revelation. They both had found ideas that were too good to doubt.
Many people regard revelation and reason as remarkably different concepts. Actually, they’re not too far apart. Both begin with an idea that supposedly needs no proof, and their proponents believe nothing that cannot be shown to be consistent with that self-evident idea. Reason and revelation finally drift apart, but not because either of them is illogical. Neither is. They diverge because the God revealed to the prophets was almost invariably a “person” who was concerned for those to whom He had revealed His truth.
And why not? God would surely not have bothered to reveal Himself to human beings unless He cared for them. A neutral God might as well have remained silent. But God was not neutral. He spoke to His prophets, and they spoke to the people’s leaders. The nations were thus ruled (more or less) by the indirect word of God. I say “more or less” because, politics being what it is, the kings often disregarded the prophets’ advice, and this always led to trouble. God cared for His people, so He was often forced to chastise them for the acts of their disobedient rulers. He thus became not only the First Cause, but also, on occasion, became the immediate (or proximate) cause of things that happened in the world. He parted the Red Sea. He caused the sun to stand still. He sent His son into the world. Involvements of that sort do not follow from Aristotle’s version of First Cause/God.
Aristotle’s God has another name, Prime Mover. When God goes by that name He can be recognized as a God who, after setting things in motion, steps back from His work, no longer concerned. This is the God of many of our nation’s Founding Fathers, the deistic God, the Masonic God, and perhaps the God worshipped by scientists who claim to worship God. Whoever they are, those who believe in the deistic God believe that the causes of things can be found, not in the willful acts of God, but among things themselves. The scientists in particular, would frown upon a God who changes the laws of Nature. How could they ever figure things out if the rules were continuously changing?
[This will -- I think -- culminate with an explanation of why people fly airplanes into tall buildings.]
posted by Benedict S. at 11:47 AM
4 Comments:
Anon Two responding:Dialectic argument, conversely, is the other major argumentative practice in
which arguments are used. There are no first-principles in dialectial
deductions, but rather these deductions have premises which are accepted(endoxos), i.e. opinions. Although the dialectic method seems, prima facie,to be a lightweight method, Aristotle asserts that these arguments MUST be valid--hence, these deductions are as epistemically meritous as scientific
deductions (for Aristotle, at least).
As to *first principles,* well,distinctions that must be made between primarily ontological (ousia), teleologicial (aretE, telos) and other metaphysical
categories of A (especially his *First Principle* of all of nature AS the *Unmoved Mover*).
Aristotle doesn't assert the Unmoved Mover--in fact he is rather unclear
about this and seems only to be suggesting it. A's designation of first principles is a category of ideas which are clearly necessarily true and non-demonstrable. It is certainly non-demonstrable, but A. never asserts the truth of it, as he seems to do with the parallel postulate; law of non-contradiction; etc. Certainly there are metaphysical contentions that
we can have against Aristotle's so-called first principles, however, I find this argument to be a distraction since I am attempting to find out WHY he thinks that these qualify as first principles.
As used by Plato dialectic "had no first principles," but as defined by Aristotle (as "nothing but" logic) it did. As later used in the scientific method, the "first principles" were replaced by hypotheses that were to be tested against their conclusions. When Spinoza distinguished between knowledge of the second and third kinds, he separated the intuitive from the scientific. He regarded the intuitive as the highest sort of knowledge and appears to have meant exactly those arguments Aristotle thought "must be valid," i.e., the rules of mathematics and logic per se. All scientific knowledge would be classed as of the second sort, that is, beliefs subject to change as experience broadened or deepened. Spinoza, like Hume a century later, recognized that the law of causes could not be proven, but saw more clearly than Hume did that the law of causes must be true. He would thus classify it as knowledge of the third and highest kind.
I suspect that in proposing a "first cause" Aristotle sought the same sort of completeness Spinoza sought when he spoke -- in his first definition -- of a self-caused cause. Both had no answer to the ultimate ontological question (Why God or Being or Nature?) and both -- Spinoza more rigorously -- merely affirmed God as a natural cause and proceeded from there to see what that would do to human knowledge (or understanding). Hence, Spinoza's "heresy" fits neatly with modern experimental science, which also must regard the law of causes as a given. We shall see -- or our descendents will -- how quantum mechanics eventually unfolds, whether it truly defies causation or is somehow -- John Bell notwithstanding -- compatible with the large world.
Anon Two Responding:Spinoza added in The Ethics, prop XLI : Knowledge of the first kind (Imaginatio) is the only source of falsity, knowledge of the second (Ratio)and third (Intuitio) kinds is necessarily true.
For Spinoza, God and Nature are equivalent. His use of the word "God" is philosophically justified insofar as he believes that he is giving an adequate conceptual account of that which the tradition refers to, albeit in a mythical,
imaginitive (and therefore confused) manner. In other words, the traditional anthropomorphic notions of God are philosophically inadequate, but are not simply nonsense. Spinoza's use of the word "God" is practically justified
insofar as he hopes to accomodate his message to the ears of an audience whose imaginations are still captivated by the tradition. Throughout his Theological-Political Treatise, he uses traditional language in new ways,hoping to lead his audience safely out of their bondage to unreasonable images
and into the freedom of reason. A good account of Spinoza's use of traditionallanguage is given by Yermiyahu Yovel in vol. 1, chapter 5, of Spinoza and
Other Heretics.
Your reference to E2p41 raises a fundamental question that cannot be answered in a few words or even a few pages. The problem hinges on one of Spinoza’s errors. I am currently writing a book that seeks to portray Spinoza as a humanist philosopher. His project is often discussed in the context of the errors introduced by Cartesian dualism, and less frequently as a commentator contra Maimonides. He has, so far as I know, never been adequately assessed as a humanist. I have so far managed to get a handle on just what Spinoza was trying to do in the Ethics. He was, very simply, trying to say about God and man what it was possible to say without relying on superstitions, hearsay, and other forms of knowledge of the first kind.
It was in the context of my own understanding (and clarifications) of Spinoza that I spoke of the scientific method as an example of knowledge of the second kind. I apologize for not making that clear.
If you would like to discuss the problems with Spinoza’s epistemology, please email me. The address is in my profile. Just click on email.
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