Things You should know about Knowing. Part 2

Themes: On Language, Philosophy

I choose to start the story here. Also, if you don’t want to wade through lots of guff, you can skip to point 10.

The Scientist

The Solipsist is now quietly crying into his beer, so you decide to call it a night. The Scientist and The Conversationalist took off yonks ago – only you would be daft enough to try to discuss Epistemology with an epishtemogled Solipist. But don’t despair, the path to wisdom is strewn with stewed Solipsists.

The following day you call The Scientist to see if he’d be willing to chew through THE QUESTION with you. He answers the phone by pretending it’s a StarTrek Communicator. You feel deflated. You manage to get him to agree to meet you for lunch then hang up before he can say, “Live long and Prosper!” (Even the path to wisdom can only handle a limited amount of StarTrekkin’).

You meet in The Refectory at the University, The Scientist is sipping instant coffee out of the lid of a Thermos he’s brought from home. There are x+1 number of things you need to know in order survive this situation:

1. Embrace the existential shudder you will inevitably feel as you sit down at the table. The Universe is reminding you that it still exists: that in a quiet corner of reality somewhere a wildflower dances with the wind; that the smell of hot grass and eucalyptus still talks; and that you might belong to this world in subtle, unexpected ways.
If you are overcome by a sudden Whitmanesque desire to jump on the table and bellow ‘YAWP!!!’ Do it.
Don’t expect anyone to care.

2. The Scientist is suspiciously like the mirror image of The Solipsist (could it be that this scenario is just a little too neat?). Whereas the Solipsist begins from the good intuition that all our knowledge of the world takes place from within our unique standpoint (place, time, experiences, faculties), the Scientist is fascinated by the insight that if our knowledge is to be genuinely of the world, then doesn’t just consist in stating the contents of our heads.
Sounds right, doesn’t it?

3. The problem arises when the Scientist gets carried away by the objectivity of knowledge and starts to claim that knowledge only consists in those things which exist independently of the person knowing them.

4. This claim immediately presents us with a problem: how do we sort out real Knowledge (i.e., that which exists independently of the person knowing) from mere Opinion (i.e., claims that have far too much to do with what the knower is drinking)?

5. Solipsists don’t have this problem because ultimately they don’t really believe in a difference between knowledge and opinion. But because Solipsists only rarely pop into existence the majority of the history of Epistemology is devoted to working on this problem.
(not the non-existence of solipsists, the other problem (see point 4))

6. The kind of Scientist that you are likely to be meeting in the Refec, will probably solve this problem by giving a strictly empirical definition of knowledge: i.e., he will claim that ‘knowledge’ only occurs when a particular claim can be backed up with a particular kind of evidence (experimental), and for which this evidence can be independently verified (or more properly, falsified), and most importantly, for which general rules can be framed that will be observable by others in relevantly similar situations.
(Yes, that was one long sentence…)

7. You be a lunatic to deny the power of this definition when applied in the context of scientific method.
But what is it power to do?
Largely, it is power to make accurate predictions about the future behaviour of material features of the world based on accurate observation of past patterns. It is about framing rules that explain causes.
And boy does it work!

8. But if we get too swept away with the Scientist’s strictly empirical definition of knowledge, then we end up thinking we only genuinely know two kinds of things: first, the immediate impressions of the world we get through our senses; secondly, the rules of causation which we arrive at when we have properly applied empirical methodology.

9. This restriction is difficult to swallow:
First, it’s very hard to point to anything that seems even remotely like ‘an immediate impression’, or ‘a pure observation’ of the world. Everything that we see, hear, feel, whatever other sense you might possess, has already worked its way through a cognitive process that has irretrievably synthesised these naked impressions into a larger experience. So, when Bruce the Bagman comes and sits down next to me at the bar, I don’t have a naked impression of Bruce’s smell which I can describe independent of my feelings of like or dislike, or the memories it evokes, or even the cultural vocabulary by which smells are described. Bruce’s eau, is definitely and irretrievably du toilet…
Of course, we can describe the mechanisms by which this might work, electrical impulses, the different centres of the brain, but that isn’t actually the same as actually experiencing the naked impression. There is really no way to get ‘behind-the-scenes’ in your mind, and see the ‘world-as-it-is-in-itself.’

Secondly, if we are sceptical about ‘pure observation’, then its also very difficult to accept that ‘rules of causal behaviour’ is a category significantly broad enough to cover the sorts of things we mean when we use the word ‘knowledge’. For example, it doesn’t seem like a satisfactory account of what it means for me to say, “I know Bruce.” Most of us would accept that “I know Bruce” is more than a claim to possess a great deal of empirical evidence about Bruce and that I can accurately form causal predictions about his future behaviour on the basis of my past observations (not for a minute denying that this is a valid and humorous activity in which to pass the hours).
If you asked me to back up my claim that I know Bruce, I would point to the kinds of things that Bruce and I have shared together, not merely the quality of the observations I have made of him.

Furthermore, things like ‘rules of causation’ have had a very hard time gaining purchase when it comes to the study of causally complex things like humans. And it gets even harder the smaller the population of people you are seeking to deal with. In fact, it is nonsensical to speak of general rules that would describe every aspect of an individual human life. Rules stated at that level of specificity are not rules at all, they are people.

10. I’ve rabbited on long enough…
Here’s the conclusion of the matter for now:
I’ve been in enough debates down the Pub to know that most of what we discuss in that August Hall of Disputation revolves around whether particular claims to knowledge, are in fact, objectively true.
It usually goes like this:
Dave: “It is, in fact, the case that Bruce here, is a dead-set legend, and once drank a schooner of horse tranquilliser and still walked home.
(some murmurs of approval, a few mutters of disagreement… someone throws a chair.)
Trevor: “What are your warrants for that claim, Dave?”
(Trevor, Dave, Bruce, and Others, proceed to cite evidence and question the logic for and against the position. This may or may not include arm-wrestling.)
My point is simply this: the claim that knowledge is (in some sense) ‘objective’, is important for our belief that we can actually live with, work, drink, and persuade each other. Debating Solipsists is a recipe for Mental Illness. However, our claims for objectivity in knowledge can’t be made in such a way that we ‘depersonalise’ the character of all our knowledge.

What do we do?
How do we keep an eye on Scylla, while surfing Charybdis?

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The post-rapturous vision: empty mega-churches

Themes: Church, Philosophy

Archie Poulos has been wondering why Sydney doesn’t have Anglican mega-churches here. While over here, Joe Johnson has an exhibition of photos of empty mega-churches (if you can’t see the pics, look under artists for ‘Joe Johnson’. Aren’t the interwebs full of strangeness and serendipity?

Generally, I’d say that mega-churches exist for the same reasons that people exist: for transcendence. The dominant intellectual story that we’ve been telling ourselves in Western societies is pretty thin stuff when it comes to spirituality. And frankly, people can’t exist without believing in something bigger than themselves. Even hard-core reductionist-materialist-Atheists become quasi-religious about their position given opportunity. Anything, or anyone, who can offer and deliver an experience that lifts us beyond the limits of the normal, and particularly any thing that challenges the dominant materialism of our cultural discourse will be a winner.
Mega-churches are winners because they have generally offered either Big Sound, Big Gestures, or Big Words – but most important: a Big Narrative.
Of course, the decline of Church, has been paralleled by the rise of alternative places to get these experiences. Mega-churches exist (partially at least) because they need to compete in a more densely contested marketplace. There are far more people at the Cinema and the Sports Stadium on any given weekend than in churches (and more than ever if you can unite a Big Sporting contest with a Big Narrative like that provided by Anzac Day).

I think you’d be misreading our culture though, if you think that mega-churches are really where everything is heading. The genius of modern Western societies has been to embrace pluralism in a way never seen before. Particularly in areas like subjectivity and transcendence, the presentation of plural forms and opportunities to find satisfaction prevents the overall architecture of the system from ever facing genuine radical challenge.
So it should be no surprise that just as many people are on the lookout for Small when it comes to transcendence: small community, unique, unrepeatable experience, hand-made, organic, natural fibre.
The photographs of the empty mega-churches, with all the wires, pulleys, cameras and leads exposed, are an attempt by Small to subvert and expose Big. It’s a classic move, it’s like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when they pull back the curtain and show that the Big Wizard is just a little man playing tricks.

These photographs are a move in the endless power play by which our society exists. There are lots of teams, lots of games, but there’s probably only one Game, and most importantly, if that game ended nobody would have won – we would find ourselves in a reinvented world.
That might seem all a bit esoteric but there are two important points for Christians who are thinking about Church:
1. Don’t be too quick to hitch your wagon to someone else’s team: don’t forget that eco-villages are just as much a part of the cultural landscape as mega-churches.
2. More interestingly, Joe Johnson’s photographs makes use of the absolute silver bullet argument for our culture. If everything is experience, if transcendence is a form of The Good that exists in plurality, then the Ultimate Critique is ‘authenticity’.
Whatever you do in Church, it better not be fake or feel fake. If you are fake you will die.

I wonder what sorts of practices and beliefs would actually challenge The Game, if possible?

pic by flickmor

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Things You should know about Knowing. Part 1

Themes: Philosophy

If you’re ever down the Local having a Quiet Ale, and it so happens that you fall into a conversation about Epistemology, there are a few things you should know:

1. Epistemology is NOT the Science of what happens when you’ve had too much to Drink. (Don’t worry, it’s a easy mistake…)

2. Epistemology is the Science of Knowledge, in particular what makes something KNOWLEDGE, as opposed to mere opinion, unsubstantiated rumour, or Drunken Ranting. As you can immediately see, it is an immensely useful skill to have at your disposal while drinking at the Pub.

3. The other people in your conversation are likely to be one of three types: The Solipsist, The Scientist, or The Conversationalist.

4. I don’t actually think The Solipsist exists…
But occasionally you come across A TURKEY who is willing to have a go.
Basically, The Solipsist thinks that ‘knowing things’ is really an illusion because everything that we appear to know is actually the product of our own minds. The only encounter we have with ‘THE WORLD’ are the series of experiences we have of it: being hot, cold, thirsty, drinking something slightly bitter and yellow, needing to pee, etc. The problem is that we can’t really be sure that these experiences really come from ‘OUT THERE’. Mightn’t it all be a grand production of our own minds? After all we can also have experiences like this when we dream, and we don’t think that our dreams are real experiences of things ‘OUT THERE’, do we now?
(NB, The correct answer is ‘No we don’t!’ regardless of what some of the more giddy patrons might think)

Of course, the problem for The Solipsist is that ‘the world produced by our minds’ appears to follow sets of rules that are deeply inconvenient, but which I don’t appear able to do anything about. Like for example, the fact that after having several Quiet Ales, I invariably need to visit the MEN’S ROOM, which is a nuisance, but no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I can hold on a bit longer, eventually THE FACT becomes rather INESCAPABLE. This is quite unlike the movie, The Matrix, where nobody ever has to go to the toilet, because it’s all in their heads…

The Solipsist is right about one thing however, whatever we do know about the world, we only know it from our own standpoint. We only know it through our own experiences, in the light of our own memories, hopes, desires, relationships, and so on. We can’t get outside our own heads and have a pure encounter with the world-as-it-is-without-me.

So, when The Solipsist says, ‘What’s true for me, isn’t what’s true for you.’ You can see what he’s getting at: we don’t both encounter the world from the same standpoint. The problem is that to arrive at his commendable insight, he’s had to abolish The Universe, The Pub, You, Your Beer, and the Conversation.
A HEFTY TOLL, to say the least.
And it leaves the poor sod with a disturbing suspicion that he’s talking to himself, and also, why wasn’t he able to imagine a better world to start with, or at least a nicer pub?

STAY TUNED FOR: Things You should know about Knowing. Part 2: The Scientist

HOMEWORK: Find a Solipsist. Ask if they are married. If they are, ask if you can meet his wife. Give me a call when you go along to meet them. Seriously… I’d love to know how a couple gets along if one of them believes the other is a creation of his own imagination. At the very least you’d hope, for his sake, that she is seriously good looking or something…

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Jerusalem and Athens

Themes: Philosophy

Whence spring those “fables and endless genealogies,” and “unprofitable questions,” and “words which spread like a cancer?” From all these, when the apostle would restrain us, he expressly names philosophy as that which he would have us be on our guard against. Writing to the Colossians, he says, “See that no one beguile you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, and contrary to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost.” He had been at Athens, and had in his interviews (with its philosophers) become acquainted with that human wisdom which pretends to know the truth, while it only corrupts it, and is itself divided into its own manifold heresies, by the variety of its mutually repugnant sects. What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from “the porch of Solomon,” who had himself taught that “the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart.” Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisition after enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire no further belief.

Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics

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Philosophical Letters II: The whip hand

Themes: Philosophy

Eraunetes greets his friend Epiphenomenos,
I apologise, my dear friend, for the untimely delay in responding to your letter. The truth is I gave myself an unfortunate injury while whipping a slave. The whip hand is a little rusty these days, apparently I didn’t get the correct angle for my follow-through. The slave, a lousy son of Scythian dog, had left your correspondence lying around open on my desk. Grammates read the letter and informed me. (did I tell you he was staying for a while?) Now, I don’t mind in the slightest that he read it, and I’m sure you won’t either, but it’s the principle of the matter. If we are unwilling to flex the whip hand on matters of principle, all too soon we will be overrun by barbarians. I felt that I needed to take a personal interest in disciplining the slave, hence the personal damage. That, and the fact that my amanuensis has been visiting his dying mother, have conspired to delay my reply.
Grammates informed me that he found your letter interesting. He assured me he intended to reply to some of the matters you raised himself. Consequently, now that my amanuensis has returned, I’ve decided to send a copy of this letter to him, and request that you would do likewise with your reply.

Now, with that matter dealt with, let us turn to the question you raised in your letter: why do you study philosophy at a theological college? Perhaps I could rephrase it as the larger question, what is the relation between Theology and Philosophy? What, if I may be pardoned for quoting a Carthaginian, does “Jerusalem have to do with Athens”?

I’ve been casting around for a while to know how to address this question, it’s not that I am short for ideas, I’m just unsure where to begin.
Perhaps here: why is the relation problematic? Why is it that you would fret over this relation rather than the relation, say, between Theology and Beards?
Let me outline 2 principal areas of difficulty:
1. Philosophy has not always been what it is, or taken the same cultural space as it currently does. How we understand what is meant by the term “Philosophy” makes a great deal of difference to whether we find the relation difficult. In fact, Philosophy’s relationship to Theology is a significant part of both their identities. The problematic nature of the relationship is an indicator of larger shifts within the conceptual landscape. We shall have give an account of what we believe Philosophy (and Theology) to be, while realising that this account is the product of a history that includes the tensions between the two disciplines.

2. Why are they related? Why is there a relation that we believe is worthy of notice and articulation? What is the structure of this relation?
A dialectic:
How do we hold them together – as lovers of the unity of truth?
How do we hold them apart – as those who have been confronted by the Otherness of God?

As you see, I have much more thinking to do.
Farewell,

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Philosophical Letters: Introduction

Themes: Philosophy

Greetings from Epiphenomenos to his friend Eraunetes.

You warm my heart dear friend, who would have thought that one man could make so many kebabs from a single Ass? I wonder if you would be willing to turn your ingenuity to another of my problems? This one is somewhat different, I think you’ll find that it will exercise your intellectual rather than technical facility.
Recently I’ve been spending quite a bit of time thinking through why we teach Philosophy at our Theological College. As you know, I’m a great lover of philosophy myself – a philosophile in fact (I think you’ll like that one: conceptual rather than orthographical palindromy!) – yet I’m aware that it is becoming increasingly difficult to explain and justify our subject within a theological curriculum. We are pressured for time, and adult learners are so pragmatic, is there a genuine reason for including the study of Philosophy within a Theological curriculum?
The truth is, that when students read through the College Prospectus, the thought of studying philosophy doesn’t strike them as problematic, some are even excited by the idea. Is it the case that people just naturally associate the two disciplines on the basis of a long co-habitation? It’s only when we come to the actual study of Philosophy that people begin to regard it as a cuckoo in the theological nest.
You see, everything else we study at College appears to have some direct application to the goal of training a competent minister of God. But Philosophy! What good does it do to know about Aristotle’s Categories when you’re hurling hand-grenades from the pulpit, or seeking to bind up a broken heart?
I can see how it would make sense to a pagan: these two ageing ladies – the Queen of the Sciences, and her Handmaiden – have been pensioned off together, the better to enjoy a happy retirement spinning entities out of æther. A toothless dotage whose only lucid moments are spent in recollection of former glories.
Surely we can do better than that?
Farewell.

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