Week 3 - Empiricism and Reality as It Is

I've learned a little this week about the thinking of empiricists like Aristotle, John Locke, George Berkley, David Hume and Immannuel Kant and the ways in which their philosophy contrasts with the thinking of rationalist philosophers like Plato and Descartes. It's been challenging to read and follow the thought process of each and I'm not sure that I'm really understanding everything properly. They all have their own unique terminologies for describing the acquisition of knowledge, and there seems to be some disagreement between them on the extent to which we can actually know reality through our experience.

Unlike rationalists, who believe that we possess innate knowledge of universal truths, it seems that empiricists believe that all of our knowledge is acquired through our senses. Aristotle and later empricists like John Locke thought of the mind as a kind of blank tablet before experience writes on it. I think the idea of the mind as a completely blank tablet at birth has been disproven by developmental psychologists. I took a developmental psychology course last semester and learned about the innate aptitude that we all have at birth to acquire language and understand the logical rules of grammar. Also our capacity to understand certain principles and make moral judgements is affected by the myelinization of neurons in our brains (development of a layer of fatty insulation). Before a certain age, children have less of an ability to empathize with others.

Aristotle thought that we arrive at concepts of "universal" properties like beauty through the process of induction and intuition. We experience beauty on many particular occasions and then make an inductive generalization based on these experiences. We use the process of intuition to recognize universal truths. Empiricists like Aristotle seem to be linking our thought process and language to our experience of reality through some kind of shared underlying structure. Aristotle felt that this link demonstrated that our knowledge did reflect reality as it really is.

John Locke also believed that our knowledge represented reality as it really is, but we had to make a distinction between "primary qualities", those qualities of an object that you can measure and scientifically study and "secondary qualities", those properties of an object that are subjective, which we experience through our sense organs, like color, smell, texture and taste. It seems to me that he was saying that primary qualities are more objective and therefore more representative of reality than secondary ones. But i'm a little dubious about the objectivity of the primary qualities that he describes. There are cases in which there have been multiple interpretations of scientifically measured results. Just because you can measure it doesn't mean that you eliminate subjective interpretations of that measurement.

David Hume didn't believe our knowledge represents reality as it really is. He thought no knowledge comes from reason.  We can only know our constantly changing sensory experience, nothing of the external world. He also thought we could have no definite certainty that the laws of nature that have always existed within human memory would still be true tomorrow. That idea is pretty disturbing. I think there is a lot of comfort in the notion that reality is consistent.

If I am understanding correctly, Immanuel Kant believed that we can only have knowledge within certain limits. We can have knowledge of the phenomenal world, which is reality as it appears to us. The mind helps to construct this experience through filtering the sensory data it receives. He thought we can't really know reality which is outside of our experience, or the noumenal realm, which involves matters like speculating on the existence of God. It's interesting to me that physics too has gradually moved further toward the study of things in the noumenal realm, such as the behavior of subatomic particles, which we can't see, touch or easily measure.

Week 2 - Descartes, methodological skepticism and the "Truth"

This week I was introduced to Rene Descartes, a 17th Century French philosopher and mathematician who was determined to achieve certainty about the nature of reality. He developed methodological skepticism as a way of rigorously testing his belief system and getting to the truth. If there was a possibility than any of his beliefs could be doubted, he suspended judgement regarding that belief.

I found myself impressed by Descartes' willingness to subject all of his beliefs to thorough examination. I think scrutinizing and demolishing ones formerly held belief system, then reconstructing it through reason and logic, is not for the weak hearted or undisciplined. I don't think I could do it. However I remain unconvinced by his argument for the existence of a biblical style, all knowing God. I'm not sure about the extent to which he really questioned his existing beliefs.  I think that the common tendency for human beings is not to change beliefs that make us feel safe. Once we find a belief system that provides us with comfort, we often protect it and fit any observations of reality into the existing structure. I think that Descartes, in some respects, may have been unwittingly asking himself leading questions that would guide him back to the answers he preferred.

According to my text Descartes was always "a sincere Catholic" "who hoped that his works would be of service to theology". Descartes decided that God must exist because he had an idea of God "as an infinite and perfect being". And he, as a finite and imperfect being, could not generate an idea like that unless such perfection and omniscience actually existed.  I'm not saying that Descartes is necessarily wrong, but this is where his argument fails to move me. I can imagine a lot of things, both pleasant and unpleasant, that are beyond my experience. I can fantasize that our universe is a piece of dust on the bottom of the foot of a being in a larger version of our world, but that doesn't mean it's true.

On a personal note, when Hurricane Irene was about to pass over New York City, I had a telephone conversation with one of my religious relatives about it. She was naturally concerned for me, but she also had decided that God was using the hurricane as a warning to people for not paying attention to his commands. I immediately thought that if such a thing were true, God would be using a very inexact tool to mete out his punishment. What about all of the "innocent" people? My comment, that good people who don't deserve any punishment often have bad things happening to them, was ignored because it made her uncomfortable and did not fit into her preconceived notions.

In viewing a clip this week from the movie, "The Matrix", I thought about the scene in which Morpheus offers Neo the choice of either taking the "red pill" or the "blue pill". The blue pill will allow Neo to fall comfortably back to sleep and forget all of the scary things he is becoming aware of. The red pill offers no comfort, just a clear vision of reality, much of it unpleasant.

I wonder if I have the courage to take the metaphorical red pill and go wherever my philosophical questioning might lead me - even if it leads to answers that I don't want to find. What do we actually do with our knowledge of truth or our uncertainty? Perhaps the way I choose to live my life is more important than being absolutely certain that I have the truth.

Week 1 of Philosophy study - Socrates, Plato and wisdom

In my first week of studying philosophy, I’ve become a little acquainted with Socrates and Plato through my text and excerpts of Plato’s writings from The Apology and The Republic.

I read Plato’s allegory of “The Cave” in which prisoners, chained in a cave from birth, have their heads facing forward and unable to turn to either side, with no knowledge of the outside world. They experience reality in the form of shadows projected on the wall immediately in front of them. Of course this projected reality is something of an illusion. It is only a fragment of the big picture.

In the modest bit of reading that I have done in the past of literature from varying Buddhist traditions, I notice the same description of the world that we commonly experience through our senses being an illusion, and repetition of the idea that we have to go through some type of practice or method to wake up and become “enlightened”.

Socrates considered his societal role to be that of a gadfly, prodding people to break through their conventional modes of thought to get to the truth through his method of questioning, even if it made them extraordinarily uncomfortable. In the Zen Buddhist tradition, the Zen master seems to also take on the gadfly role in driving the student toward awakening through asking him to answer seemingly impossible riddles (Zen Koans). This process of helping the student push past the boundaries of logical thought and knowledge is supposed to help him get closer to the “truth”.

I suppose there are probably multiple roads to awakening to truth, knowing yourself and living the “examined life”. The study of Philosophy seems to be one of them. I think many would also argue that science and the study of the physical world is yet another avenue to getting closer to the truth.

I did some thinking this week about the definition of wisdom. Socrates basically defined himself as someone who was wise enough to know the limits of his knowledge.

This week, partly because of a suggestion in my philosophy textbook, I asked a friend to think of a well known person that he considered to have wisdom. My friend suggested “Warren Buffett, because he’s really rich”. To me, my friend sounded much like those Sophists of Socrates’ time who taught their students that “the only goal in life is to achieve success by whatever means possible”.  I was a little disappointed in the notion that being rich was the most important virtue. Maybe my friend was feeling especially lacking in financial resources that day.

I began to think about whether or not I knew anyone personally who I considered wise. I immediately thought of my grandmother who recently passed away on August 30th. Why do I consider her wise? While not an educated person, she worked hard and made a fulfilling life for herself. She did the best she could with what she had and she maintained a wonderful sense of humor most of the time, even when suffering physically. She was good to everyone she knew and left behind a lot of people whose lives were better for having known her. I think her priorities were in the right place. She would never have called herself wise. I think I like that definition of wisdom.