Epistemological Relativism

Contrary to my expectations, Lilith by George MacDonald is a tough slog. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was expecting something more like The Princess and the Goblin. It seems as though Lilith is really a message with a story as a background rather than a story with a message in the background. I’m sure it is just my lack of sophistication. Despite this, MacDonald manages to transmit quite a few profound ideas to the attentive reader.

“These words are too big for you and me: all is one of them, and ever is another,” said a voice near me which I knew.

George MacDonald, Lilith, p.93

Ahh, such sweet music to my epistemological senses, however distorted they may be. Yes, there is little context to go on here, but it does speak for itself doesn’t it? All and ever are rarely epistemologically admissible and yet easily used in our everyday speech. Who has such authority to lay claim to all and ever? Is it you and I?

“Doubt”, I said to myself, “may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.”

George MacDonald, Lilith, p.97

Classic. Do I need to elaborate?

Books, Thoughts George MacDonald, Lilith

What smites us with unquenchable amazement is not that which we grasp and are able to convey but that which lies within our reach but beyond our grasp; not the quantitative aspect of nature but something qualitative; not what is beyond our range of time and space but the true meaning, source and end of being, in other words, the ineffable.

– Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man is Not Alone P.4

Many times we experience things we do not fully understand and cannot begin to adequately articulate. It is as if something has grasped us as we struggle in search for meaning or something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes we are grasped even when we are not searching. Heschel comes very close, I think, to explaining this sort of experience. To those that are fortunate enough to share in such an encounter, Heschel’s words need little explanation. Nature’s mysteries sometimes draw us into this mystery of causes. Who or what is this mystery that we sometimes glimpse however dimly? What is it that we feel kinship with in those mundane and extradinary of times? Is it imagination or wishful expectation or something much, much greater?

Books, Theology, Thoughts Abraham Joshua Heschel, Theology

We have a fairly involved night-time ritual. First we read selections from Bennett’s Book of Virtues, then a Bible story or two from Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, then several pages from our current book (at this time it is MacDonald’s The Golden Key) and finally our Compline Office from Tickle’s The Divine Hours. Bennett’s compilation has all sorts of interesting stories and poems. The selection below is one my children enjoyed. Their enjoyment of this poem comes primarily from their ability to act it out when we put them to sleep!

BETWEEN the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,  The Children’s Hour

Books Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poetry

But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!

– George MacDonald, Lilith 1895

I love the Platonic ring to this. Socrates in the Apology makes a similar statement about how little we really know and how we let ourselves to believe otherwise.

Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know.

– Plato, Apology

In MacDonald’s novel, as a twist of irony, the statement comes from the mouth of a talking raven! The exchange leading up to the quotation above is fantastic. It reminds me in how we sometimes do not want to go through the trouble of learning things for ourselves or doing the work required to acquire some skill. Here’s the rest if you’re interested.

“Could you not teach me to know a prayer-flower when I see it?” I said.

“I could not. But if I could, what better would you be? You would not know if of yourself and itself! Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know? Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes?”

– George MacDonald, Lilith 1895

Part of the fun is the journey itself. I know, it seems trite these days, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Books, Thoughts George MacDonald, Lilith

Here is Monday’s poem.

I know a little garden-close,
Set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy morn to dewy night,
And have one with me wandering.

And though within it no birds sing,
And though no pillared house is there,
And though the apple-boughs are bare
Of fruit and blossom, would to God
Her feet upon the green grass trod,
And I beheld them as before.

There comes a murmur from the shore,
And in the close two fair-streams are,
Drawn from the purple hills afar,
Drawn down unto the restless sea:
Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee,
Dark shore no ship has ever seen,
Tormented by the billows green
Whose murmur comes unceasingly
Unto the place for which I cry.

For which I cry both day and night,
For which I let slip all delight,
Whereby I grow both deaf and blind,
Careless to win, unskilled to find,
And quick to lose what all men seek.

Yet tottering as I am and weak,
Still have I left a little breath
To seek within the jaws of death
An entrance to that happy place,
To seek the unforgotten face,
Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me
Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

– William Morris, A Garden by the Sea

Is this another poem about death? Is the garden by the sea a grave site or the sacred spot shared by two lovers? I’ve gone through this poem only a dozen times, but there is certainly a musical, almost mysterious rhythm to it. I use the word mysterious because I can think of no better word to describe how it reads.

Books Poetry, William Morris

Here is a poem that I’ve been contemplating for the past several days.

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls

After several readings I’m beginning to think this poem has something to say about Death. I have a few reasons for this conclusion. The coming morning, instead of arousing traditional feelings of life, hope and renewal, bring into focus the termination of a journey. The traveler will never return to the shore. I think this reversal, using the morning to speak of some loss instead of renewal, is very powerful. The tide and its cyclical and almost timeless nature contrasts well with the fate of the traveler. The tide continues in perpetuity, but the traveler cannot. The traveler is finite and limited. The footprints emphasize this fact. The memory, life and activities of the traveler fade quickly away, but the tide repeats its playful and deliberate act.

I’m not sure if my conclusion is accurate, but it does seem reasonable. Of course, more examination is necessary. Why, for example, do the waves have soft, white hands? Where are there steeds and a hostler? I imagine that as these questions are answered my conclusion may seem more or less accurate. What do you think? Am I “right”? Better still, what does it mean to be right?

–UPDATE: I found an audio link to The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls on archive.org. Enjoy!

Books, General, Thoughts Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poetry

I will occasionally pull a book off the shelf that isn’t on the following list, but my aim is to get through all of these books (and hopefully more) in 2009. I tried to stick to the Lewis Rule that “after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should read one old one to every three new ones.” I think I did okay. I have an even split between old and new. Although, technically the Allan Bloom collection is “old” since it starts from Chaucer, but I’ll count it in the new.

“Old” Books

• Augustine – Confessions
• Athanasius – On the Incarnation
• Plato – Thaeatetus, Republic
• George MacDonald – Lilith
• Malory – Le Morte Darthur
• Cervantes – Don Quixote
• Francis Bacon – The New Organon
• Aristotle – Nichomachean Ethics

“New” Books

• Laurence Bonjour – In Defense of Pure Reason
• Emil Brunner – Dogmatics
• Meg Meeker – Boys Should Be Boys
• Karen Marie Yust – Real Kids Real Faith
• C.S. Lewis – Miracles
• C. Behan McCullagh – The Truth of History
• Harold Bloom – The Best Poems of the English Language
• Alvin Plantinga – Warranted Christian Belief

Books Books

The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual belief of his age or his nation, and from the convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. 

  - Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford University Press) Chapter 15

Books, Philosophy

Starting in 2008 my wife and I will be competing in a bare-knuckles, knock-down, drag-out battle royale. The stakes are extremely high. Some would say the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. Over the course of the year we will engage in a reading grudge match. The person with the most books read by year’s end will be crowned the Ultimate Reading Champion. Here’s my current reading list:

• The Abolition of Man — C.S. Lewis (Done) 
• The Golden Compass — Philip Pullman (Almost done)
• What’s So Great About Christianity — Dinesh D’Souza (Almost done, but it is painful)
• American Colonies — Alan Taylor (Halfway)
• The Problems of Philosophy — Bertrand Russell (Not started)
• The Da Vinci Code — Dan Brown (Just started, but it may take a while as it is located in the bathroom)

Books

Within the wide arena of everyday life we see evil in all of its ugly dimensions. We see it expressed in tragic lust and inordinate selfishness. We see it in high places where men are willing to sacrifice truth on the altars of their self-interest. We see it in imperialistic nations crushing other people with the batter rams of social injustice. We see it clothed in the garments of calamitous wars which leave men and nations morally and physically bankrupt

…evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of a persistent, almost fanatical resistance. But there is a checkpoint in the universe: evil cannot permanently organize itself.

– Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love (Fortress Press, 1981) 78-79

I can appreciate King’s point regarding the checkpoint in the universe against evil. Because evil’s manifestation is most accurately characterized by self-interest, it is not hard to imagine why it is difficult for evil to organize and persist in the same unique way in which it originated. This self-interest is a force that constantly pulls at the fabric of evil itself. It attempts, inadvertently of course, to undo any sort of organization and cooperation that would give it the longevity that it really desires. Add to this internal conflict the external pressure of resistance and it does seem that evil is checked by both itself and external forces. Of course there are many cases where evil’s “brief” stay is anything but and for me to presume that even a short-term visitation of evil is enjoyable borders on the insane.

Sadly, this universal checkpoint only seems to prevent the spiral down to “all against all” and little else. Humanity’s unfortunate documented legacy is the way in which evil is stopped. It is not typically because we stops it, but because evil unwinds itself as it ventures closer to this universal barrier. It is nice that we have this emergency shut-off valve, but you would think that after the first few dozen activations we would figure out a way to prevent such runaway evil in the future. Regrettably, because humanity is capable of great good and great evil, because we individually swing back and forth between altruism and self-interest, it seems quite a feat to be able to eliminate evil altogether. Yet, many groups dream of and pursue such an ideal. How can we possibly eliminate evil without some sort of world-wide psychological surgery? What hope do we really have without such surgery? Does it mean our existence is merely an act of resigned survival or survival of the fittest?

Books, Thoughts