Epistemological Relativism

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

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)

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?

The tough mind is sharp and penetrating, breaking through the crust of legends and myths and sifting the true from the false.

Who doubts that this toughness of mind is one of man’s greatest needs? Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think. 

Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love (Fortress Press, 1981) 14. 

Yesterday while browsing the children’s books at my local Borders I spotted Rumpelstiltskin. While it is not the version I am used to, it is very nice to look at and captures the major plot points quite simply. I’m trying to figure out why it has taken me this long to get this tale and share it with my children, but I have no answer. When I read it last night my children gasped in horror at the king’s ultimatum given to the miller’s daughter. They gasped even louder as the straw-filled rooms grew in size after each night. It was great fun and I’m sure it will become a common bedtime request.

Stories, real or imagined, have incredible power. While I’m certain that the lectures I give my oldest are quickly forgotten, I know with equal certainty that after just one reading of Rumpelstiltkin that the story will be forever locked away in her memories. This is instructive in a number of ways. Using stories to communicate moral messages, values and beliefs can be found in some of the oldest documents in antiquity. I think that as a modern society where we are surrounded by “facts” and “laws”, we quickly forget the power of story. This is especially the case when we forget that most young children are not developmentally ready to hang “facts” and “laws” onto their neural hooks and use them appropriately. Stories have this magic ability to bypass the developmental requirements and plant themselves firmly within the child’s mind with all the associated moral messages. Are stories that contain the messages we value most more effective than other methods? I don’t know, but it would seem quite foolish to completely ignore the wisdom and traditions of previous generations.

G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man writes about the ultimate and unspoken aim in mythology. He describes it rather appropriately as an almost indirect, semi-conscious search for that something that we all know is out there, but at times are not too sure where to look or what to look for. Mythology’s stories are a way to imagine what things might be like, knowing that there is some deep connection, not between the objects of mythology itself, but between the ideas and themes they conjure and reality itself.

Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is there; something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up.

Chesterton observes, quite accurately I might add, a type of experience an artist has when engaged in his craft. This “seeing through the veil” is something that at times can be articulated and at others remains just below the consciousness. I’ve never read any such treatment of this, but maybe I haven’t read enough.

Very deep things in our nature, some dim sense of dependence of great things upon small, some dark suggestion that the things nearest to us stretch far beyond our power, some sacramental feeling of magic in material substances, and many more emotions past finding out, are in an idea like that of the external soul.

I’ll just let you think about this one. I think it is fantastic.

In a word, mythology is a search; it is something that combines a recurrent desire with a recurrent doubt, mixing a most hungry sincerity in the idea of seeking for a place with a most dark and deep levity about all the places found.

I love this duality in mythology’s quest. The doubt and desire collide as the myths attempt to grasp at what is behind the veil.

Last night we started another bed-time book. Always the romantic I try to find books that communicate the beauty of nature wrapped in an exciting and adventurous story. I hope to give the kids, at a worst, an appreciation for nature and, at best, a longing to be a part of it. Yes, unfortunately living in the concrete jungle in Southern California we have to resort to books instead of the real thing. I chose The Wind and The Willows. The large hardback edition that I purchased has fantastic illustrations by Michael Hague. The illustrations are great a jumpstart for the imagination. Since they are not on every page the illustrations aren’t too big of a distraction and keep the kids in suspense and attentive. The good news is that this text is public domain so you can always go here and download a copy to print. It won’t have the pictures, but that’s okay. So here is an great excerpt from the text. The Mole has just stumbled upon a river for the first time in his life.

Never in his life had he seen a river before–this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver–glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908)

After reading the first thirty pages of “The Structure of Empirical Knowledge” by Laurence Bonjour I can say that I’m looking forward to listening to the author discuss the challenges that affect theories of epistemic justification. Epistemic justification is nothing more than the reasons (and the criteria which constitute valid reasons) which we possess for thinking that our beliefs are true. The simplicity misleads as Bonjour makes clear. As early as chapter one he attempts to define knowledge, justification, what a theory of justification should include and the challenges associated with each.

Bonjour uses the classic definition for determining what should “constitute a genuine instance of propositional knowledge”. He touches on the Gettier problem but insists that this definition is close enough. The definition looks like this:

(1) A must believe confidently that P,

(2) P must be true, and

(3) A’s belief that P must be adequately justified.

If you meet these three criteria then you are in possession of knowledge. Notice I didn’t say “true knowledge” as that is superfluous. When we say knowledge with this test in mind and we say that we are in possession of it, we know that it passed test number (2) and is therefore true.

(1) and (2) are somewhat straightforward, but in the back of everyone’s mind there is something curious about (3). We may ask, “What does adequately justified mean?”. Bonjour doesn’t waste time in answering by stating that (3) is “clearly the central concept in the whole theory of knowledge”. He attempts to define what epistemic justification is and how it is different from other types of justification. He answers the question by reflecting on why justification is sought and valued.

“What makes us cognitive beings at all is our capacity for belief, and the goal of our distinctively cognitive endeavors is truth: we want our beliefs to correctly and accurately depict the world.”

Too bad we don’t have immediate and precise access to this truth. Justification, says Bonjour, is

“..that of a means to truth, a more directly attainable mediating link between our subjective starting point and our objective goal.”

Justification provides us with good reasons for thinking we possess knowledge. And that, according to Bonjour, is what this is all about.

“The distinguishing characteristic of epistemic justification is this its essential or internal relation to the cognitive goal of truth. It follows that one’s cognitive endeavors are epistemically justified only if and to the extent that they are aimed at this goal, which means very roughly that one accepts all and only those beliefs which one has good reason to think are true.”

We want to have an accurate view of the world, but sometimes we fall victim to irresponsibility.

“To accept a belief in the absence of such a reason, however appealing or even mandatory such acceptance might be from some other standpoint, is to neglect the pursuit of truth; such acceptance is, one might say, epistemically irresponsible.”

The challenge remains, however, to come up with a criteria that produces epistemic justification. There’s more though. Our criteria must be shown to be “adequately truth-conducive”. In other words, we can’t just pick any criteria that suits us. We have to pick one that passes yet another test. This Bonjour calls “metajustification“. So, we need a criteria and reasons why our chosen criteria is the most truth-conducive. The rest of the text is devoted to these two considerations.

My dingy, banged-up cardboard box arrived today from Amazon. After a couple of months sitting at the top of my wishlist I decided to take the plunge and purchase C. Behan McCullagh’s examination and defense of the objectivity of history. I’ve only skimmed the table of contents (for the 10th time) and read through a few pages of the introduction, but it looks promising. Here are a few quotes to give you an idea of why I’m looking forward to this read. Of course, it could be that I’m fascinated by the “knowledge problem” manifested in various forms across many disciplines.

“..the facts of cultural relativism and of the relation between language and reality require historians to give up any naive assumption that historical descriptions correspond exactly to the events which they describe in the past.”

It seems as though McCullagh understands the challenges of describing the past in ways that are reflective of the reality at the time.

“Nevertheless there is a sense, which I shall define, in which historical descriptions can be true of the past, allowing that they are always couched in the concepts of a particular culture.”

Again, he understands that both the writer and the historian are selective and constrained to varying degrees by their particular culture, ways of thinking and previous experiences. Coming to the table with this acknowledge goes a long way towards uncovering, as much as we are able, the truth about the past.

“It is normal for there to be more than one true characterization of an event or historical period. The variety of historical interpretations does not exclude the possibility of their truth.”

Behan is quickly responding to those the would claim that the plurality of interpretations is an indication that we cannot recover anything truthful from this enterprise.

I finished Part One of A Marginal Jew which attempts to sketch the problem of reconstructing (or constructing if you’re new) the historical Jesus. Meier discusses categories, sources and criteria and concludes the section with a chapter titled “Why Bother?” where he addresses the theological motivations of such an exercise. I’ll leave anyone interested with a few excellent quotes. They address the benefit of such endeavors. The primary benefit being, in my opinion, a much needed corrective to the ideas, presumptions and creations offered by good-intentioned theologians. While perhaps not all wrong, they had their own challenges (culture, language, biases) that should cause us to critically evaluate some the conclusions these men arrived at.

Like good sociology, the historical Jesus subverts not just some ideologies, but all idealogies.. (p.199)

Indeed the usefulness of the historical Jsus to theology is that he ultimately eludes all our neat theological programs; he brings all of them into question by refusing to fit into the boxes we create for him. (p.199)

Properly understood, the historical Jesus is a bulwark against the reduction of Christian faith in general and christology in particular to “relevant” ideology of any stripe. His [Jesus] refusal to be held fast by any given school of thought is what drives theologians onward into new paths; hence the historical Jsus remains a constant stimulus to theological renewal. (p.200)