Epistemological Relativism

It has been several months since I’ve read C.S. Lewis, but his advice regarding the reading of old books is timely. Rather than state what has already been presented succintly by Lewis himself I’ll just provide the quote.

Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity (”mere Christianity” as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, 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 at least read one old one to every three new ones.

–C.S. Lewis

Thanks to Between Two Worlds for jogging my memory. While Lewis presents this in a “Christian” context, I think the principle is easily applicable to all forms of knowledge, theories and ideas found in contemporary books. It is for this reason and a few others that I’ve begun the incredible journey of western thought starting from the pre-socratics. Understanding this continuum of tension and transformation is, in my view, a necessary component to fully understanding and responding to new and interesting ideas of our own day. The more familiar we are with the ideas of ages gone by the more we realize that many new ideas are not as new as they purport to be.

I finally finished reading N.T. Wright’s large tome “New Testament and the People of God” about a month ago. I have to say there are lots of great ideas in that book. Of course, as any good book will do, there were times when I disagreed entirely with some of Wright’s points. At the same time there were other points during my reading where I was glad to hear someone come to the same conclusions. The book was very much a dialogue for me. I had many ideas, questions and musings that troubled me that I had been attempting to resolve through reflection. Wright seems to have had similar experiences and wrote about many of these same challenges. Of course I still have questions, but Wright did go a long way to communicate a relatively coherrent method of discovering possible and probable answers to some of these questions.

What is most striking to me is that in this work Wright has the luxury of stepping past the theological implications of his observations. I’m sure he’s addressed these elsewhere in other works, but as a case in point I’ll focus on the normative power of narrative texts. Simply , this is the question (and answer) of how texts about true events (a narrative) have the power to prescribe behavior. Wright clearly believes that many of the events documented in Christian and Jewish literature actually occurred. What he does not touch in his text is how this affects us, if at all in ways beyond the simple narrative information. In other words, he completely dodges what most would consider almost foundational. Sure, we’ve read the story, but what is descriptive (merely a story) and what, if anything, is prescriptive. Wright’s take on it is far beyond what is reasonable post about. What I can appreciate, though, is Wright’s historical method. I believe his intention was to approach the subject from this perspective alone and delay the theological implications.

Understanding, to the best of our ability, what people said, thought and hoped for will go along way towards understanding texts that have been subjectivized far too often for the gain of other people or groups. Wright’s method provides a possible lens for the correct understanding the works of the New Testament writers without forcing a priori assumptions upon them. This, I think, takes a lot of courage. As you can see there is a lot to like and a lot to dislike (or disagree if you prefer) about this book, but like any lively and intelligient debate, it is well worth the effort.

It seems that many works of classic literature were meant for much more than aesthetic appeal. These works, no doubt, contain impressive aesthetic qualities such as vivid imagery, well structured prose and/or poetry and a compelling story. If it weren’t for these and many other elements I doubt these works would have and had such wide-ranging and lasting appeal. What is interesting to consider is that these works were predominantly used as vehicles to deliver moral, political and religious messages.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying a work of literature for this aesthetic appeal and one could spend a significant amount of time exploring and admiring this dimension of the text. We must remember, however, that the people who read or heard these works perhaps understood them in a way that exceeded this aesthetic dimension. We know that, for example, Plato loathed the poets for their irresponsible use power. There would be no reasonable explanation for Plato’s low view of this group if the works they produced were merely entertainment. The tales that the poets created and communicated carried with them very specific messages intended to subvert the minds of the audiences. This subversion was, of course, meant to draw the hearer into alignment with the poets view of the world.

Why does this matter? Or, perhaps more importantly, why do I bother with such distinctions? Because inasmuch as these are works of literature with aesthetic appeal they are also a reflection of the thoughts and ideas of ages gone by. We get a glimpse of some of these ideas as they circulated during their periods of authorship. Historical-critical analysis would sometimes use these works to see what types of stories people told in order to work backwards to determine beliefs, ideas and challenges. What we view as merely aesthetic appreciation or entertainment is much, much more. To embark on a mission of classical reading without a grasp of the wider world in which these works were authored is to miss the much larger dimension of the story the authors were trying to tell.

Can we get by with an entertainment only reading of these works? Of course we can and we will still grow in our understanding and appreciation of the authors and their cultures. But when we approach reading with the other dimensions in mind we experience a richer  aspect of the world in which the author and original readers lived. It interesting to note that we, for the most part, do this with modern works. These messages are not lost to us because we are much closer culturally and, at a minimum, temporally to the ideas. We can recognize with a fair degree of accuracy some of these moral, political and religious messages.

I finished my second read through of pages 1-24 in W.T. Jones’ “A History of Western Philosophy: The Classical Mind“. The next step in this process will be to read the sources. I’m using this book for now. Fortunately for me the writings we possess for this period are very few indeed. I stopped on page 24 because this is the place in the text where the shift from monism to pluralism occurs. I don’t intend to review the book much less rewrite it, but I do want to highlight some of the material and some of my observations.

It is intriguing to see the shift from beliefs in capricious almost child like gods as the sustaining force of the physical world to an almost entirely godless process-based explanation of the causation and presumed unity of this same world. I can imagine the reponse that these philosopher-scientists received from their contempories and culture at large. People don’t seem to change that much it seems, neither then or now. Most would want their understanding of things to remain fixed, to be of the type that can’t undergo change because it is so certain. Unfortunately for the Greeks during this time the monists were subverting everything that they considered, albeit in error, to be in this fixed category. Even we in this modern age (or is it post-post-modern?) would like the world neatly packaged, but this is of course only wishful thinking. (Yes, I believe we can know things, but that’s a different post.) These “innovators” were not content with the fantasic, super-natural and what we now call mythic accounts that attempted to answer questions about the world and its processes. When they looked at changes in water and air, the effects of fire and dynamic nature of the world they saw public, physical explanations that satisfied their ancient criteria for reasonable, possible and probable. They had real answers.

What many of these proto-philosophers did was explain the world and its unity through ostensive definitions. Thales would say, “See this water? This is the primary stuff of the world.” Anaximander and Anaximenes followed suit with their own unique perspectives. It seems that these chaps wanted to run far away from private musings to public facts that could be debated and challenged and openly discussed. What is a bit funny is the way in which they waffled back and forth between “public” data about the world’s unity and processes on one hand and a form of rationalism that clearly ignored the physical evidence on the other. Xenophanes may have thought reason to be more reliable than perceptions, but doesn’t that get it backwards? This dichotomy is, I think, best explained by the slow progression of these modes of discovery. Who could blame them for wanting to escape the power of the gods by offering rationalistic explanations of the physical world?!

A word about new ideas. We may today be a lot like the Greeks when new ideas are proposed. We may run for the hills, shoot the messenger or simply live in denial. However, newness does not mandate correctness or even adoption. It is not the case that only “new” (or fashionable in my view) ideas are the only ones of value and utility. It is the case, and this is what we forget sometimes, that when these new ideas do come along and they successfully refute the old ideas that we should at a minimum critically evaluate both of them. Not all new ideas are going to pass the reasonable, possible and probable tests enough to persuade us to change our view, but unless our understanding is certain we should be willing to put things to the test. Of course this presumes we want to come closer to the truth whether propositional or the kind that is certain. In the case of Thales, Anaximander, Xenophanes and others, they attempted to refute the old perceptions of the world and offer a new and, in their view, more accurate view of the world. Because of this, even though their conclusions are laughable to us now, I give them props.

For my summer reading I’m attempting to complete “In Defense of History” by Richard J. Evans. More closely related to a summary than original content, Evans attempts to communicate to the reader the current state of historical epistemology or, basically, how do we know things about history. This is an important concept that many, including myself until quite recently, took for granted. “It is simply a matter of reading primary sources”, I used to say. The reality of the situation is that we must deal with world views, intentions and training of the ancient or even modern historian. To be sure, these are only a few of the considerations. The challenge or even difficulty that I’ve stumbled upon is determining what criteria we use to determine if we are “on the right track” with regards to our analysis of events in the past. Restated, how do we know that our analysis is in-sync or a reflection of “what actually happened”? Evans’ book will, hopefully, summarize the various approaches taken by historians of all stripes. In reading the introduction I ran across this rather intriguing quote by Raymond Martin, “When it comes to understand the past, historians are the acknowledged experts. But when it comes to understanding how we understand the past, there are no experts.”

 

Not wanting to write a review or some half-baked overview I’ll just say that this book was great. It wasn’t great like a movie or a ride in a nice car, it was great because books like this present you with ideas and challenge you to change. I’m not necessarily talking about changing behavior, although there is plenty of that in this book, but, more fundamentally, changing your mind. Sometimes changing your mind is much more difficult than changing some outward behavior. Nothing was so new that I didn’t recognize the concepts or ideas, but Schaeffers compassion and sensitivity towards others is amazing and inspiring. Schaeffer is compassionate not because he supposes he is better or right (he does think he is ), but because he posssess some understanding about the plight of humankind. Okay, any more words here at it may become a report.

Here’s some of the ideas Schaeffer presents in this book. I won’t go into anything more that superficial detail here because, well, that’s what the book is for right?

The root of the problem is the erosion of truth and antithesis. Basic properties of truth and knowing have been ripped apart as a result of the Enlightenment and we are reaping the bountiful rewards.

Art, music and culture have been following in the wake of the redefinition of truth and knowledge.

Schaeffer provides the reader with the reasons why this redefinition is fundamentally flawed and leaves human beings more empty. He outlines the struggle out of the nothingness that many face. Finally, Schaeffer presents us with the solutions.

Schaeffer presents the reader with the god who is there. A god who truly exists and is not a fabrication. People should not take some mysterious leap into the void because this god is anchored to the reaility of this world.

It seems Schaeffer had years of practice here. His humility is anything but contrived. Understanding the situation we are in, he begs for compassion rather than arrogance, impatience and laughter. Real, honest communication with others regarding reality requires sensitivity, patience and real sacrifice. It costs everyone involved something to talk about the big ideas. We should therefore approach these encounters with respect.

Through the twists and turns of Plato’s Meno Socrates explores a variety of ideas that have as much value today as they did when Plato first penned this dialogue. The irony, of course, is that the interlocutor, Meno, wanted to know whether virtue was teachable. Socrates, responding in a typical fashion, states that he cannot answer this question without first knowing what virtue is. Through many failed attempts to define virtue we are taken on an interesting journey.

One of the ideas encountered near the end of this dialogue, when the Socratic dialectic has almost completely broken down, is the concept of true opinion. In the Meno Socrates defines true opinion as something which is true in reality, but, perhaps, not known as fact by the person in possession of this opinion. Socrates states that, as long as someone possesses true opinion, he will always be right.

Now this may seem obvious to some, but Socrates takes it a step further:

98C - So that right opinion will be no whit inferior to knowledge in worth or usefulness as regards our actions, nor will the man who has right opinion be inferior to him who has knowledge

Here Socrates equates true opinion and knowledge. In Socrates view these are one and the same. Or are they?

97E - For these (true opinions), so long as they stay with us, are a fine possession, and effect all that is good; but they do not care to stay for long, and run away out of the human soul, and thus are of no great value until one makes them fast with causal reasoning

There it is. There is one distinct and permanent advantage that knowledge has over true opinion. True opinion because it, in most cases, does “not care to stay for long, and runs away out of the human soul” has a serious deficiency.

Many replace knowledge with true opinion. In other words, there is a wholesale exchange going on. True opinion is equal in every way to real knowledge. Taken a step further false opinion has also been tossed in with true opinion. True opinion or unjustified beliefs simply, “become true for me” whether it is, in fact, a reflection of reality. Socrates didn’t scoff at true opinion as he understood it and also appreciated its utility, but he also understood the greater value of real knowledge:

98A - But when once they are fastened, in the first place they turn into knowledge, and in the second, are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more prized than right opinion: the one transcends the other by its trammels.

Sadly the search for knowledge or to make true opinion “stay for long” is, for the most part, a lost art. Bcause of this the possessors of this true opinion do not have the ability to determine if these opinions are in fact right. If they care at all. Yes, Socrates says that, because they are true they will always be right. I agree that the effects of this knowledge (moral decisions for example) will be right, but the owner will have no reasons to believe his opinions are true. I think Socrates hits it right on here with regards to true opinion being a bit inferior to knowledge. Reason can “fasten” this true opinions and transform them into real knowledge. The real question is, are we a Meno and simply too tired to do the heavy lifting required to discover these gems?