Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices. Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government . . . .
Joseph de Maistre, Against Rousseau: On the State of Nature and the Sovereignty of the People
De Maistre's statement above is extreme but it contains a kernel of insight. Let me see if I can isolate the kernel.
Thinking beyond the empirical is endless and leads to no fixed result. The conclusions of the philosophers are inconclusive. The strife of systems rages unabated across the centuries. Nothing is ever settled to the satisfaction of all competent practitioners. In a Kierkegaardian figure, philosophizing without dogma is like sewing without a knot at the end of one's thread. Thoughts are never stayed. Considerations and counter-considerations multiply and ramify, leading to protracted disputes. The protraction is unto infinity. Dispute impedes decision and action, including decisions and actions at the level of thought.
Not only is thinking inconclusive, it entangles itself in contradictions when left to run without sensory or dogmatic input. Think of Nagarjuna's tetralemmae, Sextus Empiricus' mutually canceling arguments, Kant's antinomies, etc. Or just plunge into the arcana discussed in the technical philosophy journals on any topic. Forget the strife of systems; philosophers cannot come to agreement on even the most carefully and precisely defined questions. Can anyone honestly think that real progress is being made on the narrowly defined questions over which philosophers, including this one, obsess? What goes for precisely defined technical questions whose human importance is low or non-existent, goes all the more for the broad questions of great human relevance.
"Human reason reduced to its own resources," if not perfectly worthless, is not capable of establishing any of the substantive and humanly important propositions about God, the soul, the nature of justice, and so on, that we need to know to flourish, and establish them in a manner that secures agreement among well-intentioned and intelligent truth-seekers. We need the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, and we need agreement on it, but we can secure neither by our own efforts, whether individual or collective. Or at least that is a very good induction from past philosophical experience.
Human reason needs input from a source outside it. (One cannot argue without premises, and not all premises can be argued for.) With respect to the Big Questions, sensory input is obviously of no use. Nor is mathematics, set theory and other formal disciplines. Foundational questions cannot be decided by the will of the people. Do you really want to put the principle of presumption of innocence up for democratic grabs? Consensus does not constitute truth, and in any case uncoerced consensus is not to be had.
One might turn to divine revelation. That would solve the problem if it were available. But revelation cannot be accepted at face value because there are competing revelations that cannot all be true. One is forced to distinguish putative and genuine revelation and to worry about the criteria of genuine revelation. Even if God gave us all the answers in a book, he didn't tell us which book it is.
But then we are back to the dialectic of endless consideration and counter-consideration. We have to think about which Scripture to credit and what any bit of it means. Sola scriptura leaves us in the lurch, and what, pray tell, is its Biblical basis? Theology must be brought in, but what is that if not applied philosophy, philosophy applied to the putative data of revelation. And so we are brought back to philosophy and the disagreement endemic thereto. To take but one example, the Christian and Muslim differ bitterly, and unto bloodshed, about the nature of God: radically One, or triune? And in each major and minor religion there are sectarian splits, and meta-splits on how to heal the various splits and whether it is even necessary to do so. You may be latitudinarian and inclusive, but not unto inclusion of those who are neither.
One can always wax dogmatic, but that is no satisfactory solution for a thoughtful person. Dogmas are decisions at the level of thought. The dogmatic pronunciamento cuts off thought, which is endlessly self-perpetuating, and there is something satisfying about bringing endless talk to a halt. Basta! Enough! We value decisiveness in people, despite the arbitrarity and willfulness of decision. Therein lies the appeal of the dictator who puts an end to parliamentary mewling and hand-wringing. We note in passing the bivalence of these words: 'strong-willed' has a positive, 'willful' a pejorative, connotation. Our very language reflects our predicament.
Action uninformed by thought is willful and one-sided. It is blind. Thought without action is effete and epicene. So we are in a fine pickle indeed, one of the many 'pickles' that make up our miserable but also exhilarating predicament. (And our condition is indeed a predicament: something is deeply wrong and we need to find a way out without the assurance that there is a way out.)
The problem, or part of it, is that considerations of the intellect alone cannot determine action. Will and de-cision come into it. At some point thinking needs abruptly to be cut off by free, hence undetermined, decision. Can the cut-off be achieved by a will that is not merely willful? Or is a free decision necessarily arbitrary in a bad sense?
Both thought and action breed disagreement, often bitter and protracted, and sometimes bloody. In the precincts of theoria there is the strife of systems. In the precincts of praxis, the strife of blood and iron. The conflicts in either sphere feed the conflicts in the other. Conflicts among minds and ideas stoke conflicts among bodies and interests, and conversely. Intra-spheric conflict drives inter-spheric conflict.
So the problem cannot be solved within either sphere. The spheres need to be bridged or mediated. Dogmas are one kind of mediating principle.
Dogmas are decisions at the level of thought. One takes action, or a group takes action, at the level of thought by enforcing a view that must be accepted with no further questions. Dogmas are attempts to stop thought and knot the thread on pain of something dire such as perdition or excommunication or the gulag. But these congealed thoughts are still thoughts and so will be questioned, doubted, and denied. Even if it is granted that the thread must be knotted somewhere, why here?
Dogmas are delivered by indoctrination, by inculcating them. The word is exactly right, its etymology suggesting a stamping in, as with the heel (calx, calcis). Inculcation is most effective with the young and defenseless, those still in de Maistre's cradle: "His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct."
But whose dogmas should line the cradle and be stamped into the young? No doubt there are good dogmas and good prejudices, but could a dogmatic method sort the good from the bad? One needs a critical method.
Human actions are embodied thoughts, thoughts made flesh. But if the thoughts are false or pernicious, then the actions will not be good.
What then should we say about the de Maistre quotation above? I believe I have laid bare the kernel of insight it contains: human reason is weak and needs guidance from without whether or not any such guidance is available. Reason is a very poor guide to life. Appeals to 'reason' are useless when not absurd. Whose 'reason'? How applied? And what exactly is this vaunted faculty anyway? And what is its reach? How reasonable was Kant's mapping of its limits in his Critique of Pure Reason? The "Come now, and let us reason together . . ." of Isaiah 1:18 has little application among men, whatever application it has between a man and God.
But what I have written above tenders no aid and comfort to the reactionary extremism of de Maistre. He sees what is wrong with the appeal to reason, but not what is wrong with its opposite, appeal to tradition and unexamined prejudices. The predicament we are in cannot be solved, if it can be solved, by veering off to either extreme.
I am tempted to say what Heidegger said in his Spiegel interview in 1966, the years before his death: Nur ein Gott kann uns retten.
