Category: Metaphilosophy

Notes on Burden of Proof and Defeasible Presumption

Since I don't understand this topic very well, I blog about it.  Nescio, ergo blogo!  Caveat lector!  The following notes are a blend of what I have gleaned from Nicholas Rescher and Douglas Walton and my own reflections.

1. Burden of Proof and Defeasible Presumption are correlative notions.  If there is a defeasible presumption in favor of not-p, then the burden of proof rests on the one who asserts p.  And if p is such that the burden of proof rests on the one who asserts it, then there is a defeasible presumption in favor of not-p.  BOP and DP are two sides of the same coin.

For example, in Anglo-American courts of law there is a defeasible presumption in favor of the innocence of the accused. One is presumed innocent until proven guilty.  This throws the onus probandi upon the state in criminal cases and upon the plaintiff in civil cases.  The presumption of non-guilt induces the burden of proving guilt.

For a second example consider the practice of safety-conscious gun handlers in non-combat situations. Their presumption is that every gun is loaded; this puts the BOP on the one who claims the opposite.  In a combat situation, or just prior to one, however, it is the other way around: the wise soldier does not presume that his weapon is ready to fire; he checks and makes sure.  There is a defeasible presumption that his weapon is unloaded, and the burden is on him to prove that it is loaded.  Either way we have the correlativity of BOP and DP.

This suggests the context-relativity of judgments as to where the BOP lies.

2.  Presumption that p is true is not to be confused with (high) probability that p is true.  If a gun dealer has just received a shipment of  tactical shotguns from Remington the manufacturer, then the probability is very high that none of these guns is loaded.  And yet his safety-conscious presumption will be that they are loaded.  Similarly in a court of law.  The accused is presumed innocent even when the probability of his being innocent is low  or even zero.  (E.g., Jack Ruby's shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald.)

3. Proof  is a logical concept, but burden of proof is not.  Perhaps we could say that BOP lays down a rule of proper conduct in dialectical situations.  The rule pertains to the 'ethics of argumentation.'  The rule is that he who advances a thesis, by so doing, incurs the obligation to substantiate his thesis by adducing reasons or considerations in in its favor, and by answering objections.

4. Accordingly, there is both a burden of proof and a burden of reply.  The proponent of a thesis has the initial burden of defending his thesis.  This remains constant throughout the dialectical proceedings.  But if his opponent lodges a good objection, then the proponent has the additional burden of replying to the objection.  A further complication is that the opponent in the course of objecting to the proponent's contention may make a claim that itself needs defense, in which case the burden of proof shifts onto the opponent in respect of that claim. 

Bearing this in mind, we see the need to nuance the claim advanced in #1 above according to which the onus probandi in Anglo-American law rests on the state or on the plaintiff.  That is true with respect to the initial allegation, but the defense may assume burdens of proof depending on how it builds its case.

5. Presumptions make up the doxastic status quo.  And so it appears that a certain conservatism is inherent in laying the burden proof on those who would defeat presumptions.  This needs to be explored.

6. Wherein resides the rationality of a presumption?  Rescher claims in his book on presumptions that the rationality of a presumption consists in its conformity to a well-established practive, and that it is not a matter of evidence.  This too needs to be explored.

Burden of Proof in Philosophy: Preliminary Thoughts

A reader asks about burden of proof in philosophy.  I really ought to have a worked-out theory on this, but I don't.  Here are some very tentative remarks.

1. In the law it is clear where the burden of proof lies: on the plaintiff in a civil case and on the prosecutor in a criminal case.  The party bringing the charge must show that the accused is guilty; the accused does not have to show that he is innocent.  One is presumed innocent until proven guilty.  To be presumed innocent is of course not to be innocent.  It is simply false that one is innocent of a crime unless or until proven guilty.  And to be found innocent/guilty is not to be innocent/guilty.  O. J. Simpson, for example, was found innocent of a double homicide.  But I have no doubt in my mind that he was guilty.  I don't mean that autobiographically as a report on my mental state; I mean the S.O.B. really was guilty.  Agree with me on this or not, you must agree that someone found innocent can be guilty and someone found guilty can be innocent. 

We should distinguish between burden of proof and standards of proof.  In the criminal law, the probative standard for guilt is 'beyond a reasonable doubt,' while in civil cases the standard is less demanding: 'preponderance of the evidence.'

2. In philosophy it is not often clear where the burden of proof lies, nor what our probative standards ought to be.  (What the hell did you expect?)  'Proof' can be used in a very strict way to refer to a valid deductive argument with objectively self-evident premises.  But this is not what 'proof' means in 'burden of proof.'  It means something like: burden of argument or burden of persuasion.   It means that some claims need to be argued for, and some don't.  Or perhaps: there is a (perhaps defeasible) presumption in favor of some claims but not in favor of their negations. 

For example, I would say there is a defeasible presumption in favor of the claim that drinking coffee in moderate amounts carries no health risk for most people.  So the burden of proof would be on a researcher who claims that coffee-drinking causes pancreatic cancer.  And because the evidence that coffee-drinking is harmless is so strong,  the probative bar the researcher must clear is correspondingly high.  The researcher needs to give strong evidence for his claim; the rest of us don't need to do anything.

Now consider the Holocaust denier, the 9/11 'truther,' the Obama 'birther,' and the Osama-was-killed-in 2001 kook.  Clearly, the burden lies on them to make their respective cases, and good luck to them.  The appropriate thing to say to those of this stripe is "Put up or shut up."  That 9/11 was an 'inside job' is a claim of such low antecedent probability that the case for it must be correspondingly strong.

A more philosophical example is provided by my present dispute with Peter Lupu about the modal principle that states that if proposition p is necessary, and p entails proposition q, then q is necessary.  He thinks he has found a counterexample to this principle.  Where does the onus probandi lie, and why?  It seem clear to me that the burden lies on Peter since he is controverting a well-known principle of elementary modal propositional logic.  (See. e.g., K. Konyndyk, Introductory Modal Logic, U. of Notre Dame Press, 1986, p. 32.) The burden does not lie on me since I am invoking a well-established, uncontroversial principle. 

Can we generalize from this example and say that whenever one controverts something well-established and long-accepted one assumes the burden of proof?   I doubt it.  Galileo defied Aristotle and the Church when he made certain empirically-based claims about the moon.  He claimed that the moon was not a perfect sphere.  As the story goes, the Church authorties refused to look through his telescope.  But it is at least arguable that the onus probandi rested on the authorities since they were flying in the face of sense perception.

But I hesitate to say that whenever one's case is based on sense perception one can shirk the burden of proof.

3.  I doubt that there is any criterion that allows us to sort claims that need proof or argument from those that don't.  Or can you think of one?  Some maintain that whenever a person make a claim to the effect that X exists, then the burden of proof is on him.  Well, it is in some cases, but surely not in all.  If you claim that extraterrestrial intelligent beings exist, then the burden is on you.  But if you claim that there are Saguaro cacti in Arizona, then the burden of proof is not on you but on the one who denies it.

Others seem to think that whenever one makes an affirmative claim one assumes a burden of proof.  Not so.  'That hillside is studded with Saguaros' said to my hiking companion needs no proof.  I shoulder no probative burden when I make a commonplace observation such as that.

4. Burden of proof and the ad ignorantiam 'fallacy.'  Gun instructors sometimes say that every gun is loaded.  That is plainly false as is stands, but a wise saying nonetheless if interpreted to mean: every gun is to be presumed loaded until proven unloaded.  So if  person A claims to person B that a certain gun is unloaded, the burden of proof is on him to show that it is unloaded; person B does not bear the burden of proving that it is loaded.  Indeed it seems that B would be within his epistemic rights were he to claim that his ignorance of whether or not the gun is loaded is good evidence of its being loaded.  But this is an appeal to ignorance.  It has not been shown that ~p; therefore p gives us the form of the ad ignoratiam 'fallacy.'  But in this case the appeal to ignorance seem nonfallacious.  Safety considerations dictate a defeasible presumption in favor of every gun's being loaded, a presumption that shifts the onus probandi onto the one who maintains the opposite.

The situation is similar to that in a court of law.  The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty, so the burden of proof rests on either the state or the plaintiff.  In a criminal case the probative bar is set high: the accused has to be shown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  Here too there is a legitimate appeal to ignorance: it has not been shown that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; therefore, he is not guilty.

There are 'safety' considerations in both the gun example and the law example.  It is because we want to be on the safe side — and not get shot — that we presume every gun to be loaded.  And it is because we want to be on the safe side — and not sentence an innocent person — that we presume the accused to be innocent until proven guilty.

But now what about God?  Don't safety considerations apply here as well? If God exists, then our ultimate happiness depends on getting into right relation with him.  So why can't one make a legitimate appeal to ignorance here?  Now of course from the fact that no one has proven that God does not exist, it does not follow that God exists.  That is an invalid deductive argument.  That would be a truly fallacious instance of ad ignorantiam.  But it is also invalid to infer than a gun is loaded because it hasn't been proven to be loaded, or that a man is innocent because he hasn't been proven to be guilty.  It just doesn't follow in any of these cases.  And yet we reasonably consider the gun loaded and we reasonably find the accused to be innocent.  And so why can't we reasonably presume God to exist on the basis of the fact that he hasn't been shown not to exist?  If the burden of proof rests on the one who claims that gun is unloaded, why doesn't the burden of proof rest on the one who claims that God is nonexistent?  We don't want to get shot, but we also don't want to lose our ultimate beatitude — if ultimate beatitude there be. 

You can't say that that the burden of proof rests on the theist because he is making a positive claim; for there are positive claims that need no proof.  And you can't say that the burden of proof rests on the theist becuase he is making an existential claim; for there are existential claims — I gave an example above — that need no proof.  Nor can you say that the burden rests on the theist because he is controverting the widely-accepted; the consensus gentium is that God exists.

But I suppose you could reasonably say that the burden rests on the theist since he is making a claim that goes well beyond what is empirically verifiable.

Realism and Idealism

An excerpt from an e-mail by Chris C., with responses in blue.

. . . I read your post on Butchvarov's latest paper, and you made clear your argument about the problem with the crucial step in the "idealist" position; then you closed with the assertion that realism has its own set of problems.  Granted that that's obviously true, I was wondering if you had a piece, whether a paper or a blog post, that elucidated your positions on 1) Why, although you think ultimately he is wrong, you also think Butch's position is a serious alternative to realism; and 2) Why, despite its problems, you believe realism addresses those problems adequately.

That post ended rather abruptly with the claim, "Metaphysical realism, of course, has its own set of difficulties."  I was planning to say a bit more, but decided to quit since the post was already quite long by 'blog' standards.  Brevity, after all, is the soul, not only of wit, but of blog.  I was going to add something like this:

My aim in criticizing Butchvarov and other broadly Kantian idealists/nonrealists is not  to resurrect an Aristotelian or Aristotelian-Thomistic theory of knowledge, as if those gentlemen clearly had the truth, a truth we have somehow, post Descartes, forgotten.  My aim is to throw the problems themselves into the starkest relief possible.  This is in line with my conception of philosophy as fundamentally aporetic: the problems come first, solutions second, if ever.  A philosopher cannot be true to his vocation if he is incapable of inhibiting the very strong natural tendency to want answers, solutions, definite conclusions which he can live by and which will provide 'doxastic security' and legitimation of his way of life.    You are not a philosopher if you are out for solutions at all costs.  As Leo Strauss points out near the beginning of his essay on Thucydides, and elsewhere, the unum necessarium for the philosopher, the one thing needful, is free inquiry.  Inquiry, however, uncovers problems, difficulties, questions, and some of these are reasonably viewed as insolubilia.

The philosopher, therefore, is necessarily in tension with ideologues and dogmatists who claim to be in possession of the truth.  What did Socrates claim to know?  That he didn't know.  Of course, to be in secure possession of the truth (which implies knowing that one is in secure possession of it) is a superior state to be in than in the state of forever seeking it.  Obviously, knowing is better than believing, and seeing face-to-face is better than "seeing through a glass darkly." On the other hand, to think one has the truth when one doesn't is to be in a worse state than the state of seeking it.  For example, Muhammad Atta and the boys, thinking they knew the truth, saw their way clear to murdering 3000 people.

Your first question:  How can I believe that Butch's position is untenable while also considering it a serious alternative to realism?  Because I hold open the possibility that all extant (and future) positions are untenable.  In other words, I take seriously the possibility that the central problems of philosophy are genuine (contra the logical positivists, the later Wittgenstein, and such Freudian-Wittgensteinian epigoni as Morris Lazerowitz), important  — what could count as important if problems relating to God and the soul are not important? — but absolutely insoluble by us. 

Your second question:  How can I believe that metaphysical realism, despite its problems, addresses those problems adequately?  Well, I don't believe it addresses them adequately.

I would say your book is pretty much a response to those questions, but what I'm looking for is your understanding of what makes Butch's position so powerful.  What I have in mind is something like what [Stanley] Rosen does in The Elusiveness of the Ordinary, where in a couple of essays he makes clear that there is not going to be a way based on analysis or deduction to adjudicate between the Platonic and the Kantian claims – that is, the claims, respectively, that the "Forms" are external and mind-independent and that they are internal and mind-dependent.  The final two essays in the aforementioned book are Rosen's attempt to provide a way to tip the scales in favor of Plato, and I have to say I haven't really seen a better way to do it.

I haven't read Rosen's book, but I will soon get hold of it.  It will be interesting to see whether he has a compelling rational way of tipping the scales.

The point is that I was wondering if you thought, along those lines, that roughly speaking your form of realism and Butch's form of idealism form a similar sort of "fundamental alternative" in the way Rosen believes Platonism and Kantianism do.  And if so, I would be interested to see your take on what makes Butch's idealism (again roughly speaking) as something that cannot be truly defeated, but rather must be established as something of a less plausible vision of how things really stand.
 
Can any philosophical position be "truly defeated"?  I assume that we cherish the very highest standards of intellectual honesty and rigor and we are able to inhibit the extremely strong life-enhacing need for firm beliefs and tenets (etymologically from L. tenere, to hold, so that a tenet is literally something one holds onto for doxastic security and legitimation of one's modus vivendi.)  Now there are some sophomoric positions that can be definitively defeated, e.g., the relativist who maintains both that every truth is relative and that his thesis is nonrelatively true.  But in the history of philosophy has even one substantive position ever been "truly defeated," i.e., defeated to the satisfaction of all competent practioners?  (A competent practioner is one who possesses all the relevant moral and intellectual virtues, is apprised of all relevant empirical facts, understands logic, etc.)  I would say No.  But perhaps you have an example for me. 
 
Now why don't I think that I have defeated Butchvarov on any of the points we dispute?  Part of the reason is that he does not admit defeat.  If I cannot bring him to see that he is wrong about, say, nonexistent objects, then this gives me a very good reason to doubt that I am right and have truly refuted his position.  It seems to me that, unless one is an ideologue or a dogmatist, one must be impressed by the pervasive and long-standing fact of dissensus among the best and brightest.  Of course, I could be right and Butch wrong.  If he maintains that p and I maintain that not-p, then one of us is right and the other wrong.  But which one?  If I do not know that I am right, or know that he is wrong, then I haven't solved the problem that divides us.  It is not enough to be right, one must know that one is right and be able to diagnose convincingly how they other guy went wrong.
As for Platonism versus Kantianism, see my post on another latter-day Kantian, Milton Munitz, espceically the section on Platonic and Kantian intelligibility.  My Existence book avoids both Kantianism and Platonism by adopting an onto-theological idealism.  If the reality of the real traces back to divine mind, that is reality and realism enough, but it is also a form of idealism in that the real is not independent of mind as such.
 
As I've indicated in previous emails, I have always taken realism as a presumptive truth (in a general way) and I thus place the burden of truth [proof]  on idealism.  Kant impressed me, but he didn't convince me, and consequently I've never understood what it was exactly in realism that made people jump into the idealist camp.  That is, I've never understood that basic shift where someone takes idealism as presumptively true and thus places the burden of proof on realism.  What was so bad about realist arguments that made idealism so attractive as an alternative for these thinkers?
 
Well, this is a very large topic, but you can glean some idea of what motivated Kant to make his transcendental turn from his famous 1772 letter to Marcus Herz, part of which is here.  And then there is the metaphilosophical topic of burden of proof.  How does one justify a claim to the effect that the burden of proof lies on one or the other side of a dispute?  For you there is a (defeasible?) presumption in favor of realism, and that therefore the onus probandi lies on the nonrealist.  But what criteria do you employ in arriving at this judgment?

Why Dennis Prager Didn’t Major in Philosophy

Just now I heard Prager say on his radio show that he didn't major in philosophy because on the first day of a philosophy class he heard the professor say that what would be discussed in the class was whether we exist.  I'll leave it to you philosophy teachers out there to make of this what you can, though I suggest an important moral or two can be extracted from it.

Philosophy Under Attack: An Exercise in Philosophical Apologetics

Philosophy’s place in the world has always been precarious and embattled. The assaults on our fair mistress are of two sorts. I am not concerned on this occasion with brutal ad baculum suppression, but with objections of an intellectual or quasi-intellectual nature. By my count, such objections come from as many directions as there are deadly sins, namely, seven. What are they, and how might we respond? What follows are notes toward an apologia for the philosophical life.

Continue reading “Philosophy Under Attack: An Exercise in Philosophical Apologetics”

Philosophy Under Attack at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Start with this piece by Todd Edwin Jones, chairman of the UNLV philosophy department:  Budgetary Hemlock: Nevada Seeks to Eliminate Philosophy.  The original plan to eliminate the philosophy department entirely has apparently been revised.  See here. Excerpt:

UNLV’s College of Liberal Arts received news Tuesday from its dean of a revised budget-cutting plan that includes the elimination of non-tenured professors in the philosophy, anthropology and sociology departments.

This is a departure from the college’s previously stated plans, which recommended the philosophy department be cut entirely. The women’s studies department, also previously slated for elimination, is still on the chopping block. Women’s studies, philosophy, anthropology and sociology have the least amount of majors within the college, which also includes political science, psychology and English.

Professor Jones' defense of philosophy's role in the university curriculum  takes a familiar tack:  philosophy is useful because it teaches critical thinking.  Jones writes,

. . . people think of philosophy as a luxury only if they don’t really understand what philosophy departments do. I teach one of the core areas of philosophy, epistemology: what knowledge is and how we obtain it. People from all walks of life—physicists, physicians, detectives, politicians—can only come to good conclusions on the basis of thoroughly examining the appropriate evidence. And the whole idea of what constitutes good evidence and how certain kinds of evidence can and can’t justify certain conclusions is a central part of what philosophers study.

Now I don't doubt that courses in logic, epistemology, and ethics can help inculcate habits of critical thinking and good judgment.  And it may also be true that philosophy has a unique role to play here.  So, while it is true that every discipline teaches habits of critical thinking and good judgment in that discipline, there are plenty of issues that are not discipline-specific, and these need to be addressed critically as well.

What I object to, however, is the notion that philosophy needs to justify itself in terms of an end external to it, and that its main justification  is in terms of an end outside of it.  The main reason to study philosophy is not to become a more critical reasoner or a better evaluator of evidence, but to grapple with the ultimate questions of human existence and to arrive at as much insight into them  as is possible.  What drives philosophy is the desire to know the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters.  Let's not confuse a useful byproduct of philosophical study (development of critical thinking skills) with  goal of philosophical study.  The reason to study English literature is not to improve one's vocabulary.  Similarly, the reason to study philosophy is not to improve one's ability to think clearly about extraphilosophical matters or to acquire skills that will prove handy in law school. 

Philosophy is an end in itself.  This is why it is foolish to try to convince philistines that it is good for something.  It is not primarily good for something.  It is a good in itself.  Otherwise you are acquiescing in the philistinism you ought to be combating.  Is listening to the sublime adagio movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony good for something?  And what would that be, to impress people with how cultured you are?

To the philistine's "Philosophy bakes no bread" you should not respond "Yes it does," for such reponses are lame.  (Doesn't Professor Jones' apologia for his way of earning his bread strike you as slightly lame?)  You should say, "Man does not live by bread alone," or "Not everything is pursued as a means to something else," or "A university is not a trade school."

Admittedly, this is a lofty conception of philosophy and I would hate to have to defend it before the uncomprehending philistines one would expect to find on the Board of Regents.  But philosophy is what it is, and if we are to defend it we must do so in a way that does not betray it.

Philosophy, Religion, Mysticism, and Wisdom

Dennis E. Bradford sent me three comments via e-mail on my recent Butchvarov post.  I omit the first and the third which are more technical in nature, and which I may address in later posts.    Bradford writes,

Second, and this separates me from Butch, Larry [Blackman], and you, I reject your assumption concerning the narrowness of philosophy.  You mention a conceptual impasse that is “insoluble on the plane of the discursive intellect, which of course is where philosophy must operate.”  I object to the “of course.”  To be a philosopher is to be a lover of wisdom and who says that our only access to wisdom is via the discursive intellect?   In fact, I deny that.  As far as I can tell, the Buddha was the greatest philosopher and the wisest human who ever lived, and his view was that limiting our examination only to the domain of the discursive intellect prevents one from becoming wise.

Actually, I don't disagree with this comment.  It is a matter of terminology, of how we should use the word 'philosophy.'  For me there are at least four ways to the Absolute, philosophy, religion, mysticism, and morality.  This post provides rough sketches of how I view the first three.  I end by suggesting that the pursuit of wisdom involves all three 'postures.'  (Compare the physical postures in the three pictures below.)

 

Rodin

Philosophy

Philosophy is not fundamentally a set of views but an activity whereby a questing individual, driven by a need to know the truth, applies discursive reason to the data of life in an attempt to arrive at the ultimate truth about them. Discursive reason is reason insofar as it articulates itself in concepts, judgments, arguments, and systems of argument. As the etymology of the term suggests (L. currere, to run), discursive reason is roundabout rather than direct — as intuitive reason would be if there is such a thing. Discursive reason gets at its object indirectly via concepts, judgments, and arguments. This feature of discursive reason makes for objectivity and communicability; but it exacts a price, and the price must be paid in the coin of loss of concreteness. Thus the oft-heard complaint about the abstractness of philosophy is not entirely without merit.

Note that I define philosophy in terms of the activity of discursive reason: any route to the truth that does not make use of this ‘faculty’ is simply not philosophy. You may take this as a stipulation if you like, but it is of course more than this, grounded as it is in historical facts. if you want to know what philosophy is, read Plato.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson says somewhere, "Philosophy is Plato, and Plato philosophy."  (I quote from memory!)  And there is this from  Keith's blog. 

The nearest thing to a safe definition of the word "philosophy", if we wish to include all that has been and will be correctly so called, is that it means the activity of Plato in his dialogues and every activity that has arisen or will arise out of that.

(Richard Robinson, "Is Psychical Research Relevant to Philosophy?" The Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume 24 [1950]: 189-206, at 192.)

This is in line with my masthead motto which alludes to the famous observation of Alfred North Whitehead:

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.  I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings.  I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.  [. . .] Thus in one sense by stating my belief that the train of thought in these lectures is Platonic, I am doing no more than expressing the hope that it falls within the European tradition. (Process and Reality, Corrected Edition, The Free Press, 1978, p. 39)

Discursivity, then, is essential to philosophy as a matter of definition, a definition that is not merely stipulative but grounded in a possibility of our nature that was best realized in Plato and what he gave rise to.

Thus Jesus of Nazareth was not a philosopher, pace George Bush. If you insist that he was, then I will challenge you to show me the arguments whereby he established such dicta as "I and the Father are one," etc. I will demand the premises whence he arrived at this ‘conclusion.’ Argument and counterargument before the tribunal of reason are the sine qua non of philosophy, its veritable lifeblood. The truth is that Jesus gave no arguments, made no conjectures, refuted no competing theories. There is no dialectic in the Gospels such as we find in the Platonic dialogues. This is not an objection to Jesus’ life and message, but simply an underscoring of the fact that he was not a  philosopher. (But I have a nagging sense that Dallas Willard says something to the contrary somewhere.)  Believing himself to be one with the Father, Jesus of course believed himself to be one with the ultimate truth. Clearly, no such person is a mere philo-sopher, etymologically, a lover of wisdom; he is rather (one who makes a claim to being) a possessor of it. The love of the philosopher, as Plato’s Symposium made clear, is erothetic love, a love predicated on lack; it is not agapic love, love predicated on plenitude. The philosopher is an indigent fellow, grubbing his way forward bit by bit as best he can, by applying discursive reason to the data of experience. God is no philosopher, thank God!

Agreeing with Bradford that a philosopher is a lover of wisdom, I yet insist that he is a lover and pursuer of wisdom by dialectical means, assuming we are going to use 'philosopher' strictly.  This use of terms does not rule out other routes to wisdom, routes that may prove more efficacious.

Indeed, since philosophy examines everything, including itself  (its goals, its methods, its claim to cognitivity), philosophy must also examine whether it is perhaps an inferior route to truth or no route to truth at all!

Genuflection Religion

Religion (from L. religere, to bind) is not fundamentally a collection of rites, rituals, and dogmas, but an activity whereby a questing individual, driven by a need to live in the truth, as opposed to know it objectively in propositional guise, seeks to establish a personal bond with the Absolute. Whereas philosophy operates with concepts, judgments, arguments and theories, religion proceeds by way of faith, trust, devotion, and love. It is bhaktic rather than jnanic, devotional rather than discriminative.  The philosophical project, predicated on the autonomy of reason, is one of relentless and thus endless inquiry in which nothing is immune from examination before the reason’s bench. But the engine of inquiry is doubt, which sets philosophy at odds with religion with its appeal to revealed truth.  If the occupational hazard of the philospher is a life-inhibiting scepticism, the corresponding hazard for the religionist is a dogmatic certainty that can easily turn murderous. For a relatively recent example, consider the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie. (This is why such zealots of the New Atheism as Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, Grayling, et al. are not completely mistaken.)

The philosopher objects to the religionist: "You believe things for which you have no proof!" The religionist replies to the philosopher: "You sew without a knot in your thread!" I am not engaging in Zen mondo, but alluding to Kierkegaard’s point that to philosophize without dogma is like sewing without a knot in one’s thread. The philosopher will of course reply that to philosophize with dogma is not to philosophize at all. Here we glimpse one form of the conflict beween philosophy and religion as routes to the Absolute. If the philosopher fails to attain the Absolute because discursive reason dissolves in scepticism, the religionist often attains what can only be called a pseudo-Absolute, an idol.

The reader must of course take these schematic  remarks cum grano salis. It would be simple-minded to think that cold impersonal reason (philosophy) stands in simple and stark confrontation to warm personal love (religion). For philosophy is itself a form of love –- erothetic love – of the Absolute, and without the inspiring fervor of this longing love, the philosopher would not submit himself to the rigorous logical discipline, the mental asceticism, without which serious philosophy is impossible. (I speak of real philosophers, of course, and not mere paid professors of it.) Good philosophy is necessarily technical, often mind-numbingly so. (The reader may verify that the converse of this proposition does not hold.) Only a lover of truth will put up with what Hegel called die Anstrengung des Begriffs, the exertion of the concept. On the other hand, religious sentiments and practices occur in a context of beliefs that are formulated and defended in rational terms, including those beliefs that cannot be known by unaided reason but are vouchsafed to us by revelation. So in pursuit of taxonomy we must not fall into crude compartmentalization. The philosopher has his devotions and the religionist has his reasonings.

Buddha Mysticism

Turning now to mysticism, we may define it as the activity whereby a questing individual, driven by a need for direct contact with the Absolute, disgusted with verbiage and abstraction as well as with mere belief and empty rites and rituals, seeks to know the Absolute immediately, which is to say, neither philosophically through the mediation of concepts, judgments and arguments, nor religiously through the mediation of faith, trust, devotion, and adherence to tradition. The mystic does not want to know about the Absolute, that it exists, what its properties are, how it is related to the relative plane, etc.; nor does he want merely to believe or trust in it. He does not want knowledge by description, but knowledge by acquaintance. Nor is he willing, like the religionist, to postpone his enjoyment of it. He wants it, he wants it whole, and he wants it now. He wants to verify its existence for himself here and now in the most direct way possible: by intuiting it. ‘Intuition’ is a terminus technicus: it refers to direct cognitive access to an object or state of affairs. You should think of the the Latin intuitus as used by Descartes, and the German Anschauung as used by Kant. The intuition in question is of course not sensible but intellectual. Thus the mystical ‘faculty’ is that of intellectual intuition. The possibility of intellektuelle Anschauung was of course famously denied by Kant.

 Wisdom

The ultimate goal for a human being is wisdom which could be characterized as knowledge of, and participation in, the saving truth.  One who attains this goal is a sage.  No philosopher is a sage, by definition.  For a philosopher, as a lover (seeker) of wisdom, is not a possessor of it.  One does not seek what one possesses.  The philosopher's love is eros, love predicated on lack.    At most, the philosopher is a would-be sage, one for whom philosophy (as characterized above) is a means to the end of becoming a sage.  If a philosopher attains the Goal, then he ceases to be a philosopher.  If a philosopher gets a Glimpse of the Goal, in that moment he ceases to be a philosopher, but then, after having lost the Glimpse (which is what usually happens) he is back to being as philosopher again.

At this point a difficult question arises.  Is philosophy a means to sagehood, or a distraction from it?  I grant that the ultimate Goal cannot be located on the discursive plane.  What one ultimately wants is not an empty conceptual knowledge but a fulfilled knowledge.  Some say that when a philosopher seeks God, he attains only a 'God of the philosophers,' an abstraction.  (See my Pascal and Buber on the God of the Philosophers.)  The kernel of truth in this is that discursive operations typically do not bring one beyond the plane of discursivity.  One thought leads to another, and another, and another . . . and never to the Thinker 'behind' them or the divine Other. 

And so one might decide that philosophy is useless — "not worth an hour's trouble" as Pascal once said — and that one ought  either to follow the path of religion or that of mysticism.  That is not my view, for reasons I will need a separate post to explain.

For now I will say only this.  Philosophy is not enough.  It needs supplementation by the other paths mentioned.    Analogy.  You go to a restaurant to eat, not to study the menu.  But reading the menu is a means to the end of ordering and enjoying the meal.  Philosophy is like reading the menu; eating is like attaining the Goal. 

But it is also the case that religion and mysticism require the discipline of philosophy.  There is a lot to be said on these topics, and it will be the philosopher who will do the saying.  The integration of the faculties falls to philosophy, and an integrated life is what we aspire to, is it not?  We seek to avoid the onesidedness of the philosopher, but also the onesidedness of the mystic, of the religionist, of the moralist, not to mention the onesidedness of  the moneygrubber, the physical fitness fanatic, etc.

In Defense of Eclecticism

From an English reader:

The extraordinary eclecticism of the Maverick Philosopher blog has struck me with unusual force just recently. This diversity of interest  is what keeps me reading – though sometimes I stare at your commentaries in ignorant awe.

I'll never get up to speed with many of your discussions, and give up on some of them. I've wondered how many of your readers are capable of understanding at whatever level you choose to communicate.

Although the kind reader praises my eclecticism, his comment provides me an occasion to mount a defense of it.

I've had people ask me why I don't just stick to one thing, philosophy, or, more narrowly, my areas of expertise in philosophy.  Some like my philosophy posts but cannot abide my politics.  And given the overwhelming preponderance of liberals and leftists in academe, my outspoken conservatism not only reduces my readership but also injures my credibility among many.  I am aware of that, and I accept it.  Leftists, being the bigots that many of them are, cannot take seriously anything a conservative says.  But conservatives ought nevertheless  to exercise their free speech rights and exercise them fearlessly, standing up for what believe to be right.  Surely, if liberals are serious about diversity, they will want a diversity of ideas discussed!  Or is it only racial and sex diversity that concern them? 

I should add that I do not hold it against any young conservative person trying to make his way in a world that is becoming ever more dangerously polarized that he hide his social and political views.  It is easy for a tenured individual, or one like me who has established himself in independence, to criticize those who hide behind pseudonyms.   I hesitate to criticize, not being exposed to the dangers they are exposed to.  That being said, I hate pseudonyms.  Do you have something to say?  Say it like a man (or a woman) in your own name.  Pseudonyms are for wimps and cyberpunks, generally speaking.  I am reminded of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signatory to the Declaration of Independence.  He signed his name 'Charles Carroll of Carrollton' which leaves little doubt  about his identity. There is such a thing as civil courage.

My weblog is not about just one thing because my life is not about just one thing.  As wretched as politics is, one ought to stand up for what's right and do one's bit to promote enlightenment.  Too many philosophers abdicate, retreating into their academic specialties. (Cf. The Abdication of Philosophy: Philosophy and the Public Good,  ed. Freeman, Open Court, 1976)  Not that I am sanguine about what people like me can do.  But philosophers can contribute modestly to the clarification of issues and arguments and the debunking of various sorts of nonsense.  Besides, the pleasures of analysis and commentary are not inconsiderable.

"But why the polemical tone?"

I say polemics has no place in philosophy.  But it does have a place in politics.  Political discourse is unavoidably polemical. The zoon politikon must needs be a zoon polemikon. ‘Polemical’ is from the Greek polemos, war, strife. According to Heraclitus of Ephesus, strife is the father of all: polemos panton men pater esti . . . (Fr. 53) I don't know about the 'all,' but strife  is certainly at the root of politics.  Politics is polemical because it is a form of warfare: the point is to defeat the opponent and remove him from power, whether or not one can rationally persuade him of what one takes to be the truth. It is practical rather than theoretical in that the aim is to implement what one takes to be the truth rather than contemplate it.  'What one takes to be the truth': that is the problem in a nutshell.  Conservatives and leftists disagree fundamentally and nonnegotiably.  We won't be able to achieve much if anything by way of convincing each other; but we will clarify our differences thereby coming to understand ourselves and our opponents better.  And we may even find a bit of common ground.

"OK, you've explained the admixture of politics.  But you talk about such a wide range of philosophical topics.  Isn't there something unprofessional about that?  Surely you are not an expert with respect to every topic you address!"   

There is no good philosophy without a certain amount of specialization and 'technique.'  Not all technical pilosophy is good, but most good philosophy is technical.  Too many outsiders wrongly dismiss technical philosophy as logic-chopping and hairsplitting.  That being understood, however, specialization can quickly lead to overspecialization and a concomitant loss of focus on the ultimate issues that brought one to philosophy in the first place, or ought to have brought one to philosophy in the first place.  There is something absurd about someone who calls himself a philosopher and yet devotes most of his energy to the investigation of anaphora or epistemic closure principles.  There is nothing wrong with immersing oneself in arcana: to each his own.  But don't call it philosophy if burrowing in some scholarly cubbyhole becomes your be-all and end-all.

Study EVERYTHING, join nothing.

‘Practical’ and Religious Attitudes Toward Philosophy

Philosophy is unserious to the onesidedly worldly and 'practical' because it bakes no bread. To which the best response is: "Man does not live by bread alone." 

To the onesidedly religious, philosophy is unserious because it begets pride and does not lead unto salvation. "Not worth an hour's trouble," said Pascal with Descartes in his sights. Both types, the worldly and the religious, dismiss philosophy as 'mere theory' and 'empty speculation' but for opposite reasons. 

Strangely enough, both types make use of it when it suits their purposes. Each justifies his own position philosophically. How else could he justify it? Assertions and arguments about philosophy are philosophical assertions and arguments — and it cannot be otherwise. Such assertions and arguments cannot come from below philosophy, nor can they come from above it: metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy.

Blaise Pascal wrote a big fat book of Pensées — and a magnificent book it was. But why did he bother if philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble? Because he made an exception in his own case: his philosophy, he felt, was different! Well, all philosophers feel that way. All feel themselves to be questing for the truth as for something precious, even when they, like Nietzsche, say things that imply that there is no truth. None feel themselves to be engaged in 'empty speculation' or 'mental masturbation' or 'meaningless abstraction.'

One of the curious things about fair Philosophia is that you cannot outflank her, and you cannot shake her off. She outflanks all would-be outflankers. Ultimate dominatrix that she is, she always ends up on top. So you'd better learn to live with her and her acolytes.

A Divine Activity

Philosophy is a divine activity because only a god has the time and the peace of mind for it. The full-time mortal, embroiled in the flux and shove of material life, is too much in need of guiding convictions to be much of a pursuer of the impersonal truth.

In auspicious circumstances, with the right interlocutors, or embraced in the bliss of solitude, the mortal ascends for a time into the ether of pure thought and becomes for a time a god, a part-time god.

But although philosophy is god-like, God himself has no need for it.  Wisdom itself, in plenary possession of itself, needn't seek itself. It is itself.

Chess and Philosophy

In chess, the object of the game is clear, the rules are fixed and indisputable, and there is always a definite outcome (win, lose, or draw) about which no controversy can arise.  In philosophy, the object and the rules are themselves part of what is in play, and there is never an incontrovertible result. 

So I need both of these gifts of the gods.  Chess to recuperate from the uncertainty of philosophy, and philosophy to recuperate from the sterility of chess.