Chapter Three:
The Possibility of Understanding Reality - Metaphysics1
In ordering our experience, our first task is to determine the ontological status of that experience; in other words, how are we to tell if it comes from an outside source, or merely from myself? Is the “outside world” that I seem to perceive really there in an objective sense? There have been at least four interesting approaches to this problem taken be well-known philosophers. We will look at each of them.
Descartes
Descartes [1] notes that the very nature of our experience is such that it doesn’t seem to depend upon our wills, and instead imposes itself on us, often in spite of our wills. And of course, this would be a sign of the objectivity of that experience. However, dreams also function in the same way: they appear to be objective, not directly under our control, and so the mere appearance of objectivity cannot in itself by a proof of that objectivity. Therefore he tries to use the ontological and cosmological proofs for the existence of God in order to guarantee the existence of the objective world.
What is wrong with this? Simply, the proofs of God which he uses are themselves dependent upon the objectivity of the world. (e.g. the attributes of perfection upon which the ontological argument depends are themselves characteristics of the real world, and the cosmological argument’s cause/effect relationships are themselves derived from the objective world.) Further if the proofs of God fall short of their intention, we are left without the knowledge of the real world, and therefore Descartes’ entire philosophy is aborted at the very start.
Berkeley
George Berkeley [2] agrees that our ideas (i.e. perceptions) are not subject to our will. But perception, he says, is mental, not physical. Therefore it is contradictory to suppose that the source of our perception is physical. Further, “spirit” is that which acts, and therefore a spirit must be producing our perception; and, since our perception are not subject to our will, it must be an external spirit, therefore it must be God!
There are two difficulties with this position: (1) He doesn’t deal with the similarity between the objectivity of dreams and of perception; he doesn’t show that our experiences aren’t self-caused. (2) Rather than insuring a real world, Berkeley replaces it with “God”, which is defined – not in the Christian sense, but as the originator of all perception. His God is the cause of evil as well as good. In fact, this position seems to lead inexorably to solipsism, for how can he know of other minds besides his and God’s? They are only known through inference: that that body (matter) I perceive behaves in a regular way, therefore it must be a person similar to myself. If all perception is directly from “God”, then these also may be merely from Him, and therefore not perceptions of other people at all.
Locke
John Locke [3] concurs that experience is not subject to our will, but adds that the experience of other people bears witness to our notion of an external world. But this simply begs the question, for our knowledge of the consensus of other people presupposes an external world in which they truly live.
Hume
David Hume [4] seems to produce the best method. He argues that our experience of the world is of such consistency and coherence (either unchanging-ness or else changing with regularity) that we are led to believe the world is external and objective. Dreams lack this cogency (in fact, that is the way we probably distinguish between them). If we were left with incoherent and random experiences, we could not make judgments concerning them, anticipate them, etc.
Further, the principle of induction which is part of our working assumption demands that this regularity be taken into account. We might add that, certainly, our experience may somehow be self-caused, but it still acts as though it were external, and must be treated as such. (As Spock has commented, “A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all.”) Therefore, it is the coherence of the aggregate of experience, discovered through the application of Reason that is the clue to the outside world, and the means by which we may apprehend it and make judgments concerning it.
2
How are we to order our experience, then? Locke has a clear and simple system for doing this. [5] He first agrees with our assumptions: that we have experience (he calls it sensation), ordered by reason (called reflection). The raw materials that we have to work with are called “simple ideas”, i.e. simple units of experience. They are: (1) those from one sense only (sight, sound, touch, etc.); (2) those resulting from a combination of sense (the notion of space); (3) those from reason (reflection) only (i.e. will, understanding); and (4) those that are a combination of sensation and reflection (experience and reason).
Next, these simple ideas can be combined in various ways to result in “complex ideas.” This can be done in three ways: (1) simple ideas combined with simple ideas, (2) the combination of simple with complex or complex with complex, and (3) abstraction.
Locke finds four rules to be used in these connections of ideas: (1) identify (pure logic), (2) relation (logic again), (3) regular connection (the inductive principle), and (4) real existence (the judgment utilizing the other three: logic and induction).
There are, then, three types of knowledge.
- The logical principles of deduction and induction, by which we learn nothing of factual content, but which are ordering, formal principles by which we learn to deal conceptually with our experience and make judgments concerning it.
- Experiential knowledge of simple ideas (what Russell calls “knowledge by acquaintance”), i.e. pure experience as such, lacking judgments concerning it.
- The combination of the first two: mediated knowledge. This is the more or less probably connection of these simple ideas according to the rules outlined above. (This is what Russell calls “knowledge by description.”)
Any judgments concerning the real world must be made in accordance with this third type of knowledge; therefore, no judgment will be of total certainty, but of probability, depending upon the validity of our particular act of relating the raw materials in a thoroughly consistent way: not omitting any, not inventing any, and dealing with them logically.
3
There is one way of dealing with our experience which seems to be a dead end at the outset. It is called Materialism. A materialist believes that matter is the only real or existent thing, and that “only sensible entities, processes, or content are existent or real; … that everything is strictly caused by material (inanimate, non-mental)”, and even that mental entities and thoughts “are caused solely by material entities, processes, or events and themselves have no causal effect (epiphenomenalism); … that nothing mental exists.” [6]
C.S. Lewis has perhaps developed the classic refutation of this view. First, he points out that any world-view or theory of the world must take into account reason’s validity in order to operate. We will agree with this, particularly since it is roughly analogous to Locke’s complex ideas (i.e. the combination of simple ideas).
Further, our judgments concerning these forms of perception are ordered according to logical laws, called categories of understanding. [12] These, of course, are similar to Locke’s schema for connecting ideas, yet is more completely developed. (Note the connection with the rules of deduction and induction touched on before.)
So far, this goes along nicely with what has been shown above. However, Kant now departs from tradition in stating that the Ideas of Reason tend to unify our experience by seeking to absolutize it: i.e. to explain universal principles like absolute unity, cause, etc. He tries to show that these principles of experience-ordering attempt to go beyond their area of competence when they try to explain the ground of experience. They use the categories of judgment in an illegitimate way. While they are valid for the ordering of experience according to our “mode of experience-ordering”, they cannot reach beyond possible experience to the source of that experience, precisely because of their nature. The understanding a priori “can never do more than anticipate the form of a possible experience; and as nothing can be an object of experience except the phenomenon, it follows that the understanding can never go beyond the limits of sensibility, within which alone objects are given to us.” [13]
The ground, or source of our experience, Kant calls the “noumenon”, or the “thing-in-itself.” It is that which metaphysics has always sought to capture and understand. But he thinks that it has been his greatest achievement to demonstrate the impossibility of such a task. There is simply no way to step outside of all possible experience to see reality as it really is. The “noumenon” is a term vacuous of all concepts, precisely because all concepts are applicable only to pure reason and to the ordering of our own limited, finite, and peculiar experience. It is a “limiting concept.”
Now the concept of a noumenon, that is of a thing which can never be thought as an object of the senses, but only as a thing by itself (by the pure understanding), is not self-contradictory, because we cannot maintain that sensibility is the only form of intuition. That concept is also necessary, to prevent sensuous intuition from extending to things by themselves; that is, in order to limit the objective validity of sensuous knowledge (for all the rest to which sensuous intuition does not extend is called noumenon, for the very purpose of showing that sensuous knowledge cannot extend its domain over everything that can be thought by the understanding). But, after all, we cannot understand the possibility of such noumena, and whatever lies beyond the sphere of phenomena is (to us) empty; that is, we have an understanding which problematically extends beyond that sphere, but no intuition, nay not even the conception of a possible intuition, by which outside the field of sensibility objects could be given to us, and our understanding could extend beyond that sensibility in its assertory use. The concept of a noumenon is therefore merely limitative, and intended to keep the claims of sensibility within proper bounds, therefore of negative use only. But it is not a mere arbitrary fiction, but closely connected with the limitation of sensibility, though incapable of adding anything positive to the sphere of the senses. [14]
If Kant is right, the function of metaphysics is certainly not to find out what the objective world is like in itself, but merely to order our experience within the categories given us; the relative is open to us, but the ground of experience, the explanation of the “whole show”, is forever left beyond our grasp.
5
The importance of this position is not apparent at first, but we shall see that it is all-important when dealing with the full complement of philosophical issues, and especially when we attempt to find an answer to the question: “What shall we live for?” In order to do this, we need to deal with various notions of “the good”, or “the right.” This is the domain of ethics (the various systems developed to embrace right action, etc.), and meta-ethics (the look “behind the scenes” at ethics, in order to see exactly what justifies one system against another, and what is really meant by “good”, “right”, “obligatory”, etc.). There are basically four types of meta-ethical approaches: personal subjectivism, collective subjectivism, naturalistic objectivism, and theological objectivism. We will take each up in turn.
Private Subjectivism
Private Subjectivism is the idea that what we mean by “right” is merely the reflection of our own private desires and values, not connected with any objective right and wrong. Emotivism and imperitavism (the theories that ethical injunctions are expressions of emotions or commands) can be subsumed under Private Subjectivism. [15] C.S. Lewis shows that this position is almost impossible to hold with any consistency, because “whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining “It’s not fair” before you can say Jack Robinson.” [16] In fact, the skepticism about objective values, or other people’s values, is never applied to their own values; in short, they are found appealing to standards in their own actions when they should (in all consistency) admit that these values are merely personal prejudices. [17]
Collective Subjectivism
Collective Subjectivism thinks that “right” is the agreed-upon value-system of the whole of a society or societies, bearing no relation to objective values (for there are none). An example of this is Thrasymachus, in Plato’s Republic, who asserts that justice is that which is in the interest of the stronger party. [18] “right” is legislated by the ruling party, whether democracy or despot. Now, to be strictly accurate, collective subjectivism doesn’t pretend that there is a real right and wrong, but simply that these terms represent an empirical agreement between persons (whether implicit or explicit) regarding certain values and actions. Therefore, it cannot be accused of the “naturalistic fallacy” (i.e. trying to derive an “ought” from an “is”) simply because they do not derive an “ought” at all. [19]
Naturalistic Objectivism
Naturalistic Objectivism is the attempt to find objective values (i.e. a real right and wrong) within the analysis of the human situation. John Stuart Mill is an exponent of this position, and so we will deal with him, while observing the thoughts of other philosophers on the subject.
6
The Naturalistic Objectivist tries to ascertain what is the highest good of man, the “summum bonum.” Mill thinks that the ultimate good is that which mankind desires as an end in itself, and not as a means to another end. Various “goods” are found to lead to one Good that is the goal of all activity. For example, according to Mill, we desire friendship, material goods, status, and intellectual gratification because they all have some quality in common, or because they all lead to the same common benefit. And that, he believes, is what we call “happiness.”
I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it. … No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. … if human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means of happiness – we can have no other proof, and we require no other, that these are the only things desirable. [20]
Aristotle, incidentally, agrees that happiness is this unique thing which is pursued only for itself. “Happiness seems, more than anything else, to answer to this description; for it is something we choose always for its own sake and never for the sake of something else;” [21]
The difficulty with this approach is that so far, we don’t have the slightest notion as to what “happiness” is, or how to judge what things will in reality make us the most happy. It is a nearly vacuous term. For example, the Greek philosopher Epicurus (an early proponent of this type of system) defines it as “pleasure”, and Mill will agree on this designation. Jeremy Bentham, Mill’s mentor, takes this up and tries to develop a “calculus of pleasure”, by which pleasurable sensations can be quantified and somehow counted up. [22]
But Mill sees that there are many problems in quantifying pleasure, and therefore opts for degrees of pleasure, or differences in the quality as well as the quantity of pleasure. As soon as he does this, he must find a standard by which to judge one quality against another, and in fact, develop some sort of hierarchy of pleasures. He agrees that “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” [23] And this makes a certain sense; but this is where his system goes wrong, for he needs to find a criterion that judges the pleasures.
7
This standard, one might say, could be the standard of instinct. That is, we instinctively know that some pleasures are better than others. This is difficult to maintain, however, for we know empirically that our instincts are continually telling us conflicting and contradictory things. The impulse for bodily pleasures and the impulse for self-preservation are sometimes at odds in a decision, and then they need something to arbitrate between them. When this happens, as C.S. Lewis points out:
You will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. [24]
Further, most of the philosophers themselves have agreed that the nobler virtues must be taught: they are not innate. Mill himself, Aristotle, and Plato all teach this; and also that when these pleasures are misjudged, misery inevitably ensures. [25]
Another difficulty is the actual judgment of choosing absence of pain vs. abundance of pleasure (Epicurus [26]), abundance of pleasure to absence of pain (Nietzsche [27]), while Mill himself admits that those who practice his method differ in the wildest imaginable degrees: saying that “some are even puritanically rigorous, while others are as indulgent as can possibly be desired by sinner or by sentimentalist.” [28]
How are we to judge, then? Mill says that we should determine the hierarchy of pleasures empirically: that is, assuming that all men desire happiness, look at those who have sampled the most kinds of pleasure, for they are in the best position to choose between them. And because they are, in fact the most desired, they are therefore the most desirable, and therefore the most conducive to real happiness. Those that have only a small experience cannot, of course, judge that which they don’t know. Says Mill:
If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there is one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. … From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. [29]
Now, exactly who are those in such a position? – why the wealthy and powerful, for only they have had the most opportunity to sample the variety of pleasures. These, then, are indeed the stronger party of Thrasymachus, who do rule. We are back, in fact, to the morality of the ruling classes that Socrates refutes in the Republic! Additionally, we are back to Collective Subjectivism, disguised as Naturalistic Objectivism. And third, this is where the term “naturalistic fallacy” does indeed apply, for it seeks to find an objective “ought” when there exists only an empirical fact – of simple preference by a group of people. There is no way given to bridge the gap between “I desire this” and “I ought to do this.” [30]
The first thing to note is that a metaphysical view of the world is presupposed in every ethical system or meta-ethical judgment. To assert that “happiness” is what we ought to pursue, one must sneak in the notion that man’s purpose for existing consists of nothing else than this pursuit of happiness; and second, one must clearly define the term “happiness” so we can see that it is indeed the goal of life. This purpose, this goal, presupposes that the metaphysical task has indeed been completed, that we have done what Kant thinks is the impossible: to understand what the world (and our relation to it) is really like.
8
When it gets down to the bare essentials, we have only two meta-ethical choices before us: either right and wrong is only subjective (personal, collective subjectivism, naturalism), or it is objective (i.e. part of the “is” of the universe as it really is – the noumenon – is a command, an “ought”). If it can’t be shown to be objective, then of course it must be subjective, and all our feelings on the matter won’t change things. However, if it could be shown to be objective, inherent in “the way things are”, then we would be justified in following the “right” rather than our own preferences. But this depends on the findings of metaphysics, in order to determine the nature of the noumenon. Does it contain an imperative or not? Is right and wrong part of the very fabric of the world?
This may be likened to Plato’s cave allegory: only those who are unchained can go outside and see the Sun; those who are chained are left with mere flickering shadows, and probably wouldn’t believe any report of the Sun from those who are “in the know.” [31] But, according to Kant, we can never be unchained; we can never see the Sun. Metaphysics is an impossibility. Therefore, ethics is an illusion; therefore we have no answer to “What shall I live for?” This is tantamount to nihilism. [32]
There is, however, a possibility. And that is this: if the noumenon, the unknowable thing-in-itself were to be (1) transcendent (i.e. not just part of the changing world, but beyond it and prior to it), (2) intelligent (giving us the “ought”), (3) and willing and able to disclose itself (that is, to communicate itself to us within our own categories) – then we would not be left to our own devices to “figure things out.” Indeed, we are provided with the answer by the noumenon himself in true, but not exhaustive knowledge: True, because it accurately reflects the noumenon through his own knowledge of himself; not Exhaustive, because it would be limited to our phenomenal categories and forms of understanding.
This of course does not necessarily mean that there does indeed exist such a personal, transcendent noumenon; merely that if there were, he would provide the answer to metaphysics’ quest for knowledge of reality, and therefore would provide the only answer to the problem of ethical objectivity. There are various models that have been presented over the years to describe what this noumenon might be like. These will be examined in the following section.
9
The first model is what one might call “Transcendent Theism” – the word “transcendent” used in the Kantian sense, i.e. that which is beyond possible experience and therefore unknowable by nature. [33] Theism can be defined as “the belief in a personal God. God is here usually conceived of as Creator, as having brought into existence realities other than himself which though he is not completely dependent upon them, nevertheless are dependent upon him.” [34]
The foremost objection to theism is traditionally the problem of evil. This may be stated as follows: (1) evil exists; (2) God is said to be infinitely powerful, and so is able to remove evil if he wants to; (3) God is said to be perfectly good, and so would want to remove evil; therefore, (4) So, since evil exists, God must not exist as described.
The problem of evil in a theistic framework has been covered by many writers, and is beyond the scope of this paper. [35] We might say for the present, though, that the traditional answer has been the notion of freedom: God has two choices: (1) to create automata, (2) to create real, free persons. He has chosen the second, and therefore evil is a real possibility in any free choice. And therefore, it is not surprising that we see evil as the result of freely chosen acts, all around us – although God himself does not desire it. The further problems concerning evil and free will are complicated by the notions of time, cause-and-effect, logical options open to God, etc. Let us just state that the problem of evil is not limited to a theistic model – it is present in every model of the noumenon that has been proposed. In fact, the reason it is a problem for theism is precisely because theism takes evil seriously. Therefore, before we rule this option out, we must consider the problem within the other frameworks as well.
10
The second model is what one might call “monism”, i.e. that everything is part of the whole of the universe; that nothing exists transcendent to the universe (as in theism). This can take one of two forms.
Atheism
The first form is “atheism”, meaning “(a) the belief that there is no God. (b ) Some philosophers have been called ‘atheistic’ because they have not held to a belief in a personal God. Atheism in this sense means ‘not theistic.’ “ [36] In this view, strictly speaking, the universe is composed of matter/energy, does not possess intelligence or will itself, and certainly was not created by a transcendent Being with these characteristics. Polytheism, the belief that there are many finite gods, is reduced to monism, indeed atheism, upon analysis – because these gods are simply parts of the larger whole and are not transcendent to it.
If atheism is in fact true, then we can have no answer to Kant’s dilemma; there is no transcendent intelligence able to disclose itself within the limits of our categories. Similarly, there is no basis for right and wrong, as Sartre – the atheistic French philosopher – apply notes:
The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men. Dostoyevsky said, “If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible.” That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him not without does he find anything to cling to. [37]
Therefore, the problem of evil affects atheism as well. While it is a problem for theism because theism takes evil seriously, it is a problem for atheism, because a consistent atheist cannot take evil seriously. The atheist position has no basis to say there is a real right and wrong, and therefore must explain-away the reality of evil.
Pantheism
The second form of monism is “pantheism”:
1. The doctrine that reality comprises a single being of which all things are modes, moments, members, appearances, or projections. 2. As a religious concept Pantheism is to be distinguished from Immanent Theism and Deism by asserting the essential immanence of God in the creatures. [38]
The only observable difference between pantheism and atheism is that the former thinks the universe itself to be somehow alive, imbued with spirit, while atheism doesn’t. Still, its universe bears little resemblance to “God.” Indeed, the pantheist utilizes “word magic”, described by John W. Montgomery:
Pantheism … is neither true nor false; it is something much worse, viz., entirely trivial. We had little doubt that the universe was here anyway: by giving it a new name (“God”) we explain nothing. We actually commit the venerable intellectual sin of Word Magic, wherein the naming of something is supposed to give added power either to the thing named or to the semantic magician himself. [39]
The pantheistic model is reducible to monism because there is no transcendent being. Therefore, while appearing very religious, it is subject to the same limitations: no answer to the metaphysical or ethical dilemmas. Furthermore, the problem of evil confronts pantheism as well as the other models. It may be stated: either (1) evil isn’t real, making the monistic noumenon totally good, but denying a real right and wrong, or (2) evil is real, therefore the noumenon is part good and part evil – but since there is no transcendent basis for evil, it can’t really believe that evil is real. Therefore, pantheistic models, like the atheistic model, can’t believe in the reality of evil.
11
From the above, we see that noumenon models can be reduced to two essential candidates: transcendent theism, and monism. Monism has no answer to the metaphysical and ethical problems. The problem of evil, so quickly brought forth when discussing theism, is also applicable to the monistic model. In fact it is a problem for two distinct and opposite reasons in these two systems: (1) in theism, because it takes evil seriously, yet maintains a good, transcendent God, and (2) in monism, because it must deny the reality of evil. If the theistic model cannot be shown to be true, then we may turn to the other for an answer to our problems; however, we will be forced to be content with no metaphysical or ethical answers. If it does prove to be true, then we have a clue to metaphysics, and therefore ethics.
This, of course, all hinges on the disclosure of the transcendent noumenon. If he exists and doesn’t disclose himself, this won’t help us at all. We must next find some way to discover this disclosure if it has indeed taken place.