Is This Rationalist Really Necessary?

  

1968

                                                                                                             

            Hume does not seem concerned with finding any one certain truth, nor does he seem concerned with any philosophy of A Priori.  In fact, he disputes any such thing as necessary truth.  Such a thing is irrelevant to our existence. To argue the question of existence is irrelevant.  Existence cannot be proved by any argument and will end in circular discussion.  It is not, however, that Hume completely dismisses A Priori.  He says it has nothing to do with the world.  It has to do with the relations of ideas, but nothing to do with the world, for even if some point is granted A priori, such as a square always having four equal sides, did not exist in reality it would still be what its laws dictate it to be in conception.

            We have matters of fact, however, that do exist and are relevant.  But they are not A priori and cannot be discovered by reason alone, deduced in isolation.  They must be experienced, and even then they are not, like a priori, indisputable.  To make a statement of fact about the world, such as “fire is hot” is not to be unable to question the statement.  We know fire is hot only through our experience with fire, but it could not be wrong for someone to say that fire is cold. It would be possible that fire is cold if we had never experienced its hotness.  It is not altogether inconceivable that there could be a fire that would feel cold to our bodies.  Some fire might feel cool when we are ill.  We could say the moon is made of green cheese, for though it is improbable, it is not impossible.  It would be possible to argue the statement that I think not, therefore, I am not.  If I make the statement I think not, who can dispute me, since only I can experience my own thoughts, or the lack of them?  Of course, it could be claimed that to say I think not is to think it and therefore is a contradiction.

            Hume is concerned with cause and effect.  He feels that philosophers have generally attributed actions within the world to the operation of cause and effect, but that such relations cannot be proved.  We observe an action, such as a billiard ball striking another of its kind, and we come to expect a certain reaction, but it is only through experience that we know that one particular action will take place.  It would not be wrong to say that the cue ball will strike the eight ball and the eight ball will remain stationary while the cue ball flies off the table.  Such an event would happen if the eight ball were nailed to the table.  We cannot make any certain statement from this knowledge without further experience; that of observing what does happen.  What if the nail is very loose in the wood?  What will happen?  Will the nail hold or not? We cannot know without experiencing it.  Of course, we could argue that some things are cause and effect and we can be certain of some particular thing occurring again if it has been observed exactly that way every time in the pass.  But here we delude ourselves in two ways.  One, we often become so used to a certain effect we start believing it is A Priori and not experience showing us what will happen.  And two, we believe it will always happen the same way over and over when something is similar.  We would expect a large ripe apple to taste good and juicy but if we bite into it, we discover a wax replica, which will not taste good and juicy.  Here was a similar object that did not behave as we expected, a matter of fact that we learn only through experience.  By the same token, it is not wrong to say Hume was wrong.  Who is experienced in all knowledge?

For more on David Hume and his philosophic viewpoints, click on the title of this post. It will take you to, History of Philosophy -- David Hume by Alfred Weber

I Think I Thunk Correctly

 

1968

                                                                                 

         It was Descartes hope to discover at least one undeniable and indubitable truth, and to accomplish this by logical reasoning.  He proceeded to examine carefully all he knew of the world and concluded that his knowledge came through his senses, and the senses often fooled him.  He then eliminated everything that depended on his senses.  However, he stressed, while doing this, he had no intention of disputing practical matters.  He allowed that the practical world must remain as it had been, despite his doubt of its existence in his search for truth.  He felt it would not be wise for a person still dependent on the practical world to indulge in his exercise, and he noted that he did only because he was free from normal obligations.  But he does mentally eliminate the practical world, including all its objects, even his own body.  When he finished eliminating what his senses had given him, he was left with his mind, and he continued to carve away at it.

         He had doubts, he realized; doubts concerning his own existence.  But if he had doubts, then indeed, he did have something.  He will always have something as long as he has doubts, even if there is some being who tried to deceive him into doubting that he had doubts.  For even if he had doubts that he had doubts, he had a doubt.  Descartes associated doubting and wondering with these doubts, which is what he had been doing with thinking.  To doubt is to think.  He concluded that to think is to exist.

         This is certain, he felt.  There was no denial of his thinking.  There was possible denial of the world, of his body, of other men, of conversation, for his senses could twist and distort these, or he could have imagined them or dreamt them and still be convinced that they existed.  But nothing could distort the fact that he was thinking.  For distortion itself would be a thought.  “I think, therefore, I am.”

         But “I think” does not prove “I am”.  Descartes could be perfectly correct about the existence of thinking, but he can only infer that the thinking is his.  There is a thought.  A thought does exist, but whether Descartes existed is not proven.  This is the difficulty with his argument.

         Can this difficulty be resolved?  There is a certain extension of what Descartes has proved that can be developed.  There is a thought, therefore there is something.  There is something existing.  It is thought, one single thought.  But it is dynamic.  It is dynamic because there also exists a question.  That question is: Does anything exist that is certain and indubitable?  The answer is: There is a thought.  The thought asks the question.  By asking the question and giving the answer, it creates a process.  That process is thinking.  And the process of thinking asks a second question:  Do I exist?  The answer is: Yes.  There is a thought, therefore, there is an I.  Then I exist.  But whether I am Descartes or somebody else is irresolvable.

(For more information on Descartes philosophic views, click on the title of this post.)

Nasty, Brutish and Short? Whoa!

1968

A human life is a swatch snipped from the fabric of eternity.  It begins with a shock for the born and pain for the bearer.  Life is given a harsh reception, slapped into life by a strange force.  After the comfort of a self-centered world it opens eyes to too bright light and in a vast space it can’t comprehend. From being satisfied automatically, it must fend for its comforts.  From this point on life is a challenge.  It must find a method of survival.

Human life finds itself in the cold world.  Not only must it begin a search for survival, but for the meaning of its survival.  As it grows, more and more is its survival in its own hands.  And like the doctor’s initial slap, it discovers most situations are hostile.

As human life learns more, the more it finds that living is coping with these hostile situations.  It can no longer expect to grow fat and warm without exerting an effort.  This is a brutal realization. Now it must make its own way against many unfriendly events and nasty circumstances.

It must be willing to fight to survive.  It must search out and face the truth.  It must accept the reality of the world.  It must understand that poverty and filth and violence and pain and loss exist in all their nastiness.  Or it will withdraw from the truth and construct its own world as a shell.  Still, there is a difference between surviving and living.  If it wants to live, it will seek the truth and struggle against the nastiness and not hide from trouble.  It will seek the how of life and not just the why. 

Whether it succeeds will depend on its quickness to learn. It must learn quickly, for its swatch in the fabric of time is short.  Time runs away from life.  In the end time always wins and the human dies.  Every human life ends in death.  This is one truth learned early.  It is not only the expected event; it is the certain event.  Death is the most brutish aspect of life.

Life knows in the end it must die, but if it cannot be sure if there is something beyond death, then that human life is nasty, brutish and short.  It is brutally born, squeezed, yanked and slapped to life.  It lives but a short time against the measuring stick of eternity, burning as a brief candle.  And it dies in nasty uncertainty.

Picture at top of post is of Thomas Hobbes. You can learn more about Hobbes by clicking on the title of this post.

On "Design"

1970

The sonnet “Design” is Robert Frost’s vision of forces beyond nature. The title is the basic motif.  The poem is developed by carefully counter pointed images.  The images display the ambivalent questions in the poet’s mind.  These questions present an antithesis:  Do the innocent exist haphazardly or do they exist enslaved to predestination?

The poem’s meaning revolves about the image-motif of “whiteness”, the traditional symbol of purity and innocence: a “white spider” upon a “white heal-all” holding a “dead white moth”.  This “white-on-white” theme is further supported by such light terms as “morning”, “snow-drop” and “frost”. 

There are several possible meanings for “white”.  The first is a depiction of “innocent”.  The spider is “kindred” to the Heal-all, therefore also innocent.  This innocent motif is carried by other images. The spider is “dimpled...fat and white”; something fed, healthy and new, such as a newborn baby.  The moth is held  like “rigid satin cloth”; the baptismal gown of the baby at the font, the wedding-gown of the bride at the alter, both innocent portrayals.  The “innocent Heal-all’s” name symbolizes cure, health and even resurrection, rebirth, new life.  These “assorted characters” are “ready to begin the morning’.  They are as fresh as “snow-drops”, “flowers”, and as light as “froth”.  The spider carries the moth like an innocent child carries a “paper-kite”.

Counter pointing the freshness and innocence is the presence of death.  Here the image-motif “white” takes another meaning.  “White” is paleness, ill health, the pallor of death.

White is non-substance. It has the strange ambivalence of “nothingness” that can be colored either “black” or “white”.  In this poem, “white seems to contrast with the “darkness”,  but are these really separate images? “Darkness” is man’s ignorance, a cover over truth, hiding the “design”.  Darkness may be the cloak of evil intent.  “White” may be something else.

There is more to the image-motif of “white” than innocence.  The “innocent”, after all, are gathering “characters of death and blight”.  Indeed they are.  Spiders, as any reader of gothic literature knows, are associated with death, decay and evil intent.  Moths are symbols of plague and blight.  Even the “innocent Heal-all” is a member of the “gathering’, for its healing powers are superstition, and is used by those whose final hope is to cure the incurable.

In this new “white” motif, the “rigid satin cloth” is not the baptismal gown, but the lining of a coffin.  The light “froth’ dissolves and beneath its insubstantial surface boils the putrid “brew of witches”, most certainly brewed with evil intent of insidious design.  The innocent child carrying a kite becomes the bearer of a corpse.  The “paper-kite” is broken and will not fly again.  All this revels the darkness.

What does the darkness contain?  What appalls? 

Throughout the poem is the basic motif “design”.  The “assorted characters” are “mixed” like “ingredients” in a recipe.  The spider is a “Snow-Drop Spider” famous for spinning webs of symmetrical and intricate design.  Moths and butterflies are collected for the design of their wings.  Is there “design” in their fate as well?  Is it of evil intent?

The poet fears such “design”.  His “characters” are presented as innocent.  They represent possible victims of some great “design’.  This “design” is usually hidden behind the merciful “darkness” of our ignorance.  The poet has had a glimpse  of this “design’ and it frightens and appalls him.  he uses appalling creatures to represent his vision, for if such a “design’ exists then everything is predestined and we have no control over our fate.

As an afterthought, the poet states that such a “design” would not extend to such insignificant creatures.  What occurred was not “design”.  It was accident.  There is no evil intent, no reason to be appalled.

There is still something else.  The “darkness” hid something, which the poet saw.  In the night a white spider climbed a white Heal-all and killed a white moth.  We return back to the white-on-white motif for our answer.  The darkness hid -- nothing!  the poet saw a chance event of small creatures and invented a litany and ritual, a design of froth.  The froth dissolved and reveled no “design”.

The poet tries to comfort himself by saying if there is a grand “design”, it does not extend to arachnids and lepidopteron.  But if there is a grand “design”, does it apply to mankind?  The poet ends wondering if there is any design” or only a “white-on-white” nothingness that man must fill himself.

For more on Robert Frost and his poetry, click on the title of this post.