Final Thoughts
Stephen Hawking opens his book A Brief History of Time with the following story. "A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.' The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?' 'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles down.'"
You may have the feeling that this is the kind of answer philosophy supplies to the questions we've been considering, incomprehensible and unjustified. We've raised quite a lot of questions and offered many different and conflicting answers. But where do we end up? Do we have any sense of closure?
Well, in a word, the answer is no. However, our failure to achieve closure should not be seen as a failure. Philosophy is in the business of asking two kinds of questions. The first is extremely difficult to answer and so it should come as no surprise that we haven't found definitive answers yet. The second are questions that must be asked and answered by each of us throughout our life. Philosophy cannot provide final answers to these questions because, in a sense, there are no final answers to these questions. So what has philosophy given us?
First and foremost philosophy has given us an insight into some very fundamental questions and how to reason through to answers. The answers, in many cases, have not been definitive but the real value of philosophizing lies in the questioning which Heidegger called "the piety of thought." Sometimes formulating the question is the major obstacle to finding the answer. How one formulates the question often determines the answer so it is useful to focus on questioning. What philosophy provides us is a method for dealing with questions. If we can focus on the process and refine it, the answers will take care of themselves. As Wittgenstein said, "the philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness."
We've looked at several questions throughout the semester and perhaps you want to know the answers to these questions. Well, none of them has a definitive answer but I can give you an indication of where the evidence points as of now. While this might not be completely satisfying it's the best we can offer in philosophy. As Robert Frost once said, "anyone with an active mind lives on tentatives rather than tenets."
Is knowledge innate or learned from sense experience?
As you remember, the rationalists believed knowledge was innate to some degree. Plato believed all knowledge was innate, Descartes believed only some was innate. Empiricists believed all knowledge was learned from sense experience with no innate component at all. Kant tried to find the median between these two postulating that knowledge begins with experience but does not arise from it. Instead, it is governed in part by innate structures of the mind. Recent evidence from psychology and neurology seems to be leaning towards Kant as the most correct theory. While there is still work to be done, it is widely conceded that the mind at birth is not a blank slate (so much for empiricism) but is not populated with fully formed ideas either (so much for rationalism). What the mind does seem to possess is a set of structures for gaining and processing knowledge such as those associated with language acquisition, learning about cause and effect, morality, and even quantitative skills.
Is the mind independent of the brain?
Here the issue was cast in terms of dualism versus monism. The most prominent dualist we studied was Descartes whose view probably most closely approximates most people's view of the mind. The mind is a non-physical entity (perhaps the same as the soul) that interacts with the physical brain somehow but we can't say for sure how this works. On the other side was monism with two versions: materialism and idealism. Idealism has not put forward a defined answer to this question except to postulate that the mind is a non-physical entity as the dualists maintained. For the materialists the fundamental reality is physical and the mind is simply the functioning of the brain. While we are not entirely sure how the brain does everything that it does, it will eventually be shown that the brain is the source of thinking, feeling, and consciousness itself. Recent evidence from neurology indicates that a materialist metaphysic of some kind will turn out to be the right answer. In anticipation of this, almost no philosophers today are dualists of any kind (be it substance dualism or property dualism). This is likely to disappoint many of you to the point of disbelief. However, the evidence points in this direction and continues to be fruitful. What the future may hold is unknown, but that is where we stand today.
Is there an objective reality independent of appearance and perception?
This has been a recurring question for us and concerned Plato, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Each took a different approach but most shared an underlying intuition (if not concrete proof) that there was an objective reality independent of appearance and perception. We briefly explained how quantum mechanics called this intuition into question.
Two important points are worth emphasizing. First, believing something does not make it so. The mere fact that you hold a personal belief does not make it true. The concept of "true for me" is inherently contradictory. What sense could it make to say something such as "for me the earth is flat?" A second point is related. The mere fact that a large group of people believes something does not make it so. There are millions of people that believe the earth is flat, more believe it is not. Do we infer that the earth is round because there are more believers in that statement? No, we infer the earth is round because of tangible, objective evidence. We should appeal to the tangible, objective evidence as the best way to arrive at what is the case independent of what we might believe (or want to believe) is case.
Is there a God?
This is the most difficult question to provide a clear answer to. We've investigated many of the arguments for as well as against the existence of God. Where does the weight of evidence lie? For most of the philosophers, we've examined this semester the evidence has steered them towards some form of theism (a belief in God). But, the dictates of reason and evidence maintain that one must follow the evidence wherever it leads and most philosophers today, along with most scientists, are following it towards atheism or at best some form of deism or Spinoza-like pantheism. But, for those of you who find this conclusion dismaying you can take heart that the pursuit of evidence continues.
The interesting question is whether evidence matters or not. It has long been known in psychology that people who claim that their beliefs are based on evidence will not necessarily change them when evidence is presented which conclusively refutes their belief. They will often believe even more strongly! One explanation for this is that it represents an attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance. The mind does not like contradictions and holding a belief in the face of refuting evidence represents such a contradiction. So, rather than give up the belief they make changes to account for the evidence or concoct explanations to explain the evidence away. More startling is that psychologists recognize that no one is immune to this process. We must all be on guard against it. Evidence matters but it require a commitment to the findings of the evidence that many may not be prepared to make. As William James once said, "we have to live today by what truth we can get today, and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood."
Lastly, some of you may have started this class (and ended it as well) with the belief that some questions like these simply cannot be answered. Philosophy like other disciplines is in the business of gaining knowledge and would not knowingly take on questions that could not be answered. The fact that a question is difficult to answer, even the fact that an answer has not been found, does not constitute proof that a question cannot be answered. This claim, like all others we've examined, must be demonstrated. If philosophy has shown anything it is the value of asking questions. If someone tells you that the questions you are asking cannot be answered, you should demand some proof for that assertion! It may be the case that this position is being held by someone because they don't want to know the answer or fear the answer might be one they don't want to hear. But, the search for knowledge is not the search for what we'd like to be true. It is the search for what is the case.
I began this book by emphasizing the importance of ideas. Even if we are not familiar with philosophical ideas, they have a profound effect on our lives every day. Consider the effect of the ideas we have analyzed; the mind, God, free will, good, evil. Each of these, and more, are an implicit part of our everyday framework. The psychologist Alfred Adler correctly pointed out that "a person's behavior springs from his ideas." So, to understand our behavior we'd better understand our ideas. But, as we've also seen, the ideas are not simply ours. They exist within a community and context. Philosophy reminds us of this and invites us to reflect on those elements of our world as well.
Although we have addressed many fundamental questions, philosophical reasoning can be of value in more practical ways. The same process of reflection that led us to critical insights about ideas such as substance, space, and time can also be applied to generate insights concerning more familiar ideas such as love, change, meaning, and purpose. I have alluded to some of these throughout the book but only briefly. In an introductory class, we are, of necessity, constrained to deal with a certain amount of important fundamental material. After all, I am supposed to be introducing you to the world of philosophy. But, focusing on metaphysics and epistemology exclusively makes it hard to remember that philosophy can be useful in dealing with practical concerns. Surely our investigation of the philosophy of religion and ethics partially illustrates this practical side of philosophy. However, there are lessons to be gained from the more abstract philosophical subjects as well.
Plato showed us the possibility of a transcendent realm and how we might gain a deeper understanding of it. While his theory may not be entirely satisfying, it does give us a means for addressing the very human desire for access to a world beyond our own. He also makes clear to us that gaining knowledge of the transcendent is entirely our own choice. The desire for wisdom begins with ourselves. Descartes reminds us of this as well pointing out that the beginning of certainty, the beginning of knowledge is self-knowledge. Temet Nosce. Know thyself.
In a world dominated by materialism, we sometimes forget the role of the divine. As we've seen, George Berkeley cautions us against this and attempts to show that there is a place for God in the cosmos. As he and St. Thomas Aquinas illustrated, the existence of the world depends on the existence of God. However, Aquinas and Berkeley do not advocate blind faith. Rather, understanding is a necessity and an aid to faith. Still, we should ask: What about the value of skepticism?
Surely a healthy dose of skepticism is a valuable resource. David Hume shows us how effective it can be employed. But, we need not take skepticism to the extreme to benefit from it. At the very least, we can remember Hume's counsel that "a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." Our search for the truth is, ultimately, provisional and ongoing. While certainty is tempting, it may be more fluid than we realize. Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein showed us that we can have certainty but, thanks to them, we have a more sophisticated view of it.
The ultimate value of philosophy is the insistence that we reflect on our ideas and beliefs. Not to overthrow them. Yes, some ideas and beliefs will not stand up under philosophical scrutiny and so, perhaps, they should be discarded. But, as often as not, we have seen that philosophy can strengthen our views and provide us with good reasons for having certain beliefs. The whole point of Descartes' meditations was to put our intuitive beliefs on a certain foundation; to provide us with a deeper understanding of our beliefs. Understanding has very practical benefits. As Friedrich Nietzsche points out "he who has a why to live for can bear with almost anyhow."
But the question of "why" can only be answered by understanding; and meaning. Viktor Frankl, the holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and developer of logotherapy postulates that the fundamental drive in human beings is "the will to meaning." We need to find meaning in our lives. As you can well, imagine, this is not a question philosophy can provide a single monolithic answer to. Each person must find meaning in their way, but we can all equally benefit from the lessons of philosophical reflection. Whether it is Aristotle's logic, Descartes' methodic doubt, Hume's skepticism, or Kant's critical philosophy, the goal is the same. Perhaps Wittgenstein put it best. "There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies." We should find the one that best suits us or, perhaps, some combination. Don't be afraid to mix and match!
William James once said, "there can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics until the last man has had his experience and said his say." Philosophy is something we all participate in. The ultimate questions in philosophy are the ultimate questions in life. Everyone must confront them and can have their say in the answer. If James is correct, to find the ultimate answers we need everyone's participation. We need you to have your say just as much as anyone. What are you waiting for?
You may have the feeling that this is the kind of answer philosophy supplies to the questions we've been considering, incomprehensible and unjustified. We've raised quite a lot of questions and offered many different and conflicting answers. But where do we end up? Do we have any sense of closure?
Well, in a word, the answer is no. However, our failure to achieve closure should not be seen as a failure. Philosophy is in the business of asking two kinds of questions. The first is extremely difficult to answer and so it should come as no surprise that we haven't found definitive answers yet. The second are questions that must be asked and answered by each of us throughout our life. Philosophy cannot provide final answers to these questions because, in a sense, there are no final answers to these questions. So what has philosophy given us?
First and foremost philosophy has given us an insight into some very fundamental questions and how to reason through to answers. The answers, in many cases, have not been definitive but the real value of philosophizing lies in the questioning which Heidegger called "the piety of thought." Sometimes formulating the question is the major obstacle to finding the answer. How one formulates the question often determines the answer so it is useful to focus on questioning. What philosophy provides us is a method for dealing with questions. If we can focus on the process and refine it, the answers will take care of themselves. As Wittgenstein said, "the philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness."
We've looked at several questions throughout the semester and perhaps you want to know the answers to these questions. Well, none of them has a definitive answer but I can give you an indication of where the evidence points as of now. While this might not be completely satisfying it's the best we can offer in philosophy. As Robert Frost once said, "anyone with an active mind lives on tentatives rather than tenets."
Is knowledge innate or learned from sense experience?
As you remember, the rationalists believed knowledge was innate to some degree. Plato believed all knowledge was innate, Descartes believed only some was innate. Empiricists believed all knowledge was learned from sense experience with no innate component at all. Kant tried to find the median between these two postulating that knowledge begins with experience but does not arise from it. Instead, it is governed in part by innate structures of the mind. Recent evidence from psychology and neurology seems to be leaning towards Kant as the most correct theory. While there is still work to be done, it is widely conceded that the mind at birth is not a blank slate (so much for empiricism) but is not populated with fully formed ideas either (so much for rationalism). What the mind does seem to possess is a set of structures for gaining and processing knowledge such as those associated with language acquisition, learning about cause and effect, morality, and even quantitative skills.
Is the mind independent of the brain?
Here the issue was cast in terms of dualism versus monism. The most prominent dualist we studied was Descartes whose view probably most closely approximates most people's view of the mind. The mind is a non-physical entity (perhaps the same as the soul) that interacts with the physical brain somehow but we can't say for sure how this works. On the other side was monism with two versions: materialism and idealism. Idealism has not put forward a defined answer to this question except to postulate that the mind is a non-physical entity as the dualists maintained. For the materialists the fundamental reality is physical and the mind is simply the functioning of the brain. While we are not entirely sure how the brain does everything that it does, it will eventually be shown that the brain is the source of thinking, feeling, and consciousness itself. Recent evidence from neurology indicates that a materialist metaphysic of some kind will turn out to be the right answer. In anticipation of this, almost no philosophers today are dualists of any kind (be it substance dualism or property dualism). This is likely to disappoint many of you to the point of disbelief. However, the evidence points in this direction and continues to be fruitful. What the future may hold is unknown, but that is where we stand today.
Is there an objective reality independent of appearance and perception?
This has been a recurring question for us and concerned Plato, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Each took a different approach but most shared an underlying intuition (if not concrete proof) that there was an objective reality independent of appearance and perception. We briefly explained how quantum mechanics called this intuition into question.
Two important points are worth emphasizing. First, believing something does not make it so. The mere fact that you hold a personal belief does not make it true. The concept of "true for me" is inherently contradictory. What sense could it make to say something such as "for me the earth is flat?" A second point is related. The mere fact that a large group of people believes something does not make it so. There are millions of people that believe the earth is flat, more believe it is not. Do we infer that the earth is round because there are more believers in that statement? No, we infer the earth is round because of tangible, objective evidence. We should appeal to the tangible, objective evidence as the best way to arrive at what is the case independent of what we might believe (or want to believe) is case.
Is there a God?
This is the most difficult question to provide a clear answer to. We've investigated many of the arguments for as well as against the existence of God. Where does the weight of evidence lie? For most of the philosophers, we've examined this semester the evidence has steered them towards some form of theism (a belief in God). But, the dictates of reason and evidence maintain that one must follow the evidence wherever it leads and most philosophers today, along with most scientists, are following it towards atheism or at best some form of deism or Spinoza-like pantheism. But, for those of you who find this conclusion dismaying you can take heart that the pursuit of evidence continues.
The interesting question is whether evidence matters or not. It has long been known in psychology that people who claim that their beliefs are based on evidence will not necessarily change them when evidence is presented which conclusively refutes their belief. They will often believe even more strongly! One explanation for this is that it represents an attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance. The mind does not like contradictions and holding a belief in the face of refuting evidence represents such a contradiction. So, rather than give up the belief they make changes to account for the evidence or concoct explanations to explain the evidence away. More startling is that psychologists recognize that no one is immune to this process. We must all be on guard against it. Evidence matters but it require a commitment to the findings of the evidence that many may not be prepared to make. As William James once said, "we have to live today by what truth we can get today, and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood."
Lastly, some of you may have started this class (and ended it as well) with the belief that some questions like these simply cannot be answered. Philosophy like other disciplines is in the business of gaining knowledge and would not knowingly take on questions that could not be answered. The fact that a question is difficult to answer, even the fact that an answer has not been found, does not constitute proof that a question cannot be answered. This claim, like all others we've examined, must be demonstrated. If philosophy has shown anything it is the value of asking questions. If someone tells you that the questions you are asking cannot be answered, you should demand some proof for that assertion! It may be the case that this position is being held by someone because they don't want to know the answer or fear the answer might be one they don't want to hear. But, the search for knowledge is not the search for what we'd like to be true. It is the search for what is the case.
I began this book by emphasizing the importance of ideas. Even if we are not familiar with philosophical ideas, they have a profound effect on our lives every day. Consider the effect of the ideas we have analyzed; the mind, God, free will, good, evil. Each of these, and more, are an implicit part of our everyday framework. The psychologist Alfred Adler correctly pointed out that "a person's behavior springs from his ideas." So, to understand our behavior we'd better understand our ideas. But, as we've also seen, the ideas are not simply ours. They exist within a community and context. Philosophy reminds us of this and invites us to reflect on those elements of our world as well.
Although we have addressed many fundamental questions, philosophical reasoning can be of value in more practical ways. The same process of reflection that led us to critical insights about ideas such as substance, space, and time can also be applied to generate insights concerning more familiar ideas such as love, change, meaning, and purpose. I have alluded to some of these throughout the book but only briefly. In an introductory class, we are, of necessity, constrained to deal with a certain amount of important fundamental material. After all, I am supposed to be introducing you to the world of philosophy. But, focusing on metaphysics and epistemology exclusively makes it hard to remember that philosophy can be useful in dealing with practical concerns. Surely our investigation of the philosophy of religion and ethics partially illustrates this practical side of philosophy. However, there are lessons to be gained from the more abstract philosophical subjects as well.
Plato showed us the possibility of a transcendent realm and how we might gain a deeper understanding of it. While his theory may not be entirely satisfying, it does give us a means for addressing the very human desire for access to a world beyond our own. He also makes clear to us that gaining knowledge of the transcendent is entirely our own choice. The desire for wisdom begins with ourselves. Descartes reminds us of this as well pointing out that the beginning of certainty, the beginning of knowledge is self-knowledge. Temet Nosce. Know thyself.
In a world dominated by materialism, we sometimes forget the role of the divine. As we've seen, George Berkeley cautions us against this and attempts to show that there is a place for God in the cosmos. As he and St. Thomas Aquinas illustrated, the existence of the world depends on the existence of God. However, Aquinas and Berkeley do not advocate blind faith. Rather, understanding is a necessity and an aid to faith. Still, we should ask: What about the value of skepticism?
Surely a healthy dose of skepticism is a valuable resource. David Hume shows us how effective it can be employed. But, we need not take skepticism to the extreme to benefit from it. At the very least, we can remember Hume's counsel that "a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." Our search for the truth is, ultimately, provisional and ongoing. While certainty is tempting, it may be more fluid than we realize. Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein showed us that we can have certainty but, thanks to them, we have a more sophisticated view of it.
The ultimate value of philosophy is the insistence that we reflect on our ideas and beliefs. Not to overthrow them. Yes, some ideas and beliefs will not stand up under philosophical scrutiny and so, perhaps, they should be discarded. But, as often as not, we have seen that philosophy can strengthen our views and provide us with good reasons for having certain beliefs. The whole point of Descartes' meditations was to put our intuitive beliefs on a certain foundation; to provide us with a deeper understanding of our beliefs. Understanding has very practical benefits. As Friedrich Nietzsche points out "he who has a why to live for can bear with almost anyhow."
But the question of "why" can only be answered by understanding; and meaning. Viktor Frankl, the holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and developer of logotherapy postulates that the fundamental drive in human beings is "the will to meaning." We need to find meaning in our lives. As you can well, imagine, this is not a question philosophy can provide a single monolithic answer to. Each person must find meaning in their way, but we can all equally benefit from the lessons of philosophical reflection. Whether it is Aristotle's logic, Descartes' methodic doubt, Hume's skepticism, or Kant's critical philosophy, the goal is the same. Perhaps Wittgenstein put it best. "There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies." We should find the one that best suits us or, perhaps, some combination. Don't be afraid to mix and match!
William James once said, "there can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics until the last man has had his experience and said his say." Philosophy is something we all participate in. The ultimate questions in philosophy are the ultimate questions in life. Everyone must confront them and can have their say in the answer. If James is correct, to find the ultimate answers we need everyone's participation. We need you to have your say just as much as anyone. What are you waiting for?