To be honest, it’s pretty hard to make a claim for the validity of philosophical speculation. Not only do we not have any good, hard results that we can prove, but there is a general attitude that seems to prevail in the general public that none of these "fundamental questions" really matter. First of all, people say, these kinds of questions can’t be answered. Or if someone does manage to come up with an answer, he can’t really prove it. I can come up with a completely different and opposite answer and I can argue mine just as well as you can yours.
Also, for some reason, there just doesn’t seem to be any great interest generated by questions like: What is the nature of being? How do we know things, and are there different kinds of knowledge? Do questions of value and morality have any objective basis? Go ahead, start talking to anyone about this stuff - I promise, they won’t put up with it for long. Often they will ask you if you are stoned. (What difference does that make, I’d like to know?)
Well, we can’t really blame people for not being interested in a subject that’s both so seemingly bankrupt that it can’t really come up with the goods, and at the same time wouldn’t make any difference to their quality of life. So what if somebody can actually define the meaning of "essence"? It’s not going to get me laid, fix my car, pay for my dinner or even make me laugh. What the hell good is it?
This is not a new phenomenon. In his biggest, and probably best-selling book, The Republic, Plato has Socrates divide people into three basic types. By far, the largest group of folks were primarily concerned with satisfying their bodily appetites and enjoying sensual pleasure. Sound familiar? Things really haven’t changed that much. And who can blame them? Hey, I love satisfying my bodily appetites! Sensual pleasure? Hell yeah. What’s wrong with being a hedonist?
Nothing, really. As long as you don’t hurt anybody or overdo it and hurt yourself. (And come to think of it, if I do hurt myself, that’s really nobody’s business but mine, thank you very much. Hand me another hot dog and a cigarette, please.) It’s just that . . . doesn’t there seem like there ought to be something . . . well, more?
According to Socrates, for some people - a much smaller group than the first - there definitely is. And this second group is a little harder to describe than the great mass of self-indulgent food/sex/drink-only crowd. These people are more "spirited."
Well, what the hell does that mean?
Okay, it’s really kind of challenging sometimes to break down Greek words and concepts into the modern American vernacular, and practically nobody cares anyway, but basically what Socrates seems to be talking about are emotions - primarily anger. Basically, the Greeks had what might be called a great sense of "honor." The second group of people, then, tended to care more about what people thought about them - and what they thought about themselves - then having a good time. You know the type. They get insulted easily, are always getting pissed off, yelling, getting into fights, etc.
Now, that may be a distortion. I’m no Greek, and to be honest, I’m not really sure exactly what Plato had in mind when Socrates was talking about this second level. But it seems to me that most of us could agree that there are people for whom "values" and "principles" are more important than just plain fun. I mean, we don’t all have the same ideas about these "values," because they’re kind of subjective and to a large degree socially determined, right? But don’t we, kind of in general, think that "values" and "principles" ultimately outweigh pleasure? Don’t we teach our kids that?
Perhaps Socrates was pointing out that most people, no matter what they say they "believe," will go after what feels good nine times out of ten. And who knows? He may have been right. Still, we like to think that we put our principles and values up ahead of our "lusts," at least for the most part. So maybe we’re not as bad as Socrates thought.
Which leaves us with the third crowd. These are the people who love "wisdom." They seek knowledge for its own sake. They want to "know things." Everything, if possible. And this is the smallest group of people.
Well, that hasn’t really changed, has it?
Now, once again, maybe I’m not being fair. We all like to "know things," right? I mean, we want to be "smart." (Or maybe we just don’t want people to think we’re "dumb.") But let’s face it - "wisdom" is really not a high priority on most folks’ list. I mean, just listen to them argue about politics or religion. There are a lot of seriously ignorant bastards out there. And they don’t want to learn anything - they’ve already got their minds made up, so you can just forget reason and logic. Right?
Still, people value "knowledge," don’t they? I guess so. Yes. But usually only when it helps them to get something they want! And that brings us back to groups 1 and 2 again, doesn’t it? I mean, how many people seriously care about "knowledge" for its own sake?
But what about scientists? Science is not only really big in our society, but it gets a lot of respect. Science tells us things, right? I know, a lot of science is just exploited for the purpose of technology so it can make money and get us things. Still, a lot of us - the "smart ones" anyway, still care about science, in the sense of what we can know about the universe, about our environment, about ourselves, etc. Now, I’m certainly no scientist, but I definitely have a strong, healthy respect for the empirical disciplines, and I’m tremendously grateful for the highly advanced world-view (or picture) that modern science has bequeathed to our minds. And I want it to keep coming!
See, that’s the thing, though. We tend to think of science as the highest form of knowledge possible. And maybe that’s true - maybe that’s all we can know. But science can only tell us about how things work. It can’t explain why?, can it? It’s all about what Aristotle called "efficient causes." Cause-and-effect, you know? We can’t know "why" - maybe there is no "why." Maybe stuff just is. At any rate, science can’t tell us anything about "final causes" - or why things happen the way they do.
To find out anything about "final causes," we have to turn to philosophy, don’t we?
Well that’s what Francis Bacon thought, anyway. Who was Francis Bacon? Oh, come on, we really aren’t that dumb, are we?
Okay, I’m going to assume that most of you reading this (given the unlikely possibility that anybody actually is) knows who Francis Bacon is. No, he didn’t invent the B.L.T. That was the Earl of Sandwich.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English philosopher who was just about one of the most important thinkers in modern history. It is primarily because of Bacon’s novel and unique new ideas that we picture the world the way we do know. (I’m talking about the "smart" part of "we" - not the big dumb lump of idiots in Socrates’ first two groups.)
Bacon is known as "the father of Empiricism." And when we’re talking about science, "empiricism" is the name of the game. Empiricism is what we’re all about. The basic premise of empiricism is that knowledge comes from what we can see, hear, feel or smell. It comes from our senses. (Maybe not all knowledge - but all empirical knowledge.) And in order to really knows things - that is really know them, we have to use the right method for finding out the answers to questions. And the method that Bacon advocated in his writings is still the method we use today . . . the "scientific method!"
What is the "scientific method", and what makes it so darned special? Basically, as a "method", it is just a way of doing something. And what makes it special is that it . . . well, it just seems to work!
I’m looking at the Oxford English Dictionary. It defines "scientific method" as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."
To break it down, it works basically like this: generally, the scientist comes up with "hypotheses", usually from the logical method known as "induction." What is "induction?" Well, philosophers (starting with Aristotle) distinguished induction from "deduction" by saying that induction goes from the general to the specific. In other words, you observe all types of phenomena through your senses - a bunch of "general" stuff - and then you go on to form a provisional (i.e, "hypothetical") statement that is more "specific", based on the strength of your observations. Now, that "hypothetical statement" cannot actually be "proven." (Only "deductive" statements can be actually be "proven" - the statements that go from the specific to the general, like in formal logic and mathematics..)
"Induction," then, doesn’t ever give you "absolute truth." It only gives you more and more likely truth. But the more evidence you have (based on observation) for any given hypothesis, the more likely it is to be "true." In other words, it gives you more or less probable "truth."
Now, once you have your hypothesis, you proceed to "test" it with "experiments." Why is it important to test it? Well, basically you want to test it to see if the hypothesis is "true or false." I know, I said you can’t prove your hypothesis to be "true." But you can prove it to be "false!" Any good hypothesis has to have what is known as "falsifiability" - you have to be able to prove, in theory at least, that the hypothesis can be "false."
How could you know this? Easy. You have to be able to say that, theoretically, through the results of your experiments or tests, the hypothesis can be shown to be "false." How will be able to tell if it is? You will observe that it is false, once again, through your senses. If a hypothesis fails to stand up under your experiment(s), you will know that it is "false." But if your experiments cannot prove it "false," then the more likely it is to be "true."
So once again, our results from using the "scientific method" do not give us absolute "truth," but only probable (and therefore modifiable) "truth."
What, that’s not good enough for you? Well, according to empiricism, that’s as good as you’re ever going to get. And that should be good enough.
Now, to get back to Francis Bacon for a minute. This guy was really ahead of his time, and he’s the one who put the big "scientific method" on its tracks, with which we’ve had such undeniably impressive results. In short, Bacon was absolutely right in his theories about how to obtain knowledge (or what we call "knowledge") in the empirical sciences. And as Bacon well understood, this kind of "knowledge" was different from the kind of knowledge we presumed we could get through the methods of "philosophy."
Let’s look at what he has to say in his big book, the Novum Organum ("the new instrument of science.):
From the two kinds of axioms which have been spoken of arises a just division of philosophy and the sciences, taking the received terms (which come nearest to express the thing) in a sense agreeable to my own views. Thus, let the investigation of forms, which are (in the eye of reason at least, and in their essential law, eternal and immutable, constitute Metaphysics; and let the investigation of the efficient cause, and of matter, and of the latent process, and the latent configuration (all of which have reference to the common and ordinary course of nature, not to her eternal and fundamental laws) constitute Physics. And to these let there be subordinate two practical divisions: to Physics, Mechanics; to Metaphysics, what (in a purer sense of the word) I call Magic, on account of the broadness of the ways it moves in, and its greater command over nature.
In other words, "science" and "philosophy" have two different realms of study and two different methods. "Science" searches for "material causes" (what are things made of?) and "efficient causes" (what causes things to happen?). It is involved and concerned with the objects of "sense."
"Philosophy," on the other hand, deals with what Bacon calls "essential law, eternal and immutable," and it is involved with the objects of pure "reason." That includes "final causes." (Why is this happening?)
Philosophy asks about "final causes." But philosophers can’t agree on the answers to "final causes", or if it is possible to know them, or indeed if they even exist.
"Philosophy," just as a concept, has long been under attack from some very serious thinkers in the West, not only because philosophers have been such notorious failures to come up with absolute, final answers to questions of "truth," in reference to "eternal and fundamental laws," but because the very assumption of the process of attempting to do so is more like what Bacon would call "Magic." Well, we all know "magic" isn’t real, don’t we?
Actually, one of the biggest reasons that philosophy has fallen into disrepute is not just its perceived failures, but the spectacular successes of the empirical sciences. By the time of the early 19th century, science had come so far in explaining reality, philosophers like Auguste Comte (1798-1857) were basically starting to say that "philosophy,’ unlike "science," was basically bullshit.
Comte was the founder of a new school of thought known as "Positivism," basically a philosophy of science that claimed that knowledge from empirical science (induction) was, along with logic and mathematics (deduction), the only kind of "knowledge" that was actually possible. This was because traditional "Metaphysical" questions of philosophy were not even in theory verifiable or falsifiable. How could you prove the answer to questions like: "Does God exist?" "Is there a meaning or purpose to the universe?" "Do humans have free will or is everything determined?" "What is the nature of goodness or beauty?"
Science, on the one hand, could contain its own method and criteria for telling you whether something is true or false. Philosophy could not. Therefore, the only "truth" there is was . . . well "scientific truth." If a question couldn’t be reduced to a scientific hypothesis that could be tested empirically, well just throw it out the window. It’s something we just couldn’t know.
By the early 20th century, a group of philosophers known as "logical positivists" had taken things even further. According to these hard-core thinkers, statements that couldn’t be empirically falsified didn’t even "mean" anything! Anyone who used a word like "God" was just basically babbling nonsense.
Obviously, these developments weren’t just bad news for traditional philosophy, but they pretty much knocked all "religious" questions, doctrines and arguments out of the court as well. The implications of the overwhelming success of empirical science, along with formal symbolic logic, pretty much made "religion" or "spiritual beliefs" irrelevant, meaningless and stupid just about overnight. If you couldn’t prove a question, say about "God" through science or formal logic, then not only could you not know the answer: the question itself wasn’t even "real!"
Now, this wasn’t the last word on these questions, by any means. Over the last hundred years or so, many philosophers, theologians, and just-plain thinkers have attacked logical positivism and its similar theories from many different directions. By the 21st century, it was pretty hard to find many people as extreme as the logical positivists.
But a lot of damage had been done - both to philosophy and to religion. Even today, there seems to be a sense across a broad part of the intellectual community of the West (and indeed, among the entire global intelligentsia) that if something couldn’t be proved scientifically, then it probably wasn’t really real. This is a long way from Bacon’s recipe of using two types of methods for two different subject matters: science and philosophy. I even read recently that physicist Stephen Hawking made a statement to the effect that all of philosophy would someday be answerable in scientific terms. Is this really possible?
I don’t know, but I have to come right out now and say that I, for one, kind of doubt it. There are lots of reasons for that, and I want to discuss many of them over the course of the next few years.
In order to do that, I’m going to have to go back and look at some very fundamental histories of various traditions. I’m going to have to go back and look at the history of Western philosophy. I’m going to also have to take up the questions of other philosophical traditions, such as the Indian and Oriental schools. I’m also going to have to take a good, long hard look at religion and mythology to see if it can be explained or justified on any level that holds up to human reason. And finally, I plan to go deeply into what may be the ultimate depths of human understanding: that which goes both beyond science, philosophy, and even religion. For it just may be that the broadest and most profound insights into ourselves and the mysteries of our beings can be found in our subconscious minds as filtered through our greatest expressions of art: the endlessly fascinating world of creative literature, music, theater, painting, sculpting, dance and even cinema.
Something inside me tells me that all these avenues of understanding are necessary to begin to touch the extraordinary wonder of our extraordinary fact of existence in all its deepest implications and meanings.
I dunno. Seems like a worthwhile thing to attempt to me. But if this sort of endeavor seems like a waste of time to anybody else out there, that’s fine. Just don’t bother yourself with any of this - it’s all strictly optional. Maybe the only important thing in life is having a good time, after all. But there’s more than one way to have a good time. And if you just happen to be one of those people in Socrates’ little group who values "wisdom" above everything else, then you’re already having fun with this extraordinary search for meaning and truth.
I know I’ve gotten this project off to weird little fits and starts, chasing down different tangents somewhat indiscriminately, in search of direction. And I’m sure I’ll be flying down more dark alleys, simply because I know that’s sometimes the only way to find your way through to parts of town you didn’t know existed. But I’m going to get more organized and head down some very clearly demarcated paths as well. I expect many of them will cross, sometimes in very unexpected places. And that’s exciting.
I cordially invite anyone out there who is even remotely interested in this greatest of adventures to come along with me, or just visit from time to time. I would absolutely love to converse with any fellow-travelers on this voyage of experience, so please leave any comments on any one of these pages that you would like to share.
I know that there’s no way any of us will find "the meaning of life" or anything remotely like that. I don’t expect any "final answers." But that’s not really the point, anyway. Whatever your preferred method, the main goal of life isn’t really to "understand" it. In the end, the most important thing is to live it. And that means to immerse yourself in bliss, whatever brings that home for the inimitable way that best satisfies you.
I know some people are wondering why I’ve embarked on this strange project. I don’t know. I’m not really trying to prove anything. Somehow, it just seems the thing to do. I just love it. What more can I say?
We’ll be getting back to the questions about philosophy pretty soon. But before we embark upon this particular path of this long journey, I want to share something I found that another brilliant English thinker wrote some 300 years after Francis Bacon died. I hope you find it interesting.
Oh, and yes, I’ve got some more music to write about.
- petey
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