A Malebranche Quote for Consideration

[zippy2006]

An interesting article by Gyula Klima:

Influenced by post-Enlightenment mentality, one may easily fall prey to the following, as I shall argue deceptive, piece of reasoning.​

​

Any methodological doctrine that imposes theological dogma upon philosophical inquiry delimits the autonomy of philosophical inquiry. Therefore, ex opposito, any methodological doctrine that separates theological dogma from philosophical inquiry increases the autonomy of philosophical inquiry. But the Latin Averroist methodological doctrine of veritas duplex (rather improperly, but not entirely unreasonably called so) separated theological dogma from philosophical inquiry. Therefore, the Latin Averroist methodological doctrine of veritas duplex increased the autonomy of philosophical inquiry.​

​

In what follows, I shall argue that despite possible appearances to the contrary, in its proper theoretical and historical context, the Latin Averroist methodological doctrine in fact delimited the autonomy of philosophical inquiry, while in the same context Aquinas's methodological conception of philosophy as the handmaiden of theology was not only much more beneficial for the autonomy of philosophical inquiry, but it was even suitable to prompt such genuine philosophical advances that the Averroistic conception would not have prompted at all.​

​

-Ancilla Theologiae vs. Domina Philosophorum: St. Thomas Aquinas, Latin Averroism and the Autonomy of Philosophy​

 

[FireDragon76]

An interesting article by Gyula Klima:

Influenced by post-Enlightenment mentality, one may easily fall prey to the following, as I shall argue deceptive, piece of reasoning.​

​

Any methodological doctrine that imposes theological dogma upon philosophical inquiry delimits the autonomy of philosophical inquiry. Therefore, ex opposito, any methodological doctrine that separates theological dogma from philosophical inquiry increases the autonomy of philosophical inquiry. But the Latin Averroist methodological doctrine of veritas duplex (rather improperly, but not entirely unreasonably called so) separated theological dogma from philosophical inquiry. Therefore, the Latin Averroist methodological doctrine of veritas duplex increased the autonomy of philosophical inquiry.​

​

In what follows, I shall argue that despite possible appearances to the contrary, in its proper theoretical and historical context, the Latin Averroist methodological doctrine in fact delimited the autonomy of philosophical inquiry, while in the same context Aquinas's methodological conception of philosophy as the handmaiden of theology was not only much more beneficial for the autonomy of philosophical inquiry, but it was even suitable to prompt such genuine philosophical advances that the Averroistic conception would not have prompted at all.​

​

-Ancilla Theologiae vs. Domina Philosophorum: St. Thomas Aquinas, Latin Averroism and the Autonomy of Philosophy​

They seem to be saying that the Via Moderna renders meaningful theology absurd?

I guess it depends on what we mean by "theology". Eastern Christian theology is based on reflection upon experience illumined by sacramental life. This is the stuff of "experiential religion", which is less strange or obtuse than the Western conceptualization of religion as "correct thoughts about God".

 

[zippy2006]

I guess it depends on what we mean by "theology". Eastern Christian theology is based on reflection upon experience illumined by sacramental life.

I would say that it is based on the authority of the Church Fathers and their experience. The East is much more wary of human reason than the West, and because of this their dichotomy between philosophy and theology is much stronger.

 

[Simon_Templar]

Okay, this is a good analysis. Let me quibble with one thing. I would say that "deliberation" is something that pertains to some general species of thinking, but doesn't really pertain to belief/faith. Thomas drops that term when he starts talking specifically about belief/faith, and replaces it with "unformed thought." More than deliberation, the act of faith represents a stance of inquiry or a "reaching out" of the intellect, and God responds to this with revelation. This is confusing, and more could be said.

I agree with your quibble.

It is well stated.

 

[public hermit]

Cartesian clear and distinct ideas simply don't work in philosophy at all and have proved to be a complete failure.

This development in thought, does however, show us an important point in the development of modern thought. Cartesian thought succeeded in narrowing the concept of knowledge down to only one particular type of knowledge. Specifically scientific or perhaps more accurately mathematical knowledge.

The only ideas that CAN be reduced to the kind of clear distinct certainties that Descartes wanted are mathematical or quantitative ideas. This ultimately lead to the notion that reality is only quantitative in nature, in other words, materialism. Descartes, of course, never intended that, but that is the problem with ideas, they often have unintended consequences.

The triumph of Cartesian epistemology lead to the reduction of knowing down to only mathematical knowing.

Once that happens basically everything of value in philosophy is lost. If all valid knowledge is only quantitative knowledge then things like justice, goodness, truth, love, hope, beauty, are all no longer valid knowledge. Wisdom itself basically becomes a non-entity. What is the point of philosophy that can't lead you to wisdom, or goodness, or love, or hope etc.

The topic of epistemology is important as well because it illustrates on of the major phases of the inevitable decline of Modern thought.

Modern thought basically began with Metaphysical skepticism. This occurred when Aristotelian and Platonic Realism was abandoned in favor of Ockhamist Nominalism.

This fundamentally changed how objects were viewed, and it forced philosophy to re-evaluate how we can know the true nature of any object.

Cartesian thought is an example of one of the ways that subsequent modern thinkers tried to prove that we could in fact know objects. Classical Metaphysical Realism allowed philosophers to begin from objects in the world and ask "how can this thing exist and how can we know the thing as it is in itself."

When that was lost as a result of Nominalism, philosophers found themselves regressing and having to find a new starting point. They could not longer start with the statement "this thing exists, what can I know about it." They eventually found themselves having to ask "can I prove that this thing exists, before I even ask if I can know anything about it?"

The only starting point left to them after the destruction of Classical Metaphysics was the mind itself. So they had to try and solve the dilemma "How do I reason from my own mind to the world existing, and then to me being able to know things in the world?"

This is how Descartes found himself in the position of having to prove that he himself existed before he could try to progress any further in philosophy.

Modern thinkers essentially found that it was basically impossible to progress beyond the mind to the objective world. There was simply no way to reason from "My mind exists" to "the objective world exists and is knowable", in the Cartesian sense of clear and distinct, certain ideas.

This lead to the next major phase of Modern thought, which was the beginning of the end of Modern thought and the beginning of Post-Modern thought. It was the Kantian revolution. More specifically it was Epistemological skepticism.

At that point we had gone from saying there are no real universal entities to saying, it is functionally impossible to know individual entities objectively within the world.

We are in the final phase now, which is linguistic skepticism. We went from there are no real universal entities, to individual entities cannot be objectively known, to language cannot express objective knowledge.

Another way of saying all that is, there is no universal truth, individual truth cannot be known, and truth cannot be communicated with language.

Virtually the whole of the development of modern thought consists of philosophers sawing off the branch on which they are sitting.

All epistemology and knowledge rests upon faith. Without faith, it is literally impossible for knowledge to exist.

Thank you for your anwer to the opening question. Yes, there's a shift in early modern philosophy from metaphysics as the priority/basis to epistemology as the priority/basis. I also think the shift from naive realism to representational realism ensured that skepticism would always lurk since what we experience is sense data/ideas and not the world, in itself. Bishop Berkley took a different route than Hume, but they are both assuming there is a gap between our experience and the world.

But there's no way to go back to some naive realism. We know things aren't always as they appear. Better, we know that on some level things are not as they appear. More generally, we know there is so much we don't know. The cat's out the bag, and maybe that's a good thing.

It seems very likely that our metaphysics, whatever they are, will always be less than certain. As Quine points out, we make ontological commitments, commitments that are not certain, and those commitments invariably influence the rest of our ontology/metaphysics. Granted, he had a very specific idea about ontology ("to be" is basically a count noun), but I think the general idea also holds. Whatever our metaphysic, we could be wrong. It might not track what is, in fact, the case.

 

[zippy2006]

But there's no way to go back to some naive realism. We know things aren't always as they appear. Better, we know that on some level things are not as they appear. More generally, we know there is so much we don't know. The cat's out the bag, and maybe that's a good thing.

Did "naive realism" ever exist? If so, when? This seems to be a prop for what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." Lewis' medicine for such a malady was simple: read older books.

 

[Simon_Templar]

But there's no way to go back to some naive realism. We know things aren't always as they appear. Better, we know that on some level things are not as they appear. More generally, we know there is so much we don't know. The cat's out the bag, and maybe that's a good thing.

I don't want to be overly confrontational, but what you are saying here appears to represent a bunch of misconceptions or prejudices more than anything else.

But there's no way to go back to some naive realism. We know things aren't always as they appear

I'm not aware of any proponent of Classical Realism who ever believed or taught that things are always as they appear.

As far as I know the only philosophical school that even comes close to holding this view is modern materialism, which holds that all of reality is nothing more and nothing less than exactly what we observe in the physical world.

More generally, we know there is so much we don't know. The cat's out the bag, and maybe that's a good thing.

Again, I've never encountered anyone in Classical philosophy that thought or taught that we knew everything, or that it was even possible to know everything. Quite the contrary. There are two major theological systems that historically worked closely with classical philosophy, that is Neo-Platonism and Christianity. In both cases the theology holds that ultimate reality is fundamentally ineffable. This indicates that classical philosophy is completely compatible with the notion that ultimate reality is unknowable. They certainly did not think that they knew everything.

Once again, the only thought systems that come close to actually believing this are modern thought systems. Basically the only major thought system, that I'm aware of, for which this is even possible would be materialism.

To quote/paraphrase Peter Kreeft

The Reductionist assumes there are fewer things in reality than there are in our philosophy.
The Dogmatist assumes there are exactly the same number of things in reality as in his philosophy.
The Poet assumes that there are more things in reality than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

Thus the poet wonders, while the reductionist sneers, and the dogmatist prattles.

Better, we know that on some level things are not as they appear.

Do we? Based on what?

We know that SOMETIMES things are not what they appear. However, the reason we know this is sometimes the case is because we have evidence in those cases which suggests and eventually proves that that the things were not what they initially appeared to be.

The assumption that things are things are always not what they appear is contrary to reason. The basic principles of reason dictate that you take a thing at face value unless evidence arises which suggests that the face value appearance is not correct. To assume this in the absence of such evidence is unreasonable.

 

[zippy2006]

I'm not aware of any proponent of Classical Realism who ever believed or taught that things are always as they appear.

Right. "Naive realism" is an epistemological foil, not a historical position. To say, "We can't go back to naive realism," is a category error or else, as you say, simple prejudice.

Again, I've never encountered anyone in Classical philosophy that thought or taught that we knew everything, or that it was even possible to know everything. Quite the contrary.

Yep:

“The Evidence of Things that Appear Not.”—But someone will say that it is foolish to believe what is not seen, and that one should not believe in things that he cannot see. I answer by saying that the imperfect nature of our intellect takes away the basis of this difficulty. For if man of himself could in a perfect manner know all things visible and invisible, it would indeed be foolish to believe what he does not see. But our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly. We even read that a certain philosopher spent thirty years in solitude in order to know the nature of the bee. If, therefore, our intellect is so weak, it is foolish to be willing to believe concerning God only that which man can know by himself alone. And against this is the word of Job: “Behold, God is great, exceeding our knowledge” [Job 36:26]. One can also answer this question by supposing that a certain master had said something concerning his own special branch of knowledge, and some uneducated person would contradict him for no other reason than that he could not understand what the master said! Such a person would be considered very foolish. So, the intellect of the Angels as greatly exceeds the intellect of the greatest philosopher as much as that of the greatest philosopher exceeds the intellect of the uneducated man. Therefore, the philosopher is foolish if he refuses to believe what an Angel says, and far greater fool to refuse to believe what God says. Against such are these words: “For many things are shown to you above the understanding of men” [Sir 3:25].​

​

(From Aquinas' Exposition on the Apostle's Creed, prologue)​

 

[FireDragon76]

I would say that it is based on the authority of the Church Fathers and their experience. The East is much more wary of human reason than the West, and because of this their dichotomy between philosophy and theology is much stronger.

Sort of.... in some ways it's more psychologically or philosophically sophisticated than western "rationalism". For instance, Catholic Integralism can't survive postmodernist critique.

 

[public hermit]

Did "naive realism" ever exist? If so, when? This seems to be a prop for what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." Lewis' medicine for such a malady was simple: read older books.

Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of direct realism/naive realism.

 

[FireDragon76]

Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of direct realism/naive realism.

And critiques of realism are nothing new, going all the way back to the Greek and Indian philosophers. So the charge of "chronological snobbery" doesn't apply.

 

[public hermit]

I'm not aware of any proponent of Classical Realism who ever believed or taught that things are always as they appear

In an Aristotilian framework, we perceive the world directly; there is no gap as there is for early moderns. For Aristotle, forms are things in the world, percepts, and concepts. None of that is mind dependent. Abstractions clear away instead of add. For early moderns, we do not percieve anyhing in itself. What we perceive are ideas that are mental constructs of sense data. This shift makes a huge difference in how we view metaphysics. At any rate, my statement stands. There is a distinct shift between naive (direct) realism and representational (indirect) realism.

 

[public hermit]

And critiques of realism are nothing new, going all the way back to the Greek and Indian philosophers. So the charge of "chronological snobbery" doesn't apply.

I agree. More generally, theories of perception, no matter when they are espoused, can be critiqued, unless we're just not going to do philosophy.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't want to be overly confrontational, but what you are saying here appears to represent a bunch of misconceptions or prejudices more than anything else.




I'm not aware of any proponent of Classical Realism who ever believed or taught that things are always as they appear.

As far as I know the only philosophical school that even comes close to holding this view is modern materialism, which holds that all of reality is nothing more and nothing less than exactly what we observe in the physical world.



Again, I've never encountered anyone in Classical philosophy that thought or taught that we knew everything, or that it was even possible to know everything. Quite the contrary. There are two major theological systems that historically worked closely with classical philosophy, that is Neo-Platonism and Christianity. In both cases the theology holds that ultimate reality is fundamentally ineffable. This indicates that classical philosophy is completely compatible with the notion that ultimate reality is unknowable. They certainly did not think that they knew everything.

Once again, the only thought systems that come close to actually believing this are modern thought systems. Basically the only major thought system, that I'm aware of, for which this is even possible would be materialism.

To quote/paraphrase Peter Kreeft

The Reductionist assumes there are fewer things in reality than there are in our philosophy.
The Dogmatist assumes there are exactly the same number of things in reality as in his philosophy.
The Poet assumes that there are more things in reality than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

Thus the poet wonders, while the reductionist sneers, and the dogmatist prattles.



Do we? Based on what?

We know that SOMETIMES things are not what they appear. However, the reason we know this is sometimes the case is because we have evidence in those cases which suggests and eventually proves that that the things were not what they initially appeared to be.

The assumption that things are things are always not what they appear is contrary to reason. The basic principles of reason dictate that you take a thing at face value unless evidence arises which suggests that the face value appearance is not correct. To assume this in the absence of such evidence is unreasonable.

And what is the definition and source of "prima facie" that you're alluding to here? I'm not clear as to the referent you're implying is an essentially self-evident entity of thought, and being that I take little at face value, I feel I have to ask.

 

[Simon_Templar]

And critiques of realism are nothing new, going all the way back to the Greek and Indian philosophers. So the charge of "chronological snobbery" doesn't apply.

This is a non-sequitur.

"This has been criticized before." Does not equal "this view is naïve and we have surpassed it with our current thought"

It is one thing to offer a critique. It is another thing to simply take an opposing view as fact because it is more recent and dismiss the older view because it is older.

 

[Simon_Templar]

I agree. More generally, theories of perception, no matter when they are espoused, can be critiqued, unless we're just not going to do philosophy.

You didn't offer a critique. That's the point.

 

[public hermit]

.........

You didn't offer a critique. That's the point.

If that's the point, then it wasn't said out of prejudice, either. How about addressing what I have said? You and @zippy2006 are happy to obfuscate, claiming I'm speaking out of prejudice, which is ad hom and also not true, but neither of you have addressed the point I'm making. I'm not going to hold my breath that either of you will do so, either. It's much easier, I guess, to claim I'm being prejudiced then to address the point.

 

[Simon_Templar]

In an Aristotilian framework, we perceive the world directly; there is no gap as there is for early moderns. For Aristotle, forms are things in the world, percepts, and concepts. None of that is mind dependent. Abstractions clear away instead of add. For early moderns, we do not percieve anyhing in itself. What we perceive are ideas that are mental constructs of sense data. This shift makes a huge difference in how we view metaphysics. At any rate, my statement stands. There is a distinct shift between naive (direct) realism and representational (indirect) realism.

The problem is your statement is not an argument. Saying "philosophers of period X believed Y, but philosophers of period Z believe A" does not provide evidence or support to either position. This does not prove that Y was incorrect and A was correct.

What you are doing is denigrating Y in favor of A, apparently simply because it came later in time, or perhaps because you think A is self-evidently correct or better?

Classical Realism isn't naive and so far the minimal descriptions you have provided of it haven't been accurate.

 

[Simon_Templar]

And what is the definition and source of "prima facie" that you're alluding to here? I'm not clear as to the referent you're implying is an essentially self-evident entity of thought, and being that I take little at face value, I feel I have to ask.

I'm not sure what was unclear about it, if I'm understanding you.

When conducting an inquiry, the starting point has to be that the thing is what it appears to be, until evidence to the contrary has been found.

The appearance of a thing IS evidence as to what it is. Until we have other evidence, the appearance of the thing is the ONLY evidence we have. If you start from the assumption that the thing is not what it appears to be, what you are doing is assuming that the only evidence you have is false, without any evidence that indicates this.

If you are not bound by the evidence of appearance, and can freely assume that appearance is not valid, without evidence suggesting this, you can literally assume anything with basically equal validity.

Let's say I wanted to study apples. Apples appear to be a fruit that grows on trees. So that is the starting point. If I want to conclude that apples are NOT a fruit that grows on trees, I have to have evidence which suggests that. I can't just say it because I think appearances are inaccurate.

It is not logically valid, nor reasonable to begin by saying "appearances are not accurate to the thing in itself, therefore an apple is NOT a fruit that grows on trees, it must be something else."

All knowledge and all reason and thought rests upon self-evident first principles, which are themselves not proven by argument but held to be self-evidently true.

The law of non-contradiction is an example. You can't prove the law of non-contradiction, but if you deny it, rationality breaks down completely and reality itself becomes nothing but absurdity.

Similarly, the initial evidence which we call the 'appearance' of a thing must be the starting point for inquiry into that thing. To do otherwise is to begin by discounting the only evidence or even assuming the opposite of the evidence. This is not reasonable, it is absurd.

 

[Simon_Templar]

.........


If that's the point, then it wasn't said out of prejudice, either. How about addressing what I have said? You and @zippy2006 are happy to obfuscate, claiming I'm speaking out of prejudice, which is ad hom and also not true, but neither of you have addressed the point I'm making. I'm not going to hold my breath that either of you will do so, either. It's much easier, I guess, to claim I'm being prejudiced then to address the point.

Alright, lets make it clear...

In your initial post you said...

But there's no way to go back to some naive realism. We know things aren't always as they appear

This statement clearly implies the following
1. Thinking that Classical Realism is correct is "going backwards"
2. Classical Realism is inherently naive, which means unsophisticated, immature, and possibly foolish
3. We now know better than they did in the past, which implies that our ideas are better because they were in the past and we are current.
4. You don't actually understand Classical Realism because they didn't believe "things are always as they appear".

You also said....

More generally, we know there is so much we don't know. The cat's out the bag, and maybe that's a good thing.

This statement implies the following...
1. Classical Realist thinkers believed they knew everything (which is laughably false)
2. Modern thinkers have proven Classical realism false (which is also untrue)
3. We have progressed beyond classical thinkers of the past.
4. Once again suggesting that you don't understand Classical philosophy and are basically unfamiliar with it because none of this accurately applies to what they thought.

I really don't understand how you could construe "the cats out of the bag" as anything other than a prejudicial statement basically meaning "we know more than they did and we can't go back to their state of ignorance."

Lastly, you said...

Better, we know that on some level things are not as they appear.

In response I asked, how do we know this?

I gave a reason why I think this statement is problematic and reflective of sloppy thought.

You have provided nothing but continued claims that older thinkers are naive while the newer know better.

Your language in this post very clearly implied a denigration of the old view and a praising of the new view, but gave no reasons why except that the old view is old and the new view is new. How is that not prejudice or "chronological snobbery"?