Approaching the New Paradigm; Ways and Means
Anyone aspiring to take on the job had better bring with him a ‘can do’ mind-set that takes it for granted that we are capable of making significant progress. There is no substitute for a carpe diem;, It must be a forgone conclusion that Reality is deeply meaningful, that the ‘news’ is ultimately good and that we have what it takes to make significant progress:
"......To set limits on speculation is treason to the future." A.N.Whitehead
".....The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present" Dietrich Bonhöffer
"......A philosophy which begins with radical doubt must end in radical despair. It was the principle of dubito ut intelligam that prepared the soul for modern doctrines of despair. 'Philosophy begins in wonder' [Plato, the Theatatus]......"
-So, finally:
"......We have the freedom to commit ourselves to great causes with courage, even though we lack certainty. We can be at one and the same time half-sure and whole-hearted" Gordon Allport
Optimism runs counter to the fashionable nihilism of the times. Those who adopt this posture quickly find themselves dismissed as 'wishful thinkers', that is to say people who have suffered a failure of nerve depriving them of the courage needed to look reality squarely in the face.
".....It is quite true that nothing exists merely because we wish it, but it is not true that something cannot exist if we wish it. Feuerbach's whole critique of religion and the proof of his atheism, however, rest on this simple argument, that is, on a logical fallacy." E. Von Hartmann
There are those to be found who deny that the Reality ‘out there’ is meaningful at all, or that any positive assertion is to be dismissed as ‘white noise’ since there is no way of putting the matter to the test. Much, though not all of this is mere Byronic attitudinization, and it bears pointing out that to deny the positive from the posture or stance of the negative is logically fallacious:
"……….Here we are up against one of those ultimate boundaries of thought such as we reach when we ask a question as to the rationality of the universe; not only do we have to assume that rationality to answer the question. But we have to assume it to ask the question in the first place. We cannot meaningfully ask a question that calls in question that which it needs in order to be the question that is being asked". T.F. Torrance
Much the same thing applies to the denial of ‘free will’; to deny it one has to know what it is, and one cannot know what it is without having it
"......I state emphatically that to deny free will is neither a rational nor a logical act. This denial either presupposes free will for the deliberately chosen response in making that denial, which is a contradiction, or else it is merely the automatic response of a nervous system built by genetic coding and moulded by conditioning." John C. Eccles
There are those, obsessed with increasing specialization and the 'information explosion' who declare the job is too big for one man; the field of knowledge is simply too vast. This is nonsense. What is called for are generalists with good peripheral vision who have mastered the art of reading down into the middle depth; good judgment is necessary in the sifting out what is essential from inconsequential detail:
"......For this, it is necessary to survey a wide range of scientific concepts. If we are to find any meaning inherent in the cosmos, it must be of the entirety; deeper comprehension requires the synthesis of all major aspects. What we learn of the mind is quite as relevant as what we learn of the electron. Hence this work touches, in successive chapters, on fundamentals of physics, biology, history, and psychology, and in a final chapter draws some moral consequences. Modern science demands specialization and looks askance on the superficiality of excessive breadth; this book, however, to fulfill its purpose, has to be unconventionally broad.
"Yet it is not excessively difficult to arrive at a broad vision by surveying the chief aspects of our complex being. One can appreciate the thrust and principle conclusions of modern physics without mastering higher order differential equations and grasp the essentials of what is known of the mind without delving into details of neurology. The fundamentals of modern astronomy, biology, and psychology are at least as accessible as a Joycean novel and require no more concentration than a good chess game. The non specialist, moreover, has advantages of perspective over the professional engrossed in a particular specialty." Robert Wesson
On needs be careful not to topple into the bottomless pit of ‘scholarship; as G.B.Shaw was to remark ‘"[too much] reading rots the mind" It is important to converge as quickly as possible to those sources which are truly relevant to one’s needs, and an important art to be mastered to this end is that of being able to pick up a book and decide within no more than a minute or two whether it is –or is not- worth reading.
No one can -or should- seek to start the enquiry with a tabula rasa;
"......Logically as well as psychologically, inquiry does not begin with an empty mind but involves beliefs as the presuppositions of inquiry…….an investigator who doubted his memory, the principles of logic, the reliability of reason, and all the evidence of his senses would be completely hamstrung. The moment one advances beyond the first 'self-evident' premise ('I think, therefore I am'), one must employ some of the very beliefs one has pretended to doubt." Melvin Rader
But more than this, any enquirer must needs bring with him intuitions of what he expects to discover at the end of the journey. This is but one aspect of the a priori nature of the quest. One sets out to prove what one already suspects to be the case. Blaise Pascal provided an example of this in his declaring that: "….To search for God is to have already found Him".
The Need for a Robust 'Systems' Philosophy Grounded upon Commonsense
I believe it to be essential that 'commonsense' be held in high esteem; as does Richard Swinburne, I believe that most of the time, most things are indeed roughly as they appear, and have been careful to set it in place as final arbiter over the doings of the intellect. This is something that Einstein failed to bear in mind –in his elevation of the Murkowski manifold from a more appropriate epistemic status to ontic reality –with all of the paradoxes this brings with it
".......the starting point of philosophy is common-sense rather than indubitable intuitions. By common-sense Peirce meant those fundamental beliefs we share with almost all human beings and that our human situation forces upon us. Examples of common-sense beliefs are our conviction that fire burns, that some things are red and others blue, that we can usually trust our memories, and that there is a certain amount of order in the universe.......'We cannot begin with complete doubt. We begin with all of the prejudices which we actually have when we enter into the study of philosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned.......let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts'.......The crux of the psychological criticism is that real doubt arises from the conflict of beliefs and hence involves non-doubt. It is an error to suppose that we can doubt at will.......The surprise occurs when a belief comes into conflict with either some other belief or some novel experience, and a mind empty of belief cannot be surprised. If you try to doubt without such positive occasion for doubting you are merely feigning doubt........."
"......Logically as well as psychologically, inquiry does not begin with an empty mind but involves beliefs as the presuppositions of inquiry. Just what these presuppositions are must be discovered through inquiry; but an investigator who doubted his memory, the principles of logic, the reliability of reason, and all the evidence of his senses would be completely hamstrung. The moment one advances beyond the first 'self-evident' premise ('I think, therefore I am'), one must employ some of the very beliefs one has pretended to doubt." Melvin Rader
C.D.Broad speaks of ‘silly’ theories –that people take up for their professional appeal while at the same time denying them upon departing from academia at the end of the day to re-enter the ‘real world’ out side as ordinary citizens. We need to bring a robust commonsense to bear in dealing with such nonsense
"........By a 'silly' theory I mean one which may be held at the time when one is talking or writing professionally, but which only an inmate of a lunatic asylum would think of carrying into daily life. I should take behaviourism, taken quite strictly, and certain forms of idealism as 'silly' in this sense. No one can in practice or his friends or enemies simply as ingenious machines produced by other machines, or can regard his armchair or his poker as being literally societies of spirits or thoughts in the mind of God. It must not be supposed that the men who maintain these theories and beliefs are 'silly' people. Only very acute and learned men could have thought of anything so odd or defended anything so preposterous against the continual protests of common sense." C.D.Broad
Sigmund Koch suggests that ‘behaviourism’ is one such:
"…….I suspect that there is a class of positions that are wrong but not refutable and that behaviourism may be in such a class. These (behaviourist postures) are essentially irrational positions (like, e.g. solipsism) which start with a denial of something much like a foundation tenet of common sense which can, in the abstract, be rationally defended for however long one wishes to persist in super-ordinate irrationality but which cannot be implemented without brooking self-contradiction". Sigmund Koch
Nonetheless, it is inevitable that in calling for the kind of paradigmatic shift which I believe our philosophical outlook must undergo, there will be findings which commonsense may at first find very surprising indeed; the acid test, in such occasions, is whether commonsense can grow -without forcing- to accommodate them in way which not only restores but deepens its equanimity. Generally one of two things will happen; either its insight deepens, or its sense of outrage increases to the point where it is clear that there is something very wrong, and that the time has come for an agonizing reappraisal. Common sense may be surprised, puzzled, dazzled and intrigued, but it may not be left in a state of outrage. To put this reliance upon common gumption in another way, one needs to be a plain man first and an intellectual second. For the mainstream intelligentsia, ‘being an intellectual comes first, and there is no second stance; all too often, he holds himself aloof from the man-in-the-street;
In summary, the great Scientific/Empirical initiative has an upper and a lower face. The first comprises the discoveries themselves –an astonishing cornucopia of laws principles –and just plain facts. The first lie mostly within the realm of physics –and its satellite disciplines- while the second includes vast ears of actual discoveries awaiting an authentic grounding and interpretation. Foremost among the latter is the saga of organic evolution –the greatest of the unsolved natural mysteries. But science has sought to over-reach its legitimate mandate by offering itself as a complete and sufficient description of Reality. Driven partly by a backlash or rebound from the age of theistic religion, and by a Positivist obsession to maintain the autonomy of physics, the Mainstream intellectual has sought to do the impossible by a droll and bizarre assortment of omissions, falsifications, misrepresentations, and a turning of a blind eye towards areas crying out for confrontation and resolution. To attempt to capture categories that lie beyond –and above- its domain is to build bricks without straw –if not also without clay. This has led to gross corruptions and misrepresentations –as when the ‘second category’ of consciousness is equated with its substratum (i.e. the shuttlings of Sherrington’s ’enchanted loom’ of the cortex), or in explaining away ethical imperatives as germinal contrivances with the sole aim of improving its survival prospects. Some, appalled by the horror of a final death that they have invoked, has sought to recover the status quo by manipulating the equations of General Relativity in a way that opens the hatch into time travel. They usually seem unaware that what they have in mind is Berdyaev’s hell of the ‘bad infinity’:
"......I believe that it is generally neglected, yet it is most essential to differentiate between the idea of life after death and the concept of eternity. Most people, whether scientific, commonsense or religious, do not make this differentiation. For them, they are synonymous. Yet this is a profound misconception of 'eternity'. About 250 A.D. Plotinus stressed that Eternity predates time and was latent in the Eternal Being before the creation of the universe of time." Lemberg
As we have seen, even its own legitimate domain has been given shabby treatment –as in its refusal to allow extensions to its canon of natural law in support of the basic phenomena of life, mind and organic evolution. That the scope of the canon of natural law as needed for the inorganic realm should be insufficient is not just deemed to be unlikely; it is simply
not an allowable option. In his attempts to cover up the awesome shortfall, he has had to resort to obfuscations, to stealing the middle ground, and to exercise such logical fallacies as quid hoc ergo proper hoc.The plain fact of the matter, it’s simply not a weltanschauung that can be lived by –or within. While holding these beliefs when in the professional establishment, they are usually discarded each night as they close the lab door behind them –to adopt a more commonsense and mundane posture. They live in two mutually disjunct worlds –hardly a sign of robust mental health. It is fortunate that they do so –or the alienation and loss of sense of personal authenticity would be worse than it is
The reader may wish to pursue this matter at the links:
http://ontodynamics.com/pdf_files/set_of_pdf_odds_and_sods/comsensehttp://ontodynamics.com/summary_mind_Brain.htm
So, finally, just where is this ‘new paradigm’ to come from? Not from the incumbents for every reason in the world. Nor by those to be found within the largely abandoned faculty of philosophy where aspiring students are exposed to ‘readings’ in the subject, and to laboured historical accounts, of movements that seem to cycle without any sense of a destination –any magical ‘distant point’, an undiscovered realm waiting discovery ‘out there’ somewhere. To start with a sotto voce notion that there’s really ‘nothing new under the sun’ hardly promises a voyage of adventure and discovery. Nor, emphatically, are we to get what we need from those occupying the one active wing of the faculty –those who are addressing the ‘philosophy of science’ as though it were philosophy itself. Willy-nilly, as with artistic creation, it must come from the mind of an individual or from many individuals acting independently; this is positively no place for committee work. The founders themselves will be largely outsiders, working, as likely as not, on bootlegged time and with bootlegged money, or perhaps burning up the midnight oil in remote attics somewhere. To speak of the need for a positive, ‘can do’ mindset understates what is really called for by those who are truly serious about the mission to be undertaken.
"......Living without philosophy is like keeping one's eyes shut without ever trying to open them; and the pleasure of seeing all the things which our vision discloses cannot be compared to the satisfaction found through the knowledge that philosophy gives."
".......This study is more necessary for the conduct of our lives than is the use of our eyes in guiding our steps" Rene Descartes
"......Truth is more likely to emerge from error [passionately embraced] than from confusion" .N.W Pirie
"……The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disgrace to reach for the stars but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure but low aim is a sin". Benjamin May
Only after the essential ground work has been laid and its constitution brought into sufficient focus will dialogue become possible and serve a useful purpose. And please note that I said dialogue and not debate. The latter is best left to those who would rather win arguments than discover truth.