I’ve been studying the work of some of the more influential Enlightenment-era philosophers lately. Brilliant thinkers, linguists, logicians; they still arrive at conclusions that are seemingly inescapable while inescapably flawed in my view. Why is that? How can it be?
A few thoughts:
The fundamental purpose of language is to communicate, but language communicates because it discriminates. It defines, it separates. It clarifies “this but not that”.
If it is black it is not white. If I say “run” I do not say “stop”. If I say “no” I do not say “yes”. If something is x, it is not equal to y or to anything that is otherwise not equal to x. And so forth.
To describe is to limit. It is as much to deny as to affirm — arguably moreso.
In fact, to describe something is to define away all the things that are not that specific something. So, the limiting or denial element is a much broader one than is the affirming or defining element.
Language is necessarily approximate. Some languages, such as English and Arabic, just by reason of structure and vocabulary, might allow closer approximation than others. Classical Hebrew, for example, allows many different interpretations of the same expressed idea, condition or event. It is more suited to poetry and allusion than to exact expression.
Some philosophers use the language of mathematics as a means of avoiding the ambiguities of the language of words. But when Newtonian physics was found to be effective only at one level of matter and measurement, the conclusions of classical mathematics were understood to be valid only under limited conditions.
That which appeared to be true turned out to be actually true only within a certain range of probability.
What does that have to do with the limit of intellect?
If I know that something is probably true or probably false but I want to increase the probability of being accurate, one way or the other, I have to do something that will add to the evidence available.
I can ask the opinion of another person or persons. To the extent that person has a similar interpretation to mine, I might understand that confirmation as increasing the probability that my perception is correct.
On the other hand, at one time all scientists accepted Newton’s Laws as the final word on the reality of physics. So, everyone whose opinion I might ask – especially if they are under the same influences as I am – can easily reach conclusions as inaccurate as mine might be.
Proponents of what is known as The Direct Path emphasize the practice of observing and of understanding the content of direct experience. Direct experience, together with intellect allows us to bring otherwise unavailable information to the question of reality.
I sat, early this morning, in my kitchen, which has large windows allowing a view of the garden which is framed by tall, beautiful trees. A rabbit crossed the garden and, as the morning breeze strengthened, the movement of the leaves and branches of the trees became more vigorous.
A thought experiment of a direct path advocate might go something like this:
Let’s imagine that I have never been outside the protected windows of this room. I have no direct experience of the movement of air that is called wind. Nor do I have direct knowledge of a distinction between the one object I see running across the garden – the rabbit – and the others that are moving but moving in a different way – the trees. What might I conclude?
I might conclude that the movement of the trees is volitional. The trees might have something in common with the rabbit. Maybe they are moving somewhat differently because the rabbit needs or want to be in a different place but the trees do not need to change location. Maybe the trees are moving their leaves and branches for another purpose. What might that be? Is it a communication? Does it have to do with survival? Are the trees communicating with the rabbit? Maybe the rabbit is moving because it is afraid of the trees?
If my only experience is the visual. If I’ve never experienced wind. How accurate can my explanation of the view I see out my kitchen window really be? How can I know that the trees are not waving their own branches, fluttering their own leaves?
If I have sat in this glass-enclosed, temperature-controlled room for my entire life, knowing only a 72-degree world, how could I know that as I watch the sun rise, the temperature of the air outside begins to rise? What do I know of temperature change?
Only through direct experience can I know what the wind feels like. Only through that experience can I really understand what is happening to the trees and flowers in my garden. Only through direct experience can I understand the difference between the movement of the rabbit and the movement of the branches. Only then can I distinguish been the volitional movement of the live creature and the passive movement of the live-in-a-different-way tree.
If I have been allowed to walk in my garden once in my life; at the time of a soft evening breeze; I will gain tremendously in my ability to understand the movement I next observe from my kitchen. I might be able to theorize the cause of the violent movements I observe in a hurricane, for example.
If, in that one walk, the air temperature was the same 72-degrees that I’ve known all my life in my protected kitchen, though, the concept of hot and cold will still be a mystery to me.
What is the point here?
Intellect helps to explain experience. Absent experience, intellect lacks the raw material on which its attempts at explanation are based.
The more experience available, the closer to accuracy an explanation of it might be. But accuracy has to be understood in probabilistic terms.
I have to be able to accurately understand an experience. I have to have the tools necessary to analyze and explain the experience. I have to use those tools correctly.
I have to then be open to the possibility that subsequent information, generated by repeated experience, will result in changes to my understanding. Those changes will then require a revision and restatement of explanation.
The more often I walk in my garden – in an environment in which the strength of the wind and the temperature of the air differ – the more accurate my understanding of wind and of hot-and-cold.
But then, what if I walk in the garden with my wife. I find the temperature quite comfortable. She says: “I’m cold”. What then?
Intellect alone is insufficient to understanding. Experience alone probably acts to preserve life to a greater degree than intellect alone.
Intellect brought to bear on experience is more valuable than either alone. And an iterative process of refinement of conclusions based on a more-or-less continuous feedback loop of experience and intellect, all-else-equal, improves the probability of the accuracy of conclusions.
The two critical terms of that statement are all-else-equal and probability.
The mechanisms of experience change over time as does the capacity of intellect to interpret that experience. We could hope that both improve, even though we know that is not the case.
But even if they did improve; if they didn’t improve at the same rate, the quality of the conclusion might be affected, veering more toward the influence of one versus the other.
If they both improve and the quality of the conclusion improves, I might still be incapable of communicating the experience accurately either because of faulty tools or inexpert use of the them.
Where does all this lead?
I’ve been working on Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative because it is seen as an underlying philosophical basis for The Golden Rule. But I kept running into problems.
This issue of the inadequacy of intellect is one of those problems. That’s why I needed to work on this issue before I trying to write about Kant.
©Charles R. Lightner