Remarks on culture and religion

I want to recapitulate here and expand on some points I made elsewhere in partial response to a piece written by Daniel Kaufman entitled "Remarks on religion".

First of all, I should explain that I am not much interested in talking about religion in religious or strictly philosophical terms. Philosophical discussions about the existence of God, free will, etc. strike me as fundamentally theological in nature even if an atheistic line is being pursued (as it often is). I have the same feeling about much of philosophical ethics. It has its roots in (moral) theology and religious disputation – and it shows!

It is worth noting that many religious people – including intelligent ones – have been hostile to theology and the ready application of philosophical methods to religious questions. Blaise Pascal, for example, distinguished between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (his God) and "the God of the philosophers" (as he scornfully put it). He satirized the casuistry of the Jesuits of his day and the trivialization of morality and the hypocrisy which it entailed.

I am sympathetic to Pascal's point of view but, since I am not religious, my rejection of theology is based on different grounds from his and is more thoroughgoing. I simply do not see theology as a serious or viable area of study.

In earlier times, of course, theology (or divinity) was widely seen as a high-status discipline: the queen of the sciences, no less. And, in the Christian West, philosophy derived its scholarly status from theology of which it was seen to be an integral part, as well as from ancient Greek and Roman thinkers many of whose ideas had been incorporated into medieval and Renaissance thought. Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics were especially influential.

Two broad areas which developed within this theological matrix did become viable secular fields of study: natural philosophy (or what we now generally call science); and logic. Mathematics had regressed in Roman and medieval times and only began to flourish again in the 17th century with the rise of modern science.

I realize all this is broad-brush and oversimplified but it should help explain my general attitude to philosophy and religion and, with respect to the latter, my tendency to focus on the historical, cultural and psychological side of things.

Dan had contrasted the evangelical and Pentecostal Christians of the Bible Belt with two Jewish Hasidic sects:

"When I first moved to the Bible Belt, I was surprised by the level of confidence people had in their particular brand of evangelical or Pentecostal Christianity (some of them brands I’d never even heard of until that point) and used to think that the best thing for them would be to live in a Lubavitch or Satmar community for a few weeks, where it would become quickly evident that there were people far more religiously committed and more rigorous in their religious lifestyles than they are."

Unlike these Jewish groups, evangelicals and Pentecostals profess and proclaim (in Kaufman’s words) their own “extraordinary and intense religious faith” whilst behaving in other respects “pretty much like everyone else.”

The main criticism here is being directed at a particular group of Christians and I can't really comment on its appropriateness. I do have the sense, however, that the tenor of these passages may betray a lack awareness of the standard Christian view of what religious commitment is at its core and what it entails. Whatever it is, it is decidedly not about outward forms and observances; and it is not in the least competitive. The very notion of "religious lifestyle" is alien to the standard Christian view as I understand it.

I have no direct knowledge of "Bible Belt" Christians, nor of the Jewish groups mentioned. Regarding the latter, Chabad-Lubavitch and Satmar are rival, Brooklyn-based Hasidic sects originating in Russia and Hungary respectively. They differ, amongst other things, in terms of their attitudes to outreach and proselytizing within the wider Jewish community [Chabad is active in such activity but Satmar is not]; and in terms of their attitudes to Zionism and the state of Israel [Satmar remains staunchly anti-Zionist].

Dan talks about the “self-deception” or “psychic indolence” involved in seeing ancient religious texts as embodying eternal truths “about the nature and operation of the universe and everything and everyone in it” rather than in more realistic terms. He characterizes sacred texts as “fascinating and often lurid elements from the eclectic, messy, often ugly history of human development.” Fair comment.

I would have thought that one way US evangelical Christians differ from, say, Jewish ultra-Orthodox or extremist Islamic groups, is in their relative openness to the modern world, to ordinary life.

Mixing faith-based and modern views necessarily involves inconsistencies. But compartmentalization of one kind or another is a universal feature of our brains. Some of the greatest scientists bracketed out their religious beliefs in rather crude ways or aligned themselves with extreme and anti-rational ideologies or political movements. Though most of us manage to avoid such extremes, the logical aspect of our thinking is always in an awkward or ambiguous relationship with more emotional aspects of thought – including those that relate to existential anxieties, to attachments and aversions, to religion, politics, self-image and identity.

The final issue I raised was that of cultural and religious identity. In the course of his discussion, Dan explicitly acknowledged his Jewish lineage as well as the essentially secular Jewish culture in which he was raised. For his parents – and for himself, apparently – ancestral religious practices continued to be meaningful in the absence of belief.

For me there is a tension here, a potential problem. I realize that Judaism is not creed-based or doctrinal in the way many Christian groupings are, but beliefs are still important. It seems to me that if a member of a religious (or even a political) group stops believing the central doctrines of the group, he or she ceases to be, in a real and fundamental sense, a part of that group, even if there is little change in outward behaviour. What was deeply motivated is now merely "going through the motions." This phrase says it all.

I see that people brought up within a particular religious group or sect or denomination will continue to share a common cultural background but if they have left the sect or ceased believing its fundamental tenets their sense of themselves – and of their relationship to the group – changes. Their sense of identification with the group is necessarily reduced and qualified. This is why defining Jewishness largely in terms of the religious tradition (in terms, that is, of Judaism) is obviously a problem for non-religious Jews. When scriptures lose their special status and come to be seen solely in historical or literary terms, when prayers and rituals are no longer expressions of religious experience but mere nostalgic forms or reassuring customs, they gradually but inexorably lose their power to command attention and motivate religious practice. They become museum pieces. They die.

Religious Jews, of course, are committed to maintaining not just the rituals and practices but also the beliefs that shaped and motivated these practices. So the tension I speak of here does not apply to them. (The problems of inconsistency and compartmentalization alluded to above may apply, however.)

My preference is to see group affiliations in personal and individual terms, simply in terms of sets of shared and overlapping cultural elements and personal values. And, to the extent that Jewishness is seen in this way (i.e. as an evolving element within various disparate cultures rather than in terms of direct links with an ancient, Hebrew-speaking population and the religious practices and beliefs of that population), existential questions about cultural survival simply will not arise.

Language and metaphysics

Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein had many profound disagreements. They were, for example, diametrically opposed in their respective attitudes to science and religion. But they were united in one respect at least. They both rejected the metaphysics of idealism. Metaphysically speaking, Russell was concerned mainly to counter idealist notions and to defend a science-friendly and empirical view of the world. And Wittgenstein, like many of his contemporaries, saw no role for metaphysics as a discipline in its own right.

Early in his life Russell had accepted the general framework of Hegelian metaphysics that dominated English philosophy at the time. But he soon came to see problems with this point of view and felt a sense of excitement and liberation when he finally extricated himself from this way of seeing the world. He talks in his intellectual autobiography about his early rejection of the doctrine of internal relations which was a key feature of Anglo-Hegelian idealism.

Very roughly, this doctrine constituted a form of coherentism or holism according to which everything is related to everything else and nothing can be satisfactorily understood except in terms of the totality of these relations (i.e. ultimately in terms of the Absolute). This kind of idealism fell out of favour, but gained renewed intellectual respectability when Willard Van Orman Quine proposed a form of holism which was (ironically) partly inspired by the writings of Pierre Duhem, an historian of science who was not only a deeply religious man but also an orthodox and militant Catholic.

Wittgenstein, by contrast to Russell (and Quine), was not well-read in Western philosophy. He was blissfully ignorant both of classical and medieval thought as well as of German (and English) idealism, and the “metaphysical stance” which he himself came to identify in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus derived from its logical absolutism: the attempt to reduce the intelligibility of the world to pure logical objects in logical space. The Tractatus was an attempt to give definitive expression to the scientific project and by so doing to reveal its limits. The particular understanding of language, logic and mathematics which was at the heart of the Tractatus Wittgenstein gradually came to see not so much as false but rather as unnecessarily narrow.

One of the factors which led him to see this was hearing, in 1928, three lectures by L.E.J. Brouwer. Brouwer’s mathematical intuitionism was focused on numbers rather than geometry and on finite constructions rather than on infinite logical space. Wittgenstein had to face the fact that there were various ways of conceptualizing the basis of logic and mathematics, and he started to develop a philosophy of logic and mathematics which tried to explain these practices in terms of the sorts of common agreements which make social life possible. But most of his later work was focused not on mathematics or logic but on ordinary language and the ordinary social conventions which sustain it.

Friedrich Nietzsche had noted that each natural language is, as it were, pregnant with a metaphysics, the metaphysics of one language being different from the metaphysics of another. Metaphysics (as he saw it) was largely a projection of the structure of a particular language on to the world.

This general way of seeing metaphysics as a function of language can be applied not just to natural languages but also to more formal, constructed languages or logical systems such as those which were developed from the late 19th century onward. The crucial point is that metaphysics is seen as a kind of gratuitous by-product of a language and its use – or misuse. As such it is not something that can be studied in itself as the natural or social worlds may be studied.

The Vienna Circle is well-known for taking such a line and Wittgenstein, as a close friend of Moritz Schlick and an early participant in the deliberations of Schlick’s invitation-only group, played a crucial role in the development of the ideas which would come to be known as logical positivism.

Wittgenstein’s view of language developed beyond the position outlined in the Tractatus but there is a lot of continuity in his thinking and the Tractatus itself can be read as a critique of traditional metaphysics. It is this aspect of it which appealed to Schlick and the Vienna Circle. At no time did Wittgenstein write anything resembling traditional metaphysics (or ethics, for that matter).

But Wittgenstein also came to see the standard scientific view of the world as logically flawed and as incorporating metaphysical assumptions. The law of identity (‘A is A’) has a long history as a basic axiom of Western logic and plays an important foundational role in most modern formal systems. But in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was already moving away from this kind of approach, explicitly calling the law of identity into question. “To say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all,” he wrote. (5.5303)

What’s more, as a Christian primitivist in the tradition of Leo Tolstoy, Wittgenstein was not sympathetic to the anti-religious stance of most logical positivists. Probably on account of his religious commitments (which are often downplayed by philosophers), he was also rather less interested in scientific questions or in articulating a scientific view of the world than his erstwhile empiricist colleagues.

Wittgenstein certainly disappointed his old mentor, Bertrand Russell, by moving away from dealing with the sorts of science-and-logic-related questions which Russell himself was concerned with as a philosopher and focusing instead on an informal approach to language and other matters.

Wittgenstein saw language as something that has the potential to lead us astray, and much of his later work is designed to highlight the pitfalls of language (especially as deployed by philosophers). Metaphysical questions can usefully be approached in this way: in terms, that is, of language (whether natural or constructed). And often apparent problems can be dissolved.

Rudolf Carnap was a major 20th-thinker thinker who followed this general approach and sought to downplay the significance of ontological claims, characterizing philosophically-based metaphysical – and, specifically ontological – claims as being either trivial or problematic.

Carnap saw ontology, understood as “the study of what there is”, as being misguided. Questions about the existence of things which are assumed to be in a given linguistic or conceptual framework are trivially true. In his paper, “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology” (first published in 1950), Carnap writes: “A question like: ‘Are there (really) space-time points?’ is ambiguous. It may be meant as an internal question; then the affirmative answer is, of course, analytic and trivial…” But if the question about existence is seen as general and unrestricted it becomes very problematic.

Thomas Hofweber (writing on Language and ontology in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) summarizes Carnap’s view:

"Ontology, the philosophical discipline that tries to answer hard questions about what there really is is based on a mistake. The questions it tries to answer are meaningless questions, and this enterprise should be abandoned. The words ‘Are there numbers?’ thus can be used in two ways: as an internal question, in which case the answer is trivially ‘yes’, but this has nothing to do with metaphysics or ontology, or as an external question, which is the one the philosophers are trying to ask, but which is meaningless."

I am inclined to agree with this general position though I shy away from the word ‘meaningless’. Carnap termed such (external) questions “pseudo-questions”, and characterized the ontological pursuits to which they lead as “useless” and “futile”.

There is no question that metaphysical and logical ideas are related. The logical framework which one chooses has metaphysical implications. For example, if you reject the law of non-contradiction (as Hegel did, for example) this will have implications not just for what you see as valid forms of argument but also for how you see the world more generally.

I want to say something here – by way of clarification – about the various meanings and connotations of the word ‘metaphysics’. Sometimes it is used to refer to an intellectual discipline, sometimes more broadly to refer to a general view of the world. In the latter case, sometimes (but not always) there is a connotation to the effect that the view in question is akin to a religious view.

This can be confusing. For example, in his later writings, Martin Heidegger is often (and quite rightly, I think) seen as moving away from specifically philosophical and metaphysical discourse, at least as traditionally understood in the context of the Western academic tradition. But in another (quite valid) sense what he is doing is very metaphysical. When Graham Priest applies the term ‘metaphysical’ specifically to Heidegger’s later work (as he does around the 13-minute mark in this interview) he is using the term in my latter sense (and with the religious connotations, I think). I want to make it clear that this is not the kind of metaphysics which I am implicitly criticizing here. Nor (as I see it) is it the kind of metaphysics which (in their different ways) Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Carnap were attacking. (In fact, a good case can be made that that Nietzsche, (the later) Heidegger and (the later) Wittgenstein have a lot in common.)

The sort of metaphysics that Wittgenstein, Carnap et al. were concerned to counter was the traditional scholarly kind which (on their view) is based on pseudo-questions arising from a misreading or misuse of language. They both rejected the view that there is a deep “ontological” sense in which the implicitly projected objects can be said to exist. Various kinds of objects exist, but only in an ordinary sense. And a keen sense of what language is and how it works – such as Nietzsche (as a philologist) certainly had, and as Wittgenstein and many of his philosophical contemporaries also had – helps to make this clearer.

Nouns are useful abstractions. The objects that concrete nouns describe exist individually in a practical or pragmatic sense (this dog, that fork…); or not, in the case of unicorns, etc.. Useful abstractions like nation states or agreements can also be said to exist in a practical and pragmatic sense. They are social realities. But all too often, and especially in the context of philosophical discourse, useful – or not so useful – abstractions are taken to be real in a metaphysical sense, or something real or substantive is seen to lie behind an abstract noun which is merely a convenient tool facilitating concise expression.

One thing which is particularly interesting, as I see it, is the relationship between metaphysics (as a discipline) and religion. Western metaphysics – from Plato to medieval and through to modern times – grew out of what came to be called natural theology and was usually associated with a particular kind of (intellectualized) religion.

But other religious tendencies existed within the Judeo-Christian West which were hostile to metaphysics and which saw metaphysicalized religion as a betrayal of the more direct and intuitive form of religion to which they were committed. Blaise Pascal typified this approach. He rejected the “God of the philosophers” entirely, and embraced the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Tolstoy and Wittgenstein were decidedly within this fideist tradition.

A commitment to metaphysics is often associated with a commitment to religion. But a hostility to metaphysics can also be driven by religious commitments.


[This is a slightly edited version of an essay first published at The Electric Agora.]

Anti-naturalism in philosophy (III)

The role and raison d'être of academic philosophy in today's world is far from clear: there is certainly no consensus amongst philosophers regarding what philosophy is or is for. I personally would like to see the discipline become less insular and more engaged with the sciences, and there have been some encouraging moves in this direction. On the whole, however, I think that you would have to say that the discipline has become less rather than more science-friendly or science-oriented over the last fifty or sixty years.

What concerns me here is the general question of metaphysical or religious motivation. Generally the logical empiricists, who dominated analytic philosophy in the mid-20th century, were not well disposed towards traditional metaphysics or religion. But the general climate of opinion within academic philosophy has changed quite a bit since then.

There are (and always have been) overtly religious philosophers, of course. But I am not concerned with them so much as with apparently non-religious (or even atheistic) philosophers who nonetheless seem very uncomfortable with a straightforwardly naturalistic view of the world.

Take John McDowell. I am not aware that he has any particular religious affiliation, and yet there is something about his approach which seems almost hostile to science and I have trouble trying to figure out what on earth is driving it. It must be more than just a desire to defend his professional turf, I feel sure.

Starting about the 24 minute mark in this interview, McDowell defends himself against accusations by Tyler Burge (who is not featured here) that his approach betrays ignorance of the relevant science, but his defense is not entirely convincing.

Note his curiously unscientific discussion about recognizing Bill Clinton's face (43-45 min.): no reference at all is made to brain processes (and much is known about these sorts of processes). Note also some fairly dismissive remarks about science in general and cognitive science in particular. "What [cognitive science] does," he says (more than once), "is just fine" – but it has little to contribute to telling us about how we can know things, apparently! *

Though he concedes that in order for his views to be acceptable they must be compatible with the relevant science (of perception and cognition, etc.), McDowell's view of the world is clearly not driven by science (which he shows little interest in). He certainly does not have what the logical positivists dubbed a scientific worldview. In fact, he seems to espouse a form of Kantian idealism. He himself notes that he came over time to recognize the importance of Kant's transcendental perspective; and, though this topic is not raised here, McDowell is a defender of moral realism.

The only way I can make sense of an intelligent and obviously serious thinker going on at such length and in such detail about the distinction between the perceived and the seemingly perceived etc. is that something more than just an apparently trivial semantic point about the meaning of the word 'know' and its cognates is (perceived to be) at stake here. What is being obliquely presented and defended in all of this is a particular metaphysic, a fundamentally anti-physicalist, anti-empiricist and possibly anti-naturalist way of seeing the world.

Terms like physicalism and naturalism are awkward to define, but what this philosopher and many like him are claiming is that there is more to fundamental reality than what the various sciences and mathematics can describe or access – and that the philosopher (through pure thought, apparently) has access to it.

This sort of thinking strikes me as being very much in the same category as priestly mystification. And indeed many of today's philosophers, whose discipline in the Western tradition grew out of schools of divinity, could be seen to be competing to fill the same general intellectual, social and economic space as was once occupied (almost exclusively) by clerics.

One last point. When I talk of priestly mystification I don't mean to imply that it necessarily involved or involves deliberate deception or hypocrisy. In many (perhaps in most) cases, the perpetrators are 'true believers' in the doctrines they are promoting.



* In order to understand this discussion fully one would need to read certain texts, by Wilfred Sellars in particular. Sellars was a 20th-century philosopher who is often appealed to by those who seek to make a space for philosophy, a philosophy which is respectful of but distinct from science, in today's intellectual landscape. Daniel Kaufman, with whom I have had some dealings (at Scientia Salon, Apophenia and, more recently, at The Electric Agora), is a great promoter of Sellars' work. The interviewer on this video is also a Sellarsian. But not the interviewee, I would say. For McDowell, Sellars' view of the world is too reductionistic or scientistic apparently and, though he appeals to some of Sellars' ideas (like 'the Myth of the Given'), he "averts his gaze" (a strange – and revealing – phrase) from other aspects of Sellars' thought.

David Albert on science

Having previously wondered out loud about and attempted to speculate on David Albert's general perspective on science and religion, I thought I would let him speak for himself. Okay, it's just a YouTube video and it's a few years old, but Albert is impressive and direct and concise. (This is the man Lawrence Krauss called 'moronic'.)

There are allusions to a silly film Albert got involved in which pushes all sorts of New Agey ideas and which he is seeking to distance himself from. What is particularly interesting (given all the fuss about his reliance on Templeton funding and so on) is that, far from coming across as sympathetic to a religious view of the world, Albert suggests that science, which is revealing a hard and mechanistic reality quite at odds with human desires and expectations, constitutes our best hope of getting at the truth of things.

[If you're pressed for time, I suggest you come in at the 10 minute mark.]

Pale, small, silly and nerdy

Thomas Nagel, whose atheistic rationalism has transmuted itself into a view of the world which is looking increasingly religious, is one of quite a number of prominent secular thinkers who have moved in this general direction in recent years. What's going on here, I wonder?

Well, I'm not optimistic about coming up with an answer, or even throwing much light on individual instances (I was going to write 'cases', but I don't want to imply a pathological cause!). This apparent trend puzzles me, and I intend to do a post or two on this general topic and/or on individual thinkers like Nagel or Hilary Putnam (who celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at age 68) in the future.

David Albert is another figure I intend to look at. Albert has very interesting views on quantum mechanics, but I haven't yet ascertained where he stands on religious or broadly metaphysical questions.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, Albert's dismissive review of Lawrence Krauss's book, A Universe from Nothing, was the catalyst which sparked a series of accusations and counter-accusations culminating in Albert's longstanding invitation to join a discussion panel for a high-profile event at The American Museum of Natural History being withdrawn.

Having argued that Krauss's idea of nothing (relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states) was not nothing but arrangements of elemental physical stuff, Albert demonstrated his deep frustration with what he sees as Krauss's facile dismissal of religion in these two (rhetorically effective, at least) final sentences:

"When I was growing up, where I was growing up, there was a critique of religion according to which religion was cruel, and a lie, and a mechanism of enslavement, and something full of loathing and contempt for everything essentially human. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t, but it had to do with important things – it had to do, that is, with history, and with suffering, and with the hope of a better world – and it seems like a pity, and more than a pity, and worse than a pity, with all that in the back of one’s head, to think that all that gets offered to us now, by guys like these, in books like this, is the pale, small, silly, nerdy accusation that religion is, I don't know, dumb."

I feel the force of what Albert is saying here. Religion has played a major role in our social, cultural and political history, and has in many ways been the matrix out of which the hopes and dreams and expectations of all civilizations have developed.

He is implying that people like Krauss lack both a knowledge and an appreciation of this dimension of human life and experience.

And maybe they do.

But the question still remains concerning the plausibility of religious claims in the light of our current scientific knowledge.

Even if many great and important elements of our civilization arose directly from religious traditions or in a religious context, it can still be asked whether religion is in any real sense still credible.

And for religion to be credible, its doctrines (or assumptions) must be credible.

The doctrines of Christianity are simply not credible, in my opinion. Nor the Jewish notion that an all-powerful, universal God favored and guided and protected a particular human population. Nor do Plato's mythic speculations stand up to modern scrutiny.

There is much more to be said on these issues, of course, but, if I had to say here and now where I stand after a good deal of thought and consideration over the years, I would have to come down on the side of those who feel that religion is, frankly, of the past; that it no longer has anything of value to offer.*

David Albert may well have been justified in criticizing Krauss for claiming that modern physics has satisfactorily explained why there is something rather than nothing, but those (now notorious) final two sentences, if anything, weaken his critique by suggesting that his outlook may have been unduly motivated by pre-existing attachments, by emotional factors in effect.

As I indicated above, I am currently in the process of trying to figure out where David Albert stands on questions of religion.



* I am aware that the words 'religion' and 'religious' can be used in a broader sense to encompass, not just more or less clearly defined traditions, but ways of feeling and thinking which might pick up on certain religious themes or attitudes or points of view – a general sense of providence, for example, along the lines of Julian of Norwich's "all shall be well" but without the trappings of specifically Christian belief. Religious thinking in this sense cannot be so readily dismissed.

Wittgenstein's anti-metaphysical stance

One thing I share with Ludwig Wittgenstein is a hostility towards metaphysics.

Henry Le Roy Finch argues* that the origin of metaphysics lies in the idea of identity, which he traces to Plato's conception of original or self-existing things, and to Aristotle's (and the Aristotelian tradition's) more systematically logical approach to the notion of self-identity.

That a thing is identical with itself (traditionally referred to as Aristotle's first law of thought) is often seen as the foundation for all logic.

Wittgenstein, on the other hand, thought that there was no more meaningless statement than a statement of self-identity. "To say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all." (Tractatus 5.5303)

Quite.

But Finch goes further and suggests that this skepticism about self-identity is linked to Wittgenstein's rejection of the popular notion of personal identity, the Cartesian thinking self. This is a central theme of Wittgenstein's (subsequently taken up by Gilbert Ryle). As Wittgenstein put it: "There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas." (Tractatus 5.631)

Certainly, both this claim and the previously-cited one are anti-metaphysical. And, significantly, Wittgenstein saw metaphysics and religion (or at least the sort of religion he embraced) as being in opposition to one another rather than as allies.

Finch rightly points out that "identitylessness" is at the heart of some important religious traditions, notably Buddhism, certain forms of Christianity** and Islam in its Sufi aspect.

Wittgenstein said that his goal was to "show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle", which can be interpreted as referring to the freeing of the human being from his or her false self-perception as a thinking self in its own private world. And this view of freedom is quite consistent with the religious traditions listed above.

On the other hand, as Finch points out, it is not consistent with other religious and philosophical approaches:

"The Stoic (and some would say also Judaic) idea of freedom is essentially that of Kant, which is that of the ethical self or free will, in which the self still retains its identity through its capacity to decide."

I remain uncomfortable with religious language and concepts, but I don't think someone like Wittgenstein can be understood (and I think he is worth trying to understand) if one ignores the implicit religious dimensions of his thought.

Also, having grown up (and so having invested a lot) in a religious tradition which I subsequently rejected, it's satisfying to see elements of that tradition coming into play here in a positive way.



* See his Wittgenstein, published by Element Books as part of the series Masters of Philosophy.

** I would single out the tradition known as fideism, and also the various mystical traditions. Pauline themes are important here; and it is worth noting in this connection that Wittgenstein liked the writings of the twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth.

Thinking about Vienna

In his later years, Ludwig Wittgenstein had many insightful and salutary things to say - about language especially. He had freed himself from a rigorous but narrow view of logic and language, and thought his way back to what looks like a very sane and sensible and quite ordinary point of view which respects the fact that human language is embedded in human life in all its forms and activities, and reflects this variety. There is nothing metaphysical about language and meaning, no mystery (though many philosophers continue to operate as if there were*).

But there is another side of Wittgenstein which I find less appealing: his negative attitude towards science, his tendency to play the sage, and his religion.

He was, I think, very close to Tolstoy in his religious views, and very much a Christian. He gave away his share of the family fortune (and in so doing incurred the lifelong enmity of his brother Paul). He prayed. He read the New Testament.

I say that Wittgenstein played the sage. He did so in his writings, which often have an oracular tone, but also in life (as a teacher, etc.). He was a notorious philosophical head-clutcher.

And, as befits a sage, Wittgenstein had and has disciples. Philosophical Wittgensteinians often play down the religious dimension of his thought, but this is not the case with Henry Le Roy Finch, who, having completed a PhD at Columbia, taught philosophy for more than forty years, mainly at Sarah Lawrence College and CCNY (later CUNY).

I am currently reading a short work of Finch's in which he presents Wittgenstein and Heidegger as harbingers of an epochal change in Western civilization.

"We may not expect the change, which seems to be seeping in from many directions, to be forecast or presaged by any one particular philosopher or prophet. However, the thinker who is attuned to his or her own time as well as to deeper currents may pick up the seismic tremors well before others do and express some critical formative ideas in advance of the more general historical changes. Such a thinker, in the opinion of many, is Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)... [He] was a thinker of such originality that no one claimed to understand him fully in his lifetime and the attempt to comprehend his 'new way of looking at things' and make it available to the mainstream continues."

For many of Wittgenstein's followers - and especially, I would say, for the non-philosophers among them - his forbiddingly complex and beautifully written oeuvre represents a profound and sophisticated defense of the (or a) religious point of view.

And, because he didn't make explicit religious claims ('Whereof one cannot speak ...'), it is difficult to argue against his position.

I try to keep an open mind on these issues, but I do tend to the view that Wittgenstein's religious propensities are inextricably bound up with some very peculiar psychological imperatives and with his family and cultural background. His culture and most of his preoccupations are alien to us today. He was a member of one of the richest and most highly cultured Viennese families and grew up in the declining years of the once-glorious Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Romantic cult of death was in the air.

I have my doubts also about his followers. Finch sounds at times like a bit of an oddball. In an endnote on the discarding of "age-old machinelike aspects of the human mind", he mentions favorably the religious thinker Eric Gutkind (whom I have not read), and recalls attending in New York in October 1949 a talk by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

"He came out on the stage and began his lecture with these words, which are imprinted on my memory: 'The greatest man of our time has died today, and probably none of you has ever heard of him.' It was Gurdjieff ..."

If old Vienna was a weird and alien world, the bohemian milieu of mid-twentieth century New York might have given it a run for its money.




* Saul Kripke's work was very influential in re-mystifying the philosophy of language.

Another case of magical thinking: Albert Einstein

Having recently noted that Kurt Gödel's general outlook (especially his conviction that everything happened for a reason) fits Matthew Hutson's notion of magical thinking, I want to suggest that Gödel's friend, Albert Einstein, may in fact have had very similar ideas.

The general view is that Einstein was a model of scientific objectivity, perhaps a little stubborn in following his scientific intuitions and perhaps a little naive politically, but in no way prone to superstition or to conventional modes of religious thinking. He talked about 'God' (or 'the old one') but made it clear that his God was nothing like the personal God of the Bible, but rather was an impersonal entity, like Spinoza's deus sive natura.

In his final years Einstein was very close to Gödel and the two spent many hours walking together and talking. Einstein said at one stage that he only went to his office at the Institute for Advanced Study so he could have the pleasure of walking home with Gödel. They were clearly on the same wavelength.

The best assessment I know of what Einstein believed is an essay by Gerald Holton. Holton – a physicist with an intimate knowledge of Einstein's writings, including his correspondence – argues that his beliefs in later life were deeply influenced by early religious experiences as well as by Spinoza's Ethics.

Einstein's commitment to determinism (and rejection of the indeterminism of quantum mechanics) is well known, but it is not generally thought that this conviction had a religious source. But Holton thinks it has, and his view is very plausible.

In fact, Einstein's determinism could be seen as having much in common with Gödel's idea that everything happens for a reason. And though Einstein didn't apply the principle – which Matthew Hutson sees as a keynote of magical thinking – to mundane events (as Gödel did), he believed in it no less passionately than his friend.

Admittedly, determinism has often been associated with a non-religious perspective, but one can see how even a scientifically-informed determinism might also be the expression of a broadly religious point of view. From the time of Augustine, a particular form of determinism was a powerful strand in Christian thinking, for example.

It is difficult to come to clear conclusions and I have some sympathy with the point of view of Karl Popper in this matter. Popper was actually very respectful of religion and was a Cartesian dualist (putting him clearly in Matthew Hutson's 'magical thinking' camp), but even he was put off by Einstein's theological modes of thought and expression. Holton writes:

Karl Popper remarked that in conversations with Einstein, "I learned nothing . . . . he tended to express things in theological terms, and this was often the only way to argue with him. I found it finally quite uninteresting."

Gödel's magical mind

Kurt Gödel is one of the key figures in the intellectual history of the 20th century, but, like many people who are highly gifted in domains like logic and mathematics, he struggled to cope with mundane reality. He also had paranoid tendencies in his later years and suspected that people were trying to poison him. In the end he just stopped eating.

I was reminded of Gödel when I recently came across this paragraph in an article by Matthew Hutson about our deep-rooted tendency to think in terms of magical rather than scientific logic:

Another law of magic is “everything happens for a reason” — there is no such thing as randomness or happenstance. This is so-called teleological reasoning, which assumes intentions and goals behind even evidently purposeless entities like hurricanes. As social creatures, we may be biologically tuned to seek evidence of intentionality in the world, so that we can combat or collaborate with whoever did what’s been done. When lacking a visible author, we end up crediting an invisible one — God, karma, destiny, whatever.

Interestingly, Gödel took his teleological convictions as being simply and comprehensively true. His belief that everything happened for a reason led to some very odd conclusions and was a source of some amusement and no little concern to his friends.*

Gödel was a deeply religious man who believed in a spiritual realm and life after death. Hutson's article mentions our inability to accept - or even to conceive of in a deep sense - our own mortality as another example of magical thinking. (Gödel himself, as I recall, justified his own belief in an afterlife on teleological grounds.)

The paradox of this pioneer of mathematical logic being, in ordinary life, completely under the sway of magical thinking calls for some kind of explanation or comment. Was it that he sought to impose the strict and clear logic of his professional work onto a world which works in more complex (and random) ways? Was it that he put too much faith in the ability of his mind to intuit reality, seeing the mind as a spiritual thing rather than something arising from a bodily organ carrying the marks of a long evolutionary history?

Hutson's main point is that magical thinking is natural to us and can enhance our lives. On the other hand, he sees it (quite rightly I believe) as misrepresenting objective reality and as potentially dangerous. Gödel's case illustrates some of the dangers, but clearly he had specific psychiatric problems in his later years, and it would be simplistic to attempt some kind of comprehensive explanation of his fate as being occasioned by extreme teleological thinking or whatever.

Gödel remains a great thinker and was a man with many appealing qualities, not the least of which were gentleness and reticence. His later years, after the death of his best friend, Albert Einstein, were sad and ultimately tragic.

His religious - or magical - convictions were an integral part of the man and no doubt contributed to his greatness. And, one hopes, provided some comfort in the darkness of his final years.



* I recommend Rebecca Goldstein's concise and accessible account of his life and thought, Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (Norton, 2005).

Matthew Hutson and magical thinking

Massimo Pigliucci recently wrote a critique of an article by Matthew Hutson in which Hutson previews his forthcoming book on superstition and magical thinking. Hutson checks in in the comments section to respond to Pigliucci's criticisms, and I am much impressed by what he has to say (and the charming way he says it).

In particular I am interested in his comments about our inability fully to comprehend our mortality.

Here is the paragraph in question:

[Y]ou ... take issue with my claim that "without [magical thinking], the existential angst of realizing we're just impermanent clusters of molecules with no ultimate purpose would overwhelm us." We cannot fully grasp our material, temporary nature. If you try to picture what it will be like to be dead, for example, you're still picturing something that it is like to be. Further, we are intuitively Cartesian dualists. And so we have this sense that our consciousness (or "soul") continues beyond death. Granted, no one can be sure how we would feel if we *could* fully grasp death, but there's plenty of research showing that we have strong defense mechanisms to deny our mortality--by believing we are creating transcendent meaning with our lives, for example. I see the denial of death as a form of magical thinking.

The pugnacious Pigliucci claims, by the way, that he can conceive of his future non-existence perfectly well! But I find Hutson's account both of how the brain works and of how we might reasonably deal with our ingrained irrationality to be more plausible than Pigliucci's.

In contrast to Pigliucci, Hutson sees value in 'magical thinking' on pragmatic grounds. But his pragmatism is not the semi-religious Pragmatism of (for example) William James but rather (it seems) just a recognition that our brains have certain quirks which, though irrational, can help us get through life more successfully, and simply recognizing this reality and going with the flow to some extent is not such a bad thing.

He seems to be quite as non-religious as Pigliucci, but has a more nuanced response to the irrational elements in our nature.

Hutson's general approach may point to a satisfactory way of answering some of the questions I have been addressing lately on this site.

I have been wanting to come to some sort of conclusion about whether there is any value in (the more sophisticated) religious points of view, and about the implications of limited knowledge. My default position is to reject all religious claims but, given the limitations of our scientific knowledge, it seems sensible to acknowledge that mysteries abound.

But can we, I wonder, make any progress at all in coming to terms with this realm of mystery? Are the sorts of approaches that, say, someone like Martin Heidegger made to questions of existence and being (taking inspiration from the pre-Socratics) of any value at all? Or is this sort of thing just self-indulgent, pseudo-religious rambling?

My provisional answer is that Heidegger was struggling with real and important issues – like facing mortality – but he got carried away with his own rhetoric and a belief in the power of his own intuition (his fanciful etymologies are a good example of this).

There are, of course, many styles of 'doing philosophy', but I think it safe to say that most philosophers place too much credence in the power of our unaided minds to see the truth of things.

I'm not sure that we need the likes of Heidegger or Sandel (to whom Pigliucci appeals) or Pigliucci himself. Too often, in my view, philosophers are driven by a hidden religious, semi-religious or political agenda.

In fairness, though, if that (say) religious agenda reflected important aspects of reality, then any philosophizing based upon it would have to be taken seriously.

But, in the absence (as I see it) of any good reason to accept any particular religious or moral-metaphysical doctrine or point of view, one must find knowledge and wisdom where one can.

And, fortunately, there is little doubt that the perspectives put forward by scientifically-grounded writers like Matthew Hutson can be very valuable in helping us resolve problems once deemed exclusively philosophical or religious.

What Berlinski believes

In my previous post I speculated on David Berlinski's fundamental beliefs, suggesting that his particular version of agnosticism incorporates elements of a religious view of the world. I know this sort of speculation is usually futile and inconclusive, but I have been somewhat beguiled by his authorial persona and feel the need to come to a personal conclusion about his - well, his seriousness. So here are a few more thoughts.

The problem is that this very clever, cultured, worldly and sophisticated writer (who has a philosophy PhD from Princeton and a strong background in mathematics and logic) has become a darling of the 'intelligent design' movement. There have been unsubstantiated accusations that he has written anti-Darwinian tracts and courted Christian conservatives for financial gain, and that he doesn't really believe much of what he writes in this area.

Who knows? It's a hard world and people have to earn a living, and it's a fact of contemporary life that high-minded scholarly values have lost their foothold, and a commitment to truth for its own sake is widely viewed (quite rightly perhaps) as being based on self-delusion.

Actually, though, Berlinski studiously avoids endorsing religious or 'intelligent design' explanations and restricts himself to criticizing standard scientific explanations.

Is he just being a professional contrarian or is he sincere? Not always very sincere, I would suggest.

It is clear, however, that when Berlinski writes on mathematics and logic he is writing from the heart. And it's also clear that he is a mathematical Platonist. Platonism is, of course, a very respectable (and quite common) position in the philosophy of mathematics.

Indications of a dualism of mind and matter are evident in Berlinski's writings which remind me of the views of Karl Popper (who openly espoused Cartesian dualism).

Popper also suggested at one time, like Berlinski, that the notion of natural selection was vacuous. But, to his credit, Popper changed his mind on this.

I am certainly uncomfortable with Berlinski's links with the 'intelligent design' movement. I don't think he does himself any credit by associating with, allowing himself to be used by and directly and indirectly profiting from those whose religious understanding is rather less sophisticated than his own.

I am not accusing him of intellectual dishonesty. My best guess however is that he is guilty of - how shall I put it? - a certain intellectual recklessness and love of debate for its own sake. Or perhaps he is driven in these matters merely by the pleasure of baiting certain notable atheists.

The obituary he wrote for Christopher Hitchens is a gem. The picture of the two of them - Hitchens gravely ill - having a cigarette and a philosophical chat on "a forlorn hotel loading ramp" in Birmingham, Alabama will stay with me.

Does Berlinski have a hidden religious agenda? He is a mysterian like Ludwig Wittgenstein (on whom he wrote his PhD thesis), like Popper, and like Roger Penrose (to whom he refers and whose general attitude to human consciousness he shares).

Martin Gardner also comes to mind in this context. Though he lacked the academic credentials of the others I have mentioned, he, like Berlinski, was a popularizer of mathematics and a professional skeptic who wrote for a living. He was also an arch-mysterian.

Some people want answers to the big questions, and feel unsatisfied and incomplete if plausible answers are not forthcoming. Others, and Berlinski is among them, don't really want to know at all. They are exhilarated by mystery. Berlinski once observed:

"I mean, deep down we all have a sense that the world is a more mysterious or stranger place not only than we imagine it, but than we can possibly imagine."

If I'm not mistaken, Berlinski's ultimate mystery is equivalent to what medieval thinkers called deus absconditus, the hidden God.

Richard Dawkins on David Berlinski

I may have more to say on the strange case of David Berlinski and his religious beliefs or lack thereof in the future, not just because he is a fascinating character but also because such cases – highly intelligent people who seem to espouse a heterodox religious outlook – can sometimes challenge those of us who see ourselves as physicalists in a way more mundane believers cannot.

By way of background, this piece includes some interesting quotes from Berlinski and from Richard Dawkins.

Dawkins had asserted that anyone who claims not to believe in evolution is ignorant, stupid, insane – or wicked.

'Are there, then, any examples of anti-evolution poseurs who are not ignorant, stupid or insane, and who might be genuine candidates for the wicked category? I once shared a platform with someone called David Berlinski, who is certainly not ignorant, stupid or insane. He denies that he is a creationist, but claims strong scientific arguments against evolution (which disappointingly turn out to be the same old creationist arguments).'

Dawkins then proceeds to tell of a curious – and amusing – incident which made him 'wonder about Berlinski's motives.'

Dawkins, Berlinski, John Maynard Smith (the highly respected evolutionary biologist) and others were guest speakers at a debate. Maynard Smith spoke after Berlinski and made fun of his arguments. As the audience laughed, Berlinski stood up and raised a hand and reproached the audience, saying something like (Dawkins couldn't remember the exact words): "No, no! Don't laugh. Let Maynard Smith have his say! It's only fair!"

I love Berlinski's writings on the history of mathematics and logic; I have not yet had a close look at his comments or claims about evolution. Of course, Dawkins's talk of wickedness is silly, but I must admit that I share some of his uneasiness about the man. What does Berlinski believe?

He calls himself an agnostic but his antipathy to evolutionary theory as well as his very high regard for the Jewish scriptures and the strange presence (as imaginary characters) of cardinals and Jesuits in his historical works suggests to me that he is a believer of sorts, though a self-consciously enigmatic one.

Genetic factors and religious orientation

Research seems to indicate that a person's basic political orientation is largely determined by genetic and very early social-environmental influences rather than rational reflection.* Similar principles apply to religious orientation, and there is a lot of research (including studies of identical twins) which indicates that, in conjunction with environmental factors, genetics plays a powerful role in determining a person's basic religious attitudes.**

The point I want to make here relates to religious orientation - not to the research results themselves but to the implications of the results.

Let us assume (not unreasonably, given the large body of research findings) that genetic and early developmental factors do play a decisive role in setting one's basic religious - or anti-religious - orientation. Surely doubting one's intuitions in the area of religion would be the only rational response.

My intuitions, as it happens, are anti-religious in the sense that I am naturally attracted to 'no nonsense' explanations, to principles like Occam's razor; and I am impatient of (what I see as) mystification on the part of those who seek to elaborate a religious view of the world.

In the realm of religion - as in the realm of politics - polemical arguments are the norm. But - as in politics - virtually nobody is convinced by their opponents. (Richard Dawkins' early books on the science of evolution were far better and, arguably, far more influential than his later polemics against religion.)

If, however, both sides accepted that their (pro- or anti-religious) intuitions had been as it were arbitrarily assigned, we would move into a very different space.

An uncomfortable space, actually. Certainly, I find it uncomfortable. It's much easier - and much more satisfying - (especially if one has strong feelings in the matter) to take sides.

Let me make it clear that I see no reason to accept the doctrines of institutional religions such as Christianity, Islam or, say, Tibetan Buddhism. But I concede that the current scientific view of things is provisional and may have major gaps and deficiencies, and some of the insights of religious thinkers may in time be vindicated.



* I have discussed this elsewhere.

** The quote from Steven Pinker incorporated into this post makes a serious point. And here (PDF file) is something a bit more substantial.

Possible worlds and possible worlds

I have trouble seeing philosophy as an intellectual discipline. The gist of my thinking is that 'philosophy' is a word which has changed its meaning quite dramatically over the centuries as various sciences have split off from it and I'm not sure that it has much meaning left.

If one has a theological view of the world, philosophy's position will not be threatened as it can resume (or continue) its traditional role as a secular complement to theological discourse. But if one denies that there are truths we can intuit or know by non-empirical, non-deductive means, then, arguably, there is no place for a non-scientific intellectual discipline (unless it be seen as an art form or as a kind of game).

Of course, the study of formal deductive systems, logical or mathematical, is non-empirical, but it is continuous with science.

All that is left of philosophy for someone who rejects claims to substantive intuitive knowledge of a religious or moral kind are reflections on the various intellectual disciplines (physical, social and historical sciences, mathematics, logic, etc.). Such meta-thinking is best carried out (I would presume) by the practitioners of the various intellectual disciplines rather than by outsiders (whether or not they are designated as 'philosophers').

I do recognize, however, that much pure and applied work in certain disciplines (logic, mathematics, psychology and linguistics come to mind) draws strongly on philosophical traditions of thought, and raises issues which previously have been addressed by philosophers. An example of such work is the attempt (drawing on theoretical work in logic and mathematics as well as linguistics) to model the processes of natural language.

Computational linguistics clearly has great practical and commercial importance at the moment, but it can also be seen as a project the relative success [or failure!] of which has implications for the way we see human language – and ourselves.

My reading of the current state of play is that the formal approaches which followed in the wake of Chomsky's early attempts to give an explicit analysis of the syntax of ordinary language have not delivered as expected, just as early work in the field of artificial intelligence produced very disappointing results. Both of these research projects underestimated the importance of contextual factors and real world knowledge which is inevitably a part of intelligent human functioning and communication. Formal systems need in some way to be integrated into this real world context, but, even if they are, it is still possible that many important aspects of language and communication will remain out of reach. I am thinking in particular of aspects of language use which depend on social awareness, a sense of the sorts of things that people with autism spectrum disorders have trouble dealing with, including subtleties of tone and style.

There is a huge body of theoretical work in the syntax and semantics of natural language which shows, if nothing else, that there are countless ways of conceptualizing and formalizing (at least aspects of) natural language. In the light of this profusion, the key question – it seems to me – is not which theoretical approaches are true (whatever that might mean) but which are useful.*

We may want to postulate possible worlds and use set theory to model the semantics of natural language, including complex noun phrases and verb tenses and auxiliaries. But sets and 'possible worlds' are only one way (albeit a possibly enlightening one) of representing the way, for example, words like 'must' or 'could' or 'should' work. No claim need be made that such possible worlds exist. They are merely useful fictions.

Physicists, of course, also talk about other possible worlds, parallel universes and so on, but they are making ontological claims. Their concern is primarily with how the world (or the multiverse) is rather than with formal systems, though they use formal systems to model the operations of nature (as linguists may use formal systems to model the operations of natural language).

But the possible worlds of logicians and linguists are – notwithstanding some outlandish claims by certain logicians – merely formal constructs, to be judged entirely by their usefulness. The other worlds of the physicist may well prove in fact to be 'out there' – to exist in the normal sense of the word, though they may be inaccessible to us.

I am aware that the question of what existence consists in is a traditional philosophical one, but is it a serious or potentially productive question? I think not. Most of the confusions can be resolved simply by accepting that we use words like 'exist' in various ways.

The one area which does seem to raise important issues is mathematics. Just as there are possible worlds and possible worlds (the 'worlds' of the logician and the worlds of the physicist), so there are formal systems and formal systems, and, as we move from, say, the first-order predicate calculus to formal systems which can encompass arithmetic we cross a kind of threshold. Mathematics needs to be clearly distinguished from logic. But this is a topic for another time.



* This is not to say that the exercise of trying to create formal representations of natural languages may not reveal interesting things about natural language and provide new, more concise, more explanatory ways of understanding aspects of the grammar of those languages than traditional grammars provided. But, although such rarefied goals are not pointless, nor are they the sorts of goals for which society is likely to provide support. Traditional grammarians were, after all, essentially pedagogues and their grammars were pedagogical aids.