Sophian Epistemology

?#060;/p>

One of the first things any philosophy needs is an epistemology, a theory of knowledge. How do we know anything?

In my opinion the answer to that question, in absolutes terms, is not much. It must be admitted that all we know of the world is based on how it appears to our senses, plus ideas which we abstract from the association of these impressions. We may also have some innate a priori ideas which help us to make sense of it all, but in the end our ideas are a function not only of objective reality, the world "as it is",?but also of our minds. What we have are models of reality not reality itself. This is one of the central problems in modern philosophy.

Of course most people don't find this to be much of a problem as they accept their model of reality as reality itself and go about their business. But most people who are silly enough to be philosophers find it difficult?to accept a "common sense" view of things and leave it at that.

Some modern philosophers, such as the logical positivists, rather than solve the problem, tried to dissolve it. That is, rather than defining knowledge they defined meaning, and in so doing defined as meaningless all those tricky questions which metaphysicians pose . However, this more sophisticated "common sense" view reduces philosophy down to a "handmaiden of science" and mathematics. It in fact makes nonsense of philosophy as the love of wisdom, even more so religion.

As I am much more concerned with answers to the questions posed by metaphysics, the pursuit of wisdom, even religion than I am with those of science and mathematics, one might assume that I would like to propose a solution to the problem of knowledge. However, this is not the case; my love of truth is too great, and my hatred of bad religion also makes me want to hang on to doubt rather than try to fake certainty. And faking certainty is exactly what bad religions do.

I'm quite happy to let science have its way when describing objective reality. It has certainly proved itself a most powerful and worthy tool for gathering practical knowledge. On the other hand, I won't allow it to close my mind to the questions which it cannot and, in some cases, should not even try to answer. Those questions being ones of subjective reality and ultimate reality.

This is where belief and faith step in. In order to have a comprehensive world view and moral compass, we need beliefs to augment our practical knowledge of objective reality. But our beliefs should be reasonable and honest, and this is where?philosophers still have a role; that is, to help people develop reasonable and honest belief systems. But what is a reasonable and honest belief system, and why is it important that our beliefs be reasonable and honest?

Let me start with honest belief as I think that is easier to define. An honest belief is one which does not masquerade as knowledge; that is, its holder admits of uncertainty. This is important because it will help to create tolerance and harmony between persons and peoples. It should also undercut authoritarianism which has historically proven to be a drag on the advancement of human understanding. These, at least, are two of the more obvious reasons.

Now, what is reasonable belief?

First of all, it must not be based on blind authority. While the bumper sticker argument, "The Bible says it;?I believe it, and that's that!" is undoubtedly pleasing to the driver of the car it is stuck on, I'm afraid that it represents the pitiful cry of a fear dominated mind. The unexamined belief is one not worth holding.

Secondly, a reasonable belief system should not be self contradictory. In fact this requirement is probably not entirely possible to meet, but, anyway, a reasonable belief system, should attempt to be as consistent as possible. An example of a fatal contradiction, in my opinion, is that in the orthodox Christian belief system which holds that the creator is all powerful and all good. The contradiction is obvious?when one looks at the creation and sees that it contains evil. It does not make sense that an all powerful and all good creator would create a world with evil in it.

Thirdly, it should not contradict scientific knowledge. For instance it used to be believed that malaria was caused by bad (mal) air (aria), but now it is known to be caused by a mosquito born parasite. It would be unreasonable for one to deny all the evidence to the contrary and continue to believe that the disease was caused by bad air. Likewise it is unreasonable for fundamentalist Christians to assert that about six thousand years ago God created all the creatures on earth in a span of seven days. With all the evidence to the contrary, it is not only unreasonable; it is ludicrous that some people still take the Biblical creation myth literally.

Since beliefs are used to fill in the gaps in our world view left by the limits of knowledge, it is necessary, even when applying the above mentioned guides to reasonable belief,?to choose from amongst a universe of competing ideas. This cannot be helped, but, anyway, I'd like to offer one more guiding principle even though it is hopelessly subjective: when choosing ideas consider the implications of these ideas. That is, would they, if held generally, help to make the world a better place?

For example, their was an idea promoted many years ago by so and so of the Theosophical Society which was purported to be some kind of esoteric knowledge. That idea was that races die out due to some kind of racial karma; that is, when the life experience of a certain race no longer fills the needs of the reincarnating souls of their dead, the souls will reincarnate into a different race which is more suited to their advancement. To my mind this idea suffers from many defects. First of all it is completely devoid of any means of verification and to be taken on the authority of Mr. so and so and some supposed esoteric masters whom they couldn't produce. Secondly, it undercuts any desire to find a more scientific explanation of an objective phenomenon. Finally, and most appallingly?of all, it could be used as a "moral" justification for genocide. In fact it can now be seen as having been a ploy by the Theosophical Society to advance its campaign of racist propagandizing. This is an idea I would do my utmost to oppose.

To sum up, I believe that the "common sense" view of reality augmented by scientific discovery is the best way to gain practical knowledge of the world. However, science is unable to answer many questions which our subjective realities are crying out for. The role of belief then is to fill in the holes left in our world views by the limitations of knowledge. Although our beliefs are unavoidably going to be somewhat subjective, we should examine them to make sure that they are reasonable. Furthermore, because they are subjective, we should be honest about our beliefs and not confuse them with knowledge.
?
?

?#060;a href="index.html">Back to the Temple
?