“Thoughts
without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind.”— Kant, Critique, trans. Meiklejohn, p.64 (pdf.).
“But, though all
our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises
out of experience.”— Ibid., p. 27.
Appearance and Reality in the Copernican
Revolution
Kant’s Copernican Revolution
is his version of Plato’s cave allegory. Remember that the prisoners with “…the
most sunlike of all the instruments of sense”(508b) named the shadows
created by a maintained firelight behind a wall. We discussed the two senses of
real and reality that Hicks overlooks which the following two quotations
reflect:
“Thus Kant, that great
champion of reason, asserted that the most important fact about reason is that
it is clueless about reality”-(Hicks, Loc: 917).
“In the arguments
based on the relativity and causality of perception, the identity of our sense
organs is taken to be the enemy of awareness of reality”-(Hicks, Loc: 1088).
Hicks referenced Galileo
(1564-1642) five times in his writing as a free speech hero, but never
discussed the reason why the state church censored Galileo. Galileo asserted
against the accepted interpretation of the appearances that the sun is the center of the known universe
(Heliocentric model) and not the earth (Ptolemy’s Geocentric model). From an
ordinary observer’s point of view the sun’s movement appeared the same in both
models of the universe. Kant wrote,
“We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in
attempting to explain the celestial movements. When he found that he could make
no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the
spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that
the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest. We may make the same
experiment with regard to the intuition of objects. If the intuition must
conform to the nature of the objects, I do not see how we can know anything of
them a priori. If, on the other hand, the object conforms to the nature of our
faculty of intuition, I can then easily conceive the possibility of such an a
priori knowledge. [B:xiii-xvii]”(Critique, trans. Meiklejohn, p.13).
The categories a priori
are necessary for experience, and are the standard of objectivity. “And he
[Kant] held that reality conforms to reason, not vice versa”(Loc: 1130).
Hicks’ grammar is misleading of Kant’s meaning of conform. Notice the
ambiguity (The Fallacy of Amphiboly) of “conform” when he writes of Kant “the object must conform
to the subject”(Loc: 1047), which suggests Berkeleian Idealism: “To be
(exist) is to be perceived.” Kant’s meaning is that “the object conforms
to the nature of our faculty of intuition,” so that when Galileo imagined,
and later concluded, that the earth obits the sun, Galileo didn’t change the
earth’s movements one iota, but scientific understanding advanced.
When I perceive the color
blue (sense perception, or sense impression is the empiricist
relation to the object, or thing--John Locke, David Hume) that state of
consciousness (seeing blue) is subjective. Even empiricism cannot be
entirely objective. Locke used the term “ideas” with three meanings: sensible
qualities, sense-data, and concepts/universal ideas. In this
epistemological model empiricism is idealism. And when scientific empiricism
demands the universal categorical imperative that all judgments be founded on
verified sense experience to be considered objective, then empiricism has
become pure speculative idealism. Positivism is really a disguised metaphysical
doctrine of language, and not about the world. Worse, it presupposes the very
world and language that it is supposed to explain. The world is constructed
sense datum, and makes assumptions about its construction.
The Copernican Revolution is
another example of how objects conform to consciousness in knowledge. Copleston
explained Kant’s reasoning as “If objects, to be known, must conform to the
mind, and if this means that they must be subjected to the categories of the
understanding in order to be objects in the full sense, no further
justification of the use of the categories is required”(Copleston S.J., The
History of Philosophy, Vol. 6, Part II, Kant, Doubleday/Image, p. 47). The
categories have objective validity.
Hicks
is not defending the values of Western Civilization with an incoherent attack
on Kant that is simultaneously an assault on the foundational principles of
Western Christian theology and ethics. He fails to mention that Kant was
critical of metaphysical speculative free-thinking. Kant wrote, “Criticism
alone can strike a blow at the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism,
free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which are universally injurious—
as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous to the schools, but
can scarcely pass over to the public”(Critique, p. 21). Kant was
concerned about the very epistemological, religious, and moral “isms” that
Hicks claimed Kant is responsible for bringing about in postmodernism. Kant
wrote,
“…all the objections urged against them [speculative
dogmatists] may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by
proving the ignorance of the objector. For, as the world has never been, and,
no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind or another,
it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it powerless
for harm, by closing up the sources of error”(Critique, p. 20).
The Limitation of
Knowledge is not a Denial of Knowledge
“Epistemologically, having rejected the notion of an independently
existing reality, postmodernism denies that reason or any other method is a
means of acquiring objective knowledge of that reality”-(Hicks, Loc: 529).
“One
purpose of the Critique accordingly, was to limit severely the scope of
reason”-(Hicks, Loc: 949).
These
quotes represent another equivocation by the author between the distinction of
the limits of knowledge and absolute skepticism. Recognizing the limits of
reason is not necessarily a rejection of the possibility of knowledge. An
epistemology of limitation is possible. For Kant such an epistemology avoids
the airless space of pure ideas that metaphysics seek such as for example, the
Platonic Forms, and speculative dogmatic theology. Plato abandoned the world of
sense perception; however, Kant wanted to turn back to the appearances, but
newly understood as sense experience necessarily organized by the a priori
categories of knowledge.
“It is true that the mathematician occupies himself
with objects and cognitions only in so far as they can be represented by means
of intuition…Deceived by such a proof of the power of reason, we can perceive
no limits to the extension of our knowledge. The light dove cleaving in free
flight the thin air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her
movements would be far more free and rapid in airless space. Just in the same
way did Plato, abandoning the world of sense because of the narrow limits it
sets to the understanding, venture upon the wings of ideas beyond it, into the
void space of pure intellect….”(Critique, p.27).
The Scandal of Philosophy
“For
all of their differences, the empiricists and rationalist had agree with the
broadly Enlightenment conception of reason-that human reason is a faculty of
the individual, that it is competent to know reality objectively, that it is
capable of functioning autonomously and in accordance to universal principles”-(Hicks, Loc: 951).
Kant recovered rationalism
and empiricism by making a synthesis of the two opposing epistemologies. The
Empiricists were having difficulty with the problem of induction and causation
such as the ancient skeptic Prryho. The Rationalist Cartesians were unable to
prove the mere existence of anything except their own selves with any
certainty. The situation was a philosophical scandal. Kant most likely had
Berkeley (1685-1753) in mind when he wrote:
“However harmless idealism may be considered—although
in reality it is not so—in regard to the essential ends of metaphysics, it must
still remain a scandal to philosophy and to the general human reason to be
obliged to assume, as an article of mere belief, the existence of things
external to ourselves (from which, yet, we derive the whole material of
cognition for the internal sense), and not to be able to oppose a satisfactory
proof to any one who may call it in question”(Critique, p. 23).
Science
in Disrepute
“…philosophers, ignorant of
the path they ought to pursue and always disputing with each other regarding
the discoveries which each asserted he had made, brought their science into
disrepute with the rest of the world, and finally, even among themselves” (Critique,
p. 470).
Hicks falsely believes that
modern science was some kind of pre-lapsarian epistemological utopia. Cartesian
and Humean realism turn out to be completely solipsistic. This problem was an
epistemological trap that Cartesian rationalism and Humean empiricism could not
escape, and not a matter of negotiating “pay offs and trade-offs”(Loc: 1066)
with science losing and religion winning credibility: the business metaphor is
greatly misleading. Transcendental logic in not psychology as with
empiricist psychological oriented epistemologies, but rather concerns the necessary
conditions for the possibility of experience—not what is accidental to
experience. One cannot negotiate that the categories and forms of intuition are
optional for experience anymore than one can negotiate that a triangle should
have two sides instead of three. Kant wrote, “It is therefore not merely
possible or probable, but indubitably certain, that space and time, as the
necessary conditions of all our external and internal experience….”(Critique,
p.59). This is why the Critique is organized by transcendental deductions.
Hicks completely misunderstands the meaning of transcendental logic as a
critical science of a priori logical necessity and not of the accidental
attributes of psychology. For Kant, the necessary conditions for the
possibility of experience universally apply to all sentient self-conscious
beings—even to the angels.
“It is, in fact, a call to
reason, again to undertake the most laborious of all tasks—that of
self-examination, and to establish a tribunal, which may secure it in its
well-grounded claims, while it pronounces against all baseless assumptions and
pretensions, not in an arbitrary manner, but according to its own eternal and
unchangeable laws. This tribunal is nothing less than the critical
investigation of pure reason”(Critique, p. 5).
Hicks does not understand
the Critique of Pure Reason as a solution to anything because he is
unaware of exactly what were the epistemological problems. He provides no
architectonic non-Kantian epistemological answers to the problem of solipsism
in rationalism or empiricism. He laments, “Reason is clueless about reality,”
but is seeking edification instead of seeking truth as Hegel warned.
Kant Recovered Rationalism, Empiricism, and Spiritual
Faith
“I have not returned an
evasive answer to the questions of reason, by alleging the inability and
limitation of the faculties of the mind; I have, on the contrary, examined them
completely in the light of principles, and, after having discovered the cause
of the doubts and contradictions into which reason fell, have solved them to
its perfect satisfaction”(Critique, p.6).
The
Kantian concept of the thing-in-itself recovers both rationalism and
empiricism from solipsism. This is contrary to Hicks’ interpretation of Kant.
The synthesis with transcendental idealism not only rescued rationalism and empiricism
together as coherent epistemologies for science, but also expunged the
solipsistic character of both with the noumenon doctrine of which nothing
determinate can be said of the thing-in-itself.* Kantian transcendental idealism is not solipsistic which means for
Hicks it is not realundefined or objective.
*I must add this note: Kant’s
argument that the noumenon is indeterminate and nothing can be said determinate
about the noumenal without contradiction is a rejection of solipsism. Tillich
duplicates this same Kantian logical move in defining God as “being-itself”
which has “no qualities, beyond everything, above and beyond all determination,
above essences”(see, ”Tillich and the Postmodern,” by John Thatamanil in
“Paul Tillich Cambridge Companion,” p. 288)(pdf). This is why Tillich cannot
be called onto-theological, and Kant cannot be understood as a solipsist.
Conclusion
"So the reviewer understood nothing of what I wrote...."-Kant, Prolegomena, p. 81. The term postmodernism as
used by Hicks is a trope, and a style of rhetoric. “Trope” from
Greek “tropos” means “style, a turn,
or related to turning.” He consciously constructs a Kantian
straw man to create a false stereotype, which is then used to smear all the
other philosophers he identifies as postmodern, and later as the forefathers of
terrorism (Loc: 3725) and cultural Marxism which is yet another trope. The
same poor reasoning is duplicated with each philosopher he describes as
postmodern so that there are endless errors based on his initial Kantian straw
man constructed from circular argument and informal fallacies of content.
Unfortunately, Hicks’ book will turn some readers away from the philosophers he
smeared while those that are still interested will have special difficulty
understanding Kantian epistemology having unknowingly embraced distorted and
distorting assumptions.
"The Future"
by Leonard Cohen
(1992)
Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!
Give me crack and careless sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
…Continuing the critique of a Postmodernism Trope.
“… they may try to disguise
themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by changes on the language
of the schools, unavoidably fall into metaphysical declarations and
propositions, which they profess to regard with so much contempt”—Kant, Critique of Pure
Reason, trans.Meiklejohn, p.5.
The Fallacy of Tunnel History
Hicks’ historical narrative
presents a too narrow view by selecting Kantian epistemology as the landmark
philosopher who destroyed realist epistemology. Over emphasis of a few
historical events, or persons can lead to distortion and misinterpretation.
There were other forces that brought about the decline of an intelligible
religious world-order having a clear hierarchy of authority inherited from the
Middle Ages. Kant, Descartes, and Leibnitz were part of the rationalistic
current that was sweeping the world. Hobbes (1588-1679) Locke, Berkeley
(1685-1753), and Hume all constructed psychological oriented
epistemologies and were forces in themselves bring about the Enlightenment and
Scientific Revolution. Others interpret Kant as contributing to the
empiricist-mechanistic-scientific realist epistemology that reduced modern
science to the technology of subject-object manipulation. Of course those who blame
Kant as responsible for this trend of Enlightenment science should also consider
the explosion of new technology resulting from the destabilizing effects of
capitalist factory production that encouraged scientific empiricist
instrumental rationality. Marx was one of the first to note hyper-technical
innovation in Capitalist production, “The inanimate machinery not only wears
out and depreciates from day to day, but a great part of it becomes so quickly
superannuated, by constant technical progress, that it can be replaced with
advantage by new machinery after a few months” (Capital Vol. I, p. 400).
Historical events and persons may act as both cause and effect in the movement
of history.
Hicks commits the Fallacy of
Tunnel History as formulated by historian J. H. Hexter in “Reappraisals of
History,” (Evanston, Ill., 1961, p. 194-95).
Let us construct a
hypothetical historical matrix with twenty historical events. *
Time________Past events
(Past)
1____ A B C D E
2 ____B C D A B
3 ____C D A B C
4 ____D A B C D
5 ____A B C D E
(Present)
There are other economic,
political, culture, religious, and philosophical forces that Hicks overlooked
by misinterpretation and over emphasis. If we place Kant as the central figure
in the historical event matrix, it would have the following pattern:
Time________Past events
(Past)
1__________
B
2 ________B
3 ______B
4 ____B
5 __B
(Present)
A more likely historical
narrative would look at the larger historical picture and not just reduce
history to one person, issue, or event. A more inclusive historical event
matrix would have a somewhat different pattern:
Time________Past events
(Past)
1_A_C_D_ B_E
2 ___________
3 _B_ D_A_C_
4 __________
5 _B_C_A__E_
(Present)
* Historian David H. Fischer created
this clever historical matrix diagram in “Historians’ Fallacies” (1970),
Harper Perennial, p.142.
The Fallacy of Difference
The fallacy of difference is
an attempt at a special definition of a group by genus (common traits), and
differences in which the genus is omitted or forgotten.
Hicks claimed skepticism is
a unique trait of postmodernism, making it different from modern realism.
Pyrrho, Plato, Kant, Hume,
Descartes, and Locke were all skeptics in some since, not just Kant. The single
word “skepticism” has many meanings such as Humean scientific empirical
skepticism, Descartes’ rationalist methodological doubt, attitudinal
skepticism, atheistic doubt of any type, or simply mean non-dogmatic. All of
these philosophers applied methodological doubt—even Pyrrho (360
B.C.)—in their respective fields of study so Kant is not unique as a skeptic in
this sense.
To help clarify this fallacy
American Puritanism is again a good example. Puritanism is often identified
with witch burning as its special characteristic from other religious sects of
its time and region. However, historian Dr. Fischer noted that much of Puritan
theology was Anglican, a greater amount was Protestant, and the majority was
Christian (source: David Hackett Fischer, The Historians’ Fallacies, 1970,
Harper/Perennial, p. 222).
The attempt to define
postmodernism by the special characteristic of skepticism does not make
postmodernism distinct from modernism for want of an insight into a criteria of
difference.
The Converse Fallacy of Difference:
This
fallacy attempts to render a definition of a group by a quality, which is not
special to it. Fischer’s Puritan historical example is helpful for
understanding this fallacy also. Historical records show that the Puritans
engaged in the fewest witch killing, and burned none. However, this difference
among the other sects is ignored and the Puritans are especially distinguished
as witch burning fanatics instead.
Hicks tries to group
together epistemological skepticism which “cannot put us in contact with
reality,” and postmodernism (the shadow of circularity still hangs over this
term) with philosophers Kant and Hegel. However, Kant and Hegel had opposite
views about this very question of the possibility knowledge. Again skepticism
is being used as a special characteristic of postmodernism. Kant argued the thing-in-itself
(noumenon) could not be known determinately. Hegel argued that absolute
knowledge (as opposed to knowledge of appearances) is possible; therefore,
Hicks should not point to Hegel as an example of a postmodern skeptic, yet he
does by ignoring this and other differences. Hicks also links David Hume with
postmodernism (Loc: 786). Kantian faithful non-theism is much different than
Humean atheistic empiricist skepticism. Kantian skepticism is not cynical
attitudinal skepticism. Kantian Transcendental Idealism is wholly different
than Berkeleian Psychological Idealism.
Since the terms skepticism,
idealism, and relativism have multiple meanings, the attempt to define
postmodernism by these special characteristics does not make postmodernists
distinct even from themselves for want of an insight into a criteria of sameness.
Consequently, Hicks
committed both the Fallacy of Difference and the Fallacy of Converse
of Difference as a result of committing the Fallacy of Equivocation
at the very beginning. We can think of these fallacies as multiple compounding
felonies.
The
Static Fallacy Relating to Process, Truth, and Falsity.
The
Static Fallacy is another formulation of the False Dilemma Fallacy.
This fallacy attempts to
conceptualize a dynamic process in static terms. Hicks views various schools of
philosophy as isolated ahistorical monads by treating them as inert elements
having only the two possible values of true and false (bivalence). Historical
process is absent in this tunnel vision narrative of postmodernism except for
the continuous thread of ill-defined Kantian skepticism. Instead of thinking in
terms of true and false, Hegel understood the history of philosophy in terms of
parts and whole in which historical process is included so that a school of
philosophy (bud) will past away to only reappear as a new fuller form
(blossom), and then as truth:
“The bud disappears
in the bursting-forth of the blossom, and one might say that the former is
refuted by the latter; similarly, when the fruit appears, the blossom is shown
up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant, and the fruit emerges as
the truth of it instead” (Preface; Section: 2. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit,
1807, trans. by A. V. Miller, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977. Preface,
Paragraph: 2.). See lecture: The Complete Phenomenology
of Spirit (Preface, section 2) by Professor Gregory B Sadler.
Hicks’ understandable
longing for a lost world-order of essential meaning, identity, hierarchy, and
faith—a lost substantial world of meaning (Lifeworld)-- is what Hegel
spoke of in tracing the history of philosophical movements. The pre-scientific
worldviews and past religious orthodoxy are now just dead empty husks. A
distressed humanity is now demanding from philosophy the recovery of this lost
world of certainty. Hegel wrote that Geist (Mind, or Spirit),
“…has not only gone
beyond all this into the other extreme of an insubstantial reflection of
itself, but beyond too. Spirit has not only lost its essential life; it is also
conscious of this loss, and of the finitude that is its own content. Turning
away from the empty husks, and confessing that it lies in wickedness, it
reviles itself for so doing, and now demands from philosophy, not so much knowledge
of what it is, as the recovery through its agency of that lost sense of
solid and substantial being.” (Original italics) Hegel’s Spirit, Paragraph
7.
Hegel warned that in desperation for meaning
dogmatists would seek to restore that lost sense of substantial being by
engaging in metaphysics, “He will find ample opportunity to dream up something
for himself. But philosophy must beware of the wish to be edifying“(Hegel, para. 9). Kant uses the terms metaphysics in a
variety of ways that are both negative and positive (Critique, p.471).
Metaphysics in its negative sense means the attempt to apply the cognitive
categories of a priori reason to the non-empirical--not within the
sphere of possible experience. Kant wrote this kind of metaphysics, “…deals
with mere conceptions—not, like mathematics, with conceptions applied to
intuition—and in it, reason is the pupil of itself alone”(Critique, p.12).
The real issue for
scientific philosophy is knowledge and truth, but instead dogmatic philosophy
has become (my italics)...”no more than a device for evading the real
issue, a way of creating an impression of hard work and serious commitment to
the problem, while actually sparing oneself both. For the real issue is not
exhausted by stating it as an aim, but by carrying it out, nor is the whole,
but rather the result together with the process through which it came
about” (Hegel, para. 3). The static view of history fails to perceive
the process of Mind (Spirit). Tillich tells us that at these historical moments
of paradigm shifting reason must not deny itself, does not abdicate, but turns into itself to transcend itself, within itself.
…Next are collected
quotations by Kant contradicting Hicks’ straw man interpretation of The
Critique of Pure Reason.
“[Hayek produced] a terrific steam hammer in order to crack a nut—and then he does not crack it.”—Piero Sraffa’s critique of Friedrich von Hayek’s book “Prices and Production,” (1932).
The Fallacy of Equivocation between the
terms Doubt and Skepticism
Hicks completely missed the
different types of skepticism. Skepticism can be a methodological
technique to engage in doubt for testing hypotheses, and/or skepticism can be an attitude
of doubt “toward all the beliefs of man, from sense experience to religious creeds”(Tillich,
Dynamics of Faith, p.19, pdf.).
Hicks’ initial look at Kant suggests skepticism in the first methodological
sense, but then the book equivocates to the attitudinal sense of doubt, and then
later creeps over into nihilism. Hicks states, “Kant’s point was deeper,
arguing that in principle any conclusion reached by any of our faculties
must necessarily not be about reality. Any form of cognition because it
must operate a certain way, cannot put us in contact with reality”(Loc: 1130).
And he writes, “Earlier skeptics had their negative conclusions, continued to
conceive of truth as correspondence to reality”(Loc: 1163). So there are
philosophers that are not pure skeptics such as Descartes. But yet, Hicks
points to Kant as the archetypal skeptic. Kant is not the lone skeptical
“all-destroyer”(Loc: 1157).
Kant understood his
transcendental criticism of speculative metaphysics as necessary to avoid
falling into harmful dogmatic philosophies motivated by mere philodoxy,
or in Greek ϕιλόδοξος (ϕιλό-love; δοξος- belief), meaning love of belief,
or opinion. Kant argues a critical philosophy is needed to avoid dogmatism.
”It is only by criticism that metaphysicians
(and, as such, theologians too) can be saved from these controversies and from
the consequent perversion of their doctrines. Criticism alone can strike a blow
at the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and
superstition, which are universally injurious—as well as of idealism and
skepticism, which are dangerous to the schools, but can scarcely pass over to
the public (Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant, trans., Meiklejohn,
1781, p. 21)(pdf)."
Kant was not a theist in the traditional sense, but
likely a non-theist for his goal in the Critique was to make room for
faith whereas Hume was a faithless atheist because natural-scientific
positivism forces him there—another difference between Kant and Hume that the
generic term skepticism does not acknowledge. Hicks uses the label of skepticism,
and other labels, in the most generic sense such as relativism.
The Fallacy of Equivocation between Barroom
Relativism with Relationalism
And yet another Fallacy of
Equivocation is committed with the term relativism which claims all
judgments have no universal validity. Hicks wrote, “Hegelian dialectical reason
also differs from Enlightenment reason by implying a strong relativism, against
the universality of Enlightenment reason”(Loc: 1336). Hegel is
categorized by philosophy as an absolute idealist---not as a relative idealist.
Hegel is best known as the philosopher that affirmed universal reason as the
necessary condition for freedom. A
relative idealist believes there are many interpretations of many different
realities; and like a solipsist, think only their own experiences and thoughts
are real with no objective standard by which to judge any one worldview as more
real than another. Absolute idealists believe in one reality because there is
only one mind. This is another case of equivocation of the concept relativistic
idealism with absolute idealism.
Another version of
relativism is the belief there is no absolute truth since the concept of truth
itself is relative to space and time. The relativist’s flawed argument is the
following: “It was once true that the capital of Brazil was Rio de Janeiro, but
now it is false since the capital of Brazil today is Briazilia. Therefore,
truth is not absolute, but relative to time.” In another example the relativist
might argue, “’The light is above John’ is a true proposition; however,
in a different location Y the proposition is false; therefore, truth is not
absolute, but is relative to space.” The problem with these arguments is the
relationships of space and time are omitted from the propositions themselves. It is true the capital of Brazil in 1960 was Rio de Janeiro, and it will always
be true. And for today’s date, it will always be true that the capital of
Brazil is Briazilia. There is no contradiction here as the relativists claim.
That the light was above John at location X is true regardless of what new
location Y he has moved to later. There are no sane philosophers that hold to
this crude version of relativism--not Kant, Hegel, and certainly not Einstein.
Hicks is confusing this un-sophisticated version of epistemological relativism (Loc: 1088) with relationalism. Relationalism, however, only holds that all elements
of meaning in a given situation refer to other elements of meaning in a reciprocal
historical interrelationship. Relationalism is a term coined by sociologist
Karl Mannheim (Ideology and Utopia, 1936, Harvest books, p. 86).
The Fallacy of Ambiguity between the terms Kantian
Idealism and Berkeleian Idealism
“Can
this be called idealism? It is the very opposite of it!… This doctrine of mine
doesn’t destroy the existence of the thing that appears, as genuine idealism
does; it merely says that we can’t through our senses know the thing as it is
in itself.”—Kant, “Prolegomena to
Any Future Metaphysics,” p.21-22(pdf.).
Kantian Transcendental Idealism is the critical
science of the logically necessary conditions for the possibility of
experience. The term “transcendental” is used by Kant to mean a
priori, or before experience. For example, the pure forms of sensibility
are space and time which are necessary a priori conditions to have sense
experience (intuition) of any object of knowledge. Berkeleian idealism holds
that “to be (exist) is to be perceived.” Kant absolutely did not hold this
version of idealism, but instead confirmed the thing-in-itself which
cannot itself be perceived (Ibid., p.77). Kant wrote, “the unconditioned does not lie in
things as we know them, or as they are given to us, but in things as they are
in themselves, beyond the range of our cognition”(Critique, p.15).
Hicks’ use of the term idealismto describe Kant is very misleading
because he again never goes beyond their generic meaning except to equivocate. Kant wrote (italics in original text): "...it would be an unpardonable misunderstanding—almost a deliberate one—to say that my doctrine turns all the contents of the world of the senses into pure illusion."--Kant, Prolegomena, p. 22).
Post hoc Explication is Not Refutation “Dispute the validity
of a definition, and he is completely at a loss to find another. He has formed
his mind on another’s; but the imitative faculty is not the productive”--Kant in Critique,
p. 466.
The best counter-argument that directly refutes
Hick’s epistemology is the second edition fifteen-paged Preface to Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason (1782) then compare it with Hick’s chapter on ”Kant
the Turning Point.” You can get a free preview of Hicks’ book online.
Kant’s second edition preface to the Critique is aimed precisely at
critics similar to Hicks who are often referred to by Kant as metaphysical
dogmatists. Kant defined dogmatism as “… the dogmatic procedure of pure
reason without previous criticism of its own powers….”(Critique, p. 22).
These metaphysical dogmatists include the religious thinkers of his day who
were stunned by Kant’s devastating refutation of the traditional proofs of the
existence of a supreme being in the Critique, “Transcendental Logic: Second
Division. Transcendental Dialectic: Introduction. I. Of Transcendental Illusory
Appearance,”([A:292-294; B:349-350], Ibid., p. 209).
Post hoc explication alone is not a refutation. However,
Hicks refutes himself constantly. He makes a statement and then walks it back
by reciting limited summative statements of Kant’s so called radical
relativistic skepticism distantly scattered throughout the book without
actually integrating them into his assessment of Kant. Throughout the entire
book he makes academically obligatory boilerplate acknowledgements to some of
Kant’s concepts as a post hoc camouflaged repair patch job, but then
jumps out in the open to interject Maoist like anti-Kantian slogans. Bare
assertion is not refutation. Hicks never engages Kant’s arguments, but only gives short-change summaries of Kant’s epistemology. Hicks noted that “Kant did
not take all the steps down to postmodernism, but he did take the decisive one”
(Loc: 1157). But, he then states, “Kant is a landmark…Kant went a step
further and redefined truth on subjective grounds” (Loc: 1157). Kant’s
landmark status is not for being an irrational subjective relativistic skeptic,
but for other important reasons such as defeating all the traditional arguments
for the existence of a supreme deity, and resolving the problem of the
origin of knowledge, which hounded Rationalism and Idealism. Kant wrote to the
religious dogmatists,
“These unavoidable
problems of mere pure reason are God, freedom (of will), and immortality. The
science which, with all its preliminaries, has for its especial object the
solution of these problems is named metaphysics—a science which is at the very
outset dogmatical, that is, it confidently takes upon itself the execution of
this task without any previous investigation of the ability or inability of
reason for such an undertaking”(Critique,[A:3-4; B: 4-8]).
The Fallacy of
Equivocation between the terms Real1 and Reality2
Take for example Kant’s
concept of noumenon and phenomenon, which are the
foundational concepts of Kantian epistemology. Hicks wrote after reviewing
Kant, “Abstracting from the above
quotations yields the following. Metaphysically, postmodernism is
anti-realist, holding that it is impossible to speak meaningfully about an
independently existing reality”(Loc: 526). "He has learned this or that philosophy and is
merely a plaster cast of a living man."--Kant in Critique, p. 466.
He only mentions the term
noumenal, but doesn’t go into detail of what noumenon means. Kant’s
epistemological dichotomy of appearance and reality is the foundation of
Representational Epistemology: there is mediation between the thing-in-itself,
and the thing as it appears to the observer—a distinction that can be
traced back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The thing-in-itself can
only be known indirectly through appearances (phenomena) as experience, which
is the domain of Reason.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
Hick’s refuses to seriously
examine the concept of noumenon that can be traced back to ancient Platonic
epistemology.
For Plato, empirical observation was the
lowest of all states of mind of which there are two: lowest level of knowledge
is opinion Doxia (δόξα) “belief”
as in orthodoxy, and the higher level is scientific knowledge
(ἐπιστήμη,
epistēmē) related etymologically to the “Epistles,” or letters,
for example.
The lowest form of knowledge is opinion
based on empirical image (εἰκών,
icon), and observing biological life (ζωὴ, Zoa, or
'life' as in the word ‘Zoo’).
The higher levels of knowledge include mathematics (μαθηματικά,method) and the highest level of knowledge is of the Forms (ἀρχή, archetype).
Only in the state of mind of Noesis (νόησις)
meaning “understanding, concept, or notion” is there intelligibility
of the invisible (Forms) as opposed to opinion, and belief based on visible
empirical images.
The allegory of the cave
found in Plato’s Republic (514a–520a) is about epistemological
progress and transformation of human worldviews. Plato has Socrates describe to
Glaucon, the brother of Plato, a story of a group of prisoners within a cave
who are chained to a low wall for their entire lives while only facing the
cave’s opposing wall which has moving shadows projected on it by firelight
burning behind the prisoners. Persons behind and above the prisoners make
sounds and move patterned shaped shadow images across the cave wall. This
shadow-world of (εἰκασία)
or “apprehension by images and shadows” is reality1
for these chained prisoners who even give names to the shadows (see lecture: Dr.
Harrison Kleiner lectures on Plato's Allegory of a Cave).
Socrates imagines what would
happen if a prisoner were released to freely walk out of the cave. Socrates
thought the prisoner may have to be forced away from the shadows of their reality1,
and would even try to kill the man that tried to release them. Reality1
is the reality of the empirical images and shadows (Doxia). Plato is subtly
drawing an analogy to Socrates as the man executed by the Athenian State for
attempting to release its citizens from ignorance. As the freed slave walks out
of the cave, they enter the sunlight. This walk to sunlight could be
interpreted as religious and/or a historical-epistemological journey from mere
Doxia, or belief, to Noesis,(νόησις),
meaning understanding, concept, or notion.
What does the sun
symbolically represent? The sun is “…the domain where truth and reality
shine….”(508d). The cave’s firelight provided the shadow show and is
historically interpreted allegorically as deceptive rhetoric, distorted
politics, and sophistry posing as wisdom. The second light is the noumenal
sunlight of ultimate reality2. Interestingly, Plato described
the human eye as “…the most sunlike of all the instruments of sense”(508b).
However, he also said, “Neither vision itself nor its vehicle, which we call
the eye, is identical with the sun”(508a). Socrates may be implying to himself
there is mediation between the subject and object of knowledge. Plato
seems to have recognized the meaning-bestowing activity of consciousness in
shaping the objects of sense perception. This is typical of Plato to foreshadow
an entire Western philosophical school of thought in one summary sentence. However, Hicks seems to have forgotten about Plato's hierarchy of knowledge when he wrote that Kant's, "...arguments based
on the relativity and causality of perception, the identity of our sense organs
is taken to be the enemy of awareness of reality”(Loc: 1102).
The cave firelight could
also be interpreted ontologically as Nature itself. For the ancient Greeks, “phusis”(meaning “Nature,”
or “physics”) characterize both Logos (Reason) and
of what-is (all things). Nature gives what-is the
ability to manifest itself, but does not show itself as the activity of
manifesting” (see “Heidegger and the Greeks,” by Dr. Carol J. White, p.127)[Pdf].
We may interpret the Kantian
term phenomenon as the reality1 of the shadows, and noumenon
as reality2 of the thing-in-itself. The shadows are
empirically real1, but they are not reality2. The categories of
reason only apply validly to the shadow play reality1;
however, nothing can be said conditionally, or objectively about the noumenal
reality2 according to Kant: “…the unconditioned does not lie
in things as we know them, or as they are given to us, but in things as they
are in themselves, beyond the range of our cognition”(Critique, p.15). This
heterogeneous division between, “cognition of things as phenomena, and of
things in themselves”(Ibid., p.15) is known as the “Kantian Block.” Plato
believed the forms are within the realm of intelligibility. Hegel’s objection
to Kantian epistemology is that knowledge of the noumenal realm is possible,
but only after human consciousness has traveled up the long suffering road of
historical experience passing through the hierarchies of knowledge to the
complete holistic Notion—or in Hegelian language—to Calvary. The “notion” could
be interpreted to mean paradigm.
Hicks continually
equivocates between the two meanings of reality throughout the book. To remain
consistent Hicks could have written, ”Plato has no concept of objective
reality! He only acknowledges the shadows within the cave!” For both Plato and
Kant there is an epistemological noumenal sun. Hicks conveys an anti-Classical
sense of reason by failing to clearly address the appearance and reality
distinction in Western Representational Epistemology, and specifically Kantian
Transcendental Idealism. Instead, he carefully avoids the noumenon concept, and
endlessly repeats anti-realist anti-Kantian slogans. There are classic
philosophical arguments critical of Kant’s concept of noumenon, but Hicks does
not seem to know any of them.
For
some philosophers the problem of knowledge is not that we cannot know reality2,
but that we can know reality2 in so many ways. ...to continue with lots more.
The Ayn Randian Propagandistic Trope Concerning Postmodernism
“…the whole system of
reason finally leads to some point at which reason does not deny itself, does
not abdicate, but transcends itself within itself. “- Paul Tillich
By chance I discovered a video, Critique of Stephen Hicks’
“Explaining Postmodernism,” which is a critique of the book “Explaining
Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault,”(2010)
authored by the writer Stephen R. C. Hicks who refers to himself as a Randian
Objectivist. The video is well versed in Kantian epistemology and critiques
Hicks’ attack on a philosophical school known as postmodernism. I want to go into greater detail than the video to give additional counter-arguments against
Hicks’ understanding of postmodernism.
I never liked generalized philosophical labels such as
Idealism, Libertarianism, Socialism, or Rationalism since there is nearly always
some mixture of these views influencing a philosopher’s thinking with close
analysis. These terms are useful as tools for topical organization, but are
limited at a certain level of granularity especially while examining specific
logical arguments of an intellectual tradition. The term and concept of
postmodern seems particularly ambiguous and I have wanted to investigate this
issue for sometime now because it is often used as an ad hominem
truncheon in discussions today.
The Fallacy of Circular Reasoning:
The most important step of philosophical analysis is to
methodologically define the term postmodern, which turns out to be a big
problem for this book. Since Hicks is authoring a book on postmodernism the
burden of proof is on him to define how this term is used. Hicks refers to
postmodernism as “anti-realist,” “denies reason,” “subjective,” and “radical.”
Early in his book Hicks wrote, “The term “post-modern” situates the movement
historically and philosophically against modernism”(Loc: 546). In other words
postmodernism is bad since the opposite, modernism, is good.
Hicks describes his methodology as, “…understanding what the
movement sees itself as rejecting and moving beyond will be helpful in
formulating a definition of postmodernism. The modern world has existed for
several centuries, and after several centuries we have good sense of what
modernism is”(Loc: 546). Defining any group by what they think of themselves
might not be the best methodological approach anymore that judging the moral
character of a person by what they say about themselves. Do we really have a
good sense of what modernism is?
However, there is a second even more serious methodological
problem by using how “the movement sees itself,” as a definition since we are
faced with the problem of deciding which movement we will select as postmodern.
Hicks already presupposes what postmodernism is otherwise how else could Hicks
identify any group as a member of the movement! How can one recognize
postmodernism independently of Hicks’ judgment? It seems that the term postmodernism has no essence. Wittgenstein
used the word “game” as an example of a concept that had no essential
meaning. The word’s meaning is how it is used. Likewise, the meaning of
postmodern is whatever Hicks points to since it has no essence. Omnium-gatherum
as a methodology for collecting the particulars of a universal concept will not
work if one does not already have a universal concept of postmodernism. So the
reader must rely on Hicks to point at any particular group he declares
as postmodern. This behavior suggests that Hicks has an unstated criterion for
identifying postmodernism that precludes his identifying some group as
postmodern. And, Hick consciously and unconsciously carries out this
circularity through out the entire book.
The Fallacy of False Dilemma:
This problem of an essential definition gets worse for
Hicks. His concept of postmodernism is extremely vague so that its scope of
meaning can be expanded, or contracted by mere pointing depending on the
effectiveness of any criticism. To better understand Hick’s use of the term
postmodern-ism we can divide speculative philosophy into two general types of
theories of knowledge: The realistic theory of knowledge and the idealistic
theory of knowledge. In the realistic theory knowledge meaning is receiving.
In the idealistic theory meaning is bestowing. Hicks names everything
“objective” as realistic, and everything subjective is “postmodern.” The
problem with this crypto-definition of postmodernism is that objective and
subjective elements cross over into both philosophies of knowledge. Hicks uses
an array of synonyms to describe the realistic epistemologies as the following:
With this matrix of dialectical polarities Hicks can setup
pre-constructed fallacies presented as false dilemmas, “Either P, or Q, and ~P,
therefore Q.”
Or symbolically written: [(P v Q) * ~P ] ⊃ Q.
“Either P, or Q” can be expressed as disjunctive
propositions: “either accept Kantian relativism, or embrace objectivism;
either accept postmodernism or embrace the Enlightenment; either embrace
Objective truth or accept postmodern relativism.”
Interestingly, these false dilemmas can be rhetorically
disguised giving the impression that an additional sound argument is being
offered:
“Either not P, or not Q, and P; therefore not Q.”
Or symbolically written: [(~P v ~Q) * P] ⊃ ~Q
This expression can be disguised as “Either reject all truth
with skeptical subjective Kantian relativism, or reject realism based on
universal objective reason. Obviously, those who accept Kantian relativism are
in fact rejecting Objective truth which realism is based.”
The argument’s fallacy is not that its disjunctive argument
form is invalid—that is why it is called an InformalFallacy, but
that other disjuncts [(P v Q) v (R v S) v (Φ v ψ)] are excluded by definition,
or oversight, or to logically force a false conclusion based on false
disjunctive choices.
Objectivists mindlessly repeat this trope ad infinitum. And yet another disguise for [(~P v ~Q) * P] ⊃ ~Q, is the expression: [ P * (~Q v ~P) ] ⊃ ~Q Which reads as,"For all those that accepted skepticism, they failed to understand the problem of knowledge as essentially rejecting objective science as the key to knowing reality, or avoiding relativism that denies the possibility of all knowledge. Consequently, they fell into relativism."
Now this sophistry is repeated over, and over again throughout the book. Just change Kant's name to Hegel, Kuhn, Heidegger, or whoever is associated with these philosophers for any reason. The author simply pours different content into the same form to reach the same distorted false conclusion.
The Insidious Metaphor Logical Fallacy: Φ
Hicks wrote, “Kant was the decisive break with the
Enlightenment and the first major step toward postmodernism” (Loc: 1139). These
synonyms are as ambiguous and misleading as the term postmodern itself. For
example, the term “Enlightenment” has a positive meaning that is unconsciously
imported through a metaphor influencing the reader’s thinking. Not everything
that happened in the Enlightenment was Enlightening; not everything modern is
good; nor was everything in the “Dark Ages” conceptually backwards; and the
“Cold War” had millions of human casualties; and even “Realism” can be an
idealist theory of knowledge subjectively biased. What Hicks referred to as the
“Modern Era,” Kant and Hegel a history of errors. Even if the belief in
objectivism is objective, then that belief provides no evidence whatsoever for
the truth of objectivism. Beware of bare assertions based on insidious
metaphors that unconsciously influence critical thinking.
The Fallacy of Ambiguity: ψ
Hick’s critique of postmodernism is based on the thesis that
Kant’s epistemological skepticism is irrational. “Kant was thus different from
previous skeptics and religious apologists…But earlier skeptics had never been
as sweeping in their conclusions.”(Loc: 1130). If Hicks’ thesis is false, then
the book’s entire philosophical narrative collapses. Hicks wrote, “Thus, the argument runs, Kant
should be placed in the pantheon of Enlightenment greats.[27] That is a
mistake“ (Loc: 897). And again he writes, “His [Kant’s] philosophy is thus a
forerunner of postmodernism’s strong anti-realist and anti-reason”(Loc: 1191).
In another passage he writes, “Any thinker who concludes that in principle
reason cannot know reality is not fundamentally an advocate of reason”
(Loc:1130). This is just one of Hick’s shocking summary judgment of Kantian
epistemology.
Hicks wrote, “Bacon, Descartes, and Locke are modern because
of their philosophical naturalism, their profound confidence in reason, and
especially in the case of Locke, and their individualism,” (Loc: 574). Hicks
avoids any in-depth look at Locke and Descartes because they are
counter-examples to his claims that Kant (1724-1804) is an extremeskeptic.
Kant was a skeptical philosopher of the Enlightenment, but so was the
Enlightenment philosopher Descartes (1576-1650) famous for emphasizing
methodological doubt; and the empiricist David Hume (1711-1776) is the most
famous Enlightenment skeptic of the Western World. Hicks claims
“With Kant then, external reality thus drops almost totally out of the picture,
and we are trapped inescapably in subjectivity—and that is why Kant is a
landmark.” (Loc: 1157). Descartes most famous argument in the “Mediations” is
“I think; therefore, I am,” which is a subjective argument. Would Descartes’
anchoring all knowledge in the subjectivity of “I think,” be as irrational as
Kant? I believe Hicks has his philosophers mixed up, or his concept of postmodern
is simply empty.
In fact, radical skepticism can be traced back all the way
to ancient times such as the Greek philosopher Pyrrho (360 B.C.- 270 B.C.).
“Pyrrhonism is credited with being the first Western school of philosophy to
identify the problem of induction”(Wiki). Pyrrhonism dealt with the same
problems of induction as the radical empiricist skeptic Hume. A strong current
of skepticism can be found throughout the history of Western ideas.
Science today has fundamental questions going back to
Isaac Newton (1642-1726) that are still unsolved today. Newton understood that
the machine paradigm of nature and the absurd observable phenomena of interaction
at a distance such as the non-physical interaction of gravity, or magnetic
repulsion and attraction were scientific mysteries. During Newton’s era these
phenomena were believed to be occult ideas yet modern scientific mechanical
philosophy concluded that there could be no physical interaction without
physical contact. Newton, Hume and Locke agreed that the scientific machine
paradigm could not explain non-physical interaction. Newton wrote, “The notion of
action at a distance is inconceivable. It’s so great an absurdity, I believe no
man who has in philosophical matters that competent faculty of thinking can
ever fall into it…we concede we do not understand the phenomena of the material
world….”(see Chomsky lecture, “The Machine,
the Ghost, and the Limits of Understanding”). Newton’s conclusion is
nothing works by machine principles—there are no machines!
The empiricist, John Locke (1632-1704), wrote further
concerning these scientific mysteries:
“It being, in respect of our Notions, not much more
remote from our Comprehension to conceive that God can, if he pleases, superadd
to Matter a Faculty of Thinking, than that he should superadd to it another
Substance, with a Faculty of Thinking; since we know not wherein Thinking
consists, nor to what sort of Substance the Almighty has been pleased to give
that Power, which cannot be in any created Being, but merely by the good
pleasure and Bounty of the Creator” (Locke, John. 1823: The Works. Ed.
by Thomas Tegg, London, IV.III.6).
Consequently,
the “modern” scientists lowered the standard of scientific
intelligibility by adopting the machine paradigm of nature regardless of the
non-material interaction at a distance theoretical problem thereby reducing
science to pragmatic object-manipulation. Pragmatism is the epistemological
foundation for the denial of knowledge (Tillich). The history of modern science
is the very opposite of Hicks’ thesis that modernism is the paradigm of realism. Hicks assumes modern
scientific reasoning had no theoretical problems explaining reality.
“Epistemologically having rejected the notion of an independently existing
reality, postmodernism denies that reason or any other method is a means of
acquiring objective knowledge of that reality” (Loc: 546). By ignoring the
history of modern Western Science, Hicks’ concept of science is a philosophical
caricature of scientism rendering him incapable to understanding the most
fundamental ideas of Kantian epistemology.
And there are many more serious logical problems with
this book’s thesis…to continue!
