TEACHING “WITHOUT ERROR” PART II

…Although Hobbes is hardly persuasive on this subject, what he has to say about exact sciences, as opposed to social sciences, is noteworthy. I am of course treating this matter differently. As I said before, different scientific theories can exist in contrariness to each other, like the geometries of Euclid and Lobachevsky (strictly speaking, the latter is not a different geometry, but a general geometry, treating Euclid’s merely as a particular), but they, nevertheless, coexist in perfect harmony, as somewhat different hypotheses used in different applications. Once again, nota bene, the point with mathematics is not that it is supremely “truthful,” as Pythagoras would assert in strong theological terms, or as Dèscartes would want to believe, seeking his elusive mathematical formula of Creation, but exactly because mathematics is based not on some immutable and universal truth, but only on such and such hypotheses, and therefore cannot be denied legitimacy, but must be believed in its entirety. The sole criterion for a mathematical theory to be acceptable is the practicality of its applications.

This peculiar feature of mathematics ought not to be too much generalized either, or else we might end up saying that the mathematical hypotheses about the shape of the earth: flat or spheroid, can be harmonized to the point of suggesting that the earth exists in different shapes. Curiously enough, we do need the earth to be flat, though, in order to exercise the practical applications of Euclidian geometry, but while making such measurements, and while still accepting its usefulness in all school curricula, we never for a moment wish to suggest that our flat-earth calculations can be taken out of, and generalized beyond the particular context of their applications, somehow concluding that, in fact, the earth is flat!

As far as philosophy is concerned, however, there ought to be two demands made on it: that the philosopher always limit his method to his own peculiar way of thinking, without trying to impose it on anybody, and discouraging his disciples from doing so as well, exactly as Dèscartes puts this in his Method. And the other demand is not to play God, as I have said before, that is, to limit their findings to practical applications and to leave the development of absolute theories and concepts alone, as they belong to the realm of the Absolute, which is with God.

Now, back to Hobbes, once again, as always in philosophical readings of great philosophers, it is not very important what exactly Hobbes has to say on this particular subject, but crucially important that he raises it in this particular way. In the logic of the passage I quoted above, I could easily reverse his propositions, and still it should make sense. Indeed, considering the fates of Bruno and Galileo, to name just these two, there has been such abundant controversy in exactly the exact sciences, that Hobbes stops making sense in this regard. Furthermore, should we acknowledge the right of every philosopher to think the way he wishes to think, as long as the line described above has not been crossed, once again Hobbes fails to be convincing.

My last point on this subject is to suggest that, in truth, there is no real difference between philosophy and science, in so far as each is based on a set of hypothetical principles; and what are claimed to be observable facts in science are as subjective as the personal opinion of any particular philosopher. Only in recognizing this as a fact can science and philosophy (and religion!) be reconciled, and ultimately harmonized, as three legitimate and perfectly compatible spheres of human activity and self-realization.

TEACHING “WITHOUT ERROR” PART I

This is a commentary on an interesting passage from Hobbes’s Elements 1-13-3, which is here in the S&C format. (“S&C” means Sources and Comments, which is a separate book of mine, conveniently structured after Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks.) The entry is divided into two parts, where Part I mostly deals with the Hobbes’ passage, whereas the shorter Part II constitutes my closing comment.

A legitimate question can be asked why this passage should be discussed at all in the Philosophy section. In fact, it highlights the problem which philosophy, and particularly religious philosophy, has experienced with science, when we see one of the pillars of philosophical thinking, comparing these two and declaring one of them virtually infallible, while the other one is, in his opinion, riddled with all sorts of holes, and suffering from a variety of seemingly incurable ailments. (The reader must have long guessed which is which?!) This passage also touches upon the philosophical problem of knowledge (is science really knowledge, while poor philosophy can never do better than express an erroneous opinion?), on Pilate’s big question What is truth? and on a variety of other questions, all essential to philosophy. And now, here is the long-promised and perhaps awaited passage.---

The infallible sign of teaching exactly and without error… (Here is some remarkable obduracy, if I may say so. Is it even theoretically possible to have such “teaching exactly and without error” at all? I understand that Hobbes must be terribly sore at the “false teachers of vain philosophy,” who have been doing exactly the opposite, but this should not be a reason for going into the other extreme, either!) …is that no man has ever taught the contrary. (This is already nonsense, because the teachers are chronically ‘behind the curve,’ and the very last argument for anything to be true should be the authority of the teachers, even if they are all united in their most predictable fallacy.) …For, commonly, truth is on the side of the few, rather than of the multitude; (Dèscartes states this more elegantly, with his “plurality of suffrages,” but Hobbes’s simplicity of expressing this truth has its own charm. It does not follow from this, however, that Hobbes’s “infallible sign” will be itself infallible!) but when in opinions and questions considered and discussed by many, it happens that not any one of the men that so discuss them differ from another, then it may be justly inferred, they know what they teach and that otherwise they do not. (A glaring non-sequitur here, just as I noted before. Compare this to the argument in my entry The Clock Conspiracy. There is no wisdom in expecting the truth to come out of any kind of consensus, even if it includes ‘the few’ enlightened ones. What if the ‘good time clock’ has not yet come into existence? That’s why Hobbes’s opening thesis above, that ‘teaching exactly and without error’ is possible, doesn’t quite measure up to the test.) And this appears most manifestly to them that have considered the different subjects, wherein men have exercised their pens, and the different ways, in which they have proceeded; together with the diversity of the success thereof. For those who have taken in hand to consider nothing else but the comparison of magnitudes, numbers, times, and motions, and their proportions one to another, have thereby been the authors of all those excellences, (most of which excellences have, by now, been summarily debunked, and so much for their truth!) wherein we differ from such savage people as are now the inhabitants of different places in America (It is so hilarious to read this passage today: I don’t think that the attitude of Europe toward America has changed all that much since Hobbes’s day…), and as have been the inhabitants heretofore of those countries, where at this day arts and sciences do most flourish... Yet, to this day was it never heard of, that there was any controversy concerning any conclusion in this subject; where science (Alas, Hobbes, like so many others after him, places too much faith in science, which is apparently no less susceptible to errors, than any other ‘soft’ science, which he consistently disparages…) has nevertheless been continually amplified and enriched with conclusions of most difficult and profound speculation. The reason whereof is apparent to every man that looks into their writings; for they proceed from the most low and humble principles, (As I’ve observed before, all sciences, hard and soft, proceed from founding hypotheses; to imagine anything otherwise would be to persist in error, and Hobbes, apparently, does just that, although, in his defense, it can be said that he is by no means alone in this delusion...) evident even to the meanest capacity; going on slowly, and with most scrupulous ratiocination… On the other side, those men who have written concerning the faculties, passions and manners of men, (like himself, who has written a lot on exactly this subject, apparently, believing that what he is saying must be true) that is to say, of moral philosophy, or of policy, government and laws, whereof there be infinite volumes have been so far from removing doubt and controversy in all these questions they have handled, that they have very much multiplied the same; (with this, I perhaps cannot disagree) nor does any man at this day so much as pretend to know more than has been already delivered two thousand years ago by Aristotle. And yet, every man thinks that in this subject he knows as much as any other; supposing there needs to be no study but that it accrues to them by natural wit; though they lay, or employ their mind otherwise in the purchase of wealth or place. (This argument is of course unacceptable in a Perry Mason court of law, but Hobbes does not mind getting argumentative and personal in his attack on philosophers, which little pleasure cannot be denied him: after all, this is his book, and his domain, this is his right to say what he pleases!) The reason whereof is no other than that in their writings and discourses they take for principles those opinions which are already vulgarly received, whether true or false; being for the most part false. (The same question pops up yet again: What is true and what is false?) There is, therefore, a great deal of difference between teaching and persuading; the signs of the latter being controversy; and the sign of the former, no controversy.

(This is the end of Part I. Part II will be posted tomorrow.

DEMOCRACY AND THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

Whereas in the previous entry, our helpful Hobbes provided us with some unusual intellectual fodder for an offbeat discussion of the almost-beaten-to-death word freedom, here he is again, with another such offering of yet another beaten-to-death political term democracy. Before we dismiss what he has to say as trivial and inconsequential political science 101, let us first agree that having a sound definition of a term, even if such a definition does not appear at first sight to advance our specific discussion one bit, is better than not having any sound definition at all and pretending that just because we are carrying on a “serious” discussion, this is by itself sufficient proof that we know what we are talking about.

So, democracy it is, but this time we are to see it according to the authority of Thomas Hobbes.

“The difference of Commonwealths is in the difference of the sovereign, or the person representative of the multitude. And because sovereignty is either in one man, or in an assembly, and into that assembly either everyone has the right to enter or not everyone, but certain men distinguished from the rest; it is manifest there can be but three kinds of Commonwealth. For the representative must be one man and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or of a part. When it is one man, then it is a monarchy; when an assembly, then it is a democracy,” (this is all there is to it!) “or popular Commonwealth; when an assembly of part only, then it is called an aristocracy. Other kind of Commonwealth there can be none, for either one, or more, or all, must have sovereign power (which I have shown to be indivisible) entire.” (Leviathan, Chapter XIX)

It is curious that what Hobbes calls “democracy” is not what democracy means in America today. For him, it is merely one of the three forms of government, alongside monarchy, and aristocracy. (Apparently, he never uses the word republic, probably out of some anti-Cromwellian principle, or something. In fact, I have run a search for this word through both his books in my computer files and--- surprise-surprise!--- found none). What is important however is that in all these three forms of government, according to his thinking, it is the sincere and compelling desire of the populace, the will of the majority, to enter into a contractual relationship with the sovereign of their choice, allowing him, or them (the Assembly), to rule over their Commonwealth, and over each of them, thus giving up their natural freedoms in exchange for being competently (!) protected from the outside threats, while at the same time keeping the law and order inside their established community, to prevent them from otherwise reverting to the natural state of anarchy. In this limited context, the closest thing to an understanding of the word democracy would be Hobbes’ will of the people, and I will rather agree with him than with some ignorant nitwits authoritatively talking about global democracy today, that such genuine will of the multitude can express itself in three different forms--- all of them revealing an unmistakable democratic origin. Furthermore, it ought not to be taken for granted that the said “will of the people”--- especially where religion plays a big role in national life--- would be necessarily disposed toward an American-style democracy or freedom, with all that it entails, including freedom from morality and even from elementary social decency, which is rampant today among the “higher-developed” nations.

In other words, the American “democratic” way of life, in today’s multipolar world, may have a lot more to do with this nation’s tremendous wealth, and be a by-product of such wealth, rather than with everybody’s or anybody’s “inalienable right.” We cannot carelessly impose a consequence of being rich on others, who are poor, unless we are willing and eager to share our wealth with them, which, I understand, is not exactly in the cards.

So, finally, the bottom line here is that, in each individual case, democracy is what they call democracy, and not what we tell them it ought to be. Being the will of the people, it is their will, and not the will to power of Washington politicians and of their ideologically obsessed strategists.

LIBERTY AND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS

(This is a fairly light-hearted take on the concept of freedom. I am using a definition, offered by Hobbes, to further highlight my recurring point that the meaning of this wonderful word has been grotesquely twisted by America’s ideological demagogues to the point of becoming completely obnoxious. Needless to say, my intent is not to provide a rigid (Urtext) definition, which would be a nonsensical endeavor anyway, but to appeal to Hobbes’ formula in a broader, figurative sense, thus exploring a, perhaps, previously unexplored alcove, that one may encounter only off the beaten path of customary understanding, which helpful bypass this Hobbesian definition does indeed provide, even if only in a limited sense.)

Anything we discuss probably without exception can be raised to a higher plane from everyday layman talk and become a legitimate subject of philosophy. Do I need to remind the reader that these concepts of liberty and freedom are by no means mundane, and that their legitimate place in a serious philosophical discussion is absolutely ascertained?

This is, however, not a place where such a comprehensive discussion is about to take place, and it is admittedly “a fairly light-hearted take on the concept of freedom,” which of course does not make this entry anywhere less serious, in so far as the philosophy of freedom is concerned. So here it is.

Talking about freedom, here is an interesting reality check. In this case I am appealing to the unimpeachable authority of Thomas Hobbes, citing his definition of Freedom/Liberty in Leviathan. Here it is:

“Liberty, or freedom, signifies the absence of opposition (meaning external impediments of motion), and may be applied no less to irrational and inanimate creatures than to rational.” (Leviathan, Chapter XXI)

…Weird? Uninspiring? Crude? Maybe all of these, but at least a definition, and surely one with a twist!... (The same cannot be said about the worshipers of the “Democracy” cult, an obscenely inspirational, yet vacuous term, used by the empty suites like a coin of the fraudulent realm that they all claim to inhabit and represent, and on whose behalf, and at others’ expense, they are so joyfully carrying on their buy-them-or-bomb-them adventures. As a wickedly ironic reminder, the Chechen perpetrators of the recent Boston Marathon bombing were cultivated as part of a radical anti-Russian group and even implicitly protected as “our sons of bitches” from a thorough FBI investigation requested on Russia’s urging, by the Caucasus Center subdivision of the once respectable yet now politically biased and unabashedly rightwing American organization called… Freedom House!!!)

Looking at Hobbes’ awkward, but fascinating in its awkwardness, opening paragraph, the first thing which catches the eye in this Newtonian physical definition of freedom is that except for the outer space, it cannot exist anywhere, as long as there may be some other objects close by or in relative proximity, that are bound to create an “opposition,” by counteracting our action, or just by altering our free course, through the basic laws of gravity. The sheer beauty of this Hobbesian definition is that no one can “spin” it by, say, bending the definition of “opposition,” as it is rather hard, even for a seasoned agitprop pro, to play political games with the barebones of physics…

(The bottom line is of course that the subject of Freedom and Democracy has acquired a disproportionately large significance in the light of the late Bush Administration’s political and military exploits on behalf of these. Their manipulative, shameful use of complicated philosophical terminology, in promoting a doctrine, which is ironically inimical to genuine freedom and democracy, must be countered on every level, not only of civil action, but also of open intellectual discourse. Otherwise, these big words will surely come back to bury those who have unleashed them, taking the whole misguided nation along with them.)

...This entry is to be followed by Democracy And The Will Of The People.

SYMBIOTIC COEXISTENCE OF INCOMPATIBLE OPPOSITES

(This entry echoes one of the main themes of the Contradiction section, to the effect that one must under no circumstances attempt to ‘moralize’ capitalism, for this practice makes it totally incompatible with religious belief. In this entry I am approaching the same subject, but as a more generalized, philosophical discussion, which clearly stipulates its placement in Philosophy, rather than in Contradiction.)

Can Capitalism and Christianity coexist in a symbiotic relationship, even though morally incompatible?

Let us take it for granted that sincere religious faith is good. Now, the Christian Scripture says that “love of money is the root of all evil.” (I Timothy 6:10), and that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon [or money, as in some translations]” (Matthew 6:24). In short, religion appears to be antipodal to capitalism.

The incompatibility becomes unmistakable when the capitalist emphasis on money receives a positive moral valuation, in other words, when it is declared to be “good,” and thus its values are promoted to the status of a religion. When two “goods” are antipodal and incompatible, at least one of them must be a false good, and thus, an evil. One has to make a choice as to which of the two goods is authentically good, and which is evil, and the stakes involved here are thus starkly exposed.

(I must clarify one critically important point. I see all great religions as good, and yet, they have historically clashed with dire results. Does it mean that at least some of them are “false goods,” or, in other words, evil? The answer is no. When religious wars take place, they are inherently political events, using good religions for improper purposes. All religions are based on essentially the same shared morality, and in this precise sense they are all one, and are together in opposition to capitalist morality, which, as morality, is inimical to all religion, and thus antipodal to it and incompatible with it. I hope I have made this distinction clear to the reader.)

Now, can something good ethically permit itself to coexist with something immoral, or, say, amoral?

My answer is that immorality is certainly out of this equation. Good cannot peacefully coexist with evil in any imaginable circumstances. But its coexistence with amoral phenomena is not only possible, but utterly inevitable. The point that I am making is that it is not necessary for two symbiotic substances to be ethically judged as “good” in order to survive together. Any symbiosis of good and evil must be recalibrated Jenseits, with at least one of the substances judged as amoral, that is, ethically neutral…

This is by no means an apologia of Capitalism and Christianity cozily surviving together which is no longer consistent with my thinking on the future of world economic systems, but merely a philosophical argument on the logical feasibility of any coexistence of an ethically positive phenomenon, such as Christianity, with something totally immoral, when ethically judged, such as Capitalism, with the logical conclusion that such a coexistence is by all means possible, and often unavoidable, as long as, I repeat, the latter phenomenon is exempt from ethical valuations, therefore, considered amoral. It is further my conclusion that in the process of such coexistence the amoral phenomenon will be positively transformed, not into a now suddenly moral economic system, but into yet another amoral economic system, which should be more “ethically-friendly” to its religious counterpart, and thus Marx’s famous historical sequence of socio-economic formations (and Hegel’s conception of spiral historical progress) should both be getting a nice facelift, reconciling the idea of historical morality with the reality of the historical Jenseits!

THE TRAP OF THE ARGUMENT TO THE OBVIOUS

Shouldn’t we at all times believe our senses? This is the core of what I call the argument to the obvious. It is also a trap, and here is Nietzsche to prove it:

The following is yet another fascinating passage in Nietzsche’s inexhaustible Jenseits (#12): “Materialistic atomism is one of the best refuted theories. Boscovich (an eighteenth-century Dalmatian Jesuit philosopher, who defines atoms not as particles of matter, but, incredibly-- as if he had been born in the twentieth century-- as centers of force!) and Copernicus have been the greatest and most successful opponents of visual evidence so far. Copernicus has persuaded us to believe--- contrary to all the senses--- that the earth does not stand fast. Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in substance, in matter, in the earth-residuum and particle-atom.

One must however go further, and also declare war on the Christian soul atomism, the belief that the soul is something eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as an atomon. It is not necessary to get rid of the soul at the same time. But the way is open for new versions of the soul-hypothesis.”

It is true that scientific progress has been made possible by Copernicus by the fact of disproving the “facts” of visual evidence. This is yet another substantiation of my theory that science cannot be based on fact, but only on fiction, and that the method of approaching this fiction, shown by Dèscartes, is doubt. (Incidentally, the tragedy of the American method of multiple choice in education is that it makes all scientific progress impossible, rewarding only the kiss-ups to established authority. Under this modern American approach to learning, Copernicus would have received a failing grade for his failure to check the right box, containing the “right” answer, concerning the state of the earth… There goes the diploma, there goes the career! Such methodological incompetence, and the whole philosophical collapse of the American education system, are by no means some sad omission on the part of the educators, many of whom have themselves been raised on the superior Yeshiva method of Talmudic discussion, indispensable to the education of lawyers and, generally speaking, superior thinkers. No wonder that there is so much dependence in this country on either Jewish, or foreign-imported brains, from all those “inferior” countries which have been looked down on, by self-respecting homegrown Americans, never realizing that the question of superiority-inferiority has been all turned inside out.)

There is also this issue of the soul-hypothesis. Whether one likes what Nietzsche says or not, anyone with a decent set of brains has to admire the bold novelty and incisiveness of his question. This reminds me of my own private belief in my younger age, yet never completely discarded since, that the problem of the real, as opposed to the apparent, world had been that both had to be in existence at the same time. I believed, almost Calvinistically (although I never liked Calvin per se) that at any time of history, the earth was populated by a certain number of immortal souls, chosen by the Creator to put their propensity for good and evil to the test, according to the disposition of their free will, but also by the predominant number of mortal souls who were just being there, as fillers of existence, and nothing more. The few chosen, tested ones were all characterized by their superior intelligence, and would all be judged, and sent either to heaven, or to hell. The rest were just their temporary fellow travelers, on their own way “from dust to dust.” This meant to me that, even if the latter had to possess some kind of soul, like the animals, but slightly different, their soul had to be mortal. The ethical challenge posed by such a conception was resolved, in my mind, by the assurance that only the Creator had the knowledge of who were the immortal souls, and who were not, and the ethical obligation of one who had been convinced of being thus chosen for immortality himself was to “love his neighbor,” in the sense of treating him as a fellow immortal. Incidentally, the issue had nothing to do with the kindliness of one’s personal disposition, which could not even discriminate between human beings, wild and domestic animals, and crude inanimate things, because that disposition was radiating from the inside out, and looked upon all creation as this projection of its own soul.

A lot has changed in my thinking since then. I have become less arrogant and assuming in my thinking. It has surely undergone some radical reversals of opinion in a number of matters, and the general rank of my priorities has also changed. Things that used to be important to me before, stopped being important, and other interests and other thoughts have taken their place… I might get back to Nietzsche’s thinking about personal over impersonal preoccupation over occupation, as I used to call it there, the personal-- or subjective-- being the battle of the essential drives to become the master of its host’s thinking process. Likewise, it has been with me. Certain drives and certain preoccupations had indeed given color to my thinking at the time, but have since settled down: the wilder got tamed, the inexperienced and reckless ones had become respectable citizens of my inner world, and the reason why I am now recalling some of those very early thoughts is not so much an old man’s nostalgia for those younger years, as a general philosophical curiosity, which used to be directed outward, for as long as there was little inside, but has since turned inward, when it can find many sunken treasures at the bottom of that previously undiscovered sea.

SYNTHETIC A PRIORIS “PREVISITED”

 

Unless it is clear without this clarification, a clarification is in order that this entry is in fact a meditation on Hobbes’s Leviathan (#1:3), which I relate to Kant’s synthetic a priori propositions. The transmigration of concepts is a rather mystical concept, akin to Nietzsche’s Commonwealth of concepts, as I present it. What it suggests is that the Kantian a prioris cannot be that much innate, as they may have transmigrated into us from the outside. A soul is not just “born” with them. It is born perhaps with the natural curiosity to acquire them, but it will acquire them only on the condition that this curiosity has been developed above the average, and that the said acquisition as such occurs when our intellectual curiosity attracts these concepts from the outside, like a magnet, in which case the process of acquisition can be called transmigration of concepts. Of course, I would never relate such transmigration to metempsychosis, that is, the so-called transmigration of souls, because these are two very different things, and they must be kept separate. Besides, I do not believe in reincarnation of souls, whereas the transmigration of concepts, which I subscribe to, fits in nicely with the phenomenon observed by Nietzsche, which I have discussed in my entry The Mysterious Commonwealth Of Concepts.---

Once again, Hobbes pulls me into the murky waters of metaphysics, where Kant rules, and where, frankly, I do not want to be swimming. But the question is intriguing nevertheless, whether our mind in fact possesses any preconceived ideas, in the sense that they have not been conceived by us, but have arrived in us kind of prepackaged with the soul that is uniquely ours. [Transmigration, in this context, is by no means equivalent to “reincarnation,” the latter being not so much a “fabrication,” which would be rather impossible to prove either way, but an absolutely irrelevant proposition within the bounds of a reality determined not by some “objective criteria,” but by our own choice. Therefore, my philosophical acceptance of transmigration, already expressed elsewhere, has to be totally consistent with my rejection of reincarnation, by a simple Nolo Credere.]

Our soul being unique, thus sweeps away any suggestion of traces of past experiences, but, even genetically, it has been proven not to be a tabula rasa. It is therefore easier to agree with Kant, even if he may have failed to prove his big theory of preconceptions, than with Hobbes, who assumes the role of the materialist here, in the following passage from Leviathan (#1:3): “…When a man thinks, his next thought is not so casual as it seems. Not every thought succeeds another indifferently.” (Come to think of it, what can be the definition of a single thought, except when taken in its continuity, and then, the question of its interruption or succession by another, “unrelated” thought becomes an inconclusive puzzle.) “But as we have no imagination whereof, we have not formerly had sense, (note my aphoristic question: “Does our soul, like our body, really consist of only the food we have eaten?” in the Apte Dictum section), so we have no transition from one imagination to another, whereof we never had the like before in our senses.” Kant is of course of a different opinion, and I wonder if today someone could solve his puzzle mathematically, like Russia’s genius Grigori Perelman has been able to solve the Poincaré theorem?

But, as far as I am concerned, I am inclined to think that our soul does not come to us prepackaged with a priori concepts, but only with certain characteristics, like the genetic code, but deeply personalized, which include a desire for philosophical learning and deep comprehension, which, as it develops within us, starts acting like a magnet, attracting those hordes of wandering concepts which may have left the souls of great thinkers at the time of their death, and, as we receive them through the process of attraction, that explains our affinity and kindred spirit with the souls of those departed philosophers,...

 

BAD AS A SIDE EFFECT OF GOOD

(This is another restatement of my deduction of the origin of evil from the blessing of free will. In spite of an apparent redundancy, I am still insisting on including this additional entry in the Good and Evil sequence, because of the great significance of the subject under our consideration.)

In the past I used to believe in the literal existence of Satan (but mind you, I never accepted the Manichaean interpretation of Ahriman), but later on, I gravitated toward a metaphorical understanding of him, which has a lot to do with my better elaborated understanding of the nature of evil. Here it is, in a nutshell.---

The bad is a side effect of the good. Evil, as we have stated before, is a byproduct of the freedom of choice. The ethical integrity of the universe is, however, maintained by the lesser significance of the side effect in the formula than the value of the good, which has caused this side effect. To some extent, this last elaboration is rather close to the utilitarian formula, but, although I do not approve of utilitarianism as such, I cannot deny some of its tenets a certain validity, which, in this instance, just happens to be the case.

DAYDREAMING

Continuing our discussion of “dreams” from the previous entry, it can be argued that “daydreaming” has to be something entirely different from “dreaming,” but at least they have a connection through the use of the same word “dream.” Generally speaking, “daydreaming” is a rather vulgar word meaning “fantasizing,” in the sense of creating an alternative” reality,” to escape from the unsatisfactory condition of one’s everyday existence.

It is already becoming clear from this that “daydreaming” is a poor man’s version of artistic creativity, or, conversely, that artistic creativity is a glorified form of “daydreaming.” Apparently, the difference between these two is merely a matter of talent, imagination, and self-channeling motivation. Consequently, its range is from the chasm of personal pathetic escapism to the heavenly heights of fantasizing in the service of humanity. Yet the borderline between these two so ostensibly disparate activities is astonishingly thin…

DREAMS

This is not an essay on dreams. There is just one question that interests me in this entry, also explaining the reason for its particular placement in the Truth subsection of the Philosophy section. Are dreams “true”? Or are they “lies,” finding no hard corroboration in the reality of living?

The answer, as I see it, should already be clear to all who are by now familiar with my concept of the “truth of fiction.” Dreams are a form of involuntary fiction, and, being fiction, they ought to be true by definition.

Which also leads us to the intriguing question of unconscious creation. Is such a thing even possible? Apparently, it is, and very much so, to which the eerie “reality” of dreams serves as a convincing indication. The fact that we frequently forget the substance of our dreams, except for the realization that we had been dreaming something, does not negate the fact that some sort of “creation” had indeed taken place.

Our next question is no less intriguing. Remember the previously quoted spectacular definition of genius, in the Last Words of Lord Edward George Bulwer-Lytton: “Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can”? Are we then to assume that our dreams have something in common with the imperative compulsion of a genius: born out of necessity just because they must? Mind you, we are not discussing here the intrinsic quality and aesthetic value of different forms of creation, but merely the fact that this general class of creativity exists.

Perhaps surprisingly, the line between dreams and artistic creation is very thin. It may be argued that music is a virtually subconscious form of creativity, akin to dreaming. We may go even further, following the line established by Nietzsche, which states that thinking itself is frequently an unconscious process, which takes us even closer to acknowledging a far more substantial common ground between dreams and reality than an obstinate rationalist would ever allow.

An interesting follow-up discussion, which follows next in the separate entry Daydreaming, explores the closer than expected connection between conscious “dreams” and the creation of fiction.

THE SHOCKING REVELATION OF DOUBLE TRUTH

Perhaps, the most egregious intellectual abomination in the eyes of the religious person is moral relativism, “which maintains that the basis of judgment is relative, differing according to events, persons, etc.” (per the definition of the Webster’s Dictionary). Most Christians, when asked, What is truth? would automatically reply, Jesus Christ!, and no one would dare to ask them, What else? In more general terms, God is truth!, that is, the Absolute Truth, implying that there is only one Truth, and this is final. This is the only logical foundation of absolute morality, and the only way to refute moral relativism, that is, on the basis of moral absolutism, arguing from the authority of religion.

And yet, the Christian world did not stand up to the challenge of an ostensible blasphemy, and succumbed, at least partly and very grudgingly, to the so-called doctrine of double truth, which maintained precisely what it posited, that there had to be more than one truth, but in fact two, namely, theological truth and philosophical truth, and what was true in philosophy could be (but not necessarily had to be so, as is often suggested) false in theology, and vice versa.

This purported abomination must have started with the great Arab thinker Averroes’ intellectual invasion of the Christian world, bearing the Aristotelian gift. And just because Aristotle proved so desperately indispensable to Christian scholasticism, epitomized by Saint Thomas Aquinas, the doctrine of double truth could not be all that easily disposed of, and, even though half-heartedly denounced, took root. Its prominent and reputable proponent in later years was Francis Bacon, of the alleged “Knowledge is power!” fame.

(Here is a fascinating subject well worth digging into not just for the historical interest of the politics in the Middle Ages, but on its own philosophical merit.)

“Francis Bacon held that philosophy should be kept separate from theology, not intimately blended with it as in scholasticism. He accepted orthodox religion, but, while believing that reason was capable of proving God’s existence, he regarded everything else in theology as known only by revelation. He further held that the triumph of faith is the greatest when to the unaided reason a dogma appears most absurd. Philosophy, however, should depend only upon reason. He was thus an advocate of the doctrine of double truth, that of reason and that of revelation.” (Quoted, with minor modifications, from Lord Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy.)

In my view, this strange doctrine of double truth is not so much intellectually incompetent or theologically blasphemous, as it is shockingly awkward and needlessly offensive to the very religion, which it endeavors to defend, even though this offensiveness has been disingenuously camouflaged by a rude and unwarranted snub to philosophy, in its sub-doctrine of triumph of faith. There is no glory, however, in such a defense. It ought to be clear to any level-headed reviewer of this doctrine that pitching rational truth of reason against the irrational truth of revelation upsets the necessary philosophical harmony between reason and instinct, and disparages one of the attributes of Divinity, which is, of course, Reason. On the other hand, putting on the same scale these two incommensurate ‘truths,’ God’s Absolute Truth and man’s oftentimes misleading experience, and faulty logic, linguistically unites the Infinite and the finite in one non-judgmental phrase, and thus may, in itself, amount to incompetence and blasphemy, which, I am sure, has not been its original intent.

The solution which I am offering to this conundrum of double truth, is to take a step back and look at these again, from a fresh perspective. To start with, let us leave God’s Absolute Truth alone here. It is essentially unknowable and incomprehensible and, therefore, non-comparable to what we commonly call truth in our everyday discourse. The truths which we operate with are in their essence all hypotheses. If we say that two parallel lines have no common points, we are promoting not a truth (which this is not, in an absolute sense), but only a hypothesis. All science, all human experience, all our deductions and inductions are based not on truths, but on hypotheses, and we can cite a million examples of that, and none to the contrary!

Curiously, I can make a step further, suggesting that all religious dogmas are also hypotheses! Therefore we cannot say that one great religious dogma is based on truth, whereas all others, different from it even in the minutest detail, are based on falsehood. As my own hypothesis (logically, this is also only a hypothesis!), I could suggest that every great religion contains seeds of the Divine Truth, and, perhaps, this Divine Truth is properly manifested in what all these Great Religions have in common, while everything else is a collection of hypotheses. This does not in any way diminish or infringe on my personal faith, nor on my allegiance to the Russian Orthodox Religion, in which I was born, and in which I shall die. As a matter of fact, I believe that even our personal faith is an intellectual hypothesis on our part, in so far as the thinker and the believer coexist as one within our human mind. And if this last statement remains unclear to you, my reader, I invite you to take time and think some more about it, confident that what I have in mind will eventually become to you exhilaratingly apparent.

Meantime, this is a good place for me, at the end of yet another entry dealing with the question of “truth,” to reiterate my general assertion that by the same token as the concept of “double-truth” borders on blasphemy and must be vigorously refuted, the idea of multiple truth is by no means offensive, as long as we are ready to acknowledge the truth of a particular creation, which is true inherently within the said creation, but not as assuredly true when projected externally, where it is most likely to clash with the truths of other creations so that the end result is the creation of a lie. Learning to deal with such multiple but limited truths, and keeping them well within the boundaries of their limitations, indeed constitutes the best possible way of dealing with the problem of multiple truths, while immediately exposing the inadequacy of the artificial and intellectually corrupt concept of “double-truth.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING “HUMAN”

(To keep the record straight, my allusion to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest is by no means accidental. The reader must also see my entry Dr. Kent And The Two Yatzers, in the Tikkun Olam section, posted on this blog on December 7, 2012.)

Be Perfect! In the religious Jewish tradition, there are two spirits--- Yatzer Ha-Tov and Yatzer Ha-Ra, good and bad--- hovering behind the person’s back (and occasionally sitting down on his/her shoulders) whispering their differing, contrarian advice into his or her ears. The advice of the bad spirit is to Be Perfect! The presumably destructive value of this advice (what else could one expect from a bad spirit?) is to convince the person that a goal that is too high is unattainable, therefore, it ought to be given up. This is apparently such a frustrating task, to be perfect, that giving up on perfection comes all too easy…

However, here is a very interesting parallel thought from Nietzsche’s Will to Power: “We see that we cannot reach the sphere, in which we have placed our values; but this does not by any means confer any value on that other sphere in which we live. On the contrary, we are weary because we have lost the main stimulus: ‘In vain so far!’"

I find both these observations extremely valuable and thought-provoking, each in its own right. The Jewish wisdom is demonstrably deficient in elucidating the basic meaning of our human quest for perfection. It is rooted in the presumption of human weakness, and, in practical terms, it encourages premature resignation. The impossibility of being “perfect” becomes our excuse for not trying to be good, and thus leads us off the moral track toward dissolute immorality.

Nietzsche’s thought is challenging, but incomplete, as he argues that perfection belongs in a different world and that the Christian system of values has nothing to offer to the real world, and therefore it is necessarily collapsing under the weight of a truthfulness-to-ourselves, leading us to nihilism. In my view, the thought of perfection does create a greater moral challenge to the individual, but so what? Under no circumstances should we seek an inferior second-best as our moral guide. We are not perfect in this world, but only our pursuit of perfection can build the bridge between the real world and the eternity of the afterlife. For most of us, however, even the pursuit, to say nothing of becoming, proves too hard, but our daily failure in this pursuit must not lead us to the sin of resignation, but must seek compensation in our increased dependence on the Love of God, Who is Perfect, and, lest we forget, has made us in His image.

BOSTON

Cause and effect, cause and effect…

Three decades ago someone supported Osama bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The result was 9/11/2001.

Two decades ago someone helped the Shiah against Iran’s enemy Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The result was a pro-Iranian Iraq.

A couple of years ago someone supported the Benghazi rebels against Qaddafi in Libya. The result was the deadly 9/11/2012 attack on American diplomats in Benghazi.

For well over a decade now someone has been actively supporting the Chechen rebels against the Russians. The result has just played itself out in Boston.

…These days, and for some time now, someone has been supporting the Syrian Islamist rebels against the secular government of Assad in Syria. What will the end result of this be, when the chicken come home to roost?

Cause and effect, cause and effect… Can somebody please keep someone away from the matches!!!!!

ORIGINAL FREEDOM AS THE CAUSE OF ORIGINAL SIN

Scattered throughout this composition are several entries which can be grouped together under the tentative title “The Life And Death Of Adam And Eve.” Considering that this subject is of interest to me, evidence of which is amply represented among these thoughts and sketches, it may potentially become the subject of an important good-sized essay.

Most of these entries use Adam and Eve as a sub-theme, and the present entry is no exception. Its principal subject is the concept of freedom, “original freedom,” and how this freedom affects the big picture and the course of events. At the end of this entry, I turn to making up a short list of freedom-related topics, to use it as a memo to myself for future explorations. The reader will appreciate the overall tentative character of this entry, and, hopefully, would not mind its correspondingly tentative structure.

In the writing of this entry, I have probably neglected to make it quite clear that theologically and therefore philosophically, the freedom of choice and the whole package of freedoms it arrives with, is, in my opinion, a very good thing. Or else, absent this freedom, it would have seemed that the concept of freedom was, on the whole, a negligent mistake on the part of God’s creation, or some alternative plan, or such. One must be clear and forceful on this subject. Without the existence of freedom-as-such, the very concepts of good and evil would instantly have been rendered meaningless and irrelevant. And, almost paradoxically, the absence of freedom-as-such would not have been such a bad thing, after all, but only a morally-neutral thing. Thus, it is only the existence of freedom in creation, which begets good and evil, and, from then on, it would call itself good by virtue of the concepts it itself has generated.

The following is a shorthand list of philosophical questions, all united by their freedom theme, which have been popping in my mind, while writing this entry. They are just questions, kind of memory prompters for the future, which I may or may not consider later on, and as soon as I pick them out of this lineup, to write something on the subject, I should probably remove them from this list as well, so that only such questions will remain on this list which are still waiting for their turn in my attention.

All sorts of freedoms... Freedom of Adam and Eve... What kind of freedom did God give Adam and Eve? What kind of freedom did the Serpent give Adam and Eve? [Nota bene this Nietzsche’s naughty teaser that “Theologically speaking, it was God himself who at the end of his days’ work lay down as a serpent under the tree of knowledge: thus He recuperated from being God. He had made everything too beautifully... The devil is merely the leisure of God on that seventh day.” (in Ecce Homo, Beyond Good and Evil, Section 2)] What kind of freedom caused the Original Sin? Did Adam have Freedom from God and the Serpent, in the Garden of Eden? The essence of Hegel is the State taking care of Man, while Man gives up his freedom to the State. Is there a parallel here to God and Adam before the Fall, and how can we possibly apply moral standards to such a relationship? Freedom of choice: boon or bane? Is there such a thing as Freedom from Society? …And, once again, the Greatest of them all, Freedom of Thought…