Category: Uncategorized

“Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it. That is knowledge.”  – Confucius

Unfortunately before we can reasonably move forward to outline the path to philosophically based happiness and meaning, we need more than makes up the  broad outline on the tiers of reality and ethics. If they are the highways on a cross country drive, the ‘special problems’ are the roadside stops on that journey. Each of the special problems will require careful analysis as part of developing one’s concepts of reality and ethics. A short cut now may divert one from the correct route or lead through a maze of confusing dirt roads. They require separate analysis and are distinct from lesser problems in that one’s view in these areas will color one’s personal philosophy at every level.

The key special problems I will discuss include, in logical order:

1.    Good and evil

2.   The existence and nature of God

3.   Body and soul

4.   Death and immortality

5.   Free will and fate

6.   Teleology

7.   Suffering

8.  Certainty

During my discussion, I will focus on defining terms, providing context, reviewing traditional viewpoints and debate, and choosing the most reasonable resolutions. I will search for means to accommodate rejected alternatives in order to minimize the consequences of error. This may be done by identifying common elements, exploring metaphorical meanings, or assigning likelihood of truthfulness.

As always we cannot expect certainty, nor can we wait for it; rather we must make choices and live life within a framework of informed uncertainty. Following this phase we will be ready to draw up a blueprint for living a flourishing life.

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Second, external and cultural reality require care to avoid misperception and overcome bias. Observation of external reality requires caution – the world does in fact appear flat and the Earth does not seem to be moving, which is why it took millennia to get even intelligent people to believe otherwise. Multiple sources of data and detailed knowledge of history will reduce the chance of error in understanding society or how we got here.

Third, acknowledge the power of science. Whatever religious or personal beliefs you have, science has consistently proven to be the most reliable means to truth. It must be studied to avoid blatant error and to fully understand the physical world and cosmos. While much of science is designated as ‘theory’ (such as the ‘theory of evolution’), the real world utility and astounding predictions of science are proof of science’s validity (think of the technology in your cell phone or of the success of medicine in treating illness). Denying or dismissing science is done at great risk – consider the possible death of your child from refusal to vaccinate her.

Finally, accept that absolute certitude will not be possible in most or any of these areas. The degree of confidence should be a factor in how strongly any given notion of reality is embraced. For instance, in politics, recognizing the uncertainty of most political views is essential to social virtue. The less secure you are in an area, the more you will have to develop an ethical approach that minimizes the consequences of potential error, while accommodating the largest number of possibilities. Wisdom is not intrinsically dogmatic; rather adaptive and balanced.

Ernest Becker in his book Escape From Evil and J. Bronowksi in his towering television series and book, The Ascent of Man, highlight the horrific consequences of mistaken certainty. Ethical behavior requires an open mind in dealing with others and pursuing a better world.

If the goal is a meaningful life, errors due to a rush to judgment, denial of science, and over-reliance on imperfect perception and pre-existing bias are among its greatest dangers. In addition, there are some special problems that need to be worked out before we can finalize a pathway to that end. The reader is advised to review the following chapters to complete his or her preparatory work.

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“The ancient precept ‘Know thyself.’ and the modern precept ‘Study nature.’ become at last one maxim.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the last thirteen sections, we have defined and examined the nature of reality and the philosophy of human conduct. The big picture of philosophy then distills into thinking about the five tiers of each of these  two basic components:

REALITY                                                       ETHICS

Internal                                                            Self-Mastery

Proximate                                                      Conduct to Others

Cultural                                                            Societal Duty

Cosmic                                                            Relationship to the Ultimate

Ultimate                                                          Supererogatory Duty

As you begin your process of sorting out these 10 areas, a few principles may be helpful to keep in mind.

First, internal reality and ethic will require intense self-examination. You are likely to find the self consists of three parts: external, internal, and primal. The external self is that which makes up your visible persona, the person you present to others; it is likely to be least important. The internal self is the psychological and mental self, most of which you share with very few others or no one. The primal self is the ineffable being Heidegger calls dasein and the Vedas call Atman– the ‘you’ that exists without adjectives, your newborn self that you have carried since before your first coherent memories; it is the being or identity which exists independent of participation in the world.

Each of these parts of the self needs defining and understanding. Phenomenology with its concept of ‘bracketing’ of the uncertain elements offers an excellent tool in this exploration.

In addition self-mastery will require long periods of reflection and lifelong commitment. Its five components of self-discipline, selflessness, self-knowledge, self-improvement, and self-actualization will accompany the journey that makes up the meaningful life. The importance of humility cannot be over-emphasized; one simply need look at the large number of historical figures brought down by hubris. Another crucial factor in the ultimate worth of life is to be guided by a strong moral compass. But in the end, the greatest reward may be the final connecting of your primal or ontological self with the unity of the cosmos in a transcendental act of enlightenment.

(continued next post)

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Politics is perhaps the most challenging division of cultural reality. The word originally referred to the ancient branch of philosophy that investigates governance. Of course political science is the more modern technical discipline, although again it lacks the precision of the natural sciences. The truth of real world politics is found by the same process as history and current events, though one needs to have an even higher level of wariness and seek more sources especially in the present environment. One key principal to bear in mind is that in situations of political disagreement, no position is likely to be completely correct or incorrect, in fact, all may be either mostly correct or incorrect depending on the vantage point of the spectator. Herbert Spencer in Synthetic Philosophy ¹ concludes on his analysis of truth in the realm of politics (as elsewhere) that between the most diverse beliefs there is usually something in common or taken for granted in each which has the highest probability of truth. It is the philosophical person’s task to identify those underlying truths.

More general interpretations of human behavior can be found in texts of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, with the same cautions. I personally have been influenced most by Ernest Becker who in The Denial of Death ² attributes key actions of great historical figures and common men to the enigma of finding meaning in a finite life through a subconscious striving to illusory heroism or significance. I was also deeply impressed by J. Bronowski’s essay Knowledge and Certainty³ where he notes that dogmatic certainty may lead to tragic consequences, and that every judgement stands on the edge of error. Meanwhile, John Dewey attributes human conduct to a mix of habit and impulse where (learned) habit encourages societal stability and impulse informs the change required of a varying environment. Intelligence then is a proper balance allowing a thoughtful reconstruction of society- the alternatives being stagnation or disorder.⁴ Each of us needs to try out a variety of theories in the context of our experience and observations to derive our particular picture of society.

Cultural reality is perhaps the most vital level of reality to grasp for everyday living. We can survive and even thrive without concentrated attention to the other components of reality, although life’s meanings may be obscure and fixing a direction in life may be a struggle. But as long as we are social animals, cultural reality is likely to remain the most important aspect of reality to access from a purely practical standpoint.

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¹Spencer, Herbert, Synthetic Philosophy.  D. Appleton and Company, 1903, page 8.

²Becker, Ernest, The Denial of Death. The Free Press, 1973. ISBN 0-02-902310-6.

³Brownoswki, J., The Ascent of Man. Little, Brown, and Company, 1973. Page 374.

⁴Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct. The Modern Library, 1930. Pages 125-180.

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“Man’s mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find the causes is implanted in man’s soul. – Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.

The next tier up from proximate reality is cultural reality. By this phrase I mean social, political, and historical facets of reality. It differs from the earlier strata in that for the most part we do not directly perceive what happens within our community and nation, the realm of politics, and most importantly the historical context of the world we live in. Rather this reality comes to us second hand, typically from the testimony of others, sometimes in person, but more commonly via print and other media. For this reason the certainty of cultural reality is particularly limited.

Starting with history, of course nothing in the past can be known for certain. Most historians reconstruct history from physical evidence seeking at least two separate documents or other forms of substantiation to confirm any putative fact. This gives history the gloss of science, though it is of course much less exact than the natural sciences. Philosophers of history are most concerned with the interpretation of past events where they note it is difficult and perhaps impossible for a historian to generate a truly objective thesis independent of his or her underlying bias or opinion. It seems to me that the best approach is to read multiple historians on the same period to increase the scope of evidence reviewed and permit the reader to determine which interpretation is most consistent with the aggregate or to cultivate his own opinion.

To my knowledge there is no systematic philosophical discussion of real time cultural reality, i.e. current events, but more than other types of reality seems to call for familiarity with epistemology, the study of truth and what makes a statement true. The process of confirmation of the truth of current events should mimic that of history. The most trustworthy sources must be identified and scrutinized bearing in mind the apparent or potential bias of the source. Then the reader will be in a position to decide on the logical consistency of the sources and their interpretations of events as they occur.

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WHAT IS REALITY?

“…the majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.” – Niccolo Machiavelli

So what is this ‘reality’ we will talk about? Webster’s Dictionary gives two definitions of the word under the category of Philosophy :

1. Something that exists independent of ideas concerning it.
2. Something that exists independent of all other things and from which all other things derive.

Neither of these quite meets our needs though the second is closer to a working definition. Philosophical dictionaries and encyclopedias are of surprisingly little help; they do not typically define the word ‘reality’, rather they allude to it under other ideas such as being, truth, appearance, and nature. While all of these fall within the domain of reality, they are each too restrictive. Therefore I believe it is necessary to synthesize a definition and stratification of the word ‘reality’ for our purposes.

For this site, I will use the word ‘reality’ to mean the state of all being and all individual things corresponding to being itself and the things themselves independent of observer bias or error. The reader may choose to accept this perhaps ambiguous and circular definition or use Webster’s second definition or even use his or her own intuitive sense of the word ‘reality’.

Regardless of your preferred definition, there appear to be five distinct tiers of reality that can  further our understanding of the word and therefore require additional clarification.

1.  Internal
2. Proximate
3. Cultural
4. Cosmic
5. Ultimate

We will next define and clarify reality by fine tuning these strata.

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