‘Philosophy Now’ – Page 2 – Achilles & Aristotle

The Reasonableness of Reason

I’ve just splashed out a fiver on a hardcore philosophy book ‘The Reasonableness of Reason’. Second hand mind you, austerity reigns. But absolute austerity is probably slightly unreasonable.

It is, by all accounts, an exhaustive investigation of whether following reason is better than scepticism or belief. My current bedtime read Philosophy Now carries an admirable review by Professor Raymond S. Pfeiffer of what I’ve bought, which I précis here:

Naturalists argue that there are some general goals that almost all humans in all societies have in common, such as obtaining safety, food, love, meaning, and an understanding of the world. In fact, no one has suggested possible alternatives.

Naturalists further argue that human goals are best achieved by a group of standards, rules and methods referred to as ‘the theory of middle-sized physical objects’. This theory is the idea that there is a world inhabited by everyday objects that behave in the kind of way they seem to behave in our experience of them.

The naturalistic claim is simply that a preponderance of evidence reveals that using the claims, methods, standards and rules of the theory of middle-sized physical objects (a.k.a. using reason) is the best way to fulfil human goals.

This process – which is the use of reason and the scientific method – has produced the best confirmed and most useful thinking about reality, and continues to do so.

Others may choose a different process to understand the world, such as basing some of their beliefs on faith. But history has shown that such an approach often goes wrong in some way, and that, when corrected, it is usually corrected by the use of reason and the scientific method.

Furthermore, sceptics, who suspend belief in reason and seek to follow the customs of the culture in which they live, use the very same theses, methods and rules of thought as the theory of middle-sized physical objects, and so use the tools of reason anyway.

Hauptli (the Author) concludes that “If we seek optimum goal-fulfillment, the use of reason will promote this best in the long run.” So although there is no certain proof of the advantage of using reason, it provides a better option than any known alternative.

How very reasonable. I have a feeling I could have saved myself that fiver.

Aristotle, Ethics, Life, Work

Is isn’t Ought

Useful to be reminded this week that among David Hume’s many contributions to the world of ideas is this one – you can’t get an ought from an is.

So it is. You can describe a phenomenon or circumstance, however awful or wonderful but it doesn’t mean it’s objectively good or bad.

Nearly everyone struggles with this. It feels all wrong – but that’s the point, it feels. ‘Oughts’ are a matter of interpretation and beliefs, not matters of fact.

9/10ths of bother in human affairs derives from this misunderstanding. And so it was this week as I was besieged by people pointing out things they didn’t like – and inviting me to agree with them on what ought to be the case. Generally I didn’t.

Sometimes, all you can do is give people the context; more facts and data, the ‘oughts’ we all end up deciding for ourselves.

Aristotle, Philosophy

Strawberry

I’ve discovered ‘Philosophy Now‘ via Kindle. And a find it is too. This month’s edition delves into the Philosophy of Mind which I studied twenty odd years ago. What’s new? Quite a lot. But, also, quite a lot is not.

Neuroscience is the new 200lb gorilla on the scene. Is philosophy, contemplation and introspection irrelevant when you have brain scanners and MRI? The argument cuts both ways. Reductionism says its a simple case of describing something complex. I used to agree, now I’m less sure.

Before cosmology we harboured intuitive, and often mystical, beliefs to explain sun, moon and stars. Then telescopes were invented and we moved on to facts and evidence. Aristotle imagined ‘biles and humours’ drove the body, until medicine discovered intricate circulatory and nervous systems. Reductionists say we’ll get over our belief in ‘consciousness’, ‘intentions’ and ‘ideas’ once the science advances enough to describe ‘brain states’ better.

The alternate thesis – much more where Aquinas, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche might land – is that describing a TV’s wiring misses what’s on screen. The ’emergent phenomenon’ is a living feeling being, living a unique life, intimately connected to other living feeling beings, all equally unique but interdependent with each other.

It comes down to complexity in the end. A computer or iPhone full of data apparently weighs fractionally more than an empty one. But it is only fractionally more. I read the entire ‘weight’ of data contained in the Internet could easily be stored in the mass of a strawberry. But the ‘knowledge’ exists in myriad computers, data centres and browsers interlinked with myriad minds.

In one way a strawberry already contains a nearly perfect dataset to describe humans. In its DNA it describes carbon-based life, an oxygen rich atmosphere, the rise of flowering plants – and who knows, maybe, some clues to cultivation. It is already bursting with data, just of a ‘natural’ flavour.

And this is the point for me. Let’s imagine we could load the entirety of human culture, knowledge and experience into a strawberry and fire it into space. Billions of years on, when our planet has long since expired, suppose an alien civilisation finds it. From which would they learn more about living as a human being – reading the data locked in the atomic structure of the strawberry, or simply eating it?