Against Verificationism

December 13, 2008

The anatomy of a metaphysical belief: upon introspection, a self cannot be found. What a scandal for philosophy! Cast your interior light upon all your thoughts and all things you can think--never will you find a self. It is no part of your consciousness. Ought we then say that the unity is a groundless presupposition? Perhaps. Ought we say it is a convenient grammatical shorthand? Perhaps. But can I assent to either? No! I reject the possibilities, my core spurns it! There is no resting with such a bleak conclusion. There must be a self--must!

2: But you cannot point to it.
1: You cannot point to all sorts of things that exist.
2: You cannot speak intelligibly about those sorts of things, even though you speak about them.
1: So much the worse for intelligence! There is more to reality than what can be fathomed. What of the ineffable of which we have an inkling? What of the dim windows we see through with the eyes of our conscience? You mean to argue them away as well?
2: Not argue them away, no. I just mean not to dogmatically assert them.
1: Everyone rests on dogmatism somewhere.
2: What's your point?
1: That the distinction between rational dogmatism and irrational dogmatism is non-existent. That the groundwork we all build upon is equally irrational. Why, for instance, should sensory verification be the ultimate criterion for existence?
2: Your question does not make any sense. You ask why as though there was something that could answer you. You are already smuggling in the very sorts of things you want to legitimize--metaphysical entities. But there is no such thing that we know of. Existence is brute. It simply is. There is no why to it, or if there is, we can never know it. All we are faced with is brute facticity. When dealing with facts, we rely upon the fact that our interactions with them are only successful insofar as they are empirically grounded.
1: Who said anything about knowing? I never said I know there is a self. I said that there must be one. I asserted that there is one. It is as brute as your facts. And now you see my point poking through--that the basis of all systems of thought are equally irrational. They always begin with a conviction, something unknown...something willed to be true.
2: How hopeless! You are suggesting we will never know the truth!
1: I fail to see the connection between your exclamations. The self-assurance of truth as you construe it may be beyond us, but hopeless? No, no. What other hope can there be for us than to strive for the sort of interior restfulness that comes from believing that the propositions that are undeniable for us are true? Such is the anatomy of my belief of selves. Reality without them is so unbearable that refuse to assent to the possibility. I may be living by presumption, but that does not guarantee that I am living by error.
2: It provides no assurances to the contrary. I would rather believe something I can convince others of than believe in something I simply want to believe.
1: Again, I see no reason to think the one sort of belief to be more accurate than another. You speak as though truth is something we decide upon together, and criticize me for saying belief is something that is decided by us and for us by our interiority. You are taking my assertions a step further, that's all. How else are each of the individuals in your group of rational-deciders supposed to offer their input but by relying upon their own interiority? Maybe they are unaware that their criteria for truth, which consists of its being assented to by a group of rational individuals with properly functioning senses, is something that itself was not be assented to by a group of rational individuals with properly functioning senses. It was assented to personally, by each individual. And again, my point pokes through--the grounding is always irrational! And if I am right, then I may be forgiven for holding fast to metaphysical entities like my self.
2: You willingly cede all claims to knowledge so easily?
1: What is so frightening to you about that? Do you think it makes you less of a person? On the contrary, it makes you more of one. It gives you life! You would not call a man weak of body for eating when he is hungry. Why do you think a man weak in mind for believing what he most deeply needs? Refraining from either leads to the same thing: starvation. Do you hate yourself so much that you wish to withhold food from yourself? Do you picture yourself, in your personal emaciation, to be a sort of Atlas--the bearer of great burdens? Do you think your heart's needs to be burdensome obligations that you can use, by way of denying them, prove yourself a hero?
2: All this bluster from a coward who collapses in the presence of his childish longings! I will not indulge the sniffling inquisition of a man who by his own admission is incredulous. Go play in your dream world and stay away from me!