Many idioms describe the frequently found phenomena of disorderly thinking (e.g., "a solution in search of a problem," "putting the cart before the horse," "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"). One starts out on a project recognizing the immediate needs of the situation, but errs in neglecting the background reality. Out of an intuition that something is "off," one thus inadvertently causes harm by adjusting the settings of something already properly calibrated.
The problem of evil is a problem for God. It consists in the perceived incommensurability of the following proposed truths and indicts His existence:
Evil exists.
God (if He exists) is good.
God (if He exists) is all-powerful.
It seems at first blush that taking the existence of evil seriously forces us to dismiss the possibility of a supreme Goodness.
Where does the objector begins his investigation of the problem? First, he observes the existence of evil. He has heard of God, of His goodness, and of His power. He starts from evil and makes light of good.
What if his intuition begins elsewhere? What if, instead of reading in the newspaper of the varieties of crimes and inhumanities rampant in the streets, he observes a mother quietly preparing her child's lunch for school or a stranger helping pick up the scattered content's of a man's ripped grocery bag?
If evil is a problem for God, then good is a problem for non-God.
The problem of good:
Good exists.
God (if He exists) is good.
God (if He exists) is all-powerful.
"There is no problem here. God does not exist, yet good still can and does. Why have you given it this name?" the objector says. Can good exist without God? How is good with God different than good without God?
It would be absurd to assert, as some idealists have done, that a thing ceases to exist when it is unexperienced. A mountain range cannot exist as soon as someone opens her eyes to it and become nothing as soon as her eyes are shut. Values, unlike things, are more delicate. They inhere in something else, either in objects, actions, or agents. A value is a value for someone or something. Without an observer, values are delegitimized. Values need observers because they are mediums between beings. The mountain range may exist without an observer, but it may not be beautiful without one. It emanates the same image as a consequence of its existence, but without eyes to see it, it emanates for naught.
It is similar to a crisis regarding meaning. I once read an account of a young man who was thrown into a frenzy after reading Camus' The Stranger. He went about exclaiming between long drags on a cigarette that "nothing matters!" He spoke as though "mattering" was something that objects did on their own, just as a car runs or a tree grows. Meaning is a child of goodness. It draws upon what is good to affirm a particular phenomena, be it a life, an action, or either in general.
God is the presumed guarantor of values, goodness being the penultimate among them. His omniscience ensures that no values are lost as He is a perpetual creator-witness.
It is conceivable, nay probable, that a community will cease to recognize a particular good as such. Any student of history will find an example on every page of the annals of humanity. Moreover, it is probable that a community will recognize a particular non-good as a good. We ought not blame communities for this, but individuals who make up the community. It is impossible for a person to grasp all vessels of the good at once. Groups of people have an even harder time, as specialties come to predominate and cultural blind spots enlarge. Hence, we have the precarious status of goodness. It is a problem for those who are affronted by the possibility of something truly good vanishing into nothingness.
Showing posts with label realism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label realism. Show all posts
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Dreams Considered
April 21, 2009
Some of us dream while awake of justice, of true love, or timeless beauty. The fact that we dream raises an interesting question: how does the content of our dreams compare with the content of our waking life? Additionally, how does that content shine upon the person who houses it? Is the light cast flattering or harsh?
A dream while awake, an act of imagination that is brought forth to fulfill a current vacancy, is akin to other forms of desire. We desire what we lack. At times, these desires are for something that is apparently consumable. The appetite for food is a realistic one; a person can be satiated by acquiring something real and concrete. The stomach's dream can be lived through the process of eating. At times, a dream takes as the object of its desire--as the awareness of what it is without--something that cannot be produced concretely (i.e., in the world, tangibly).
Given that we exist in a state of privation from the grandiose content of waking dreams, ought we resign ourselves to striving for what is currently attainable? Is the human heart justified in desiring an earthly impossibility? Is it wrong to be self-defeating, insofar as the dreamer's life is necessarily feckless, or is it the only course to fulfillment?
Desires and dreams are related in that they take as the subject a lack, absence, or vacancy. Both are directed towards what is not presently fulfilled. The lack of a desire is construed as more noble than the lack of a dream to those who are critical of idealists, since the desire can be fulfilled concretely and the dream cannot. Dreams are disparaged as being hopeless, as devoid of a sufficient amount of concrete content.
A 'dreamer' is an appellation of derision. To be a dreamer is to be unrealistic. Is this a fair criticism? It is less of a criticism than a definition. A dream is what it is precisely because it is not real in the way that waking life is. We do not fault an emaciated man for being hungry; his lack colors his consciousness and to that extent paints him in the eyes of others.
At times we are the subjects of longings that are interpreted as being chimerical. An idealist and a dreamer are often taken to be synonymous. A certain sort of person, one who refers to himself as a realist, takes pleasure in holding idealists in contempt.
An idealist travels through his waking life as a man on the scent of a bakery. He has a nose for something sweeter that is in the offing. Precisely because what he wants he cannot fulfill where he is at, he moves forward. How is his being drawn different than the hungry man?
Who is more facile: the individual who longs only for what he knows he can get--what is for him possible now--or the man who longs for what he knows he cannot get now?
Dreams of the sort discussed here have more significance for the dreamer precisely because they are distinct from reality. Their passionate energy is born out of defeat and victory; defeat in being frustrated by the world and victory in refusing to be overwhelmed by the frustration. The realist disdains anything distinct from reality. The valuation is a consequence of a different reaction to the earth. Plato looked at the earth and what was possible in his mind, and preferred the latter. Aristotle looked at the earth and what was possible in his mind, and preferred what was possible for his mind to find in the earth. These men's desires are satiated by different content. One has a stomach for the possible, the other for the present. One says the other is gorging himself on slop; one says the other is filling his stomach with air. Both are correct.
A person critical of the idealist says what she wants she does not have and cannot get. If the idealist is self-aware, she knows this is the nature of her dreams and dreams them still. Could this be reprehensible?
Dreams are crafted out of the pieces of life. They have concrete girders. We cannot create out of nothing; we make out of something. We cannot invent totally; we innovate upon the given. Plato and Aristotle both look to the greatest aspects of the earth. Plato uses them as exemplars to construct a rarefied world; Aristotle uses them to navigate the mundane world we are familiar with. The materials are the same, but the uses are different.
Can one justly criticize the contrasting uses? For they both deny the totality of the world; they both brush off the dirt to reveal the essence. In that lopping off, they both deny the world and begin to dream. They desire what they don't have; both want the world devoid of filth, contingency, and exceptions. The realist thinks he can find that here; the idealist thinks he can only have that elsewhere. For the one, the lack of concreteness in ideas is like a lie; for the other, the concreteness in ideas is a taint. Which is preferable? If the realist is already guilty of taking a step towards the ideal and away from the actual, can he take pride in committing a misdemeanor rather than a felony? Or, rather, ought he resign himself to be a criminal regardless and thereby transgress the laws to their fullest.
If one knows that a death sentence is universal, is one any wiser for saving face and only perpetrating a crime for which a life sentence is warranted? Does a realist go to the grave with a better life lived if he, though recognizing the injustice of the laws of the world--of contingency to the bottom, of all things conditional and fleeting--consents all the same to aspire to steal apples? Or, does the idealist live more according to his inner senses when he is all the same snatched from life whilst trampling upon the earth to reach for the starry fruits?
Some of us dream while awake of justice, of true love, or timeless beauty. The fact that we dream raises an interesting question: how does the content of our dreams compare with the content of our waking life? Additionally, how does that content shine upon the person who houses it? Is the light cast flattering or harsh?
A dream while awake, an act of imagination that is brought forth to fulfill a current vacancy, is akin to other forms of desire. We desire what we lack. At times, these desires are for something that is apparently consumable. The appetite for food is a realistic one; a person can be satiated by acquiring something real and concrete. The stomach's dream can be lived through the process of eating. At times, a dream takes as the object of its desire--as the awareness of what it is without--something that cannot be produced concretely (i.e., in the world, tangibly).
Given that we exist in a state of privation from the grandiose content of waking dreams, ought we resign ourselves to striving for what is currently attainable? Is the human heart justified in desiring an earthly impossibility? Is it wrong to be self-defeating, insofar as the dreamer's life is necessarily feckless, or is it the only course to fulfillment?
Desires and dreams are related in that they take as the subject a lack, absence, or vacancy. Both are directed towards what is not presently fulfilled. The lack of a desire is construed as more noble than the lack of a dream to those who are critical of idealists, since the desire can be fulfilled concretely and the dream cannot. Dreams are disparaged as being hopeless, as devoid of a sufficient amount of concrete content.
A 'dreamer' is an appellation of derision. To be a dreamer is to be unrealistic. Is this a fair criticism? It is less of a criticism than a definition. A dream is what it is precisely because it is not real in the way that waking life is. We do not fault an emaciated man for being hungry; his lack colors his consciousness and to that extent paints him in the eyes of others.
At times we are the subjects of longings that are interpreted as being chimerical. An idealist and a dreamer are often taken to be synonymous. A certain sort of person, one who refers to himself as a realist, takes pleasure in holding idealists in contempt.
An idealist travels through his waking life as a man on the scent of a bakery. He has a nose for something sweeter that is in the offing. Precisely because what he wants he cannot fulfill where he is at, he moves forward. How is his being drawn different than the hungry man?
Who is more facile: the individual who longs only for what he knows he can get--what is for him possible now--or the man who longs for what he knows he cannot get now?
Dreams of the sort discussed here have more significance for the dreamer precisely because they are distinct from reality. Their passionate energy is born out of defeat and victory; defeat in being frustrated by the world and victory in refusing to be overwhelmed by the frustration. The realist disdains anything distinct from reality. The valuation is a consequence of a different reaction to the earth. Plato looked at the earth and what was possible in his mind, and preferred the latter. Aristotle looked at the earth and what was possible in his mind, and preferred what was possible for his mind to find in the earth. These men's desires are satiated by different content. One has a stomach for the possible, the other for the present. One says the other is gorging himself on slop; one says the other is filling his stomach with air. Both are correct.
A person critical of the idealist says what she wants she does not have and cannot get. If the idealist is self-aware, she knows this is the nature of her dreams and dreams them still. Could this be reprehensible?
Dreams are crafted out of the pieces of life. They have concrete girders. We cannot create out of nothing; we make out of something. We cannot invent totally; we innovate upon the given. Plato and Aristotle both look to the greatest aspects of the earth. Plato uses them as exemplars to construct a rarefied world; Aristotle uses them to navigate the mundane world we are familiar with. The materials are the same, but the uses are different.
Can one justly criticize the contrasting uses? For they both deny the totality of the world; they both brush off the dirt to reveal the essence. In that lopping off, they both deny the world and begin to dream. They desire what they don't have; both want the world devoid of filth, contingency, and exceptions. The realist thinks he can find that here; the idealist thinks he can only have that elsewhere. For the one, the lack of concreteness in ideas is like a lie; for the other, the concreteness in ideas is a taint. Which is preferable? If the realist is already guilty of taking a step towards the ideal and away from the actual, can he take pride in committing a misdemeanor rather than a felony? Or, rather, ought he resign himself to be a criminal regardless and thereby transgress the laws to their fullest.
If one knows that a death sentence is universal, is one any wiser for saving face and only perpetrating a crime for which a life sentence is warranted? Does a realist go to the grave with a better life lived if he, though recognizing the injustice of the laws of the world--of contingency to the bottom, of all things conditional and fleeting--consents all the same to aspire to steal apples? Or, does the idealist live more according to his inner senses when he is all the same snatched from life whilst trampling upon the earth to reach for the starry fruits?
Grounded
April 19, 2009
2: What would you say if I were to tell you that every person's life is a battle?
1: I would say, "that's interesting."
2: Interesting enough to divulge what your battle is?
1: Don't you know?
2: How should I know?
1: Well, if it isn't apparent after a little reflection, I must be losing the battle.
2: Hmm. I think you are fighting for the unconditioned in the conditioned.
1: That's one way to put it. Am I winning?
2: It's a losing battle. You can't know what's unknowable. This world is conditioned to the bottom. There is always a limit, rules have exceptions, laws have loopholes.
1: So, your interesting observation is just a springboard into criticizing me?
2: I suppose you could say that.
1: What's the occasion? Why are you attacking me?
2: Because you are annoying as Hell with all of your highfalutin meditations on optimism and pessimism, submission and rebellion. I'd like more than anything to shut you up.
1: What so annoying about what I have to say?
2: The same thing that's annoying about watching an one-legged spider try to crawl away to safety. He's already mortally wounded, he should just give up.
1: So you're saying it's annoying to be in the presence of futility.
2: Exactly.
1: Then I won't shut up, and you'll be doubly annoyed--with yourself and with me.
2: Good point. At least I can take solace in knowing my own righteousness.
1: Where does your righteousness lie?
2: It is the obligation of every rational agent who wants to be rational to battle against ignorance.
1: What about me is ignorant?
2: The part of you that is constantly trying to justify beliefs by convictions and feelings. You cannot will the truth. Universal values don't exist because you want them to. The truth is cold and disinterested. We have to take it however it appears to us.
1: And if appears to me that the good is real?
2: Then I still win because it doesn't appear to me and if it doesn't appear to me than the good is not universal.
1: You could just be confused.
2: The same goes for you.
1: True, possibility doesn't entail anything.
2: But your confusion is much more likely.
1: How so?
2: Whereas I can get people to agree that we do not know the good, you cannot get people to agree we know the good.
1: And if truth does not depend on consensus?
2: We are human. We have no greater appeal than consensus. That is the core of democracy, rationality, and progress. That, over time, with increases in precision, we have greater expanses of agreement between people. We study the errors of those who went before and offer new, corrected hypotheses. We're beyond all that unconditional claptrap now.
1: How can there be progress in ethics if there's no real aim of ethics, if there is no good that we are striving to know?
2: There's progress in ethics because we are gaining a better understanding of what we can know. Taking our cues from science, we test knowledge claims empircally. Once we began understanding the sorts of things we could know certainly, we could then agree on the sorts of things we should do. Everyone knows that people have needs--shelter, clothing, food--and wants--to be pleased--and now ethics consists of giving people what they now need and want. All of your sacrifice for the sake of ideals, for the sake of some invisible dream...it's all so inhumane! People are suffering here and now and you tell them to endure, that it's not so bad because it will all be okay when you're dead. Your dear 'unconditioned' is getting in the way of progress. We live on the earth, buddy...and on the earth we can only progress by trial and error. The viewpoint you advocate is protracted obstacle. "Don't change the world, change yourself," you say. Well, I can't will myself to not need food, I can't change that. I can't make sadness into happiness. But I can...
1: Hold on a minute. You never answered my question. Progress implies some sort of fixed point. You can't move towards something unless you have something you are moving away from.
2: We are going towards an ever sophisticating version of what suits humans. We are consistently learning what makes people healthier, and we are implementing the means of getting healthier.
1: So then health is you unconditioned in the conditioned. It is your supreme endpoint.
2: No, it is not unconditioned. It is completely conditioned. We can state without controversy what a healthy person is. It entails a certain weight, blood pressure...
1: A level of psychological fulfillment?
2: No.
1: So happiness doesn't matter?
2: Of course happiness matters, but its a consequence of bodily health. When the body is in the right order, a person is happy. All the chemical are in balance.
1: So the good is the optimal state of the body.
2: Basically.
1: And how is the claim of what the optimal state of the body less ignorant than my conception of the good as a metaphysical, independent reality?
2: Because we can't know metaphysics?
1: Whereas you can know the optimal state of the body?
2: Yes.
1: Then what is it?
2: We're working on that.
1: But you don't know it now.
2: Of course not. We need to conduct more studies and improve our instrumentation. We have a good general idea, though.
1: I thought I had a good general idea, too.
2: You can't convince people of yours, though.
1: And you can?
2: Yes.
1: How?
2: The body of scientific discoveries concerning medicine, nutrition, and the like.
1: How could a person ever be convinced by something whose conclusions change all the time?
2: Because the change is par for the course. We admit from the start we are not there. We admit we are searching for the conditioned in the conditioned. You can't hold it against us.
1: I though bodily health admitted of optimality.
2: It does.
1: But that's unconditioned.
2: No it's not...I'll grant you it's theoretical, but it is empirical. Life is much better now as a result of our theoretical advances thus far. Life is better by any empirical measure than 200 years ago.
1: Perhaps on empirical measurements, yes.
2: There are no other sorts of measurements.
1: That is true. And that is tragic.
2: What do you mean?
1: The scales of qualitative difference are not precise like those of qualitative. I would suggest that for all the measurable improvement, we have not necessarily experienced a greater qualitative improvement. In fact, the contrary is more frequently the case for every individual who resides in this world where the metaphysical is so roundly shunned. You, the people you claim to be represented, have sacrificed ethics for epistemology. Your overweening fear of metaphysics, of the unknowable (not the unbelievable or unfeelable, mind you), has made you inconsiderate of happiness. You admitted as much just a minute ago. Pleasure is the consequence of a sentient body functioning optimally. Happiness is distinct from that. Your system cannot account for happiness for the simple reason it cannot be weighed or seen. Who is more feckless: me for justifying ethics by metaphysics or you by justifying ethics by nothing at all?
2: To justify ethics by metaphysics amounts to a state worse than justifying it by nothing at all--it justifies ethics by a lie.
1: When truth is only construed as what can be physically sensed.
2: As though there were any other kinds of sensation!
1: Oh, you poor man! Have you really lost all your intuition? Has your conscience shriveled up from lack of watering? Can you no longer sense beyond the colors a painting to the beauty within it?!
2: Here we go again. Would you just shut up with your groundless drivel?!
1: Only if you will.
2: What would you say if I were to tell you that every person's life is a battle?
1: I would say, "that's interesting."
2: Interesting enough to divulge what your battle is?
1: Don't you know?
2: How should I know?
1: Well, if it isn't apparent after a little reflection, I must be losing the battle.
2: Hmm. I think you are fighting for the unconditioned in the conditioned.
1: That's one way to put it. Am I winning?
2: It's a losing battle. You can't know what's unknowable. This world is conditioned to the bottom. There is always a limit, rules have exceptions, laws have loopholes.
1: So, your interesting observation is just a springboard into criticizing me?
2: I suppose you could say that.
1: What's the occasion? Why are you attacking me?
2: Because you are annoying as Hell with all of your highfalutin meditations on optimism and pessimism, submission and rebellion. I'd like more than anything to shut you up.
1: What so annoying about what I have to say?
2: The same thing that's annoying about watching an one-legged spider try to crawl away to safety. He's already mortally wounded, he should just give up.
1: So you're saying it's annoying to be in the presence of futility.
2: Exactly.
1: Then I won't shut up, and you'll be doubly annoyed--with yourself and with me.
2: Good point. At least I can take solace in knowing my own righteousness.
1: Where does your righteousness lie?
2: It is the obligation of every rational agent who wants to be rational to battle against ignorance.
1: What about me is ignorant?
2: The part of you that is constantly trying to justify beliefs by convictions and feelings. You cannot will the truth. Universal values don't exist because you want them to. The truth is cold and disinterested. We have to take it however it appears to us.
1: And if appears to me that the good is real?
2: Then I still win because it doesn't appear to me and if it doesn't appear to me than the good is not universal.
1: You could just be confused.
2: The same goes for you.
1: True, possibility doesn't entail anything.
2: But your confusion is much more likely.
1: How so?
2: Whereas I can get people to agree that we do not know the good, you cannot get people to agree we know the good.
1: And if truth does not depend on consensus?
2: We are human. We have no greater appeal than consensus. That is the core of democracy, rationality, and progress. That, over time, with increases in precision, we have greater expanses of agreement between people. We study the errors of those who went before and offer new, corrected hypotheses. We're beyond all that unconditional claptrap now.
1: How can there be progress in ethics if there's no real aim of ethics, if there is no good that we are striving to know?
2: There's progress in ethics because we are gaining a better understanding of what we can know. Taking our cues from science, we test knowledge claims empircally. Once we began understanding the sorts of things we could know certainly, we could then agree on the sorts of things we should do. Everyone knows that people have needs--shelter, clothing, food--and wants--to be pleased--and now ethics consists of giving people what they now need and want. All of your sacrifice for the sake of ideals, for the sake of some invisible dream...it's all so inhumane! People are suffering here and now and you tell them to endure, that it's not so bad because it will all be okay when you're dead. Your dear 'unconditioned' is getting in the way of progress. We live on the earth, buddy...and on the earth we can only progress by trial and error. The viewpoint you advocate is protracted obstacle. "Don't change the world, change yourself," you say. Well, I can't will myself to not need food, I can't change that. I can't make sadness into happiness. But I can...
1: Hold on a minute. You never answered my question. Progress implies some sort of fixed point. You can't move towards something unless you have something you are moving away from.
2: We are going towards an ever sophisticating version of what suits humans. We are consistently learning what makes people healthier, and we are implementing the means of getting healthier.
1: So then health is you unconditioned in the conditioned. It is your supreme endpoint.
2: No, it is not unconditioned. It is completely conditioned. We can state without controversy what a healthy person is. It entails a certain weight, blood pressure...
1: A level of psychological fulfillment?
2: No.
1: So happiness doesn't matter?
2: Of course happiness matters, but its a consequence of bodily health. When the body is in the right order, a person is happy. All the chemical are in balance.
1: So the good is the optimal state of the body.
2: Basically.
1: And how is the claim of what the optimal state of the body less ignorant than my conception of the good as a metaphysical, independent reality?
2: Because we can't know metaphysics?
1: Whereas you can know the optimal state of the body?
2: Yes.
1: Then what is it?
2: We're working on that.
1: But you don't know it now.
2: Of course not. We need to conduct more studies and improve our instrumentation. We have a good general idea, though.
1: I thought I had a good general idea, too.
2: You can't convince people of yours, though.
1: And you can?
2: Yes.
1: How?
2: The body of scientific discoveries concerning medicine, nutrition, and the like.
1: How could a person ever be convinced by something whose conclusions change all the time?
2: Because the change is par for the course. We admit from the start we are not there. We admit we are searching for the conditioned in the conditioned. You can't hold it against us.
1: I though bodily health admitted of optimality.
2: It does.
1: But that's unconditioned.
2: No it's not...I'll grant you it's theoretical, but it is empirical. Life is much better now as a result of our theoretical advances thus far. Life is better by any empirical measure than 200 years ago.
1: Perhaps on empirical measurements, yes.
2: There are no other sorts of measurements.
1: That is true. And that is tragic.
2: What do you mean?
1: The scales of qualitative difference are not precise like those of qualitative. I would suggest that for all the measurable improvement, we have not necessarily experienced a greater qualitative improvement. In fact, the contrary is more frequently the case for every individual who resides in this world where the metaphysical is so roundly shunned. You, the people you claim to be represented, have sacrificed ethics for epistemology. Your overweening fear of metaphysics, of the unknowable (not the unbelievable or unfeelable, mind you), has made you inconsiderate of happiness. You admitted as much just a minute ago. Pleasure is the consequence of a sentient body functioning optimally. Happiness is distinct from that. Your system cannot account for happiness for the simple reason it cannot be weighed or seen. Who is more feckless: me for justifying ethics by metaphysics or you by justifying ethics by nothing at all?
2: To justify ethics by metaphysics amounts to a state worse than justifying it by nothing at all--it justifies ethics by a lie.
1: When truth is only construed as what can be physically sensed.
2: As though there were any other kinds of sensation!
1: Oh, you poor man! Have you really lost all your intuition? Has your conscience shriveled up from lack of watering? Can you no longer sense beyond the colors a painting to the beauty within it?!
2: Here we go again. Would you just shut up with your groundless drivel?!
1: Only if you will.
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