Tag: materialism

Writegenstein #2: Philosophy of Psychology 205 (Seeing-As)

Britton William FrostLeave a comment

‘How does one play the game: “It could also be this”?

[…] “I see (a) as (b)” might still mean very different things.

Here is a game played by children: they say of a chest, for example, that it is now a house; and thereupon it is interpreted as a house in every detail. A piece of fancy is woven around it.‘

— aphorism 205 of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Philosophy of Psychology” from Philosophical Investigations

It could be this and I see (a) as (b) point to different ways in which one could interpret a material object. That object alone has limited value, if any at all. In a sense, the material aspects of the object are arbitrary compared to the conceptualization of the object on the whole. What is conceptualized of it, i.e. how it is understood, depends on its place in its environment – what use it is to its environment. When children are playing house, they are playing a game. They see a chest as something to use in a game which mimics the game the child sees its parents playing daily and of which they are a part. They do not see it as something with material, mechanical parts as the builder might see it (that is what it would mean simply to see, though the builder may see the bigger picture as well.) They ask “What can we do with this?” and understand the chest to be a house, having already established, and taken for granted, the rules for what constitutes a house.

It does not end there. Playing the game of house is itself a very sophisticated perceptual process. Our ability to formulate and make use of abstraction is perhaps what separates human perception from the perception of other animals – not in terms of form, importantly, but in terms of degree. A cat, for example, will definitely see the chest as something other than a bundle of wood and nails assembled in a particular way. It will almost certainly see it as a scratching post or a place on which or in which to sit or sleep (depending on whether the chest is open or closed and on how tired the cat is), but the cat lacks the ability to conceptualize the chest as anything more than that with which it is afforded these very basic “cativities”, if you will. The reason for this, from an evolutionary standpoint, is that these cativities are all the cat needs to achieve its potential. So, the cat’s abstraction is of the same sort but of a much lower degree than that of the child. The cat’s abstraction is more like that of an infant’s than the young child’s, for an infant, like the cat, only seeks in objects the fulfillment of very basic needs. The only difference between the cat and the infant is the potential of growth and development.

One still might ask “what objective or quantifiable relation is there between a chest and a house?” One should see now, unless one is blinded by a materialist view of reality, that this question now becomes arbitrary because one cannot speak of perception in this example without qualifying the individual subjects’ understanding of it. Perception as we experience it does not seem to be a mere material process. One does not need to understand anything about brain matter to understand something. In fact, it is that understanding that is indeed the goal. One could say that in the cat’s mind there is very little understanding taking place at all, while in the child’s mind there is no limit, especially since the child’s capability for abstract thought will continue to develop. The child understands much more than the cat does. To understand an object, I should say, is to make an abstraction of it – an abstraction that has utility in the greater context of its environment – to allow one to be successful at a game. To see-as, then, is to understand, and vise versa.

The Personality-Character Distinction

Britton William FrostLeave a comment

As you may know, I am a big fan of personality studies. The system that has been researched the most by academics in psychology is the Big 5, and that’s where one who is interested in the most cutting-edge, fact-based research should look, but there are others that have taken off in popularity. Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, and HBDI are just a few that are used by individuals to improve their lives, and consulting groups all over North America to revamp businesses. Despite what little formal, scientific research has been done to confirm the cogency of these systems, the results generally speak for themselves. They have all had reasonable success in boosting employee satisfaction and productivity, and they have increased profit for those businesses too. Regardless of whether or not you “believe in” personality, there is something to it, and to explain these systems away because they may not “have all of their facts straight” is to overlook the utility they provide in personal development.

It’s not that the facts don’t matter, but what constitutes ‘fact’ isn’t easy to determine. The average half-life of a scientific fact is only seven years, and that is an average across all scientific fields. As we know, facts in physics tend to hold out longer than those in the social sciences, but when a fact in physics turns out to be wrong, it is often much more broadly and profoundly wrong and thus more difficult to accept because so much has been built on that foundation.

There is nothing that people hate more than an idea which compromises the integrity of their foundation, but when truth happens, we must be willing to change accordingly. This is where science can become its own worst enemy, because after all, it takes humans with subjective goals and motivations to interpret numbers and to make something useful out of those findings. Remember, science is a tool, not a belief system. But, that’s a discussion for another time. This is especially important today for social issues in the universities. I think that moving forward, personality research will play a crucial role in creating a stronger foundation for the humanities and social sciences (which are currently corrupt by neo-Marxism) and for better understanding how to sort out this massive mess which was made very real to me just the other night in the pub.

I was out for some beers, having an argument with a couple of old grad school friends. They were debating each other why women are underrepresented in philosophy departments when they are overrepresented in the other humanities. Their disagreements seemed to be between narrow social issues, as one might expect from two young, impressionable minds who’s opinions haven’t yet been optimized to think outside the social constructionist box of academia. One (the female) argued that direct oppression of women was the cause, and the other (the male) argued that systematic corruption was the problem, which, unbeknownst to them, is more or less the same thing, so their disagreements were fundamentally semantic. When I brought up differences in male and female personalities as a solution, leaving open for discussion what those differences might be (even though I already knew), they seemed to reject it without giving it any serious consideration. Shocker. They didn’t want to accept that people might actually be innately different (as a philosopher type, why wouldn’t you want to be different, I thought?). That is not to say, as I tried to explain, that nurture doesn’t play some crucial role, but they insisted on sticking to the nurture side of the debate while rejecting altogether the nature side. I was even being more centrist about the issue than I should have been because I wanted to facilitate good discussion, but that didn’t work as it was two versus one.

There were a couple of ironies in their rejection of my ideas. The first is that they were clearly embodying their natural male-female differences in the specific positions they originally took. Generally speaking, women are more agreeable and are more interested in people, while men are more interested in ideas and systems, so it’s no wonder my female friend was defending the group-identity-based female oppression position, and my male friend was defending the politico-systematic corruption position. I dared not point that out but they became more aggressive once they began to realize that their positions were more or less the same and only founded on semantic disagreement. From that point, their team approach in attempting to defeat me brought up the second irony — that in agreeing with each other in the fashion that they did, they were acting out the group identity role that is so characteristic of people who take the far-left position on social issues, which is something that they had admitted to. They oriented their arguments onto a foundation of equality, kindness, and compassion rather than on a desire to get to the truth, or to let truth present itself through three-way discussion. When I explained what a Pareto distribution is, the phenomenon where, if given equal opportunity, people’s natural differences will manifest thereby causing a necessary unequal distribution of success, they simply got mad (to make a short story shorter). In my male friend’s defense, he unknowingly proved that his constructionist position was at least somewhat justified by virtue of the simple fact that he is from Seattle. He is a slave of his own cunty-liberal reasoning, after all. My female friend, on the other hand, comes from a conservative family in Georgia, and she carries a gun in her purse, so, what the hell is her excuse?

Anyway, it seemed that the further we went down the rabbit hole, the more we started to talk past one another, for we were operating at different levels of analysis. They thought I was flat out wrong, and I thought they were missing the point, so we were going nowhere fast. They first disagreed with each other about which of the narrow social issues was the cause of the lack of women in philosophy, but they both agreed on the broader presupposition that social constructionism was correct. When I questioned that point, they got angry. This is what we’re supposed to do in philosophy, though – broaden an issue as much as we possibly can in order to find the most reasonable general perspective on which we can ground the known facts. If you can’t think that broadly, or at least keep your emotions in check while others are doing so, then philosophy is not for you. As we are all graduate-level philosophizers, I thought that would have been fun. Well, it was, but it was just a bit dirtier than any of us would have liked!

Looking back, a crucial distinction arose that I now see should have been dealt with from the beginning. That is the distinction between personality and character. Personality is what I consider to be one’s innate, baseline temperament. This is obviously difficult to control for scientifically because there are so many layers of environmental, social, and cultural influence accrued over a lifetime and stacked on top. But, there is still the personality which is your default mode of temperament that goes largely unchanged throughout your life. This is why two or more siblings raised under identical conditions will turn out so different – it’s because they are different. They require different sorts and degrees of attention. How that personality is cultivated, though, encompasses one’s character (which is more or less the same concept as Aristotle’s “State of Character” that he describes in his Nicomachean Ethics). This is where free moral will comes in. One habituates himself into making the right moral decisions to cultivate his virtues, and that forms the character. Perhaps I should call personality temperament, and character personality. Perhaps this semantic point is where my friends didn’t get it. Whatever. Semantics. I’ll be clear from here on.

What the social constructionist has more right than the radical materialist personality advocate (Eric Braverman, for example) is that, at the end of the day one’s character is what is important, and that we can habituate ourselves into projecting a certain image that can lead us to a successful and fulfilling life. What they get wrong is that we are a slave to societal norms, that we’re all the same, and to push back against the patriarchy is the only thing we can do about that. Funny, this view can be explained from a personality perspective. Social constructionists are liberal in their political views, which implies that they are generally low in Big 5 trait conscientiousness which deals with orderliness, industriousness, organization, etc., so they wouldn’t want to put in the necessary work to make positive changes in their lives to begin with. By this logic, they’re simply not allowed to deny the existence of personality. What the materialists correctly presuppose, probably without knowing, is that we should come to understand our baseline temperament, and when cultivating our personality into character, we should not stray from that default mode of being, or else we will live a dishonest and unfulfilling life. What they get wrong, ironically, is that life has no purpose and that we are nothing more than our biology. Pragmatically speaking, this can’t work either. I challenge a materialist to go out into the world and actually attempt to live as though his life has no purpose – as though his thoughts and actions are predetermined by brain functions because he has no free will. One will necessarily fall into a nihilistic, self-deprecating philosophy which would lead to a quick and painful demise, not only for him, but for everyone around him for whom he is a purpose.

Our personality/temperament is our default mode that we should strip from our societal influence to properly understand our potential, that is, if we are individual enough to manage that. Allow Terence McKenna to give you some advice: psychedelic drugs can help. Our character is what we have made of that potential, and it is only a good character if we have taken the time to understand what lies beneath it. Those are both good and evil things. Our character — our being — is the ever-evolving vessel we use to navigate the world that only we have the power to control. We cannot wholly exist apart from our environment. Our being is not our nature or our nurture, but it is precisely the abstract interplay between the two, and how we choose to act accordingly, without regret.

The False-Dilemma of the Nature vs. Nurture Debate

Britton William FrostLeave a comment

Before I begin, allow me to explain what I mean by false dilemma. A false dilemma is an error in reasoning whereby one falsely assumes that the truth of a matter is limited to one of two (or a select few) explanations. For example, the American presidential election. For another example, have you ever been stumped by a question on multiple choice test because you saw more than one possible correct answer (or no correct answers all)? — perhaps you got frustrated because you felt that the test was unfairly trying to trick you? Well, you were probably right. This may have been an instance of your ability to recognize the false dilemma fallacy. Sometimes there are indeed any number of correct answers given any number of circumstances. There is often simply not enough information provided in the question for one choice to clearly stick out as correct. This might lead you to question the test in a broader sense. What is the purpose of this (presidential election, or) test? What is it trying to measure or prove? Without getting into that answer in too much detail (as this is not a post about the philosophical state of academic testing), I can say such tests aren’t really concerned with truth and meaning as they are about the specific program they support. That program may or may not have the best interests of the people in mind, and it may or may not be directly governed by the amount of money it can produce in a relatively short period of time. Anyway, that’s another discussion.

In a previous post entitled The Slate, the Chalk, and the Eraser, I compared a child’s mind to a slate, and I argued that as long as we write on it with chalk by teaching him how to think (rather than a permanent marker/what to think), then he will be able to erase those markings to make way for better and more situation-relevant ones in the future, once he develops the ability to make conscious judgments. This is an example that you may have heard before, and it can be useful, but by some interpretations, it may seem to rest on a false presupposition. Such an interpretation may raise the “nature-nurture” question that is so common in circles of science and philosophy. One might argue that if a child’s mind is truly analogous to a slate in the way I have put forth, then I should commit myself to the “nurture” side of that debate. That was not my intention. In fact, that debate, in its most common form, presents a false dilemma, so I can only commit to both or neither side depending on what is meant by ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’. The conventional definitions of these terms are limited in that they create a spectrum on which to make truth-value judgments about objects, experiences, phenomena, etc. We commit to one end of the spectrum or the other, and we take that position as true and the other as illusory. This is similar to the subject-object distinction I described in an earlier post. Perhaps comically, even the most radical (and supposedly-yet-not-so-contrary) ends of scientific and religious belief systems sometimes agree one which side to commit to, albeit for different reasons. That particular conflict, however, is usually caused by a semantic problem. The terms ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ obviously mean very different things for radical mechanistic scientists and evangelical Christians.

Please keep in mind throughout that I am not criticizing science or religion in general, so I am not out to offend anyone. I am merely criticizing radical misinterpretations of each. Consequently, if you’re an idiot, you will probably misinterpret and get offended by this post as well.

Taking this description a step further, false dilemma can be committed to any number of degrees. The degree to which it is committed is determined by at least two factors: the number of possible options one is considering and the level of complexity at which one is analyzing the problem. Any matter we might deal with can be organized conceptually into a pyramid hierarchy where the theoretical categorical ideal is at the top, and the further one goes down the pyramid, the more manageable but trivial the matters become. As a rule of thumb, the fewest options (one or two) and the lowest level of analysis (bottom of the pyramid) should give rise to the highest probability of a logical error because the bottom level of analysis has the highest number of factors to consider, and those factors culminate up the pyramid toward the categorical ideal. Fortunately, committing an error at the lowest levels of analysis usually involves a harmless and easily-correctable confusion of facts. Committing the error at higher levels of analysis are more ontological in nature (as the categorical ideals are per se) and can have catastrophic consequences. All sciences and religions structure their methods and beliefs into such pyramid hierarchies, as do we individually. They start with a categorical ideal as their assumption (e.g. materialism for some science; the existence of God for some religion), and they work down from there. However, neither religion nor science are meant to be top-down processes like philosophy (which is likely the only top-down discipline that exists). They’re meant to be bottom-up processes. For science, everything starts with the data, and the more data that is compiled and organized, the more likely we are able to draw conclusions and make those conclusions useful (in order to help people, one would hope). For religion, everything starts with the individual. Live a moral and just life, act kindly toward others, and you will be rewarded through fulfillment (heaven for western religions, self-actualization for eastern religions). These can both be good things (and even reconcilable) if we go about them in the right way. What are the consequences, however, if we go about them radically (which is to say blindly)? In short, for radical belief in a self-righteous God, it is war, and therefore the loss of potentially millions of lives. In short, for radical materialism, it is corruption in politics, education, and the pharmaceutical industry, the elimination of health and economic equality, and the potential downfall of western civilization as we know it. That’s another discussion, though.

For the nature-nurture debate, the false dilemma is the consequence of (but is not limited to) confusion about what constitutes nature and nurture to begin with, and even most people who subscribe to the very same schools of thought have very different definitions of each. First, in the conventional form of this debate, what do people mean by ‘nature’? Biology, as far as I can tell, and nothing more. We each inherit an innate “code” of programmed genetic traits passed down from our parents, and they from theirs, and so on. This code determines our physiology and governs our behavior and interaction with the outside world. Our actions are reactive and governed by our brain-computer, and free will is consequently an illusion. What is meant by ‘nurture’ on the other hand? Our experienced environment, and nothing more. Regardless of our chemical makeup, how we are raised will determine our future. There is no variation in genetics that could make once person significantly different from another if raised in identical fashion by the same parents, in the same time and place. We have no control over the objective environment we experience, so free will still seems to be illusory.

These positions seem equally shortsighted, and therefore, this problem transcends semantics. Neither accounts for the gray in the matter — that reality, whatever that is, does not follow rules such as definitions and mathematical principles. These are conceptions of our own collectively-subjective realities which make it easier for us to explain phenomena which are otherwise unfathomable. On this note, we could potentially  consider both nature and nurture phenomenal. That is an objective point on the matter. The first subjective problem is that both positions imply that we don’t have free will. Sure, there are unconscious habits of ancient origins that drive our conscious behavior (e.g. consumption, survival, and reproduction), but there other more complex structures that these positions don’t account for (e.g. hierarchical structures of dominance, beliefs, and abstract behavior such as artistic production), and those are infinitely variable from person to person and from group to group. This comes back to the point I just made about phenomenal reality and the conceptions we follow in order to explain them as if they are somehow out there in the objective world that we are not part of.

Not to mention, we all take differently to the idea that free will might not exist. Religious people are often deeply offended by this idea whereas many scientists (theoretical physicists in particular) claim to be humbled by it. Both reactions, I would argue, are disgustingly self-righteous and are the direct consequence, not of truly understanding the concept of free will per se, but of whether or not free will simply fits into his or her preconstructed hierarchical structure of beliefs. One should see clearly, on that note, why a materialist must reject free will on principle alone, and a radical christian must accept it on principle alone. Regardless of the prospect that the religious person has a right to be offended in this case, and that it is contradictory of the scientist to commit to a subjective ontological opinion when that very opinion does not permit one to have an opinion to begin with (nor can it be supported with any sufficient amount of “scientific” evidence whatsoever), the point here transcends the matter of free will itself: that rejecting or accepting anything on principle alone is absurd. This calls into question matters of collective ideological influence. There is power in numbers, and that power is used for evil every bit as often as it is used for good. When individuals, however, break free from those ideologies, they realize how foolish it is to be sheep and to believe in anything to the extent that it harms anyone in any way (physiologically, financially, emotionally, etc.). The scary part about this is that literally any program might trap us in this way (ideologically), and blind us from the potentially-innate moral principles that underlie many of our actions. On that note, we are all collectively very much the same when we subscribe to a program, and we are all part of some program. We are individually very different, however, because we each have the potential to arrive at this realization through unique means. We each have a psychological structure that makes up our personality. It is undeniably innate to an extent, yet only partially biological. This reveals the immeasurable value in developing the one’s intrapersonal intelligence through introspection and careful evaluation of one’s own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and desires.

Furthermore, conventional nature-nurture positions are polarities on a spectrum that doesn’t really exist. If we had clearer definitions of each, perhaps the debate would not present a false dilemma. We should reconstruct those definitions to be inclusive of phenomena — think of these terms as categories for ranges of processes rather than singular processes themselves. If we think of these terms as being on a spectrum, we are led to ask the impossible question of where the boundary is between them. If we think of them as categories, we are forced to embrace the reality that most, if not all, processes can fall into either category given a certain set of circumstances, and thus, those categories become virtually indistinguishable. E.g. in the case of inherited skills: practice makes perfect, yet natural talent seems so strongly to exist. If the truth-value-based spectrum between nature and nurture were a real thing, then neither position would be able to account for both nurtured ability and natural talent; it would simply be either/or. This is a consequence of the false dilemma. It leads us to believe that this gray matter is black and white. If we one is decent at learning anything, he/she knows that there is only gray in everything.

But is there? I hope I have explained to some conceivable extent why scientific and metaphysical matters should not be structured into a polar truth-spectrum, and why any attempt to do so would likely present a false dilemma. However, it seems more reasonable to apply spectrum structures to value theory matters such as aesthetics, ethics, and even other personal motivators such as love. This, I will explain further in a later post.

 

“Ideology and the Third Realm” – What is Philosophy?

Britton William Frost2 Comments

In Dr. Alva Noë’s book Varieties of Presence, many important aspects of perception are discussed. He makes a convincing case that we achieve contact with the world through skill-based action. Our understanding of a new experience is a collective recurrence, both conscious and unconscious, of past experiences. It is a dense work that deserves the attention of other contemporaries who concern themselves with matters in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Perhaps I will do a full review of this book at a later date, but for now I would like to focus on a matter addressed in the final chapter entitled “Ideology and the Third Realm” which takes an important departure from the philosophy of consciousness and neuroscience.

What this chapter does is something that every philosopher should do periodically: broadly revisits the fundamental importance of philosophy as it relates to the context of his work. I will be a bit more general than that since I am not  “professional” philosopher. The role that philosophy plays in the world seems to constantly be changing. But is it? Perhaps it is only the popular understanding of what philosophy is that changes. I think that is, in part, the case, but it has more to do with the uses of philosophy. Some of those uses have remained constant since the beginning of recorded thought while others change by the minute. For this reason, it is impossible to pin down. But one need not pin it down. Philosophy exists to be used, and it is set of skills that will hopefully never become extinct. There is no dictionary definition that can sufficiently explain it, much less emphasize the field’s vital presence. I will give a general overview of the chapter but mainly share my thoughts about what philosophy is and why it is not only relevant, but necessary. Before I continue, I should define an important term which will be mentioned several times in this piece.

Q.E.D. (Latin) quod erat demonstrandum –  meaning “which had to be proven”

Many people, in and out of academia, naively think that philosophy deals with questions that warrant a Q.E.D. response. When you take a philosophy course, you often have to write at least one argumentative essay where you choose a position of a philosopher who you have read, you attempt to prove him wrong, and then you attempt to formulate a complete view of your own by supporting evidence. This way of “doing philosophy” is popular in undergraduate, base-level courses. It helps you to develop reasoning skills that can be applied anywhere. This is important, no doubt, but this is not where philosophy ends. Why? First, writing is not even necessary for “doing philosophy”. The only thing that is necessary, I would argue, is thinking. Thinking must be assisted by reasoning, but this is only the start.

This does not imply that we should identify the philosopher as one who locks himself up in his ivory tower and speculates of a deluded, idealized world. To philosophize well, one must also be able to communicate his ideas in some way, and that will involve language, whether spoken or written. This is one reason philosophy courses are difficult: one must already have a certain level of reading, writing, and speaking proficiency to succeed. The full title of the final chapter of Noë’s book is “Ideology and the Third Realm (Or, a Short Essay on Knowing How to Philosophize)”. Since language is such a crucial part of this issue, I will begin by taking a language-based example from that chapter:

‘The King’s carriage is drawn by four horses’ is a statement about what?

a) the carriage;  b) the horses;  c) the concept it asserts;  d) other

Immediately, one might think that the answer is ‘a) the carriage’. This seems completely logical, given how most of us understand language. ‘Carriage’ is the subject of the sentence, so any terms that follow should (theoretically) describe it. It is certainly not ‘b) the horses’ because that is the object receiving the action, and nor can the answer be ‘c) the concept it asserts’ because nine out of ten people in the room don’t know what the hell that means. Right? Good. It’s settled.

Gottlob Frege had other ideas. He thought that a statement about numbers is a statement about a concept. When we attempt to answer the question about the subject matter of the “king’s carriage” statement, we are speaking in conceptual terms. We are not using the statement to assert anything. So, the answer must be ‘c’. He gives more reasons for this, of course, and he makes us realize that there is a sense in which we become confused about what we mean when we say ‘The king’s carriage is drawn by four horses’. However, despite the piercing quality of Frege’s argument, we have a much stronger sense that we are unconvinced by his theory of language.

The problem with Frege’s claim, for most of us, seems to be that he had a preconception of the meaning of the statement ‘the king’s carriage is drawn by four horses’ before he was even asked the question. He had already established that any statement about a number, without exception, is a statement about a concept, so he was able to answer the question without thinking. The problem with our rejection of his claim is that we are doing exactly the same thing. We also answered without thinking. We held the preconception that every sentence is about its subject. This preconception is guided by the larger logical construction by which we understand language, and it is certainly no more correct than Frege’s view simply because nine out of ten people in the room agree that it is (that would be to commit ad populum). We take our theory of language for granted, and perhaps Frege takes his for granted too. There seems to be no Q.E.D. conclusion here. What we are all doing, if we become inflexible, if we stick to our answer to the question without sufficient evidence to support it, is committing what I call the ideological fallacy.

However, subscribing to ideologies is not always a fallacious thing. It is only when the ideology is applied in a dogmatic way that it becomes wrong. When an evangelical christian lives by Jesus’ principle, “love your enemies”, that can have very positive effects. It may minimize conflict in the person’s life. It may allow them to stand strong in the face of racial adversity. It may allow them to accept people more openly, and very often the favor will be returned. However, the favor is not always returned if the christian is careless and thoughtless. Despite his belief that he loves his enemies, participating in radical evangelical activism would invade on others and create more conflict, leaving his conception of “love” to be questioned. It takes Christianity out of context and misapplies it to the world in a negatively ideological way. There is nothing about the beliefs in themselves that are illogical, destructive, or even wrong. It is in how they are used will determine that. I will use another example. Evolutionary biology can study preserved skeletons of million-year-old homo erectus figures and learn about how we sapiens evolved three stages of evolution later. This could contribute to our understanding of how humans will continue to evolve (or devolve). However, evolutionary biology can only contribute a small piece to the puzzle of predicting the future of humankind. It needs influence from many other fields to even begin to solve any of its own problems. So, when Richard Dawkins uses the broad concept of evolution to attempt to disprove creationism in any one of its countless forms, he is taking his work out of context and applying it in a radical, dogmatic, negatively ideological way. There is nothing about evolutionary biology, as a field, that is wrong. It is a highly-useful method of inquiry. But there is still plenty we do not know about how humans have evolved. We generally just accept that they did with the minimal evidence that we have just as the evangelical accepts his own conception of loving his enemies based solely on Jesus’ teachings. In this case, both parties look equally silly.

Of course, the example above presents two extreme cases. Although we answer this “king’s carriage” question one way, Frege answers it in another, and we seem to have to agree to disagree, there is still a sense in which both sides think the issue is objective in nature and that it deserves further discussion. In order to have this discussion in a logical, respectful, open manner, we must become philosophers, and one may not need to go school to achieve this. Alva Noë wonders how we might categorize our dealing with the “king’s carriage” question. It is not in the realm of the material (e.g. biology), nor is it in the realm of belief (e.g. religion). It seems to be within some third realm. Noë begins to explain with this quote:

The point is not that Frege or we are entitled to be indifferent to what people say or would say in answer to such a questionnaire. The point is that whatever people say could be at most the beginning of our conversation, not its end; it would be the opportunity for philosophy, not the determination of the solution of a philosophical problem. (Noë, 173)

“at most…“, Noë says “(what other people say is) the beginning of our conversation… the opportunity for philosophy…” This is another reason philosophy is so difficult! At the very most, when our view stands in opposition to another, we may only have the opportunity to do philosophy. We rarely get there. When we do get there, two or more people are concerning themselves with the third realm of a problem. What is the third realm? It is the realm of possibilities with minimal influence from ideologies. It is abstractly objective yet, as I will explain later, not in the realm of matters Q.E.D.

Where is this third realm? Well, ‘where’ is the wrong question. Bertrand Russell once said of philosophy that it is “in the no-man’s land between science and religion” because it always seems to be under scrutiny from both sides. Perhaps, in some cases, this is correct. It can serve as a mediator between two extremes, but, on the surface, this only explains one of unlimited applications of philosophy.

Upon first reading or hearing Russell’s quote, one might be inclined to place philosophy in between science and religion because it deals with reason over belief (like science) and thought without quantifiable experimentation (like religion). This would be a shallow interpretation that lacks crucial insight. Russell was perhaps a bit too concise for the average interpreter. He did not mean, as I understand him, that philosophy is inside the space between science and religion. It has deeper implications which resonate with those of Noë (despite the fact that Russell was a logical positivist, and Noë is a phenomenologist, so they would probably have a duel for other reasons). Explaining philosophy has nothing to do with where we should fit it in relation to other fields. It has to do with how we can apply its skills, and in that way it is most unique. Those skills are skills of thought. Developing those skills first requires one to look inward, rid himself of bias, and then turn outward to consider all possibilities. This is still only the beginning. Once we achieve this skill of thought, what do we do with it? We continue to practice and improve it. How? The answer is simple, but the application seems, in some cases, impossible. We communicate.

We share our ideas with others who have, to some degree, developed the skill of clear thinking. Of course, communication, whether written, oral, or otherwise, is a practical skill in itself that will be developed naturally, mostly prior to but also simultaneously, alongside the skill of thinking. We tend to adapt our ability to communicate only to the situational extents that we need them, and that can be limiting. When doing philosophy, anyone can participate, but only to the extent that they can think clearly. Philosophy tests those limits, which is why both science and religion so often scrutinize it. Though they deal with subject matter that seems contradictory, (mechanistic) science and religion do have one general thing in common: dogmatic ideology. Philosophy, on the other hand, is perhaps the only field that dedicates the elimination of dogmatism as one of its primary goals.

Doing philosophy is not only about increasing the degree to which people can think, but about being open to different forms of thought as well. What is fortunate in this regard is that each person in the conversation, if one is to find himself in such a conversation, has probably achieved their skill of thought through different means. For example:

There may be one who developed his thinking through philosophy itself, who rigorously studied informal logic to learn how not to commit errors in reasoning. He also may be able to contribute history of thought to the conversation and explain why certain schools of thought are obsolete in academic philosophy. There might also be a more scientifically-minded person who, in a graduate school lab, performed the same experiment under the same conditions hundreds of times, but got variable results. He questioned why this was happening (if the laws of physics are supposed to be constant), so he turned his research to the inconsistencies and realized that uncertainty transcends mathematical equations. He is now able to think more broadly about his work. There might also be a Buddhist in the group who practices intensive meditation. He can turn off influence from his sensory world and walk on hot coals without getting burned, or he can submerge himself into freezing-cold water without catching hypothermia. He is able to clear his mind from all unnecessary matter. Each person achieves the same thing – to think clearly, skeptically, critically – through different means. They each learn from one another and gain a broad range of insights.

Also, and perhaps most importantly, each person in the conversation should be genuinely interested in learning new perspectives in order to improve their own points of view. There is a sense in which someone may have achieved access to the third realm of conversation to a lesser degree than the others, and at a deeper point in the discussion, he gets flustered and has to back out. This is perfectly fine as long as he does back out, at least until his temper cools (if he does not back out, he will disrupt the conversation). He has pushed his boundaries of clear thinking to a level that the others have not, and that can be a very constructive or destructive thing, depending on his mindset. But it is vital that all parties directly involved maintain self-preservation throughout the conversation. If there are any unsettled nerves, it is almost certain that at least one participant is not being genuine, but rather, is too outwardly focused and is perhaps ultimately trying too hard to prove himself right or the others wrong. Although they might seem to contribute insight to the conversation, they will inevitably expose themselves as operating from within an ideology, thereby rendering themselves a nuisance. Philosophy is no activity for the pretentious or egocentric, contrary to popular belief. In fact, the absolute contrary is the case.

Do any philosophical questions warrant a Q.E.D. response? (Does philosophy ever prove anything?)

No. In case this is not already clear, there are, in a sense, no “philosophical questions”. There are only philosophical approaches to questions. Approaching the third realm of a problem requires one to be, as stated earlier, abstractly objective (or perhaps objectively abstract). There are limits to how objective one can be, no doubt, but the aim of advancing thought is to learn more and more about the world and how those in it think, so we can improve on that, both individually and collectively. It exposes dogmatism and reveals the sheer grey-ness in any concrete matter. Need I give examples as to when this might be useful? I challenge anyone to give an example of when it is not, and thereby present an opportunity for doing philosophy! This is why philosophy is so widely-applicable.

To draw an analogy – toward the end of Noë’s final chapter, he mentions Immanuel Kant’s aesthetic view that the reality of one’s response to a work of art is based in feeling – it is not contingent on his ability to explain it. Similarly, Clive Bell described a “peculiar aesthetic emotion” that must (first) be present in something for it to be considered art. It is that feeling you get when you listen to a beautiful composition, watch a film that evokes tears, or look at Picasso’s Guernica after you have heard the gruesome story behind the painting. I had experienced this aesthetic emotion many times, but it was my former professor at the University of New Orleans, Rob Stufflebeam, who, whether he intended to or not, led me to realize that all of those experiences involved the same exact emotional response. Perhaps only for those who have experienced it, it is certainly something that need not, and often cannot be explained.

Likewise, a philosophical approach to a problem is, instead of an emotional experience as with art, at its very best, an all-encompassing intellectual experience. It is not a heated argument, nor is it even a controlled debate. It is a respectful, open-ended discussion about ideas between two or more people in an intimate setting. It raises the awareness of each involved to a broad level of skepticism that, perhaps very strangely, brings with it an aura of contentment. It is obviously not the same feeling one gets with the peculiar aesthetic emotion, but it is parallel in the sense that when you are part of it, you really know. That reality seems to transcend explanation.

Final Thoughts

Alva Noë has developed this idea about perception: “The world shows up for us, but not for free. We achieve access to it through skill-based action.” It is a combination of developing our conceptual and practical skills that allows us to understand the world and live in it. Achieving access to the third realm of a question, as I would consider it, is one of those countless skills. It comes more easily for some than for others. Just as one person might naturally have ideal physiological makeup for learning how to swim (lean, broad shoulders, webbed feet, etc.), another person’s brain might seem to be better wired for clear thinking. Everyone, to some degree, with the proper amount of training, can swim. Likewise, everyone can, with practice, think clearly. The more one practices by looking inward, ridding himself of bias, and working up the courage to subject himself to critique, the more he can contribute to the conversation in his own unique way. How much one wants to participate is solely up to him, but to not participate at all is to miss out on a hugely important (and my personal favorite) part of the human experience.