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Some Important Issues in Philosophy |
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by Celestine N. Bittle, O.F.M.Cap.
Pragmatism, or Humanism, is a system of thought which is voluntaristic. The truth of judgments does not arise from their correspondence to reality. The pragmatist criterion of truth consists in the utility of a belief in satisfying human needs in a social way. That is true which "works," which has practical value, which leads to beneficial results for human progress, which promotes the best interest of mankind through living experience. Results make a belief true or false for the time being. Beliefs become true, when they function for the social welfare of humanity; and false, when they cease to function along these lines. Truth is, therefore, nothing static and immutable, but something dynamic and perpetually changing. Consequently, a belief may be true at one stage of development, and the same belief may be false at a different stage; something may be true under one set of conditions and false under another; a theory may be true for one class of people and false for another class, depending on the intellectual and cultural conditions prevailing at a particular time and in a particular locality. Truth, as will be seen, is entirely subjective in character. This interpretation of truth is contrary to the accepted meaning attached to the word by all men, whether educated or uneducated, and amounts to a perversion of language. To identify "truth" with "utility" is nothing less than to reduce the "true" to the "good." The "good," however, is the object of the will, not of the intellect, while the "true" has been considered by men at all times to be the proper object of the intellect. A lamentable confusion of thought must result from this identification of the "true" with the "good." If both are identical, so that "truth" is the object of the will, what can possibly be the object of the intellect? As a natural faculty of man it must have a natural object, just as well as the will; but if we remove "truth" from the intellect, the latter is without a proper object with which to exercise its power. The exercise of any power or faculty involves the striving to realize something, and that demands an object within its own proper sphere of activity. Every power or faculty of the human organism, internal as well as external, has its proper object; the will, for instance, strives toward the realization of the "good." But what could possibly be the object of the intellect except the realization and acquisition of "truth"? There is no other object assignable or discoverable. Pragmatists may assert that the "true" is identical with the "good," but that will never really identify such totally disparate things. Their attitude is unjustifiable, because contrary to the fundamental conceptions of men. Besides, in identifying the "true" with the "good," pragmatists do not solve the epistemological problem of knowledge. The problem of "knowledge" remains just as acute as before; it cannot be solved by transferring the concept of "truth" from the field of knowledge to the field of action and then denying that a "problem of knowledge" exists. We must still answer the questions:
These questions constitute the "problem of knowledge" and the mind of man will not be satisfied, and will continue to exert its powers of reasoning, until these questions are answered or until the mind sinks in despair into skepticism. But ignore this problem the mind cannot. Whether we call the answers to these questions "truth" or whether we give it another name, makes little difference: it is the problem and its solution that count, and they pertain to the province of the intellect and must be solved by the intellect and not by the will. Pragmatism, therefore, does not solve the problem of knowledge by dubbing it "metaphysics" and then ignoring its existence. And pragmatists are inconsistent. They identify "truth" with "utility" and thus transfer it to the province of the will. Nevertheless, they appeal to the intellect with a great array of arguments, to prove that "truth" is to be judged according to its beneficial results. Thereby they surreptitiously substitute the intellect for the will as the arbiter of truth and error and unconsciously admit after all that it is the intellect, and not the will, which must decide whether their theory or opposite theories give the correct (or "true") solution of the problem of knowledge and truth. Since they appeal to the reasoning intellect, they must abide by its verdict. Now, it is the verdict of the reasoning intellect, as classical realists have shown, that truth is found in the judgment interpreting reality and not in the results which flow from a certain belief. It is not "utility" which determines the "truth" of judgments, beliefs, and theories, but the objective evidence of reality. In fact, when pragmatists attempt to prove to their own theory, they marshal numerous facts and reasons in order to show that "utility" and not "objective evidence" is the criterion of truth and the motive of certitude; and in doing so, they appeal to the objective evidence of these facts and reasons to establish their case, Their own attitude and action is their best refutation. Moreover, pragmatists claim that those beliefs are "true" which satisfy human needs and produce beneficial results for man in a social way. What needs, and what beneficial results? We must know them, so as to be able to ascertain which beliefs contain "truth" and which "error." In order to know whether needs are real or apparent and whether results are beneficial or harmful, it is necessary for the intellect to discover the facts regarding these needs and results and then pass judgment on the truth or error of the beliefs. But here again, if any judgment corresponds to the facts at issue, it is "true"; and if it does not, it is "false." Thus it can be seen that truth and error reside in the judgment and their presence is determined by the objective evidence of the facts. The good results may be taken as an index or sign of truth, but the ultimate criterion of truth lies in the objective evidence before the mind. As long as it is necessary to have a criterion to discriminate between "real" and "apparent" needs, between "beneficial" and "harmful" results, between beliefs which "work" and those which "do not work," results cannot be considered the ultimate criterion. Results do not appear with labels attached; they can be discerned only by the intellect. Even from a pragmatist standpoint, then, the truth or error of beliefs cannot be decided without the judging power of the intellect. The ultimate criterion for the intellect, however, as commonsense classical realism has shown, consists in the clear self-manifestation of reality or self-evidence. Hence, pragmatism does not satisfy the "needs" of the intellect as a theory of truth and knowledge and, judged by its own criterion, is unsatisfactory and therefore false. Finally, how can I apply the pragmatist criterion to everyday existential judgments? I judge that "My watch is slow," "a car is passing," "my feet are cold," and so on. These statements contain truth or error. By what possible results for human progress and welfare am I to decide whether they are true or false? Or will a pragmatist seriously assert that there is no truth or error in these and similar judgments? If he claims there is not, we must dissent; if he agrees that there is, he must admit that his criterion does not apply. A criterion, however, which fails in its essential function, is worthless, because it is no criterion at all: it does not "work." There is relativity in all knowledge. By the very fact that a thing become known, a relation is established between it and the knowing subject. In order than an object be "known," it must be cognitionally present to the knower and be consciously apprehended by the knower; thereby both object and subject obtain a "reference to," or "relation toward," each other. To say that the mind could know an object without any relation existing between them, would be the same as to say that an object could be known without being "known" a subject could know without "knowing"; but that would be absurd. When we say that the mind can know reality "as it is in itself independent of the mind," we do not mean to claim that reality, when known, is independent of the mind in the act of knowledge, but that it is independent of the mind in its extra-mental existence. Maher has given a true and succinct expression of the relativity of knowledge, when he states -- "(A) that we can only know as much as our faculties, limited in number and range, can reveal to us; (B) that these faculties can inform us of objects only so far, and according as the latter manifest themselves; (C) that accordingly (a) there may remain always an indefinite number of qualities which we do not know, and (b) what is known must be set in relation to the mind, and can only be known in such relation." (Michael Maher, Psychology.) This, however, is not the usual meaning attached to the phrase in modern philosophy. Relativity of knowledge there means that character of knowledge in virtue of which it has only relative value, i.e., knowledge is not immutably and absolutely true in itself, but is true only according to the mental laws and conditions of the knowing subject. The theory which teaches this doctrine is called relativism. Since knowledge is true only for the individual subject who possesses it and is determined by his peculiar mental constitution, it is also subjective in character. Relativism is thus equivalent to subjectivism. According to relativism, then, knowledge and truth have no absolute and permanent validity; they are valid only for man as he is at present constituted, because they are the immediate product of his cognitional processes, and these processes operate according to the laws which govern his particular organism. Our knowledge of the extra-mental universe, for instance, is valid for man, but that does not mean that this knowledge corresponds to reality as it is. All forms of idealism and representative realism are thus seen to be relativistic, in as much as these theories subscribe to the doctrine that we can know nothing but our internal subjective states of the mind. Mentalists deny the existence of extra-mental reality altogether; representational realists, like Kant, Spencer, Mill, Huxley, and the adherents of sensism, positivism, and pragmatism, admit the existence of extra-mental reality, but they maintain that the knowledge of this reality is so transformed and transfigured in perception and intellection as to give no insight into what reality actually is. Such is the nature of all human knowledge and truth -- it is relative and subjective, without objective validity. Protagoras (born about 480 B.C.E.) already defended this doctrine, asserting that "man is the measure of all things." Relativism attacks the very nature of knowledge and truth in their foundation. It would be next to impossible to convince a confirmed relativist of the erroneousness of his position, because, like the universal skeptic, he admits no fixed and objectively valid laws of reasoning. But for those who still have an open mind it must be clear that relativism is false. If there are no truths which are absolutely valid, then even the Principles of Identity, Contradiction, Excluded Middle, and Sufficient Reason possess only relative, temporary, ephemeral value. They are true now for us, due to the subjective constitution of our mind; but they need not be true in themselves, nor need they have been true always in the past, nor need they be always true in the future. But the consequences of such a doctrine are absurd in the extreme. There could then have been a time, or a time may come, when it would be possible "to exist" and "not to exist" at the same moment; in fact, it would be possible to be neither an "entity" nor a "nonentity," but something between "entity" and "nonentity," at the same moment. And it would also be possible for knowledge to be "true" and "false" simultaneously. These are the inevitable consequences of relativism, if consistently carried to its logical conclusions. That relativism actually leads to a renunciation of the Principle of Contradiction, at least by implication, can be seen in one of the most recent of epistemological theories, that of objective relativism. According to this theory, knowledge is relative, but this relativity is objective in the datum or character-quality of the thing as perceived. What I am aware of in perceiving a thing is its quality or its set of qualities; it is this that I perceive, and not the thing itself. "The qualities are not the existent, to be sure, but they are its whole nature, and it has no other." (A.E. Murphy, Ideas and Nature.) When perceiving an orange, I perceive the qualities "yellowness" and "roundness"; these qualities "are its whole nature, and it has no other"; as such, then, these qualities constitute the objective essence of the orange. The result of this doctrine is that these qualities will be objectively that what they appear to be, relative to each individual from his particular point of view. The classic example is that of the penny. You and I look at it from different points of view. From where I stand, it appears as "circular"; from where you stand, it appears as "elliptical." Since our knowledge of these qualities is relatively true to each of us, and since these qualities are objectively the only thing we know of the penny, it follows (according to the theory of objective relativism) that the penny is really and objectively circular and elliptical at the same time, since we both look at it at the same time. The implication of such a relativistic theory is obvious. Things can really a different size, shape, color, temperature, etc., at one and the same moment; because as things appear, they are, i.e., to us. As Edward F. Talbot justly observes: "A knowledge of reality becomes an impossibility, since we know things not as they are, but as they appear. Appearances become all; reality vanishes. In becoming all, appearance becomes nothing. There is no common appearance, no unity of perception. Each appearance is proper to a particular point of view and the content present to the different subjects varies not only numerically but qualitatively. Thus we know not reality, and appearance finally fades into the projection of a point of view." (E.F. Talbot, Knowledge and Object.) Objective relativism, and every other theory of relativism, thus involves a denial of the most fundamental laws of being and thought -- the Principles of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle. But to destroy their validity means to destroy the very possibility of valid knowledge. The truth of relativism and the truth of the First Principles are incompatible. If the First Principles are allowed to stand in their objective validity, relativism is false; but if relativism is accepted, the First Principles must fall as invalid illusions, and all knowledge, including relativism as a theory of knowledge, must fall with them. But that would be the suicide of reason and the triumph of universal skepticism. Relativism, therefore, must be rejected, and truth must be taken as something absolute in an objective sense. So far as the criterion of objective relativism is concerned, it must consist in the appearance of the "character" or "essence." This being the only thing we can know about an object, it is plain that our judgments must always correspond to it. As such, then, our judgments will always be relatively and subjectively true. But here again the criterion fails as a criterion because it will never enable the mind to discriminate between "true" and "false" appearances. In fact, there can be no such thing as error in this system, because every appearance is "true" for each individual according to his subjective point of view. This, however, contradicts experience; error is a fact, and it must be accounted for. Since the objective difference between truth and error is obliterated in relativism, it is a false system of knowledge. (Can you imagine what would happen, for instance, to the criminal justice system if objective relativism is universally accepted?) By exposing the inadequacies and absurdities contained in these various theories regarding the nature of truth and the criterion of truth, we have confirmed the doctrine that the ultimate criterion of truth and motive of certitude consist in the internal, immediate objective evidence of reality manifesting itself to the intellect. And thereby another spontaneous conviction of man has been critically examined and philosophically vindicated, namely, that the judgments of the intellect are a true and valid source of knowledge in interpreting reality.
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