Reading: Theories of Reality and Knowledge

The first thing on our agenda today is a review, we're going to do a review of everything that we've covered so far. And I'll try to hit the highlights the high spots, so that you'll know how to organize your own studies and your own review for exams that may be coming up. So the first thing on our agenda is that we talked about what philosophy is, what is.

And the main points that we made, there were, that is a theory, an educated guess, about something. And the something is about a theory of reality, the proper name of which was ontology, remember, odd name there, you can use that next time to play Scrabble, or about epistemology, a theory of knowledge. That these are general theories, the theories that we encounter, in the natural and social sciences are dedicated to specific areas. So you have in a specific science of mathematics, or physics or biology, or you have sociology, you'll have political theory, you'll have ethical theory and so on, they will have their area that to which they're dedicated, and within which they are constructing theories. And my point was, that when you construct a theory within a specific area, it always assumes, whether you're aware of it or not something about how that area relates to all the other areas that you're not investigating. In other words, it assumes a very truncated a crypto of small piece of a theory of reality, or a theory of knowledge. So philosophy focuses on them, it says that we're not just going to have this stuff, the unconscious assumptions that we're not going to examine, we're going to look at them. And we're going to bring it to the fore and make that our priority. What should our theory of reality look like? What should our theory of knowledge look like? And in each case, what we're concerned with there is the nature of reality and the nature of knowledge. How do we characterize what all the different kinds of of reality have in common? The Common Core to them all? How do we characterize what the Common Core is to all different kinds of knowledge in such a way as to give us an idea of what counts as truth, when we when we're entitled, be certain of a belief? And also, what counts as a proof? All these are questions that remain usually in the background in a specific science, but philosophy raises them puts them up on the table and makes them priorities to get answers. So it's, it's a specific kind of theory. And it leads what we're after is a theory of reality and a theory of knowledge. And, and then, after finishing with that, why raise the question, what is religious belief. And the reason for raising that is that we have a certain point of view going here. We mean the people are participating in the philosophy courses, where you have our Christian perspective that what drives theory making for anyone is their core religious belief, the belief in divinity, which divinity is that we say it's either the Triune God revealed in Jesus Christ revealed in Scripture, it's the Christian God or it's some god substitute. So we look at how religious belief in general works. And what we found there was the the core belief is in something or other as divine where divine means

and I'll put it this way. self existent. The backward II there means existence in the when we write it that way in logic, so what is it that's the self existent reality that Everything else depends on, we say, of course, that's God. But materials will say it's the purely physical phenomena this will say its sense perceptions, and maybe sense perceptions plus logic. There are all kinds of theories that put something in the slot of being the divine reality, everything else depends on. That's the central idea of religious belief. And then there are some secondary ideas that arise. One of those has to do with how the non, or divine depends on the divine. That also counts as a religious belief. And you remember, I gave you several schemas for that, we had solid circle representing the divine reality and the dotted circle representing the non divine. And when we looked at different ideas, of how one depends on the other, how the one generates the other, that's the one the next sense of, of religious belief, and then there's the sense in which we get a specific idea of what of the of the divine reality, that would be a doctrine of God or whatever the God's substitute is. This includes however, the position that there can be no specific idea, whatever. That's a specific idea about the site specific idea. So this covers those religions that have no specific conception of the divine reality that just say it's the, it's the Divinity itself. And that's all we can say. Then there is How do humans, and I'll write it this way? How do I stand in proper relation to the divine. That, of course, is what the average person thinks of as religion, that has to do with the specific teachings, practices, Holy Days, rituals, rites, sacraments, all the trappings that go with what we think of as a cultic, practice, golf religion. And in this case, this is one of the meanings of one of the secondary meanings also, how do I stand in population? That is not what this course is focusing on? What we're focusing on? Isn't how to practice religion correctly, or even which one is right, we're assuming that it's God. But in what we're focusing on is this the idea of divinity itself, and how that permeates all theory making in philosophy, whenever we get a theory of reality, a theory of knowledge, it either explicitly asserts, or tacitly assumes some view as to what it is that has absolute reality that is self existent, unconditionally non dependent, is the ultimate reality beyond which it makes no sense ask any more questions. That's what we're looking for. So that was our second point, what is philosophy? What is religious belief? Then? We went to our next topic, which was what's the relationship between these two things? And here, I sketched out a number of ideas that people have held about how they relate the first is one I called rationalism.

This is the view that says that reason is the is our tool for constructing theories and trying to justify them giving the reasons arguments in their favor or criticizing them. And reason is now in the driver's seat when it comes to both religious beliefs and theories. This is the position that says religion is just one more theory it's a hypothesis. I was looking at an article just last night the the author ever said he was going to compare the hypothesis that all things are created by God, with materialism, that everything is its matter and self existent, and goes through all different forms. He has right that that's the contrast that needs to be drawn. And I think it can be, of course, the contrast, turns out that materialism ends up explaining exactly nothing. And where its belief in God has experiential confirmation. But this is the rationalist position that says reasons in the driver's seat for both theory and religion. Because religious belief is just one more theory. Then we looked at irrationalism

This is the religion isn't really a theory is not anything, that rational religion is just our feelings, feelings of dependency on the on the universe, our feelings of generosity and kindness toward our fellow man. It has to do with feelings and not doctrines, it can't be justified or argued for in a rational way. And, and one of the great champions of this point of view called it the sum of all higher feelings.

And I suggested that probably what he has in mind there is above the belt rather than below. This is a standard kind of view of religion that is, isn't a rational enterprise, it's not to be judged like a theory, it's simply to be accepted for what it is, but recognize it for what it is set of feelings, and, and deal with it in that way. And that way only. And then the most popular view of all, when it comes to how these these things relate is the one called scholasticism.

odd sort of word. And I explained to you that it came about with the rise of the universities. And in those days, the the people who taught in the universities were called school men, not professors. And so this is the view of the school men, the the professors who worried about how their their faith, especially their Christian faith related to theory making and their little better, it's messy, but scholasticism.

They see it more clearly. And this was the view that reality is like a two storey to house. And there is the house, the first floor in the house is nature. And nature is the same for everybody. We all experience nature around us. And by perception and by reasoning about it, we make theories about it, we deal with it in the sciences. But then there's an upper story to this house, called Super nature, or the realm of grace is what many school men call it. And this has to do with where the souls of the departed go. Where are the angels live? It has to do with the presence of Christ, the right hand of God. It has, it's all the heavenly stuff that needs to be revealed to us, or we won't know about it. However, despite the fact that we won't, we can't know much about it without revelation from God, there is a kind of stairway that goes up the ladder, from the first floor to the second. And that stairway is reason reason can find out some small truths about God. And Thomas Aquinas version, it it can prove that God is the changeless cause of all the change in the world, that God is the unnecessary being, as opposed to all the contingent beings in the world, and so on. There are five things that you can prove about God without revelation and reasoning can can grasp those and ascend them from the realm of nature to get a little, at least a little peek to see that there is a supernatural realm and there's more that we need to Know about an open ourselves and to the possibility of revelation from God. So this is the view that more writers on the subject have taken than any other view. I don't know that it's the absolute majority it may be. But it's at least a plurality view. I've been criticized this view. That's surprising for someone who defends belief in God, because most of them hold it, but I don't think it's adequate. And part of the reason is that it shuts the one floor off from the other. I think we need revelation from God, to know both nature and super nature, that we're not going to get either one straight unless we have the right religious belief, guiding our theories. And that's belief in God. Not in reason, not absolute, tising reason not in the absolute tising matter and making that the Divinity belief, none of those other alternatives will work at all. But we need to place our belief in God at the foundation of our theories. So all of this is God's creation. And all of it is what we need revelation to understand correctly. And I call this view reformational. odd sort of word, perhaps. But I think that the people that came closest to seeing this, and some cases did see it pretty clearly, were the the reformers of the 16th century, Luther, especially John Calvin. And there's a school of thought that has come down to us from Calvin, and through especially Dutch Calvinism that emphasize this point, and has developed it remarkably. So this reformational view, then would see that we need revelation to know the true God. And that that's what should be placed at the base of our theory making and in that only God is self existent. Nothing else is only God is the ultimate reality. So that when we go to theorize, what we what we do here is we have God as our ultimate reality, the only self existent reality. And then we build a theory of reality, ontology and the theory of knowledge

on the assumption that nothing else other than God has independent, that is none unconditionally non dependent reality. So we don't regard anything that we run into in ontology as what it is that makes everything else what it is. No, that belongs only to God. We don't run we don't when we run, do an epistemology take it that there are certain truths that are fundamental that we know that are even equally fundamental with our belief in God no, they're not all the others are based on our experience of the world. And and are they all guided by this belief? Because nothing, then, nothing over here is what all else depends on. And nothing over here is what? All knowledge depends on.

Do we say no, there's no such thing as a and in ontology, it gives us what we call a non reductive ontology and ontology that recognizes there, the plurality of kinds of things in the world, they all have their own nature. And they each need to be respected that respects that sense, and they account given of the specific natures that they have. The same for knowledge. They're all different kinds of knowledge. But each kind has its own specifications, its own peculiarities, but we we don't try to collapse them all some one guy. Perhaps, an analogy would help here. When it comes to either ontology Your epistemology, we experience things, to all the different sides of reality, I'm going to say, this is the way it's usually looked at. Philosophy usually looks at all the different sides of reality, as though they're beads on a necklace, are all the different kinds of properties and laws that are exhibited to us in our everyday experience. So, suppose them we say that one of these is the mathematical side of things, and others, the spatial and others physical, another's biological, another is psychological, another is sociological, we have another side, the weave, things are exhibited to us in our experience, that are aesthetic, of aesthetic value, things that are ethical, that are a right and wrong ethically to do things that are right and wrong with with respect to the standard of justice, that we should do or not do. So on all of these different sides reality are like the beads on a, on a string, and falsely then wants to know what is the string. And generally speaking, what the what the theorist goes on to do is pick some one of the beads, say, the physical and make that a string. It's to pick one of these and say, well, but this isn't just one of the beads, this is what generates all the rest. And what they all depend on. Some, a very popular way to do this is to pick the physical and say, the logical or the logical, plus the mathematical. And then these two together are called the rational side of things. And this is the non rational side, and we got physical matter and rational order. And when you put those two together, now they will be able to explain everything. What I'm suggesting to you about this reformational point of view

is says that reality is not like beads on a string. It denies the entire metaphor of our string of beads. It says reality is much more like inter woven strands, no one of which is independent of the others. But all each depends on on being were interwoven with all the others. So these aren't separable. not separable beads, but strands, inner woven that cannot be isolated from one another. And we, in our ontology and our epistemology, we give an account of reality and knowledge that acknowledges them all. And doesn't pull anyone out to be the divine reality, all the rest of depend on. We say they all depend on God. And no one of them is independent of the others. That's a radically different sort of point of view. And I'm now said more about it than I had before. So instead of just merely re renew, reviewing, I'm adding. So I hope that this will help make it clearer where we're headed in theory of reality and knowledge. So I gave an example, however, of taking a particular truth and understanding it in in the reformational way. And the truth that I took was one plus one equals two. And I took that because that's the one that's most often brought up against the point of view that I'm advocating. The objection goes, Look, one on one makes two no matter who adds it up. It doesn't matter if you're a Christian and you have the God revealed in the Bible, it doesn't matter if you're a materialist, doesn't matter if you're a nihilist, doesn't matter if you're a terravita, Buddhist, one on one still makes tau. And when we saw, however, that there's a level at which that's true, we accept those. This is as the natural number series, and we all add alike, and we all get the same conclusion. But there are questions we can ask about this. And one was an ontological question about what do these symbols stand for? That's the ontological question. And as matter of fact, many different philosophers and mathematicians have given very different answers to that question. And turns out that they then do higher branches of mathematics very differently, or disagree on what the branches even are. We also can raise an epistemological question about this formula. The epistemological question is, how do we know?

It's always true. We're taught that, but how do we know it? We're from where do you get your information? How do you know that this was, was true a million years ago, will be true 10,000 years from now. And it's true at this moment. A million light years from here? Well, we have different answers proposed to that as well. And those also make a big difference to how one does other branches of mathematics. And I gave you several examples of this. And if you're a may remember, we looked at Bertrand Russell, math mathematician who wrote about the nature of math, and so on. And we found Russell claiming that you don't know this about mathematics. It's not one plus one equals two, you know these things about logic. Logic, is an absolute reality that governs everything, the heart and soul of all reality. And we know that it's true because it's absolute necessity, is conveyed by logic. It's the only thing we can rely on in this way. So all of math is explained, just as a shortcut way of doing logic. And logic is accorded the status of being unconditionally non dependent. And absolutely certain, and the only thing that is we can trust that then with other people. John Stuart Mill held that mathematics is just our generalization over what we mostly see, when most of the time when we see one thing and another, we're seeing two things. Okay. So we'll just go with the assumption that one will make two, and we'll be prepared to find exceptions. Yes, he thought there could be exceptions. Means the Sooner or later, somebody's lived on tried to add something up, and one plus one will make five and seven eighths. That would be odd, like finding a Black Swan, but it's not impossible. I wonder how many astronauts are going to get in the capsule and try to circle the Earth and come back safely. If the math that there's being used could turn out to be different next time he added it up? Well, we've we saw, then other people as well, I mentioned earn schmuck who held that mathematics is entirely our own invention. It's just like a game that we've invented. We invent it, we invent the rules, we invent how you do it. If you do it and follow the rules, the answer always comes out, right? But it's got nothing to do with reality, nothing to do with reality. This is from the greatest atomic scientist of the 19th century, and very early 20th.

If it's

nothing to do with reality, then how does math lead us to make the discoveries we make about the world we live in? We have still other points of view, there is the formulas that follow Hilbert. And there was an I mentioned Brauer. And the intuition is they reject entire branches of mathematics that other people accept, or these points of view are not inconsequential. And the fact I read to you what the story and the math had to say about that, it's probably worth repeating. It was Morris Klein, who wrote the predicament in mathematics is there's not one math but many, and that for numerous reasons, each fail was to satisfy the members of the opposing schools of thought. It's now apparent that the concept of a universally accepted, infallible body of reasoning, the majestic mathematics of 1800, is a grand illusion. And why? Because people have different views of reality and knowledge that they place at the basis of mathematics and interpret math in the light of their view of reality and knowledge. And why do they have those particular views of reality and knowledge, because they have a particular divinity belief that guides them into accepting that that's what looks most certain to them. And that's the the religious dimension to theory making.

I'll leave that just in case you will need to see it a little more and copy it down. But it's important. And I think that you we need to understand not only the roles of ontology and epistemology in the specific sciences, it's not just methods that they influenced this way. Physics is influenced the same way. So is biology, so is logic. So it's sociology, it doesn't matter which specific area we pick. The assumptions that we make about reality and knowledge, color, the way we see everything within those areas. And we take the view of reality and knowledge that we do because of what we regard as the divine reality, the reality that is self existent and non dependent. Well, that concludes our review. I hope that I went slow enough for you to get things down. I wish I could hear your questions and answer them. But we're gonna I'm going to call an end to the review now. And that which means our class today will be a little shorter than usual. And what I want you to do is use that time to read and digest what we've covered so far. Now, I wish you well, with any quiz or exam that's coming up