Plato

The Cave

entirelyuseless Logic , , , ,

Book VII of Plato’s Republic begins with this conversation between Socrates and Glaucon:

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: –Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

That is certain.

The human situation with respect to truth is somewhat like Plato’s cave dwellers. I argued in the previous post that all human knowledge is imperfect and vague. A more precise argument to the same effect would be the following.

There are two basic ways that we can learn the meaning of words. In one way, by having the meaning of the word explained to us. This requires the knowledge of other words. In another way, by learning the contexts in which the word is used. This does not necessarily require the previous knowledge of other words. Thus for example we learn the meaning of the word “red” by seeing it used in reference to red things, without a necessity of explaining the idea of red using other words. Third, we might learn the meaning of some words by a combination of the above methods.

Defining a word by other words cannot lead to an absolutely precise meaning unless the other words that are used have an absolutely precise meaning, so such a definition cannot be a source of absolute precision. And unless one points to all possible cases in which a word might be used, which is a physical impossibility, experiencing the contexts in which a word is used will also never lead to an absolutely precise meaning. It is consequently unlikely that you can arrive at an absolutely precise meaning by any combination of these methods, and consequently unlikely that you can arrive at such absolute precision in any way.

Language and thought are very closely connected. There are perhaps not many real cases of feral children, but the experience we do have of such situations suggests that someone who does not learn a language is basically unable to think. This is perhaps not true absolutely, but it is surely true that such a child cannot think clearly. Clear thinking requires language. This at least suggests that perfectly clear thinking would require perfectly clear language. But this is impossible, by the above argument. Consequently perfectly clear thinking is impossible for human beings.

This argument does not refute itself. It it of course impossible to have a proof that there are no proofs. Likewise, if absolute subjective certainty is impossible, as I have suggested, then it is impossible to have such certainty about this very fact. There is no inconsistency here. Likewise, if all thoughts and all arguments are vague, then these very thoughts and this very argument is vague. There is no inconsistency here.

Victory or Defeat

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Earlier we commented briefly on this passage in Fr. Harrison’s essay on bomb shelter theology:

We can imagine a scenario in which, with the further advance of technology, space-ships can not only photograph, but also visit, the craters. But as the first landing-craft approaches the crater-floor, disaster strikes! As it descends past the rim of the crater, still 400 feet above ground-level, the craft is rocked by a resounding SPLASH! The crew feel first their boots, then their trousers and other clothes, soaked by a rising inundation of … water no human eye can see! With the whole of planet earth watching in horror on television, the craft takes its passengers to an invisible watery grave; but the last words transmitted to earth by the doomed radio-man before his equipment sputters out remain forever engraved on the memory of the human race: “The water! It’s (gulp) – it’s (glug) – SALTY!!” For the faithful, victory has indeed been snatched from the jaws of defeat: the naked Emperor turns out to be clothed in splendor and majesty after all. The only moon-water believers who seem slightly embarrassed in the midst of this spectacular triumph are the more radically progressive bomb-shelter theologians, who have for years been teaching the new generation of clergy not to be so naive as to anticipate this kind of outcome from the long-awaited crater-landing. It had become axiomatic in such sophisticated circles that moon-water is to be understood as not only invisible, but also intangible.

Fr. Harrison says that in this scenario, “For the faithful, victory has indeed been snatched from the jaws of defeat,” and characterizes the incident as a “spectacular triumph.”

Let’s compare this again with the quotation from Plato’s Gorgias which I mentioned at the time:

And what is my sort? you will ask. I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil than of curing another.

These are two very different ways of framing similar situations. For Fr. Harrison, why does he talk of triumph, or victory and defeat? Who is conquering and who is being conquered, and how does this happen? Basically this corresponds to talk of people “winning” and “losing” a debate. The faithful triumph over the unfaithful in the situation under discussion because the believers are proved to have been right about the moon water, and the unbelievers wrong, much as someone who wins a debate triumphs over his partner either by proving him wrong, or at least by making stronger and more convincing arguments.

For Socrates, on the other hand, at least in this passage, a discussion is not a debate where one person is trying to conquer another person. The purpose is to gain the truth. Socrates continues, “For I imagine that there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about the matters of which we are speaking.” The discussion is a collaborative effort to gain the truth, and not a question of one or the other person “winning.” Success means reaching the truth, no matter which partner ends up changing their mind, or even if both must change their minds.

In a debate, on the contrary, the purpose is not to establish the truth. I can win a debate without the truth, if my arguments are so convincing that my opponent concedes that he cannot reply to them, while I can give apparently good responses to all of his points. A debate is more like an athletic contest, and winning and losing exist in both in similar ways. By winning the debate or the athletic contest, I establish myself as the better man and my opponent as the inferior one. The real purpose here is status. Thus, proving that a religion is false would be a defeat for believers by lowering their status relative to unbelievers, and proving it true would be a victory for believers by raising their status relative to unbelievers.

For Socrates, in contrast, whoever passes from error to truth has attained a great victory, and a much better one than the supposed victory of the person who showed him that he was in error.

Concerns about status are not necessarily concerns about one’s own personal status. Thus for example we might consider this passage from 1st Maccabees:

The king’s officers who were enforcing the apostasy came to the town of Modein to make them offer sacrifice. Many from Israel came to them; and Mattathias and his sons were assembled. Then the king’s officers spoke to Mattathias as follows: “You are a leader, honored and great in this town, and supported by sons and brothers. Now be the first to come and do what the king commands, as all the Gentiles and the people of Judah and those that are left in Jerusalem have done. Then you and your sons will be numbered among the Friends of the king, and you and your sons will be honored with silver and gold and many gifts.”

But Mattathias answered and said in a loud voice: “Even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey him, and have chosen to obey his commandments, every one of them abandoning the religion of their ancestors, I and my sons and my brothers will continue to live by the covenant of our ancestors. Far be it from us to desert the law and the ordinances. We will not obey the king’s words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left.”

I think it would be an excessively modern understanding to suppose that Mattathias is saying here, “The teachings of our religion are true, and therefore we cannot abandon them.” The contrast with the behavior of the Gentiles and the other nations under the rule of the king is instructive. Even if they “have chosen to obey his commandments, every one of them abandoning the religion of their ancestors, I and my sons and my brothers will continue to live by the covenant of our ancestors.” Why does Mattathias mention the fact that the nations are “abandoning the religion of their ancestors,” in contrast to his own behavior?

If Mattathias simply believes that the teachings of his own religion are true, and the teachings of the religions of other nations false, then it would be appropriate for him to maintain his own religion, but it would be equally appropriate for the nations to abandon theirs. Instead, he appears to imply that abandoning the religion of one’s ancestors is a bad thing no matter what, that it is a bad thing on the part of the other nations, and that it would be a bad thing if he did it himself.

The concern seems to be that abandoning the religion of one’s ancestors is dishonoring one’s ancestors. The other nations are giving in to the king and dishonoring their ancestors, but we will not do that, instead choosing to maintain the honor which is due to our ancestors. This is not necessarily a bad motive on the part of Mattathias. As we saw elsewhere, asking whether one should practice a religion is not the same as asking whether certain teachings are true. It might be perfectly reasonable to say that I should practice the religion of my ancestors in order to give them due honor, even if they might have believed some things that were not true.

A similar concern is probably frequently involved in the idea that true religious doctrines should be things that are passed down from the distant past. If we accept the doctrine of the astronauts that no water can be seen on the moon, this will dishonor our traditions and our ancestors. The problem is that while the desire to honor one’s ancestors may be morally praiseworthy, it does not make it any more likely that their beliefs were actually true. And due to the nature of progress in truth, it is often the case that newer doctrines are truer than older ones.

The Sun and The Bat

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Aristotle begins Book II of the Metaphysics in this way:

The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but every one says something true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect it must be easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of it.

Perhaps, too, as difficulties are of two kinds, the cause of the present difficulty is not in the facts but in us. For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

I have a slight feeling of uncertainty about the argument I made yesterday. I do not see any flaw in the argument, and it seems to me that it works. But the uncertain feeling remains. This suggests that “the cause of the present difficulty is not in the facts but in us,” and that the reason for the feeling is that “as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.”

Should I dismiss this feeling? One could argue that such feelings result from the imagination or from custom, so that if we do not see any flaw in the argument, we should just try to get over such feelings.

I think this would be a mistake, if the meaning is that one should try to get over it without making some other kind of progress first. In Plato’s Meno, Socrates talks about the fact that someone just learning something does not yet possess it in an entirely clear way:

Soc. And that is the line which the learned call the diagonal. And if this is the proper name, then you, Meno’s slave, are prepared to affirm that the double space is the square of the diagonal?

Boy. Certainly, Socrates.

Soc. What do you say of him, Meno? Were not all these answers given out of his own head?

Men. Yes, they were all his own.

Soc. And yet, as we were just now saying, he did not know?

Men. True.

Soc. But still he had in him those notions of his-had he not?

Men. Yes.

Soc. Then he who does not know may still have true notions of that which he does not know?

Men. He has.

Soc. And at present these notions have just been stirred up in him, as in a dream; but if he were frequently asked the same questions, in different forms, he would know as well as any one at last?

Men. I dare say.

The boy at first possesses the idea that the double square is the square on the diagonal as something which has “just been stirred up in him, as in a dream,” rather than in a clear way. And this is appropriate, because as we seen earlier, people can make mistakes even in mathematics. One reason that the boy needs to be “frequently asked the same questions, in different forms,” is that by doing this he will become much more sure that he has not been misled by the argument.

There is at least one objective sign that there may be a flaw in my argument from yesterday, namely the fact that it does not appear to be an argument that anyone has made previously, at least as far as I know. It may be implicit both in the theology of St. Thomas and in that of Hans Urs von Balthasar, in the discussion of the distinction between the persons of the Trinity as a source for the distinction of creation from Creator, but it does not appear to have been made explicitly. In general I think it is a mistake to ignore such a feeling of uncertainty, just as it would be a mistake for the boy to ignore the dreamlike character of his knowledge. That feeling means something. It may not mean anything about the facts, as Aristotle says, but it means that there is something lacking in my understanding. And if I manage to banish the feeling, to “just get over it,” that does not necessarily mean that I have actually cured that lack in my understanding. It may be present just as much as before.

This is similar to the situation where someone observes some evidence against what he currently believes to be true. His “gut feeling” will tell him that it is something that stands against what he believes, but he may attempt to remove that feeling by fitting it into the context of his belief. However, even if his explanation is correct, even if his estimate of the prior probability is mistaken, his original feeling was not meaningless. In almost every case, it really was evidence against his position.

When we have a conclusion and we want to make an argument for it, whether that is because we suspect that the conclusion is true and want to settle the matter, or because we simply want the conclusion to be true, there is a danger of claiming to know for sure that an argument works without really understanding it. And this danger seems to be especially serious when one is speaking about God or the first principles of things, because they are like the blaze of day compared to the eyes of bats. For example, I commented on a recent post by James Chastek because it appears to me that he is trying to take a shortcut, that he is trying to avoid the hard work of actually understanding. I have not yet continued that discussion because I suspect that neither he nor I actually understand the argument that he is making, and I would prefer to understand it better before continuing the discussion.

Do not ignore such vague feelings. Do not dismiss them as “just the imagination,” do not try to “just get over it.” They are telling you something, and often something important.