Vagueness

More on Knowing and Being

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I promised some examples of the point made in the previous post. I will give just a few here, although the point could easily be extended to many more.

Parmenides argues that nothing can come to be, since “what is not” cannot be or become. He also claims that “it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be,” and apparently this is intended to cover not only what is, but also the way that it is. Consequently, his position seems to imply a perfect identity between thought and being, even if it is ultimately inconsistent, since he says that human beings are wrong about change and the like, and this implies a discrepancy between thought and being.

Alexander Pruss argues that all words are sharply defined, at least in the mind of God.  He makes the argument, “Words are part of the world, so if there is vagueness in words, there is vagueness in the world.” This is no different, of course, from arguing that since words are part of reality, and some words are universal, there are universal things. There are universal things, if we mean by that universal terms or concepts, and there are vague things, if we mean by that vague words or concepts. But there are no universal cats or dogs, nor are there vague cats or dogs, despite the words “cat” and “dog” being vague.

C.S. Lewis argues, “Either we can know nothing or thought has reasons only, and no causes.” As I argued in the linked post, reasons in fact are a kind of final cause relative to their consequences, and they do not exclude efficient causes. This case might be somewhat less evident than the two previous cases, but I would argue that the cause of Lewis’s error here is the fact that, as St. Thomas says, the human mind can understand many things at once only by understanding them as one. Consequently, we can understand that an efficient cause can be for the sake of an end, but if the efficient cause and the final cause are presented as simply two causes, without the order that they actually have, they are not intelligible in this way.

These are examples of speculative errors resulting from confusing the mind’s way of knowing with the way that things are. I asserted in the last post, however, that practical errors can also result from this confusion. There is a very fundamental way this can happen: by nature we know things only if they have some relation to ourselves. The corresponding practical error would be to suppose that those things are real and important only in relation to ourselves. Look around you, and it appears that the world is centered on you. If you take this appearance and attribute an absolute truth to it, you will conclude that everything else has its being and importance in relation to you. Consider that you exist, and that all of the past has past out of existence. It might seem that the past only existed to bring you about.

St. Therese says about humility, “To me it seems that humility is truth. I do not know whether I am humble, but I do know that I see the truth in all things.” This is related to the examples I gave above. Since we know things in relation to ourselves, there is the temptation to suppose that things exist in the very same way. This leads to a false idea about our place in reality. Humility consists, on the contrary, in the truth about our place in reality, as I noted here.

The Cave

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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.

Vagueness

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Vagueness comes in various kinds. In the first place, everything that human beings think or say is vague in principle, because of the weakness of human understanding. Our understanding is to the fullness of reality “as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day,” and this weakness of our understanding is found within everything we think or say. Discussing why there is something rather than nothing, we saw that there must be a being which is necessary in itself. But even after making this argument, this does not become evident to us in itself, and this is because we do not know the nature of being.

Considering whether names said of God belong primarily to him or to us, St. Thomas says,

I answer that, In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all. And since that expressed by the name is the definition, as the Philosopher says (Metaph. iv), such a name must be applied primarily to that which is put in the definition of such other things, and secondarily to these others according as they approach more or less to that first. Thus, for instance, “healthy” applied to animals comes into the definition of “healthy” applied to medicine, which is called healthy as being the cause of health in the animal; and also into the definition of “healthy” which is applied to urine, which is called healthy in so far as it is the sign of the animal’s health. Thus all names applied metaphorically to God, are applied to creatures primarily rather than to God, because when said of God they mean only similitudes to such creatures. For as “smiling” applied to a field means only that the field in the beauty of its flowering is like the beauty of the human smile by proportionate likeness, so the name of “lion” applied to God means only that God manifests strength in His works, as a lion in his. Thus it is clear that applied to God the signification of names can be defined only from what is said of creatures. But to other names not applied to God in a metaphorical sense, the same rule would apply if they were spoken of God as the cause only, as some have supposed. For when it is said, “God is good,” it would then only mean “God is the cause of the creature’s goodness”; thus the term good applied to God would included in its meaning the creature’s goodness. Hence “good” would apply primarily to creatures rather than to God. But as was shown above, these names are applied to God not as the cause only, but also essentially. For the words, “God is good,” or “wise,” signify not only that He is the cause of wisdom or goodness, but that these exist in Him in a more excellent way. Hence as regards what the name signifies, these names are applied primarily to God rather than to creatures, because these perfections flow from God to creatures; but as regards the imposition of the names, they are primarily applied by us to creatures which we know first. Hence they have a mode of signification which belongs to creatures, as said above.

St. Thomas does not say it explicitly, but the principle he presents here, “this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all,” implies that according to his argument, God is contained in the definitions of creatures. And in this way the being which is necessary in itself must be in the definition of every being. Consequently our failure to understand the nature of being in itself implies a failure to fully understand the nature of any being.

Second, someone can say something vague for the sake of accuracy, namely because he knows that his knowledge is vague, and he wishes to express his knowledge as it is, rather than claiming to know more than he does. Freeman Dyson and others say that “it is better to be wrong than vague,” but they are, strictly speaking, wrong about this. It is better to be vague and right, rather than clear and distinct, but wrong.

Third, someone can say something vague because he does not primarily care about whether or not it is true, but about something else. In this case it may be left vague because there is no need for the effort that it would take to make it clear, since the person’s purposes can be achieved without that effort, or it may be left vague because those purposes are achieved even better when it remains vague. Thus there is a story about Hegel, which I was unable to track down while writing this post, which says that he explained to someone that the Phenomenology of Spirit had to be extremely difficult to understand, in order to ensure that Hegel would become famous. I do not find the story particularly credible, but I do find the motive credible.

I said “strictly speaking” above in discussing people who say that it is better to be wrong than vague, because in many cases such people are actually opposing the third kind of vagueness, and are simply intending to say that it is better to care about the truth but to make a mistake, than not to care about the truth at all, and therefore not to bother to say something which could turn out to be wrong.