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1192 lines
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<h1 class="western"><font size="6" style="font-size: 24pt">Introduction
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to Ontological Philosophy: </font><font color="#000000"><font size="6" style="font-size: 24pt">Inside-Out
|
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Encyclopedia</font></font></h1>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.25cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>The
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Wholeness of the World</i> was given to me by a stranger I met
|
||
recently at a Midwestern airport when I was delayed between flights.
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I am not quite sure what to make of it. Having taught philosophy for
|
||
over a quarter century, I thought what he told me at the time made
|
||
surprisingly good sense. And after reading what he gave me, I wonder
|
||
why I shouldn't accept it. But it is not up to me. Others need to
|
||
consider it. The best way to share it seems to be the Internet. He
|
||
called it an "inside-out encyclopedia," but in order to
|
||
explain what he meant by that -- and to introduce <i>tWoW.net</i> --
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||
let me tell you the story about our encounter.</font></font></font></p>
|
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
was in line at one of those indistinguishable airport food
|
||
dispensaries deciding whether to have a bagel and cream cheese with
|
||
my coffee. A delayed flight had left me with a couple of hours to
|
||
kill, but for some reason, I was feeling rather cheerful . Having
|
||
accidentally bumped into a young man getting into line, I said I was
|
||
sorry, and to coat my apology with a little humor, I quipped, when
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||
the bagel was delivered, "That's not a real bagel. That's a
|
||
Wonder Bread imitation of a bagel."</font></font></font></p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"That's
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||
just your interpretation of it," the young stranger replied
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||
brightly. "They surely see it as a real bagel."</font></font></font></p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">His
|
||
comment had the ring of relativism. Perhaps he was a
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multi-culturalist or a victim of deconstructionism, the now
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||
fashionable relativism in literature studies. As an old fashioned
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philosophy teacher, I tried to draw him out. "But isn't that
|
||
just your interpretation of what I am saying? Aren't you just
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||
commenting on my comment?"</font></font></font></p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,
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||
yes, I suppose so," he said in a more somber tone, "but
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that doesn't mean there isn't a truth of the matter about the bagel.
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I'm no relativist. In fact, I believe there is an absolute truth."</font></font></font></p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">That
|
||
intrigued me. Relativism is so much the currency of popular culture
|
||
these days that I meet few students who don't take it for granted.
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||
And the stranger could not have been more than a few years out of
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||
college. "Really? That's uncommon these days," I replied,
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||
"But I have to admit that I agree with you."</font></font></font></p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Oh,
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||
you do? You believe there is an absolute truth?" Looking a bit
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||
skeptical, the young stranger said, "I'd be interested to know
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||
what you mean." He glanced back at the seating area and,
|
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hesitating briefly, said, "Perhaps you would like to share a
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||
table? My flight doesn't leave for a while."</font></font></font></p>
|
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Young
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people don't usually take much interest in people like me. But this
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young man seemed eager to talk. He was rather attractive on the
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whole, neat and clean, though in a casual way. And I thought it might
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||
be fun to pass the time arguing with him about relativism. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">When
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||
we arrived at the table, he held out his hand and said, "I'm
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Hugh."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Nice
|
||
to meet you. My name is Phillip." </font></font></font>
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||
</p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">As
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we sat down, he got right to the point, "And so why do you say
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that you agree with me about there being an absolute truth?"</font></font></font></p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
was a point I often made in my classes, and I launched right in.
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||
"Relativism is the view that what is true depends on what you
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||
believe. Or, perhaps, what your group believes. In any case, it makes
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||
truth <i>relative </i>to the believer: what you believe is true for
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||
you and what I believe is true for me. But I can't help believing
|
||
that the world is real. I mean this world, the world where we are
|
||
talking to one another, really exists, including you and me. And if
|
||
there is a real world, it has to exist <i>in some way </i>or another.
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||
It is something determinate. So whatever we may believe about the
|
||
world, it is either true or false, because it either corresponds to
|
||
what exists or not. And aside from confusion about the meanings of
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the terms we are using, it either corresponds or not the same way for
|
||
everyone. That is what 'absolute' means: 'the same for everyone.' It
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||
means that, if there were a God, he would know something determinate,
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even if we cannot. That is why I agree with you about truth being
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absolute." </font></font></font>
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</p>
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||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
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||
think this way of defending absolute truth takes the wind out of the
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sails of relativism. I had had fun using it in my classes for years,
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though students are naturally reluctant to be convinced that
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||
something so universally accepted could be refuted so easily. Though
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||
Hugh was nodding in agreement, he added quickly, "But that is
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||
merely to refute relativism. You can deny relativism in that way
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without claiming to know anything about the world. All you know is
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||
that between any pair of contradictory statements, one is true and
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||
the other false. But you needn't know which. Either the universe will
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||
expand forever or it won't. No one knows. So you can still be a
|
||
skeptic about knowing the truth. But when I say that there is an
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absolute truth, I mean that I <i>know </i>what it is."</font></font></font></p>
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Hugh's
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||
response took me aback. He understood what I was saying, and
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||
consequently how little it amounted to -- or how little it would
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||
amount to, if it weren't for the facile deconstructionist fashion in
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academia these days. Being caught off guard, I was a bit defensive.
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||
"Well, I'm not a skeptic either. I believe there are some things
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||
we know. Science, for example -- or at least, <i>natural </i>science.
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||
It has been too successful for too long not to be on to something
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||
real. Just look at the power it gives us over nature. Those airplanes
|
||
out there, for example. And it's not easy to deny science, since it
|
||
bases everything on what we observe." My habits from teaching
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||
philosophy of science were showing, and I wanted to speak more
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||
broadly. "And surely what perception tells us about the natural
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||
world is basically true, even if we can't <i>prove </i>it to the
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||
satisfaction of anyone who clings tenaciously to skepticism. The
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||
scientific method is simply the most adequate way of knowing we have.
|
||
No other claim to systematic knowledge has the same capacity to win
|
||
over people from every culture in the world." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Fine,"
|
||
Hugh said, "but that's not absolute truth. That's just belief in
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a truth that, at best, <i>happens </i>to be true. It is true, and
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everyone may agree that it is. In that sense it may be absolute. But
|
||
what I mean when I say that there is an <i>absolute </i>truth is that
|
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some doctrine is <i>known </i>to be absolutely true. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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||
position you're defending is just 'scientism.' You are simply taking
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sides with the empirical method of science and the conclusions based
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||
on it, but without any deeper reason for doing so. You can't take the
|
||
success of science as confirming it, unless you already accept
|
||
'prediction and control' as the criterion of truth. That is the
|
||
criterion that scientists accept. But others accept other criteria of
|
||
truth. There are theists, for example, who claim to know God by a
|
||
mystical intuition of some kind. They simply accept the validity of
|
||
mystical intuition without any deeper reason, as you do the
|
||
scientific method. Poets have felt the same way about the sense of
|
||
beauty. And most people feel that way about their native culture. You
|
||
may not be a skeptic, but the position you take offers no </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>reason
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</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">for
|
||
not being a skeptic. You still grant everything relativists really
|
||
want to insist on. What they really believe is that there is, in
|
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principle, no way to tell which world view is true. You </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>choose
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</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">science.
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Others </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>choose
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</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Eastern
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religion. And so on. But everyone has to choose."</font></font></font></p>
|
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">At
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that point, I began to realize that I had been underestimating this
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young man. I agreed with him, of course. Even philosophers of science
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now admit that their naturalism is basically dogmatic, though they
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usually put it more delicately -- saying that they see philosophy as
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"continuous with" science, rather than as its foundation.
|
||
But having pretty much shot the last round I had in my
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anti-relativism arsenal, I decided to turn the table. "So you
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say you know the absolute truth." It had crossed my mind that
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||
Hugh might be a fanatic of some kind, a true believer who made up in
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depth of feeling for what he lacked in reason. "Are you saying
|
||
that you believe in an absolute truth with a capital 'A' and capital
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'T'?" </font></font></font>
|
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</p>
|
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<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"You
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could put it that way, if you want. Some would dismiss it as 'The One
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True Theory,' also capitalized, or as a 'God's Eye View' of the
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world. The important thing, in my view, is that what is known is the
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<i>complete </i>truth about the world. I take the Absolute Truth to
|
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be a belief about the basic nature of what exists in the world, that
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is, about the basic entities that make up the world. It's one that
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can account for everything in the world, including all the concrete
|
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objects, their properties, relations, how they change -- everything.
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And it can explain everything about the nature of the world." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
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couldn't keep myself from trying to smoke him out. I asked him, "Do
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you believe in God?" </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,
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||
yes, in a way. God has a place in the Absolute Truth, though it's not
|
||
quite what people believe." Hugh hesitated and then added, "But
|
||
it is not just that I have faith in God, if that’s what you're
|
||
getting at. When I say that the Absolute Truth is known, I mean that
|
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it is known by beings like us, using their rational faculties.
|
||
Nothing about it is mystical or even mysterious. I'm merely saying
|
||
that we can know the nature of the basic substances that constitute
|
||
the world. And we can see how those substances explain the existence
|
||
of everything in and about the world. That gives us the Absolute
|
||
Truth."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
young man seemed too calm to be a fanatic. He was being reasonable.
|
||
But he could be making the mistake of thinking he knew the Absolute
|
||
Truth when he didn't. Indeed, he must be, given what I believed after
|
||
teaching the history of philosophy for thirty years. Having all but
|
||
accused him of being a true believer, however, I wanted to let him
|
||
know that I thought there was a way I could agree with him about the
|
||
basic nature of the world. What he seemed to be describing was
|
||
materialism, a view that had always seemed plausible to me, given my
|
||
sympathy for science. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"If
|
||
that is what you mean by Absolute Truth," I began, "wouldn't
|
||
materialism be the Absolute Truth? It holds that what makes up the
|
||
world are material substances, or bits of matter that move and
|
||
interact. Of course, physics tells us that the simplest particles are
|
||
rather different from the atoms that Democritus described long ago --
|
||
and also different from Hobbes' view of matter at the beginning of
|
||
modern science. There are just particles and fields. But still they
|
||
are material substances of a kind. In any case, the laws of physics
|
||
are a theory about the basic nature of what exists. They describe the
|
||
basic entities that constitute everything in the world. And since
|
||
everything happens in accordance with physical laws, this view is
|
||
sometimes called "physicalism." But whatever it is called,
|
||
materialism can account for everything in the world. It is the
|
||
complete truth, if it is true at all. So it could be the Absolute
|
||
Truth. Isn't that what you mean by Absolute Truth?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,
|
||
something like that," he replied.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Hugh
|
||
might have gone on, but I felt relieved, having pinned him down, and
|
||
my reflex as a philosopher was to move in for the kill. "But the
|
||
problem with materialism is that it's not true. Or at least, there
|
||
are plenty of reasons for doubting that any such ontology can explain
|
||
everything. Even biological functions are now recognized to be
|
||
irreducible to physics, at least, in the strict sense. And if that
|
||
seems like a mere technicality, there is still the problem about the
|
||
nature of conscious mind. Even if science could explain how the brain
|
||
works, that would not explain why it is 'like something' to perceive
|
||
the world or have other conscious states. There is a subjective
|
||
aspect to experience, the way it feels, and since that eludes
|
||
materialism, there is some ground, at least, for believing that mind
|
||
is not material at all. And that's not all. It seems to me and many
|
||
others that there is a real difference between good and bad, and
|
||
between right and wrong. It is something about the things themselves,
|
||
not something about how I feel about them -- or how anyone else
|
||
feels, for that matter. But that's the only way for materialists to
|
||
explain what goodness is. In a world of just matter in motion, what
|
||
difference does it make whether one thing rather than another
|
||
happens? It has to come down to how beings like us feel about it."
|
||
I felt I was beginning to regain a teacher's proper control over his
|
||
student. "What is more, I have colleagues I respect very much
|
||
who believe in God. They admit they can't prove the existence of God.
|
||
But they insist that religious experience itself is something that
|
||
materialism doesn't even come close to explaining. I'm not saying
|
||
that I agree with them, but how could religion be so central to the
|
||
lives of so many people, if there isn't really anything worthy of
|
||
worship? In any case, even if we discount belief in God, materialism
|
||
can't be true, if either consciousness or goodness is a real aspect
|
||
of this world."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
|
||
my consternation, Hugh seemed to have a smile on his face. He was
|
||
apparently amused by what I had said, and looking something like a
|
||
cat playing with a mouse, he asked, "But what if those phenomena
|
||
<i>could </i>be explained? Wouldn't materialism be the Absolute Truth
|
||
then?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"That
|
||
is quite a bit to grant, isn't it?" I was ready to <i>show </i>him
|
||
how intractable these problems really are. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Yes,
|
||
but right now we are not interested in what is absolutely true, but
|
||
in what Absolute Truth is, and I want to know what would be wrong
|
||
with calling materialism the Absolute Truth, if it did somehow
|
||
explain all those phenomena."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,
|
||
if we are talking about Absolute Truth with a capital 'A' and capital
|
||
'T,' there is still a lot wrong. I think it would have to be
|
||
something more special about knowing the Absolute Truth. It can't be
|
||
just re-baptizing something we already believe about the basic nature
|
||
of the world as “Absolute Truth” and then insisting on it with
|
||
greater confidence. If materialism were the Absolute Truth, I’d
|
||
expect it to tell us something more than what science tells us.
|
||
Something more fundamental. At the minimum, knowing the Absolute
|
||
Truth would mean knowing that some truths about the world hold
|
||
necessarily. It can't be just a collection of facts that happen to be
|
||
true."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,"
|
||
Hugh protested, "if materialism were true, couldn't one insist
|
||
that some truths about the world are necessary? It does imply, after
|
||
all, that whatever science discovers to be causing any phenomenon, be
|
||
it in the physics laboratory or the everyday world, it is ultimately
|
||
nothing but the motion and interaction of bits of matter, or whatever
|
||
you call the basic entities, in space over time. It is all just the
|
||
playing out of the basic laws of physics."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"But
|
||
even if that is necessarily true, it is just what science already
|
||
assumes," I replied. "In fact, science is the reason for
|
||
believing that materialism is true. Materialism might even be called
|
||
the 'ontology of science.' It is what scientists believe about the
|
||
substances making up the world. And if that is the Absolute Truth, it
|
||
is an Absolute Truth that is strangely uninformative. It tells us
|
||
nothing us about the world that science doesn't already believe. If
|
||
materialism is the Absolute Truth, what is so significant about
|
||
knowing it?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
thought that this tirade against materialism as a metaphysics might
|
||
stir up some opposition from the young stranger, but to my surprise,
|
||
he was now clearly smiling. "Of course, you are right. It can't
|
||
be the Absolute Truth, unless it reveals some <i>new </i>necessary
|
||
truths about the world. But that <i>is </i>what I mean. The Absolute
|
||
Truth I have in mind does tell us many new things about the natural
|
||
world, things not already known by empirical science. They are prior
|
||
to empirical science and other ordinary ways of knowing things
|
||
because they are necessary. And when these necessary truths are
|
||
combined with what is already known by science, they yield a complete
|
||
explanation of the nature of the world. That is what I mean by the
|
||
'Absolute Truth.' And what is new are some truly important things,
|
||
such as how consciousness is possible and what the difference between
|
||
good and bad is. Wouldn't that count as an Absolute Truth in your
|
||
book? Or do you still think I don't know the difference between truth
|
||
being absolute and there being an absolute truth with a capital 'A'
|
||
and capital 'T'?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
||
Hugh was describing did seem like something that would have to be
|
||
called "Absolute Truth," if it could be known to be true at
|
||
all. New necessary truths that explained consciousness and goodness
|
||
would certainly be special. So at that point, it seemed clear that I
|
||
could no longer hope to agree with him by taking him to be giving
|
||
some special, limited, acceptable meaning to the term, "absolute
|
||
truth." He was clearly making the sort of claim that had been
|
||
made repeatedly in the grand tradition of philosophy, from Plato and
|
||
Aristotle to Descartes and Hegel. That left only one possibility,
|
||
that there was something badly mistaken about his reasoning. And I
|
||
was sure it was a mistake that some philosopher had already made.
|
||
Traditional philosophers thought they had found a foundation from
|
||
which to claim that certain propositions are necessarily true
|
||
relative to what is discovered by empirical science. But we now know
|
||
that philosophy was a failure. Rationalism does not work. There is no
|
||
way to know that you have the Absolute Truth about the world by
|
||
reflecting on how we know about it. Skepticism, if not relativism, is
|
||
the lesson that everyone learns from the history of philosophy.
|
||
Anyone who insists on having such an Absolute Truth in this century
|
||
is rightly seen as lacking a higher education. Hugh was obviously
|
||
smart enough to have got it, if he had gone to college.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Have
|
||
you been to college?" I asked tactlessly. "Surely you don't
|
||
expect me to believe that you have found some way of defending
|
||
Descartes or Plato?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"More
|
||
like Hegel, I would say." Hugh laughed, seeming almost gleeful
|
||
about taking up my challenge. "I thought you might be someone
|
||
who would understand what I am saying when we first met and you
|
||
didn't just dismiss my comment about Absolute Truth out of hand. That
|
||
is, besides the book I saw you carrying." But then he added
|
||
quickly, "Of course, I'm not defending traditional philosophy.
|
||
It is, rather, that there is another way of doing philosophy, one
|
||
that <i>does</i> work and <i>does </i>entail truths that are
|
||
necessary relative to empirical science. New truths."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Despite
|
||
Hugh’s cheerful confidence, I was, of course, doubtful about this
|
||
claim. After a lifetime of teaching, I had found no reason to believe
|
||
that philosophy could ever attain its highest aspirations. I had even
|
||
come to think of philosophy as basically mistaken, at least insofar
|
||
as it claims to be anything more than just science or critical
|
||
thinking. But I also like to think of myself as open minded – as
|
||
someone who is willing to listen to an argument and to judge it on
|
||
its merits. I am certainly not dogmatic. And since it was still more
|
||
than an hour before my plane would be boarding, there was time to ask
|
||
Hugh what he meant.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">A
|
||
restrained eagerness replaced the amusement on his face. "As you
|
||
say, traditional philosophy had a foundation for defending necessary
|
||
truths. But its foundation was some theory or other about how
|
||
rational beings know about the world. Right?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Yes,
|
||
that is what I meant by saying that it was based on reflection on how
|
||
we know," I replied docilely. I sensed the table beginning to
|
||
turn again.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"But
|
||
that is epistemology, and the foundation of this new way of doing
|
||
philosophy is ontology. An ontology is a theory about the nature of
|
||
existence, and <i>I </i>take that to mean a theory about the kinds of
|
||
basic substances that constitute the natural world. What such an
|
||
ontology implies about specific issues are its necessary truths about
|
||
the world. That's why I called them 'ontologically necessary
|
||
truths.'"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
was puzzled. "But now we are back to materialism, aren't we?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Yes
|
||
and no. Materialism is an ontology, but as you pointed out, it is
|
||
based on science. It is the ontology that most scientists accept,
|
||
when they take their theories about the world to be true and they
|
||
reflect on their belief that the world being described is real and
|
||
exists independently of them. They have to believe in matter, or
|
||
particles and fields, if you prefer. You were right to deny that such
|
||
an ontology could tell us anything that science does not already
|
||
know. It <i>is </i>uninformative.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">But
|
||
there is another way to approach ontology, the way the Pre-Socratic
|
||
philosophers did way back before the beginning of traditional
|
||
philosophy. From Thales through Democritus, they said that they were
|
||
trying to discover the 'first principle,' or </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>archê</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">,
|
||
for explaining everything in the world. It is clear in retrospect
|
||
that what they were trying to discover was not the basic laws of
|
||
nature, but rather the basic substances that make up the world.
|
||
Thales thought it was water. Others thought it was air. Empedocles
|
||
thought it was earth, air, fire and water. Of course, they didn't
|
||
have the advantage of modern science. They didn’t know how the
|
||
elementary bits of matter behave. The discovery of the laws of
|
||
physics had to await the development of mathematics, among other
|
||
things. But the Pre-Socratics could do without it. Their project was
|
||
different from empirical science. They were looking for the best
|
||
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>ontological
|
||
</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">explanation
|
||
of the natural world."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"But,"
|
||
I protested, "they were mostly materialists, weren't they?"
|
||
I had always thought of the Pre-Socratics as anticipating what we
|
||
call "modern science."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Right,"
|
||
Hugh agreed. "But they considered materialism as an <i>ontological
|
||
</i>theory. They weren't merely describing the substances they were
|
||
already committed to by the empirical laws they believed. They
|
||
expected matter to explain the <i>existence </i>of the natural world
|
||
and the basic features of what exists. In other words, they were
|
||
looking for a different kind of explanation from science. Science
|
||
tries to figure out the <i>efficient causes </i>of what happens in
|
||
the world. That's why it looks for laws of nature and tests them by
|
||
their capacity to predict and control what can be observed. But the
|
||
Pre-Socratics were looking for the substances that explain everything
|
||
in the world, including not only <i>what happens </i>in the world,
|
||
but also <i>what exists </i>there. For example, they wanted to know
|
||
not only <i>how </i>things change, but how there could be change at
|
||
all. That made it possible for them to discover something that has
|
||
been forgotten since then, something that makes it possible, in our
|
||
era, to do philosophy in a new way."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||
was an intensity and clarity about the way Hugh spoke at this point,
|
||
as if it were the crux of everything. And my great admiration for the
|
||
Pre-Socratics made me sympathetic, trapping me into his argument.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"What
|
||
I am referring to is ancient atomism. As you probably know,
|
||
Pre-Socratic philosophy developed in a dialectical way over several
|
||
generations. New theories were tried out, criticized and revised
|
||
again in light of criticisms. They <i>were </i>mostly materialists,
|
||
but eventually their arguments led Leucippus and Democritus to insist
|
||
that there are two elements, atoms <i>and the void</i>. The atomists
|
||
recognized that the best ontological explanation of the natural world
|
||
would have to recognize that space is just as much a substance
|
||
constituting the world as matter is. The recognition that space and
|
||
matter <i>together </i>constitute the world made it possible for them
|
||
to explain aspects of the natural world that preceding materialists
|
||
had simply taken for granted. Earlier Pre-Socratics had <i>simply
|
||
assumed </i>that bits of matter have spatial relations, but the
|
||
atomists could <i>explain </i>why objects have spatial relations. And
|
||
though motion had to be possible in order to explain change by
|
||
mixture and separation, the atomists could <i>explain </i>how motion
|
||
is possible. And, thus, how change itself is possible. At least, that
|
||
is how I understand the atomists. What they meant by the 'void' was
|
||
something like a big three-dimensional container in which all the
|
||
atoms had a location and could move. But modern science doesn't
|
||
recognize that space is a substance in that sense. So my ontology
|
||
differs from contemporary materialism in the same way that ancient
|
||
atomism differed from the forms of materialism that preceded it.
|
||
That's what makes it possible to defend <i>new </i>truths that are
|
||
necessary relative to science. Space is a substance in their sense of
|
||
a 'first principle,' an <i>archê,</i> along with matter, a giant
|
||
three-dimensional container of all the matter in the world.”</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
could see his point, though I wanted hear more about how space is
|
||
required to explain motion before I agreed that the ancient atomists
|
||
had the best ontological explanation -- or for that matter, that this
|
||
is what the ancient atomists believed. But I let that pass, because
|
||
there was an even more obvious objection. Didn't Hugh know about
|
||
Einstein? Once again, the young man was beginning to sound like
|
||
someone lacking a twentieth century education. And once again my
|
||
academic reflexes won out. "It is for good reason that science
|
||
doesn't take space to be a substance. It does have an advantage over
|
||
Democritus. It has learned about spacetime from Einstein. We now know
|
||
that, if there is any 'substance,' as you call it, in addition to
|
||
matter constituting the world, it's not space, but spacetime. To hold
|
||
that <i>space </i>is a substance, enduring through time like matter,
|
||
is to believe in absolute space and absolute time. That was Newton's
|
||
view. But the Newtonian view is what was overthrown by contemporary
|
||
physics." I refrained from adding, "Surely you have heard
|
||
of Einstein."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Yes,
|
||
that is a problem all right," Hugh admitted, "but it's not
|
||
my problem. It's a problem about contemporary science. Remember I'm
|
||
defending an ontological position, not merely proposing a scientific
|
||
theory. Physics accepted Einstein's special and general theories of
|
||
relativity because they made new and unexpected predictions of
|
||
precise measurements that turned out to be true. The empirical method
|
||
used in science required them to accept relativity theory. But what
|
||
goes unrecognized, even today, is that it is <i>possible </i>to
|
||
formulate a theory with all the same empirical implications on the
|
||
assumption that bits of matter <i>are </i>located in absolute space
|
||
and absolute time. It all depends on how we interpret the equations
|
||
in Einstein’s two theories. Physicists take them to be referring to
|
||
spacetime because that is what their equations seem to describe. But
|
||
it is possible to interpret those equations as referring to absolute
|
||
space and time, even in the case of the general theory of relativity.
|
||
And the reason for insisting on such an interpretation is that
|
||
absolute space is required by the best <i>ontological </i>explanation
|
||
of the natural world. That is the Pre-Socratic discovery that has
|
||
been forgotten. Instead of merely inferring to the best
|
||
efficient-cause explanation of what happens in the world, the
|
||
Pre-Socratics were trying to figure out the best ontological
|
||
explanation of what exists (as well as what happens) in the world.
|
||
They were doing empirical ontology, and since ontology offers a
|
||
deeper explanation of the world than science, <i>empirical </i>ontology
|
||
is prior to physics. The atomists were right to insist on an ontology
|
||
that recognizes both space and matter as substances.”</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Hugh
|
||
leaned across the table, as if he were telling me a secret. “That
|
||
is, I suggest, the foundation from which new necessary truths can be
|
||
proved. Its consequences are <i>ontologically </i>necessary. They
|
||
follow from the best ontological explanation of the world, which is
|
||
prior to empirical science, including physics, and all its theories
|
||
about the efficient causes of what happens in the world. That is what
|
||
I mean by doing philosophy in a new way. Instead of using
|
||
epistemology to show that some truths are known with certitude, as
|
||
traditional philosophy did, I am using empirical ontology to show
|
||
that certain truths are ontologically necessary. They may not be
|
||
certain, but they can be denied only by giving up the best
|
||
ontological explanation of the world."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Hugh
|
||
was speaking rapidly with an intensity that belied its importance to
|
||
him, and I was beginning to sense that he was on to something beyond
|
||
anything I could have imagined when he first made his casual comment
|
||
about there being an absolute truth. It was no longer clear to me
|
||
that he must be making some big mistake. I could not help responding,
|
||
“Well, I suppose it is possible that space is absolute after all.
|
||
In fact, I've always suspected that the paradoxes that Einstein left
|
||
us with were not the final truth about space and time.”</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||
was surprise in Hugh’s face for the first time. “Wow! You do have
|
||
an open mind, don’t you?” And then looking down, he added sadly,
|
||
“You know, it’s not easy for physicists to consider this
|
||
possibility. The relativity debate earlier in the century was so long
|
||
and heated that they don't want to believe the issue is still open.
|
||
No one defends absolute space any more, and it's taken for granted
|
||
that there <i>can </i>be no reason for doubting relativity that
|
||
doesn't come from predicting some new quantitatively precise
|
||
measurement. Ontological arguments against Einstein's theories are
|
||
seen as showing a preference for Newtonian intuitions over
|
||
mathematical rigor. Pressing such arguments can get you expelled from
|
||
graduate school in physics. This has gone on so long now that it is
|
||
like an ideology. It's hard for physicists not to simply dismiss
|
||
ontological doubts about relativity in anger, as if they were being
|
||
pestered by a spoiled child.”</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Hugh
|
||
seemed to be dwelling on an unhappy memory, but when he glanced at
|
||
his watch, he looked up at me with a combination of childlike
|
||
hopefulness and anxiety. "I have something you might be
|
||
interested in, if you see what I am getting at. I haven't the time to
|
||
explain it all right now. But it’s all here." He opened his
|
||
backpack and pulled out a thick pack of papers and handed them me.
|
||
"Here is a diagram that represents this new, ontological way of
|
||
doing philosophy and a manuscript defending it. You can do what you
|
||
want with it."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
diagram had two main boxes, one at the top labeled <font face="Arial, sans-serif">FOUNDATION</font>
|
||
and the one beneath it labeled <font face="Arial, sans-serif">NECESSARY
|
||
TRUTHS </font>. It is the 'whole diagram' reproduced in the next
|
||
section of this web site, and the main parts are included in the
|
||
image here.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I<a href="../../Lo/LoOdaW.htm" target="Lo"><img 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" name="IoeOdaW_up" align="right" width="400" height="354" border="0"></a>nside
|
||
the <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Foundation</font> box, Hugh
|
||
pointed to the three smaller boxes at the top which he said
|
||
represented his three assumptions: (1) <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Naturalism</font>,
|
||
the belief that what exists is just what is in space and time; (2)
|
||
<font face="Arial, sans-serif">Ontological Explanation</font>, the
|
||
belief that ontology is a kind of explanation which is deeper than
|
||
efficient-cause explanations; and (3) the <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Empirical
|
||
Method</font>, the belief that the way to tell which theory to
|
||
believe is by which is the best explanation of what we find in the
|
||
world. These three assumptions, he said, lead to <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Spatiomaterialism</font>,
|
||
the belief that the world is made up of both space and matter as
|
||
substances enduring through time. A line from the <font face="Arial, sans-serif">FOUNDATION</font>
|
||
box led to the other big box, labeled <font face="Arial, sans-serif">NECESSARY
|
||
TRUTHS</font>. Hugh explained that the recognition of
|
||
spatiomaterialism as the best ontological explanation of the world is
|
||
what demonstrates the new ontologically necessary truths about the
|
||
world. They are what reason can know about the world from the vantage
|
||
of this ontological foundation.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Those
|
||
necessary truths were laid out under two main headings: one for
|
||
theoretical reason containing all the conclusions about <font face="Arial, sans-serif">What
|
||
Is</font>, and the other for practical reason, with conclusions about
|
||
<font face="Arial, sans-serif">What Ought To Be</font>. Though both
|
||
are ontologically necessary, he explained, the truths about the good
|
||
are supported by those about the true in a way that resembles how
|
||
both kinds of necessary truths are supported by the Foundation. The
|
||
proof of necessary truths about what is not only solved all the
|
||
problems that had arisen in the philosophy of mind, mathematics, and
|
||
science, but also showed that evolution follows an inevitable course
|
||
in the direction of natural perfection, leading stage by stage to
|
||
rational beings like us. And the recognition of natural perfection is
|
||
what resolved all the received philosophical issues about the nature
|
||
of goodness, including the goodness of self interest, ethics and
|
||
religion.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Each
|
||
of the smaller boxes in both the <font face="Arial, sans-serif">FOUNDATION
|
||
</font>and <font face="Arial, sans-serif">NECESSARY TRUTHS</font>
|
||
represented arguments with several parts, and in each case there was
|
||
a subdiagram depicting those more detailed logical structures.
|
||
Pointing to the boxes, Hugh outlined for me all the major moves in
|
||
his argument. Finally, he mentioned the manuscript itself, entitled
|
||
"The Wholeness of the World," which he said explained in
|
||
detail everything represented in the diagrams. It showed not only
|
||
that absolute space is compatible with Einstein's two theories of
|
||
relativity, but also how explaining physics ontologically made it
|
||
possible to reduce theories in all the other branches of science to
|
||
spatiomaterialism, solving major problems in every branch of science,
|
||
social science and even the humanities. And it answered all the
|
||
objections that have traditionally been raised against materialism by
|
||
explaining the nature of consciousness, the nature of goodness, and
|
||
how there could be something worthy of worship in a strictly natural
|
||
world. The diagram was a road map to the manuscript, which carried
|
||
out his new way of doing philosophy, he said, down to great detail in
|
||
many cases.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
was curious. And it made sense, though I couldn't help also being
|
||
more than a little doubtful that it did everything he claimed.
|
||
Seeming more hurried now, Hugh said, "You might think of it as
|
||
an inside-out encyclopedia. You know how ordinary encyclopedias
|
||
inventory everything known by listing all the pieces of knowledge
|
||
alphabetically. Well, in this encyclopedia, no alphabet is needed.
|
||
Alphabetization is replaced by a diagram, the whole diagram.
|
||
Everything reason can possibly know has a relationship to the whole,
|
||
and that is how it can be located. The two largest boxes represent
|
||
the two steps of the argument of ontological philosophy. The first,
|
||
<font face="Arial, sans-serif">FOUNDATION</font>, lays out what
|
||
reason needs to assume in order to know that spatiomaterialism is
|
||
true. The second, <font face="Arial, sans-serif">NECESSARY TRUTHS,
|
||
</font>lays out all the ontologically necessary truths about the
|
||
world that follow from spatiomaterialism, including those that hold
|
||
only of spatiomaterial worlds like ours, where the laws of physics
|
||
are true. That is the framework in which all the contingent facts
|
||
about the world are located, making it an encyclopedia of everything
|
||
that reason can know. But two kinds of ontologically necessary truths
|
||
are distinguished in the diagram, because the necessary truths about
|
||
what ought to be are supported by the necessary truths about what is
|
||
in much the same way as the Necessary Truths are supported by the
|
||
Foundation." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Ah,
|
||
I see," I blurted out, "That is why you title it 'the
|
||
Wholeness of the World.'"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Yes,
|
||
though there are other meanings. For example, in a more elemental and
|
||
concrete way, 'the wholeness of the world' also refers to space
|
||
itself, because space is a kind of substance that, by containing all
|
||
the matter, can make a world whole. In a way, that is all that is
|
||
really different in what I am saying." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Beginning
|
||
to see what Hugh was getting at, I added helpfully, "And as an
|
||
ontological explanation, it explains the world completely. Everything
|
||
in the world is constituted by the basic substances, all the objects,
|
||
the properties, and what happens. And I suppose it doesn't really
|
||
matter that ontologically necessary truths can be known in a
|
||
different way from contingent truths, since they are both true in the
|
||
same way, I mean by corresponding to aspects of substances. That too
|
||
could be 'the wholeness of the world,' I guess."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Yes,
|
||
that's another way it's whole. You might call it a God's Eye View of
|
||
the world." Perhaps Hugh was encouraging me, like a teacher.
|
||
"What gives us a God's Eye View is recognizing that space is a
|
||
substance. We're so used to thinking of everything as being <i>in
|
||
</i>space that it's hard for us to see space itself as an object.
|
||
That's why 'substance' seems to mean material substance, as if it
|
||
were self-contradictory to speak of space as a substance. But to get
|
||
to the bottom of what exists, we must see space as well as matter
|
||
from the outside, like an object. And we can do that by thinking of
|
||
space as a substance. That is, after all, how God would have to have
|
||
seen space in order to create the natural world."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"But
|
||
these are not the only ways that the world is whole, at least, not a
|
||
spatiomaterial world like our own, where the laws of physics are
|
||
true. Another way is how language-using animals inevitably come to
|
||
exist through evolution. That makes the world whole because they
|
||
evolve the capacity to reason and eventually come to see how
|
||
spatiomaterialism is the foundation of a explanation of necessary
|
||
truths about the world. Hence, a part of the world inevitably
|
||
understands the basic nature of the world, giving the world itself a
|
||
reflective nature." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Ah
|
||
ha," I exclaimed, "that's why there's a little green circle
|
||
labeled 'reason' toward the bottom of the whole diagram! It's the
|
||
part of the world that knows about the wholeness of the world. You
|
||
know, as a naturalist, it has always seemed to me that the world is
|
||
somehow completed by our knowledge of it. The universe knows itself
|
||
through us. But it would be even more perfect, if what the world
|
||
wrought were beings with a <i>complete </i>understanding of world."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Right.
|
||
That's how it seems to me too. It means that reason comes to know
|
||
everything represented by the whole diagram. But that can also be
|
||
called wisdom. If philosophy is the love of wisdom, the whole diagram
|
||
represents the structure of the wisdom that philosophy is the love
|
||
of, both wisdom about truth and wisdom about goodness. It is wisdom
|
||
about truth, because the FOUNDATION tells us not only what is true
|
||
about the world, but also why the true is true. Truths of all kinds
|
||
are true because they correspond to aspects of the basic substances
|
||
constituting the world. But it is also wisdom about goodness, for not
|
||
only does the ontological explanation of evolution and natural
|
||
perfection tell us what is good. It also explains why the good is
|
||
good. The good is good because it contributes to natural perfection.
|
||
In both cases, the mark of wisdom is that both questions, what <i>and
|
||
</i>why, are answered by the same property. The whole diagram
|
||
represents such a two-level justification of both beliefs and
|
||
intentions, That's how ontological philosophy can defend knowledge of
|
||
a kind that is more fundamental than what people ordinarily claim to
|
||
know. It is a wisdom worth loving." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Then
|
||
Hugh looked me in the eyes and asked, "But, now, don't you see
|
||
another way in which that would make the world whole?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
felt like a student called on in class, afraid of not knowing his
|
||
lesson. Suspecting that what Hugh meant must have something to do
|
||
with how the whole diagram represents wisdom, I scrambled to put an
|
||
argument together. "Well, if the diagram is about <i>our </i>world,
|
||
it gives <i>us </i>a new way of doing philosophy. The wisdom it
|
||
represents is <i>our </i>wisdom. <i>We </i>could use this way of
|
||
knowing what is true and good in <i>our </i>world. So we could be
|
||
certain about it. Is that what you mean? Does its certainty makes it
|
||
the Absolute Truth?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Hold
|
||
on!" Hugh leaned back, as if pulling on the reins. "Certainty
|
||
is what epistemological philosophers expect of the Absolute Truth.
|
||
They have to take the Absolute Truth to be something that cannot be
|
||
doubted, because self evidence is what an epistemological foundation
|
||
has to offer. But there can be no such certainty about ontological
|
||
philosophy. The truth of its foundation depends on the world being
|
||
constituted by the substances it says, and there is no way for beings
|
||
like us to know about those substances except from information about
|
||
the world, such as perception provides. With an empirical foundation,
|
||
it is always possible that we are mistaken. There are, after all,
|
||
experiences that would falsify spatiomaterialism. For example,
|
||
material objects could start disappearing from one location at one
|
||
moment and appearing at a distant location the next." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Feeling
|
||
a bit defensive about my epistemological bias, I asked, "But how
|
||
can the whole diagram represent the Absolute Truth without our being
|
||
certain that it is true?" </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,
|
||
there is another way of being sure of its truth, though its weight is
|
||
felt only at the end of the argument. That is its completeness. An
|
||
ontological explanation has a unique kind of simplicity, because it
|
||
reduces everything to the same basic substances. And so if doing that
|
||
explains everything in the world, it has a unique kind of coherence
|
||
as a whole. There is no reason to doubt the best ontological
|
||
explanation of the basic aspects of the world, if it also explains
|
||
all the various kinds of phenomena that have seemed problematic and
|
||
resisted explanation through the years, such as the fact that there
|
||
are rational beings like us in the world, that we are conscious in
|
||
the sense that it is "like something" to be one of us, why
|
||
there is real difference between good and bad, and how there is
|
||
something worthy of worship in the world. And there is further reason
|
||
to believe it, if it shows not only the ontological necessity of many
|
||
beliefs that were already recognized to be true, but also the
|
||
ontological necessity of many truths that were not already believed,
|
||
especially if the new ontological truths reveal a structure of
|
||
necessity in which all the kinds of things found in the world have
|
||
essential natures. The simplicity of its causes together with the
|
||
all-encompassing scope of its conclusions about what is possible and
|
||
what is necessary gives this ontological explanation the maximum
|
||
coherence possible. What justifies the claim to certainty is that
|
||
everything we know about the world fits together as a single system
|
||
in the simplest possible way. You can't give up any one of its
|
||
implications without giving them all up, for they all follow from the
|
||
same simple ontology."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"That's
|
||
certainly an excellent reason for believing it." Hugh was
|
||
pointing to the kinds of reason that a naturalist like me could not
|
||
dismiss, but I suspected him of trying to get away with something.
|
||
"But surely you're not saying that there is nothing more to
|
||
learn, are you? And if not, how can ontological philosophy be the
|
||
Absolute Truth?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Because
|
||
it's absolute in the relevant sense. Of course, there's more to
|
||
learn, much more, including the details about the natures of the
|
||
basic substances, which will eventually explain the strange
|
||
astronomical phenomena, not to mention the details about the
|
||
structure of natural perfection. By calling it 'absolute,' I am
|
||
merely saying that nothing learned in the future will change the
|
||
structure or content of the wisdom represented by the whole diagram.
|
||
There is no equivalent theory that is as simple and comprehensive as
|
||
ontological philosophy. No other conceptual system can do as well,
|
||
because space and matter are the simplest basic substances that can
|
||
explain all the basic aspects of the world. And unless physics is
|
||
fundamentally mistaken, the necessary truths they entail explain all
|
||
the kinds of things found in the world. There is no reason to accept
|
||
conceptual relativism, or what contemporary Kantians, like Hillary
|
||
Putnam, call 'internal realism.' Internal realism is the realism of
|
||
science, and internal realists deride the possibility of
|
||
'metaphysical realism' by calling it the 'One True Theory' or 'God's
|
||
Eye View' of the world. But the possibility of metaphysical realism
|
||
is shown by ontological philosophy. That is the sense in which it is
|
||
the 'Absolute Truth.'" </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"So
|
||
is that what you meant by a further sense of 'the wholeness of the
|
||
world'? That ontological philosophy is absolute in a way that defies
|
||
conceptual relativism?" </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Not
|
||
quite! You were closer to the wholeness I was thinking of when you
|
||
were pointing to the effect on <i>our </i>world of <i>our </i>coming
|
||
to have the wisdom represented by the whole diagram. That wholeness
|
||
is what the world comes to have as rational beings discover this
|
||
ontological explanation of the world. Evolution in the direction of
|
||
natural perfection makes it inevitable that beings like us come to
|
||
exist in a spatiomaterial world like this one, and as they come to
|
||
understand what is represented by the whole diagram, they will
|
||
understand their own nature and their own place in the world. Since
|
||
they will understand the nature of natural perfection, they will see
|
||
how they can act for the good of the world as a whole, that is,
|
||
besides doing what is good for themselves. And since they will also
|
||
understand the nature of goodness deeply enough to see why it is good
|
||
for them to do so, they will do what they can to make the world more
|
||
perfect. Action guided by such an understanding of natural perfection
|
||
is an essential part of the perfection of the world. That is the most
|
||
complete sense of 'the wholeness of the world,' as far as I can see."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Looking
|
||
into the distance, Hugh added, "You might say that such rational
|
||
beings do God's work in the world. And if we were going to use those
|
||
traditional terms, we could even call ontological philosophy a proof
|
||
of the existence of God." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"So
|
||
what you are saying is that Nietzsche was wrong about God being dead.
|
||
Though God doesn't exist outside the natural world, the deeper truth
|
||
is that God is being born inside nature through us."</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,
|
||
if we're going to use traditional terms, it is more like pantheism.
|
||
Though it is true that rational beings like us will be doing God's
|
||
work when we act for the good of the world as a whole, the larger
|
||
truth is that the world itself will be acting through us as its
|
||
personal agent within space and time. After all, the existence of
|
||
beings like us is a consequence of the basic nature of a
|
||
spatiomaterial world like ours, the very same nature that is the
|
||
source of purpose in the world, the source of a real difference
|
||
between good and bad. So if you're looking for God, it is the whole
|
||
world, not just a part of it. The perfection of the <i>world </i>is
|
||
the most complete sense of 'the wholeness of the world.'" </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Though
|
||
he was clearly not a just true believer, I thought he was a bit too
|
||
eager to get to such a happy conclusion, and so I tried puncturing
|
||
his balloon. "But if God comes to exist in the world, where did
|
||
the world come from? What caused the Big Bang?"</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Ah,
|
||
that."Unfazed by my objection, Hugh leaned back and replied,
|
||
"There was no Big Bang. That is one of the implications of using
|
||
spatiomaterialism to explain the truth of physics. All the phenomena
|
||
on which the Big Bang theory is based can be explained without
|
||
denying that the universe is eternal. It is possible that the
|
||
universe has always been pretty much like it appears now, infinite in
|
||
extent and enduring forever. Instead of a Big Bang, there are more
|
||
local events from which galaxies derive. 'Local big shrinks' is what
|
||
I call them. The evolutionary process that has led to the existence
|
||
of beings like us in our solar system occurs throughout the universe.
|
||
It has always been occurring. And it will always be occurring." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Secretly,
|
||
I admired his response. It had always seemed to me that grown men
|
||
should be embarrassed to claim that the world came into existence
|
||
from nothing. But I was still a long way from believing what Hugh
|
||
said. "That is easy to say." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Hugh
|
||
sensed that I had gone about as far I could go with him. "You've
|
||
been very good about, hearing me out like this. There aren't many
|
||
people who would, you know." He looked at me and went on, "I
|
||
know this is a lot to take in at one sitting. And in this day and
|
||
age, it's got to be hard to believe.”</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Well,
|
||
I admit that it's an interesting idea. I can’t say that I’ve ever
|
||
heard it before." Though I no longer doubted that Hugh meant
|
||
"Absolute Truth" with a capital "A" and capital
|
||
"T," I still wanted to keep a safe distance from it. "But
|
||
don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I believe you. Far from it. I may
|
||
not see what’s wrong with it now, but there are lots of issues. You
|
||
know, Einstein, consciousness, goodness. Not to mention your claim
|
||
that rational beings like us exist necessarily." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Yes,
|
||
of course. All that must be considered carefully." He paused and
|
||
went on as if he were thinking of it for the first time. "It's
|
||
not easy to take something like this seriously. Not talk about
|
||
Absolute Truth. Even after you realize that it has nothing to do with
|
||
Hitler or any kind of political absolutism that might enforce its
|
||
authority by violence, it still has to overcome the stigma about
|
||
claiming Absolute Truth that derives from the foolish way that Hegel
|
||
defended Absolute Truth in his <i>Encyclopedia of the Philosophical
|
||
Sciences</i>. But ontological philosophy is different from
|
||
epistemological philosophy, and it might be better to think of this
|
||
inside-out encyclopedia as a game. The whole diagram purports to
|
||
represent a single, complete explanation of everything in the world
|
||
that reason can know. So take it as a challenge. If you think you are
|
||
sure that it is not true or somehow goes wrong, well, then, all you
|
||
have to do is point out where. Identify some aspect of the world that
|
||
it cannot explain, or even an aspect that it cannot explain as well
|
||
as it is currently being explained. That will show that it is not the
|
||
Absolute Truth. Or just show where the argument does not follow.
|
||
Then, you can go back to your own business with a clear conscience.
|
||
But what you will find, I predict, is that all those objections can
|
||
be answered. It does hang together and it does explain everything
|
||
better than what is currently believed. I don't believe that anyone
|
||
can show that this new way of doing philosophy does not work." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Glancing
|
||
at his watch, Hugh said, "I'm sorry. I’ve got to run now."
|
||
Then, pausing to smile, he added, "I’ll leave you to eat your
|
||
bagel -- if that’s what it really is." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">We
|
||
had been talking so intensely that I had barely reached the hole on
|
||
one side. As Hugh rose from the table, I thought to ask, "But
|
||
how can I get in touch with you?" </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"You
|
||
can't," he replied. "I'll have to get in touch with you."
|
||
His bright smile then gave way to a more serious look. "But I am
|
||
leaving <i>the Wholeness of the World </i>in your hands. Remember
|
||
what I said. It's up to you what to do with it." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
don't know why he gave it to <i>me</i>, and considering how things
|
||
have turned out, I wish I had been more curious. Perhaps it was just
|
||
chance. The book Hugh saw me carrying was entitled, <i>What Remains
|
||
to be Discovered,</i> a survey of the many questions that science can
|
||
be expected to answer in the future. It was written by John Maddox,
|
||
the longtime editor of <i>Nature</i>, a prestigious scientific
|
||
journal, to show that the "end of science" had not yet
|
||
come. And since Hugh probably caught on that I teach philosophy for a
|
||
living, he may have seen me as someone on whom he could unload his
|
||
burden. At the time, I still assumed that, despite the originality of
|
||
what he was saying, Hugh would turn out to be a young man who fails
|
||
to understand the magnitude of the obstacles facing intellectual
|
||
culture at the close of the twentieth century. But having read his
|
||
manuscript, I now realize that what Hugh gave me includes not only
|
||
the explanations that Maddox thinks science will eventually discover,
|
||
but more. Much more. In fact, what is surprising now is how little
|
||
empirical scientists expect to know in the foreseeable future
|
||
(though, in all fairness, I should mention that Maddox does see the
|
||
importance of understanding the nature of space). But now that my
|
||
doubts about Hugh's being a philosopher have vanished, I have nothing
|
||
more to say about who he is, except to mention that his manuscript
|
||
identifies its author as Hugh Renbircs. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">I
|
||
have found nothing in Hugh's argument by which I can reject it. It
|
||
may well turn out that there are problems with certain parts of it,
|
||
but I don’t see how any problem could be serious enough to derail
|
||
the project as a whole. So ontological philosophy does seem to be a
|
||
new way of doing philosophy. I am even warming up to the idea that it
|
||
is the Absolute Truth. If it works, it can be seen as a proof of the
|
||
existence of God, with all that that suggests. However, the judgment
|
||
about it hardly depends on me. It depends on all those who consider
|
||
it – as Hugh would no doubt insist, considering how his ontological
|
||
philosophy explains the nature of reason. And only time will tell how
|
||
that turns out. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Hugh
|
||
made so much of the whole diagram as the key to <i>the Wholeness of
|
||
the World</i> that I have decided to use the medium of the Internet
|
||
to present it more or less as he presented it to me in person. That
|
||
is a most efficient way to see what it is all about, and his argument
|
||
lends itself to the new medium. The whole diagram is a spatial
|
||
representation of the argument, and the interactive devices of web
|
||
pages can use its spatial structure to bring out how everything in
|
||
the world is explained by its relationship to the whole, that is,
|
||
like an inside-out encyclopedia.. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
diagrams start on the next page, with the “whole diagram” in the
|
||
main pane of the window. If you click on a box in the whole diagram,
|
||
you will be taken to a more detailed diagram of that part of the
|
||
argument. And if you keep clicking, you will eventually be taken to
|
||
the text of the argument itself. (There is a further layer of
|
||
diagrams under <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change</font> which
|
||
lays out the points about evolution.)</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
left pane of each window is a navigation bar. The red labels are a
|
||
<font face="Arial, sans-serif">Contents</font> for the main chapters
|
||
of the text, and when you reach the text, it can be downloaded for
|
||
easier reading by simply clicking in the text pane and clicking
|
||
print. The icons for the diagrams will take you to diagram pages,
|
||
from which you can also proceed to the text. Clicking the icon for
|
||
the Inside-Out Encyclopedia will bring you back to this introduction,
|
||
and clicking the icon for tWoW will take you back to the entrance,
|
||
the tWoW home page. (The entrance has a link to the Site Map from
|
||
which you can also navigate to all parts of the argument, both
|
||
diagrams and text, as well as links to various supplementary
|
||
explanations of ontological philosophy.) As you may have found in
|
||
getting here, it takes a while to load the main window at 28 kilobits
|
||
per second. But after that, the diagrams and text pages load somewhat
|
||
more quickly, and you can easily switch among them once they have
|
||
been cached in your computer. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Once
|
||
any diagram is up, however, there is quite a lot to explore before
|
||
going the next diagram (or going on to the text), because I have put
|
||
Hugh's brief explanations of the boxes in the diagram into labels
|
||
that show up in the top frame of the main window whenever the mouse
|
||
is hovering over them. That conveys the brief explanations of the
|
||
argument he gave me. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
natural order of the argument, from premises to conclusion, is to
|
||
start at the top of the whole diagram, considering the boxes in order
|
||
from left to right (following out the implications of each), and then
|
||
to proceed to the next row of boxes, where you do likewise. The text
|
||
to which all these boxes refer is a single argument laid out from
|
||
beginning to end in the traditional linear fashion. But if you are
|
||
willing to grant what is shown in any box, you can skip that part (or
|
||
consider it only as far you need in order to satisfy yourself) and
|
||
proceed directly to the next box, until you get to the end. Thus, the
|
||
diagrams make it possible for you to construct your own version of
|
||
this argument, one that suits your needs. You may need to read only
|
||
those parts of the standard text where you have doubts. And some
|
||
people may follow the argument completely enough without having to
|
||
read the standard text at all.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
any case, you can always see where you are located in the argument as
|
||
a whole. The text is always accompanied in the top frame by a
|
||
relevant diagram to nearby sections. You can see where you are in
|
||
that diagram by letting your mouse hover over the nearest box in the
|
||
text itself, for that will light up the corresponding box in the
|
||
diagram. And you can see where that diagram is located in the
|
||
argument as a whole by going back to the whole diagram. Thus, those
|
||
who take up Hugh's challenge can use the whole diagram as an
|
||
inside-out encyclopedia to isolate the part where you think
|
||
ontological philosophy fails to be a new way of doing philosophy.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Can
|
||
you say why ontological philosophy does not work? Is there some step
|
||
in the argument that does not follow? Is there some aspect of the
|
||
world that it does not explain? Without being able to point to some
|
||
such failure, I do not see how anyone can dismiss it and still think
|
||
of themselves as a philosopher. To dismiss it without an argument
|
||
would be to give up the rational pursuit of truth and accept
|
||
relativism, like the sophists.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Those
|
||
who do find some reason for doubting that ontological philosophy
|
||
works are asked to bring their objection here for all to see.
|
||
Objections can be made publicly by joining the discussion of
|
||
ontological philosophy at "onto-phil" (by sending to
|
||
onto-phil-request@tWoW.net an e-mail with the sole text in its body:
|
||
subscribe). Or you can e-mail me directly (webmaster@tWow.net).</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
either case, I will acknowledge the argument and either refute the
|
||
objection or show how a minor revision will enable to ontological
|
||
philosophy to work as a whole in the same way. If I cannot do that to
|
||
the satisfaction of rational people generally, I will admit that
|
||
ontological philosophy is a failure, terminate this challenge, and
|
||
close the tWoW.net web site, so that everyone can go back to business
|
||
as usual.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">If
|
||
you cannot find anything wrong with it, then I suggest that you carry
|
||
Hugh's challenge to those who are supposed to know what is wrong with
|
||
such arguments, such as teachers, professors, scientists, ministers
|
||
and journalists – anyone who claims an interest in intellectual
|
||
culture. Force them to tell you what is wrong with it, or else admit
|
||
that they are sophists, who do not take part in the rational pursuit
|
||
of truth.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
the end, it is up to you what is to be done about the wholeness of
|
||
the world.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">webmaster@tWoW.net</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Phillip
|
||
Scribner<br>Washington, D. C.<br>December 26, 1999</font></font></p>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |