An argument against philosophical extremism

I spent most of yesterday afternoon and early evening digging 40 feet a shallow 6-in deep trench around the base of the split rail fence around my wife's garden and installing a wire rabbit fence into the trench. I secured the fence to the posts of the split rail fence and to the lower rail with staple gun and the occasional U-shaped nail. As you can imagine it was quite repetitive and gave me some time to my thoughts.

I was contemplating the book I'm reading right now. McInerny gave an excerpt from Descartes' work in which he summarizes the "I think therefore I am." argument. I never truly understood what Descartes was talking about because everyone plays the quote lip service, but as the foundation to modern philosophy and (claimed by McInerny) the reason why modern philosophy is flawed, I'm glad McInerny put the except in as it helped me understand where Descartes was going with it. The basic principle that Descartes was trying to explore was basically how does one know anything. Descartes started out by observing that our senses are flawed and limited and can be deceived such that we can never be sure of anything. The example he gave was a stick half-way in water appears bent but if you pull it out of the water it's straight (now right away I notice a limitation here in that science and observation has explained the apparent paradox - keep this in mind - a little bit of applied knowledge can remove the contradiction). Therefore if we can't trust our senses and we can be deceived in everything we perceive how do we know if anything is real? How do we know that we are real? Apparently this kept Descartes up at night and filled him with despair until he got the epiphany that the very fact that a mind can be deceived implies that the mind is real enough for someone or something to deceive it! To be able to think is to be able to be deceived. Therefore you know you are real because the mere existence of your thought to be deceived or not proves you are alive. I think therefore I am. According to McInerny, this is the central theory of modern philosophy - the emphasis on the individual as the basis from which all understanding of reality can be based.

McInerny contrasts this with what he calls classical philosophy which he says is based on the direct observation of the world and then recognizing that the mind is a part of it. McInerny says the the thoughts of Aquinas are based on this mold and follow from the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, etc. Sounds great except this is all based on the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. McInerny claims that classical philosophy is based on the truth that the world exists outside of self and therefore Classical and Modern philosophy are incompatible and inherently diametric opposites of which only one can be correct. He claims, of course that Classical philosophy is correct.

However, McInerny makes several fatal flaws in his reasoning. McInerny earlier stated that philosophy needs to be revisited all the time and earlier assumptions rethought. He also pointed out what he says is a fatal flaw in modern thinking - the idea that things can be and not be at the same time (basically, according to McInerny, if you follow what Descartes is saying, reality is in limbo because what the mind perceives may not be real even though according to the classical view it is no matter what the mind may think). In order to refute this he provides an excerpt form Aristotle in which Aristotle proves that something cannot be and not be at the same time - this thereby proves (according to McInerny) that modern philosophy is fatally flawed. But here's the problem - McInerny is relying on Aristotle's thoughts to make his argument. Aristotle, Plato, and the Greek philosophers of their time were the preeminent "scientists" of their time. The philosophy they were developing was based directly on the observations that they were making. There was no one else making those observations and no record of any previous scientific thought to refute them. They through that matter was made of earth, air, fire, and water in different proportions and that our heart did our thinking for us and gods alone knew what the brain was for. But nevertheless their ideas were based on the cutting edge science of their time. That Aquinas relied and Plato and Aristotle is understandable - science hadn't made that many strides since the Greeks and had gone backwards in many respects (with the burning of the Library of Alexandria the amount of knowledge lost to humankind is incalculable). But for McInerny to rely on Aquinas because he relied on Plato and Aristotle is ludicrous. McInerny is the one who said that philiosophy must be revisited. And a proof that this must be so can be seen in the Aristotelean piece he cites to refute moderninsm - i.e. the one about whether something can be and not be at the same time. I was watching the Stargate SG-1 premiers on Friday and the pre-show was a "documentary" on the science of Stargate. They had a brief discussion about quantum mechanics which brought to mind some of what I've read about the topic. One of the perplexities of quantum mechanics is that it utterly defies logic as we know it and its been proven that it defies logic. For example a particle moving from one point to another can take many different paths to get there and unless someone looks to determine which path it took, every possible path it could take is actually taken! That doesn't make sense at all, but its been proven to be true. In other words, to contradict Aristotle, we know that there can only be one path that the particle actually took to get from point A to point B, therefoer all the other paths should be invalid, but in truth unless we actually go to determine which path it took, all of the paths exist. Classical philiosophy has broken down! Everything is up for grabs and must be reexamined.

What this also calls to mind is the other principle I live by which is if there are two diametrically opposing viewpoints, the Truth is generally somewhere in the middle. I think this is the case here as well. McInerny says modern philosopy is too extereme - I agree. But I also think classical philosophy is also too extreme. Whether or not a mind percieves reality as it truly is, is irrelevant to reality. "I think therefore I am" is the proof that there is a reality If a mind can't percieve other minds in the same way that the mind percieves itself does not make a difference to those other minds if those other minds are equally real. Those other minds could be figments of the mind's imagination, but the fact that the mind is perceiving something is proof that there is some reality at some level. Given the existence of some reality, the ability for humans to percieve that reality is essential to humans to be able to say that there is a reality. "I think therefore I am" is really " I think therefore I know there is an existence" but without "I think" there may as well not be an "I am" or an "existence". Classical philosophy requires modern philosophy as much as modern philosophy requires classical philosophy.

So where does this leave us? In my mind it says that philosophy today (whether modern or classical) cannot be truly be taken forward by thinkers who can't the outer edges of scientific thought. Which is why Einstein, Hawkings, Feinmann, etc. are so revered - they had an insight into reality that I don't think most people can appreciate. An understanding of "God", however you define, and our place in the universe can only begin if we understand what the universe is to begin with. To try to base any philosophy on science that's over 2,000 years out of date is misplaced and some serious rethinking must be done to get it back on track.

*Grin* we'll see how far we can go here ...