There are a few different things I want to accomplish in this essay. Firstly, I wish to differentiate between different types of idealism such as ethical idealism, political idealism, aesthetic idealism, and epistemological idealism.
Secondly, I wish to show how there is a switch in the meaning -- a 'semantical switch' -- of the term-concept of 'idealism' when we start to talk about 'epistemological idealism'. This is not a good thing as it tends to create confusion between what the general public usually means by the term-concept of 'idealism' and what philosophy academics generally mean by it. It is confusing also for beginning philosophy students because they generally have a layperson's idea of what the term-concept of 'idealism' means stamped in their mind-brain, only to find out that in philosophy circles it generally means something quite different.
Thirdly, the switch in meaning of the term-concept of idealism in epistemological circles (i.e., pertaining to what is knowledge0-and in ontological circles (pertaining to what 'really exists') tends to undermine, sabotage, and marginalize the first, layperson's more pragmatic concept of what the term-concept of idealism means. My goal in this essay then, is to sort through all of this potential and/or actual semantic confusion and bring more clarity to thw whole subject matter. One might say that I am trying to bring more 'semantic idealism' to an area of philosophy where there is room for significant smenatic confusion and misunderstanding.
Let us go back to point one. If I say that I am writing on the subject of 'ethical idealism', it is probably fairly clear to most educated people -- laypersons and philosophy academics alike -- what I am wriing about. I am writing about my idea of a 'perfect ethical system'. Same with the subject of 'political idealism' -- here it is likely that I am writing about my idea of a perfect political system. Same with 'aesthetic idealism' -- writing about perfect beauty, 'economic idealism' -- writing about 'perfect economics', 'legal idealism' -- writing about perfect law...and so on. In all of these cases, it seems like we could simply substitute the word-idea of 'perfect' for 'idealism' and we have a pretty good working defiintion of what 'idealism' means.
We could alos contrast the idea of 'idealism' with 'realism' -- idealism pertaining to that which is perfect but not real, and realism pertaining to that which is not ideal but which exists in reality -- and you have a further clarification of what the term-concept of 'idealism' means.
Now let us move a little closer to our problem area of semantic confusion. If I say I am writing on the subject of 'semantic idealism', we could say that I am writing about 'perfect meaning or semantics' -- and/or a system-process I have devised and/or partly borrrowed from someone else in order to aim to get closer to the ideal of 'perfect semantic clarity'.
Now still closer to our semantic problem within the field of philosophy. If I say that I am writing on the subject of 'epistemological idealism', it makes perfect sense -- based on everything we have said about the term-concept of 'idealism' so far -- to believe that what I have in mind is to either write about a 'perfect or idealistic epistemological system (of knowledge) -- and/or to write about a process/means by which to aim for and/or achieve a more idealistic (closer to perfect) epistemological system (of knowledge).
However, this is where we come to a huge semantic and epistemological roadblock because, all of a sudden, in philosophical circles, the meaning of the term-concept of 'epistemelogical (and ontological) idealism' does a bi-polar 180 degree switch. All of a sudden the ideal becomes the 'real' as well as the ideal. Reality is no longer reality -- rather, it is a 'false illusion'. So where did the 'real' disappear to? Well, philosophers are still scratiching their heads on that one. Ask Parmenides and Plato -- which of course we can't anymore because they are both long, long dead -- on this one because they seem to have been the main two trumpeters and propogaters of this semantic and epistemological quagmire relative to what is 'real' vs. what is not.
If I could go back in a time machine and interview the esteemed Mr. Plato, here is something close to what I would say: 'Mr. Plato, with all due respect, I'm not sure whether you have been looking up at the sky too much, whether you have been munching on too many poppy seeds or something else with hallucinatory effects that no one today knows about, and/or whether you were simply brainwashed by Mr. Parmenides, one of your esteemed philosophical mentors -- but don't try to tell me that if I am standing right in front of you, looking at you eyeball to eyeball, and/or if I reach out to shake your hand and say that you did some wonderful things for philosophy -- don't try to tell me that the person I am looking at and/or touching doesnt' really exist, or is just an 'illusion' or a 'carbon copy' or a 'shadow' of someone somewhere else in 'Never, Never Land' where only you and Paremides seem to know where this supposedly real 'Never, Never Land' exists -- don't try to tell me, and sell me on, any of this 'epistemological smoke and mirrors' because if you do, then I will say to you -- again with all due respect -- get your head out of the clouds and re-ground your legs on this earth. Mr. Parmenides has poisoned you. He brainwashed you. You are confusing the ideal with the real. This is epistemological treason. In the words of Gestalt Therapy, Mr. Plato, "Get out of your head and come to your senses." In the words of Mr. Sartre, "Existence precedes essence." At best, you put the cart before the horse (idealism before realism instead of the other way around. At worst, you created an epistemological-ontological-metaphysical world that didn't/doesn't exist. Again, Mr. Plato, you created epistemological treason by marginalizing your senses rather than honoring them. This was your Achilles heel. This was your 'Plato's heel' -- the place where you failed your fellow philosopher by not being properly grounded on earth and by not providing a good role model for all epistemologists and ontologists who followed you. Your biggest weakness as a philosopher was that you passed on 'Parmenides Poison' for anyone naive enough and epistemologically submissive enough to take a big gulp of the poisonous concoction that you and Parmenides were offering up to the rest of the world. Mr. Plato, you created much of the foundation for the study of modern philosophy. You are still looked upon as the the 'ultimate philosophical idealist' -- and that is in a good way, not the bad way that I am specifying here.'
However, philosophy is not all about heaping accolades on our 'hall of fame' philosophers. Ultimately, it is about the pursuit of truth -- at least within the boundaries of epistemology. And in this regard, sometimes a philosopher has to bring out his or her 'Nietzxshean hammer' to get to the bottom of truth, and to dispose of all epistemological toxins, poisons -- and nonsense -- that may be blocking the way to truth.
In this regard also, it is long past time to take these old ideas of epistemological idealism -- particularly Plato -- and take them off of their philosophical semantic and teaching pedestal. Teach them -- yes -- but don't continue to carry them around as if they are the be all and end all of what 'epistemological idealism' means.
New semantic distinctions are necessary here. The names and distinctions may seem partly bizarre, partly funny, partly semantically confusing in their own right but they are logically necessary due to the fact that we have at least two significantly different meanings of the term-concept 'idealism' kicking around in discussions of the same overall subject matter -- epistemology. (There are even different 'sub-meanings' within these two significant different meanings of idealism that also need to be distinguished from each other but we will save these distinctions for a different essay.)
Until I or someone else can propose better name-distinctions, the name-distinctios I will use are these;
1. Idealistic (meanng 'other world') epistemological idealism (meaning the pursuit of epistemological perfection)-- This is the pursuit of perfect, idealistic truth (redundancies, yes, I know) in 'other worlds' other than the empirical, physical world around us (egs. Parmenides, Plato, Berkely);
2. Rational epistemology -- This is the pursuit of truth in logic and reason only(including mathematics, and/or geometry without an empirical-sensory foundation (egs. Descartes, Spinoza)
3. Empirical epistemological idealism -- This is the pursuit of truth through sensory observation only; what is 'real' is only that which can be seen and/or otherwise experienced through our senses (egs. Locke, Berkely, Hume)
4. Dialectical epistemological idealism -- This type of epistemological idealism combines different elements of different epistemological categories together and/or 'marries' bi-polar epistemological categories together such as 'rational-empiricism' and/or 'thesis-anti-thesis' and/or 'constructive-deconstructionism'.
a) Sensory-rational-empirical epistemological idealism (egs. Aristotle, Bacon, Darwin, Korzybski, Hawakawa);
b) Integrative epistemological idealism -- thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis (eg. Hegel) constructive-deconstructionism -- getting rid of 'epistemological toxins, poisons, smoke and mirrors', etc. (egs. Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida)
Now none of these distinctions are perfectly clean or completely separated from each other. Things in the real world are rarely perfectly distinguishable from each other.
Things become even less clean when you try to sort each philosopher -- each epistemologist -- into one category or another. Again reality rarely gives us 'pure, isolated, perfectly distinguishable' categories. Complications arise such as with Berkely who was both an epistemological idealist in the Paramedean and Platonic sense of the word 'idealist' as well as an epistemological empiricist in the Lockean and Humean sense of the word 'empiricist'. More on these complications in a later essay.
Some of these distinctions -- such as between 'idealism', 'rationalism' and 'empiricism' -- have been around in philosophy for a long time. These are not new distinctions. They are used in most introductory philosophy texts.
The additional involvement of 'dialectic thinking' in epistemology goes back mainly to Hegel with earlier dialectical or partly dialectical philosophers like Anaxamander, Heraclitus, the Han Philosophers, Kant, and Fichte setting the stage for the birth of Hegelian Dialectical Idealism (in the sense of the epistemological pursuit of perfection or 'Absolute Truth').
What is important here is two things: first, that every distinction mentioned above can be viewed as a different epistemological path taken up by different philosophers in their individucal quests for Epistemological Truth and Perfection; and second, that some paths are qualitatively better than others -- that is why we like to call what we are doing here 'epistemological evolution'.
So for example, from an epistemological point of view, kiss Parmendides and Plato goodbye. They hold no place in modern epistemology. It makes no sense to chase epistemology/ontology and the pursuit of Truth/Existence into some phantom world that we can neither see nor touch because if we do this then epistemology and the pursuit of truth loses all meaning and credibility. There is a reason why 'eye witness' testimony is the foundation of most democratic systems of justice -- as long as the witness is credible and doesn't have a narcissistic motivation to lie, and as long as we believe the witness was not mistaken in what they saw, then this is generally considered to be the 'firmest epistemological grounds that we have to stand on in our pursuit of truth'; DNA has more recently become a foundation for most democratic systems of justice and here again the evidence is 'physical', 'observational', and 'empirical'. There is no one who can logically dispute this type of physical evidence unless it is tampered with and/or corrupted.
I would argue that 'rational-empiricism' either is -- or should be -- the epistemological heart of all democratic justice systems, and the biggest deterrent to this type of justice system is human narcissism -- and particularly -- money and power.
One of the best things that I believe Hegel ever wrote -- and it pains me but I cannot find the exact quote right now to put me on firmer epistemological grounds -- but what I remember goes something like this: Every theory carries within it the seeds of its own self-destruction. (The same can be said about life incidently: life carries within it the seeds to its own self-destruciton -- aging and death. This almost sounds like Freud's 'death instinct'. More on this controversial idea at a probably much later date.)
And so it was with both rationalism and empiricism. Both had their respective day on the pedestal of human value and both collapsed under the lop-sided weight of their respective one-sided extremism. In the end, they both needed each other, like Romeo and Juliet, to unite each other's bi-polar chemistries, and to complement each other's weaknesses. Bi-polarity -- indeed, multiple bi-polarity -- is the essence of life, and what's good for life is also good for epistemology. Epistemology -- ideally speaking -- follows life, and epistemology -- ideally speaking -- works like life. Epistemology functions better dialectically. Rationalism needs empiricism and empiricism needs rationalism. Thesis needs anti-thesis and anti-thesis needs thesis. Constructionism needs deconstructionism and deconstructionism needs constructionism. Realism needs idealism and idealism needs realism. Whenever one bi-polar partner gets too far away from the other, bad things start to happen. Homeostatic balance is lost. The pathology of one-sided extremism starts to set in. Self-destruction is just around the corner.
And on that note we will end our little essay-lecture on epistemology for today. If you have followed me this far, then you like I, probably need a break. Too much epistemology all at one time can also unsettle homestatic balance. Life is about resolving one homeostatic imbalance only to stir up another. I learned this principle first and foremost from reading Fritz Perls, the main founder of Gestalt Therapy. He called it 'organismic self-regulation'. (Yes, even 'orgasmic self-reglulation is part of the larger process. Woke you up perhaps!)
To summarize this final connection and perhaps leave you something extra to think about, I will re-state one final philosophical principle that is the product of this essay: specifically, you cannot separate the study of epistemology from the study of homeostatic balance -- and the bridge between them is the 'dialectic' and/or 'multi-dialectic'. The path to truth and homeostatic balance -- as with everything else in life, not just epistemology and the pursuit of Truth, Democracy, and Justice but also the pursuit of Existence, Being and Becoming -- is the path of dialectic exchange and interchange. Worded otherwise, the path of dialectic, democratic, passionate encounter.
This sounds like a combination of Hegel, The Enlightenment, Romanticism, Existentialism, and Gestalt Therapy all rolled into one. Yep! That's my intentions.
Enough for today!
dgb, Feb. 25th, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment