Philosophy

‘Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.’

Hector Berlioz

We build our lives based on our beliefs, and on what we take to be true. The only drama with this is when we are confronted with something that contradicts or impinges on our so called ‘reality.’ When these two worlds collide, the real world and our reality, often what we took to be true turns out to be false. Our world becomes shaky, our beliefs unstable. Like a spinning top that looses its momentum, our reality begins to wobble. The very foundations of our beliefs reveal their instability. Uncertainty in our convictions can also arise when we discover that other people have different beliefs than we do. Before we discover that our own beliefs are unreliable, we tend to quickly conclude that other people’s conflicting beliefs or the world itself must simply be wrong. It often seems justified to apply any means necessary to eliminate such error so that truth may prevail. Heretics are burned, religious wars mounted. Our world is once again restored to its original egocentricity.

            With sufficient maturity a more self-sceptical attitude may develop. One learns through experience that one’s own beliefs are not reliable, that just because one believes a thing does not imply the truth of that belief. Even if one has tested a belief, further experience may shake that belief further by revealing deeper truths. When confronted by two conflicting beliefs, one’s suppositions about the facts may be correct but for the right reasons, or incorrect for the right reasons. What is definite in such a situation is that things are never what they seem. A mature person usually initiates a process of investigation, gathering and weighing evidence, engaging in debate and negotiation. One suspends commitment to one’s own beliefs at least temporarily, attempting to judge impartially between conflicting beliefs based on the facts rather than the vagaries of historically entrenched opinion. This is how mature people deal with the real world. It is a mistake however, to assume that all adults are mature, or that all mature people are adults.

'The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.'

Einstein  

What neurophysiologists taught us up until the late twentieth century was that the human brain was ‘hard-wired.’ We were instructed to believe that the brain we are born with is all we’ve got. That we can never know everything and that ‘random’ events which happen outside the square of predicability either proves the square or disprove it. The less often something is disproved, the more likely it is a fact. What we don’t know or aren’t taught is that our brain formulates conceptual structures that are much simpler than the complex phenomena we are attempting to account for. These simple conceptual structures shield us from real-world complexity but also fail frequently as some aspect of what we did not take into consideration makes itself manifest. These simplified concepts contribute to emotional dissonance and anxiety through our perception of the world as a challenging and dangerous place. These ‘random’ events can turn us into rigid opinionated thinkers as we strive to maintain the structure of our no longer valid beliefs. Alternatively, we can face the underlying complexity of experience voluntarily and creatively gather new information and reconfigure the philosophy of our self-imposed image of the world. This is the fundamental element to ‘learning.’

Modern physics suggests that ‘reality’ for humans is a construct of our sensory and conceptual experiences. A newer understanding of reality, ‘the holographic paradigm,’ suggests that the solidity of matter and space which we see and perceive as reality more closely resembles a ‘hologram’, with images  projected upon the canvas of the mind. The mind mirrors what happens outside the mind (i.e. the body) but we cannot assume that the mirror is a faithful and true representation of what lies outside it. The mind itself is flawed, distorted by our own preconceptions – emotions, which colour and cloud what we see. The old adage, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ underpins our distorted view of the world. That which contravenes our belief structure is invisible to us, though it may be right before us. Understandably, men are more prone to such a predicament of being blinded by things right in front of them.

But to understand how the mind can be so imperfect, let us get down to the very basics – the atom. The Greek philosopher Democritus (460-370 BC) first proposed the theory of the ‘atom,’ which meant ‘uncuttable.’ Plato and Aristotle railed against his theory and the idea of atoms was never accepted until 1803 when John Dalton, an English schoolteacher, revived the idea. In high school, we are taught that all matter and energy are interconnected at the atomic level (e.g. e=mc²). Yet, we are quick to gloss over the fact that what we call atoms only exist because we observe them over a time interval. It is a little known fact that has only arisen in the last ten years that ‘matter’ as we know it is a mental construct. The chair you sit on, the clothes you are wearing, even the book you hold in your hand have no ‘real’ mass and is merely an electromagnetic effect at the atomic level that which we register on scales as weight. To understand this, let us reconsider what we know about atoms. As you are probably aware, if an atom is observed for a fraction of a second (a time interval so short as to equate with fractions of a picosecond), then during that brief moment what we observe is 99.9999% empty space. The majority of what we call the atom’s shape is in fact a ‘cloud’ formed by subatomic activity (a flurried movement of electrons about a nucleus of neutrons and protons).

What is more dramatic is that if we instantaneously stopped  an atom, all subatomic particles would be invisible. Not because they aren’t there but that they are indefinable except by electromagnetic standards. There is no 'solidity‘ to subatomic particles. They hit objects and cause an effect which we think of in terms of momentum, inertia, etc. But these effects are electromagnetic effects which we see and feel as inertia, force, mass, etc. What we call an atom can only be defined in terms of electromagnetic charges (measured in mEv and photons of light), not mass (g). It is only over a time period that an atom assumes mass[i]. And if this sounds bizarre, at any given time an atom’s mass can vary from positive to negative (depending on its inherent energy). Thus, the weight which we assign to the chair we are sitting in does not exist at any instantaneous point in time[ii]. It is thus what we call a time-dependant phenomenon. An elegant example of this mutability of mass is seen in Einstein’s thought experiment where a rocket is propelled toward the speed of light. Its mass increases toward infinity as it approaches the speed of light. Thus, a body’s mass or weight are constructs of our three dimensional reality, and in fourth dimensional situations where time can lengthen or shorten, mass can range from infinite negative to infinite positive values. In order to gain an better understanding of an infinite universe, finite-minded scientist use a model known as the spacetime continuum. Minkowski, who also followed on from Einstein, added to the relativity argument by asserting that ‘space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a union of them as ‘spacetime’ will preserve their independent reality.’ We cannot comprehend what the universe would look like in four, five or six dimensions, any more than an ant can comprehend quantum mechanics. In our human spacetime continuum, mathematics can accurately predict what happens when a rocket is fired into orbit, or a circus clown shoots from a cannon. To think that objects could be unpredictable makes not only for complex mathematics but also psychological complexes.

But as simple as the timespace continuum concept attempts to simplify the universe, it makes some fairly large assumptions, such as there are only three dimensions of space and one of time in order to define what is big, tall or fat. Such gross simplification is fine for teaching high school kids, but is patently hamstrung without use of its full quotient of multidimensional spheres. Long before man first flew to the moon, Aristotle hinted at such a continuum of multi-dimensional states when he referred to the ‘moved movers’. He could not be more specific in describing such things as gravity, black holes and dark matter, but even though he lacked the science, he also conceived a greater physical force which he called ‘the great unmover’, which in physics might relate to energy itself, which can become all things, but itself remains unchanged.

The notion of atoms being weightless, as proposed by modern scientists, does not contravene Einstein’s relativity laws. What the theory does is redefine matter as having two types of mass; one a conventional ‘gravitational’ mass (what can be weighed on the scales; and a result of interatomic reactions) and an ‘inertial’ or inherent mass (one that varies depending on subatomic energy states, vibrational frequency of electron clouds, orbital spins, etc). Gravitational mass appears to be dependent on inertial mass by modifying the atom’s energy  state. Thus, the apparent mass of an atom is not fixed and can be modified energetically. This forms the basis of modern anti-gravity theorems in relativity.

There is no supernatural force at play here, but a mere convention of relativity, which shall be discussed later. For the moment, we can conclude that atomic weight or the appearance to us of its mass is merely the result of a convention known as gravity, produced by electromagnetic and other weak subatomic forces. We normally designate weight to a mole of atoms (Avogadro’s number = 6.02 x 10²³ atoms). For example, at school, we are taught that a mole of hydrogen weighs 1g and one atom of hydrogen is said to weigh the inverse of Avogadro’s number. However, at the subatomic level weight has no meaning and is said to not exist. It is not that the weight is so small or that the atom disappears, but that at the subatomic level weight is merely a perceived by-product of electrical activity which can be registered on the scales. That’s not to say that if you are overweight, it is an illusion. You probably do need to shed a few pounds, but your weight is nonexistent except over a time interval (usually greater than 10^-10 seconds). Normally, we forget such brief moments in time and since our mind is incapable of differentiating less than one millisecond or so, it is, relatively speaking, inconsequential. We are not in fear of suddenly vanishing any more than we are of spontaneous combustion. The concepts we formulate for reality, as we have said, are based on conventions. We all see reality in a macrosecond convention, therefore we all have relatively common realities. And what happens at intervals greater than one or two seconds are what uniquely define our own individual realities, and it is little wonder there are so many versions of reality; one for each person on the planet.

Although intellectually stimulating, what is more important to remember is that time affects the properties of all matter. Einstein’s ‘special theory of relativity’ abandoned the notion of ‘spontaneity.’ It is meaningless to assert that an event here and another event in another galaxy happened ‘at the same time.’ In one of his 1905 papers, Einstein also formulated the idea that energy was packaged in energy bundles, quanta of light, further supported by Max Plank, who popularised quantum theory. Einstein then went on to explore the nature of gravity which he determined to not operate in a passive background of space but which acted by curving time and thus space. This explains that when we approach the edge of the universe, gravity tends to shrink the boundaries of the universe until we are at its very rim, where time bends space backward making escape impossible. This theory might be better understood if we consider the Moebius ring, where the ends of a flat piece of metal are joined together by first twisting them. One can then trace a line along the surface of the ring and traverse both sides without ever coming to an edge and return to the same starting point. The universe, it is presently believed, might be a four dimensional construct of such a ring.

            At first, the observable universe (that which is visible to us through telescopes, as opposed to the cosmos which includes the unseen) was considered to be infinite in extent, going on in all directions forever. This theory was considered and rejected as implausible by many philosophers from Plato, Aristotle, Newton and Liebniz. Georg Reinmann was the first of the modern physicists to prove this mathematically. Reinmann viewed the universe as a sphere with no ‘edge’ or boundary. The shape of the visible universe is what’s called a spherical space or hypersphere, twenty billion light years in diameter, which began as a single point the size of a pinhead and underwent inflation (the Big Bang) twenty billion years ago. Using this model, later confirmed by Max Born, Albert Einstein and the formulation of Hubble’s law based on non-euclidean mathematics, Reinmann states that we can start at any point in the universe, continue straight ahead and eventually end up back at our starting point[iii]. This theory relies on the premise of an expanding spacetime continuum. Max Born has said that ‘this suggestion of a finite, but unbounded space is one of the greatest ideas about nature of the world which ever has been conceived.’

            It becomes apparent then that ‘reality’ merely depends on how you look at it. All matter is, relatively speaking, an illusion of time. That is not to say it doesn’t exist, merely that its fundamental properties are time dependent in the same way that we determine an objects position by its x, y and z co-ordinates on a cartesian map. As we have seen, if we remove any reference to time (i.e. T=0), matter is said to be nonexistent. That is, it is pure potential. To get their head around such a paradox, quantum physicists have laid down a number of ground rules. Thus, to sanely appreciate the finer art of viewing a reality which doesn’t exist except within the confines of time, one has to swallow a few truths, however incompatible they may at first taste.

Buddhism sums this up best in the Heart Sutra which says ‘Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.’ The good news is that our perception of reality can be altered for benevolent reasons. In modern medicine for example, the use of virtual reality computers have been shown to dramatically reduce physical and psychic pain in severe burns, phobias and post-traumatic stress, illustrating how a strong illusion of reality can readily alter our physical perceptions[iv].

The Zen koan ‘the sound of one hand clapping’ is an inquiry into this quantum exploration of subjective vs. objective analysis. To comprehend this, Zen students study the objective and subjective duality of any sensation, in this particular case, that of sound. As we already know, for us to hear something there has to be an object which creates the sound (two hands, not one), a subject to receive the sound (the listener) and a third phenomenon, the sound itself (clapping). Our ability to hear something is thus dependant on two other phenomenon, the object and the sound itself, rather than us being independent of them. This dependant reality (of subject and object being dependent upon each other and the third phenomenon, energy) is at the heart of the aforementioned quantum paradox. In this particular Zen koan, we examine all forms of sound, and after excluding them from the subject/object perspective, we come finally to the point of soundless sound, to that which is when it isn’t, which is the sound of one hand clapping. Jesus said it more succinctly when he remarked ‘ When you make the two one, you will go into the kingdom.’

If this were true, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, physicists believe it simply ceases to exist. Though we aren’t entirely sure how this works, it does however open another Pandora’s box, namely that the electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain might be connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky. Subatomic particles have been shown to communicate instantaneously at hyper-light speeds. Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorise and pigeonhole and subdivide phenomena, the universe is essential illusory. That is not to say that it doesn’t exist. What it rather suggests is an intimate and seamless interconnection of all things in a seamless web. Recently, some physicists have even gone so far as to speculate that universe may be fundamentally conscious; that it is alive, aware and intelligent, that it is not an end product of evolution but a creator of life, and that consciousness (energetic connectedness) is everywhere[v]. What religious people call God, physicists are now calling ‘zero point energy’ - the infinite interconnected energy simultaneously existing at every point in space. These physicists, amongst them Steven Hawkings, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose, conclude that the universe is able to simultaneously (i.e. non-locally) records all information ever produced in the universe through a conscious non-timespace continuum that transmutes electromagnetic energy and matter into other energy patterns (including multidimensional realms). They believe that in this state ‘we not only perceive union with zero point energy, we transcend our local selves such that we recognise ourselves as zero point energy.’ As far reaching as this may sound, the number of theoretical physicists taking interest in this novel hypothesis are growing[vi]. They suggest that not only space, but also time has a beginning - at the moment of creation. Extending the argument even further, another physicist, Amati, believes the moment of creation was not a time or place but a thought (zero point potentiality)[vii]. 

‘The paradoxes of interchangeable mass, energy and time are explained by accepting objects as possibilities or possibility waves. For example, when you see a chair, you see an actual chair, you don’t see a possible chair. This is called the ‘quantum measurement paradox.’ The brain is made up of atoms and elementary particles, so it cannot convert its own possibility wave into actuality. Yet since consciousness doesn’t need to obey quantum physics (‘thought’ is not made of material), it can convert possibility into actuality. Thus consciousness is transcendent. Consciousness can be said to create the material world through the conversion of possibility into actuality. In other words, consciousness creates the manifest world.’ 

Whether such a contentious argument is valid or not, is hard to determine. Yet, suffice it is to say that we should admit that there is more to reality than what we imagine. And though this may be thought of as being deconstructive, starting with such doubt gives us a better chance of arriving at a likely truth, than to start with a deduced fact and more likely end in doubt. As we shall see in later chapters, far more revelatory science has emerged from such a methodology of doubt than with inductive hypotheses.

Only recently have mathematicians begun to define what is known as Chaos Theory. First popularised in Steven Spielberg’s movie Jurassic Park, Chaos theory studies less complex systems in nature (e.g. snowflakes, or sea shell shapes) and attempted to apply mathematics to them. For example, chaos mathematicians study the weather as a model for generating unpredictability. They have ascertained that there is a ‘butterfly effect’ which affects all complex, nonlinear systems and that infinitely small changes in the starting conditions of a system can produce dramatic outputs for that and other seemingly-unrelated system. String Theory, an emerging mathematical discipline in itself, attempts to bridge or string chaotic events with ordered events by linking them with ‘strings’ of alternative quantum relativities. Thus, what appears random may in fact be an ordered event (over there) impacting another region (here), giving the ‘illusion’ of randomness or chaos. But though mathematics can be elegant and aspire to heights of the ineffable, what does it have to do with a suburban veterinarian who is more concerned about improving his clinic’s income? Perhaps the effects of this are subtle, but modern paradigms such as these suggest that all our actions, not just subatomic ones, are more interconnected with other objects/persons/groups in far more profound ways than we can imagine. It may help us to reflect on the impact our aggressive marketing strategies have on our neighbouring practice’s income but also on our own long term income. It may also reduce our predisposition to over-servicing or over-charging clients knowing that what we do here impacts over there, and what impacts over there impacts back over here. It may be so, or it may be not, but then there may be truth to the cliché that ‘what goes around, comes around.’ 

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) thought that how individuals see their world is not actually through experience of the objects, but through inference of them. Just like we wouldn’t consider a photograph of a chair to be an actual chair, we should not consider the interpretations from our eyes, hands, etc. of a chair to adequately represent the chair. In truth, all we experience is a representation of the chair. In his transcendental aesthetic, Kant attempted to reveal what is actually real through a two-step process: 

‘First, isolate sensibility by taking away from it everything which the understanding thinks through its concepts, so that nothing may be left save empirical intuition. Secondly, we shall also separate off from it everything which belongs to sensation, so that nothing may remain save pure intuition and the mere form of appearances, which is all that sensibility can supply a priori[viii].’

The ghost in the machine

When we refer to a ‘ghost’ in the machine, we imply that there is a mystical or sublime operator or puppeteer (soul) which moves the human body. The term was first coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine. From biblical times, humans were given dominion over the animals and, unlike animals, were said to have a divine soul. It wasn’t until 1838 that this was seriously questioned. 

‘Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy of the interposition of a deity. More humble and, I believe, true to consider him created from animals.’ 

This was what Charles Darwin wrote in a notebook some years before he published The Descent of Man. By the 1970s, animal liberation movements worldwide began to question the importance of humans as a species. It threw into doubt our spiritocentric beliefs and instead demanded we move beyond our speciesist morality and give equal consideration to the interests of all animals who are sentient (i.e. able to feel pleasure, pain and feelings).

In evolutionary biology, mutations have been proposed as the driving force for natural selection, but at the molecular level, the situation is life or non-life. It is hard to use mathematical probability to explain mutations as the origins of the genetic code. The ‘zero point,’ the moment when there wasn’t life and when life first began, is hard to imagine. Life, we assume, either exists or it doesn’t. It is inconceivable that anything can be half alive as it is to imagine a female ‘half pregnant.’ How then might an organism come into being when moments before it was merely a motley collection of proteins in a primordial soup? Evolutionary biologists argue that enormous selective pressures were exerted on this primitive life form, giving rise to the first genes of life.  From an organic soup of small molecules and macromolecules to a primitive living organism is a giant step in imagination. The basic structures necessary for life must arise from a random assortment of lipids and protein molecules to form membranous structures within which were trapped polynucleotides, polypeptides, and other substances. Many of the monomers synthesised enzymatically by cells are thought to have originally accumulated spontaneously on Earth as a result of non-enzymatic reactions. From here on, evolution is relatively simple to understand. According to evolutionary biology, life on earth began 3.8 billion years ago in the form of single-celled bacteria. Just 540 millions years ago during the Cambrian era most of the multicellular organisms began to form. It is generally believed at present that life evolved from three ancestor cells; archaea, bacteria and eubacteria. These were thought to be the very first living cells on Earth, from which all other life forms evolved. The archaea, only recently discovered, was thought to be the ‘prototype’ cell which later vanished without trace leaving the bacteria and eubacteria behind which later evolved into bacterial, animal and plant cells. Whether archaea, bacteria and eubacteria all lived at the same time is not known but it is theorised in Darwin’s ‘doctrine of common descent’ that these cells were highly dependant upon each other for survival, transferring genes within each species through horizontal gene transfer until some point at which independent life was possible and species began to form. It was during this time that the first land-dwelling animal was thought to exist. The Tardigrade or ‘water bear’ was thought to arrive accidentally on the surface and lived in the tidal regions of prehistoric waters, surviving on moss and bacteria at the edge of the water.

 Though archaea and tardigrade make good science stories, how exactly did the first ‘step’ take place for the appearance of these first life forms. It has been calculated that the probability for formation of a set of 238 proteins, the minimum number that would sustain life, would be in the order of 1 in 10²⁹³⁴⁵, completely out of the realm of comprehension. Sir Fred Hoyle, British mathematician and astronomer, declared in Nature magazine (November 12, 1981) that ‘the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (evolution) is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.’ However, biologists argue that in the time scale of infinite universal time, this random chance is no different to someone winning the Lotto – someone always wins, eventually.

One might then ask that if the first primitive life form did eventually assemble into a sustainable cellular form, what ‘motivated’ that organism to continue living? Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker avoids this question entirely. He proposes that once life begins, it continues. Yet in random molecular sorting there is no mathematical model to explain ‘cohesion’ of life-sustaining molecules. Once a molecule is formed, laws of entropy would then break down these arrangements into other molecules. Thus we then must consider the possibility that life has a ‘stickiness’ about it - an as yet undefined force which maintains molecular integrity and simultaneously allows more complexity to build from it (i.e. growth, reproduction). Whether this cohesion or stickiness is a consequence of the emergence of a ‘life force’ or whether the stickiness is a pre-existing universal force is hard to determine. Nonetheless, cohesiveness or stickiness of biological molecules would explain why once random assortment starts life, it should perpetuate.

            Long before Charles Darwin, Christian beliefs held the fore, with science based on the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. In the medieval world philosophers respected their predecessors and accepted their methods. If a new discovery about nature contradicted one of Aristotle’s principles, it was the new discovery that was in error. Up until the start of the Enlightenment period at the end of the eighteenth century, philosophers were content to accept appeals to Aristotle’s authority. It was only with revolutionary thinkers such as Hume, Descartes, Kant and others that science began to progress and our understanding of nature expand, which could not have been done without rejecting some of Aristotle’s assumptions. It was not only Aristotle that was being questioned, but also political and religious ideas.

While evolution is now accepted as a fact by science and is becoming accepted by the Catholic Church, the mechanism underlying its most important aspect, evolutionary progress, is not clearly established. Even science acknowledges that the mechanism depends on very long streaks of luck. The evidence for evolutionary progress is thin, and a working model has not been demonstrated. Thus consensus within science has not been reached as to the ‘motive’ behind evolution. Charles Darwin stated in The Origin of Species; 

‘the geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find intermediate varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole Theory.’  

Out of the millions of fossils in the world, not one transitional form has been found. All known species show up abruptly in the fossil record without intermediate forms. Darwin said that embryological evidence was ‘second to none in importance.’ The idea of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny or the theory that higher life forms go through the previous evolutionary chain before birth was popularised by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. It was later found that Haeckel forged the diagrams which he used as evidence for the theory. Also arguing against recapitulation is the fact that different higher life forms experience different stages in different orders, and often contrary to the assumed evolutionary order. Likewise, there is not a trace at a molecular level of the traditional evolutionary series; fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal. Incredibly, humans are closer to lamprey than are fish. However, modern biology rejects Haeckel’s theory. While for instance the phylogeny of humans as having evolved from fish through reptiles to mammals is generally accepted, no cleanly defined ‘fish’, ‘reptile’ and ‘mammal’ stages of human embryonic development can be discerned. The fact that the strict recapitulation theory is rejected by modern biologists has sometimes been used as an argument against evolution by creationists. The argument is: 

‘Haeckel's theory was presented as supporting evidence for evolution, Haeckel's theory is wrong, therefore evolution has less support". 

This argument is not only an oversimplification but misleading because modern biology does recognise numerous connections between ontogeny and phylogeny, explains them using evolutionary theory without recourse to Haeckel’s specific views, and considers them as supporting evidence for that theory.

Cartesian Philosophy 

‘The search for the exotic, the strange, the unusual, the uncommon has often taken the form of pilgrimages, of turning away from the world, the ‘Journey to the East,’ to another country or to a different religion. The great lesson from the true mystics, from the Zen monks, and now also from the Humanistic and Transpersonal psychologists – that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbours, friends and family, in one’s own back yard, and that travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred – this lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.

                                                                           Abraham H. Maslow

 René Descartes is universally acknowledged as the father of modern Western philosophy. It is to the writings of Descartes that we must turn if we wish to understand the great seventeenth-century revolution in which the old scholastic world view slowly lost its grip and the foundations of modern philosophical and scientific thinking were laid. The range of Descartes’ thought was enormous, and his writing oeuvre covered subjects such as mathematics, physics, astronomy, meteorology, psychology, physiology and ethics. In his Rules for the Direction of Our Native Intelligence, he remarks; 

‘The sciences as a whole are nothing other than human wisdom, which always remains one and the same, however different the subjects to which it is applied. The knowledge of one truth does not, like skill in one art, hinder us from discovering another; on the contrary, it helps us… It must be acknowledged that all the sciences are so closely interconnected that it is much easier to learn them all together than to separate one from the other. If someone seriously wishes to investigate the truth of things, he ought not to select one science in particular, for they are all interconnected and interdependent.’ 

It was with the intention of extending mathematical method to all fields of human knowledge that Descartes developed his methodology, the cardinal aspect of his philosophy. He discards the authoritarian system of the scholastics and begins with universal doubt. But there is one thing that cannot be doubted: doubt itself. This is the kernel expressed in his famous phrase, Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). From the certainty of the existence of a thinking being, Descartes passed to the existence of God, for which he offered one proof based on St. Anselm’s ontological proof and another based on the first cause that must have produced the idea of God in the thinker. Having thus arrived at the existence of God, he reaches the reality of the physical world through God, who would not deceive the thinking mind by perceptions that are illusions. Therefore, the external world, which we perceive, must exist. He thus falls back on the acceptance of what we perceive clearly and distinctly as being true, and he studies the material world to perceive connections. He views the physical world as mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind, the only connection between the two being by intervention of God. This is almost complete dualism. The development of Descartes’ philosophy is in Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641); his Principia philosophiae (1644) is also very important. Descartes argues that all knowledge is certain and evident. Someone who has doubts about many things is no wiser than one who has never given them a thought; indeed he appears less wise if he formed a false opinion about any of them. Hence, he concludes, it is better never to study at all than to occupy ourselves with objects that are so difficult that we are unable to distinguish what is true and what is false. When we study science, we ought to investigate what we can clearly and evidently intuit or deduce with certainty, and not what other people have thought or what we ourselves conjecture. Though he has said much about so many things, his most popular remarks relate to existential existence.         

‘If Socrates says that he doubts everything, it necessarily follows that he understands at least that he is doubting, and hence he knows that something can be true or false, etc; for there is a necessary connection between these facts and the nature of doubt. The union between such things, however, is contingent when the relation conjoining them is not an inseparable one. There are many examples of things which are necessarily conjoined, even though most people count them as contingent, such as ‘I am, therefore God exists’, or ‘I understand, therefore I have a mind distinct from my body.’ 

Descartes was a product of the church and his philosophy reflected the times in which he lived. Descartes was a dualist, i.e. he believed that humans were of two natures, a spiritual nature and a temporal nature. By pure deduction Descartes evolved for himself entire universes that neither he, nor anyone else, could perceive by the use of their natural senses. All that was necessary, for Descartes, was intense self examination and intense reason, and, through this process, all would be revealed.

            All of nature, Descartes posited, was merely an array of machines created by God, the engineer, who then put a piece of his God-mind into his favourite robot - humans - so that he, too, could create machinery. To arrive at this assertion, Descartes first concludes that there is a God, which although unprovable per se, he decides as being self-evident. He states that God is defined as a supremely perfect being. Descartes never attempts to prove the unprovable, merely that if God is perfect, it then follows that God must exist. In the human mind, a state of perfection cannot exist, therefore the human mind is inherently imperfect[ix]. That such a state of perfection is imaginable therefore implies this imaginable quality or essence must exist because we have thought of it. This circuitous reasoning leads to the general assumption that whatever is conceivable to the human mind is potential viable in the universe, whether we are able to prove it or not. Such an assumption leads inexorably to an investigation into the nature of mind vs. reality and mind vs. morality, beyond the scope of Descartes’ theories at the time he was investigating them[x].

For example, let us consider an individual who is capable of imagining an antisocial view of reality and correlating it to social norms. This individual would differ dramatically from the social majority who refrain from escaping into the shadow-self by conforming to social, moral and religious values. It would be a logical assumption that the next step would be a moral and social degeneration where others are degraded at the expense of the one individual. This non-Euclidean concept (where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, yet the parts taken individually have a value less than or equal to zero) is classically seen under totalitarian and fascist regimes. In such regimes, individuals are inherently valueless yet necessary for the overall functioning of the ‘social machine’. In such states the individual is of no worth except when considered as part of a collective whole. Consider the typical ‘inner child’ performances of Hitler who believed ‘Germans were nothing without Germany.’ Let us therefore acknowledge that not all things which are imaginable are necessarily right or beneficial. In light of more modern utilitarian models, Cartesian logic has thus become superseded, though not irrelevant.

            According to a recent article, forty percent of American physicists, biologists and mathematicians still believe in God. They believe not in just some metaphysical abstraction but a deity who takes an active interest in their affairs and hears their prayers[xi]. Spirituality is an inherent component of being human and is subjective, intangible, and multidimensional. Spirituality and religion are often used interchangeably but the two concepts are different. Spirituality involves humans’ search for meaning in life, while religion involves an organised entity with rituals and practices about a higher power or God. Spirituality may be related to religion for certain individuals but for others such as atheists it may not be[xii].

Because some veterinarians have a religious belief, this belief system alters significantly their perspective on the perception and treatment of animals. The ancient Greeks were a classic example of how a polytheistic religion which subordinated animals to mere chattels was detrimental to animal’s well-being. For example, Pythagoras, a well known mathematician, philosopher and mystic, was so excited to have elucidated the equation for the isosceles triangle that he was said to have wanted to sacrifice a thousand cattle to thank the Gods. Fortunately for the animals and the town’s livelihood, he was convinced otherwise.

If there is no intervention in the fate of a person, how do we know whether there is a God or not? God, if God exists, can only be conceived as a non-interventionist, and the respect which Descartes has paid throughout his scientific career to this divine benefactor may well be founded on a dialectic of corporeality. Descartes’ reasoning is a prelate for a non-interventionist God and suggests that perhaps our most enlightened states are those which attempt to err on the side of God; that is to say, an act which attempts to abolish ignorance, or at least attain a state of reduced error. Inaction, in this case, is also a form of error, since sometimes inaction is based in ignorance. To not act against an injustice is to not see an injustice, and as Descartes quite clearly explains, ‘If I deny in such a case, …I shall not be free, for it is evident that perception (knowledge) always precedes free will[xiii].’

This begs the question of motivation by the self toward compassionate acts. According to Cartesian logic, the belief in a Christian God is commensurate with a belief in divine judgment. From an epistemological standpoint, the notion of human will is consciously steered by divine salvation or retribution - that is, all actions are either erroneous or good, motivated as they are by a goal-orientated ideology. Platonic theorists agree with this concept of an inherent ‘goodness’ in people. Yet, Plato ascribes that being good does not necessarily imply feeling good about it. It is this distinction in which free will operates - i.e. knowing what is the right thing to do, even if it feels bad, is the important thing[xiv].

Descartes in his book Meditations said that ‘my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing.’ Essence, by definition, is the characteristic or intrinsic feature of a thing which determines its identity, whether this description is of a perfect or imperfect form. Descartes, when referring to his essence, referred specifically to a non-corporeal self beyond the limitations of the body. The body as a composite of muscles, connective tissue, bones and fluids is not, Descartes believed, the place of residence for the mind. If this were true, then the identity of self could be found resident in a particular organ system or a collection of organs. Descartes did not say ‘I walk, therefore I am’, or ‘I breathe, therefore I am’. There is a clear delineation of mind versus non-mind, establishing the premise a priori that selfhood (or mind) resides in a non-corporeal place contained within the body, yet not contained by it. Put simplistically, a dualism of mind over matter. In order to establish this investigation, Descartes had to travel the logical path of other philosophical investigators who have explored the similar concept of self and its identity with thought. He does not say that without thinking he did not exist, although he equivocates strongly for an immortal mind. What he did however argue was that human’s rationality or logic which defines our essence is a unique facet to being human. Descartes categorically places human logic on a pedestal over animal instincts. Cartesian logic uses causality versus logic as an argument for human superiority over animals. For example, if a dog is speared with an arrow, the reactions the animal makes in response to the painful experience are purely reflex or instinctual response, without any inherent cerebration or intrinsic worth. 

            ‘It is the soul that sees,’ Descartes cries when examining the motions of a dog writhing in pain, ‘and not the eye.’ Such an argument negates the suffering of animals, belying the Cartesian belief that human intellectual resonance has dominion over the animal kingdom by our ability to transcend experiences via knowledge. Descartes powerful observations did however relegate animal ethics to the wastelands of philosophical research for the next three hundred years. Anthropomorphism was to Descartes merely placing into an animal’s mind something unprovable, untenable and as absurd as ‘imagining a horse with wings.’ That Christians believe animals to be soulless lies behind this distinction of Descartes’, a logic ultimately shipwrecked on didacticism.

Descartes, unaware of modern quantum physics, was left to struggle with his limited tools of analysis, finding only a limited quota of laws with which to formulate his next major tenet, namely causality, or the nature of volition or will. Causality is a long explored phenomenon of nature, studied extensively in modern physics, Eastern religion and Ancient Greek philosophy. Simple Newtonian laws of causality, which decree that all actions evoke an equal and opposite reaction, have been shown to be redundant in complex systems. Complex systems such as organisms, social behaviour and weather patterns involve the use of multicentric physical factors beyond the complexity of simple action-reaction laws. Hume, excited by the ideas of Isaac Newton and the parallels between consciousness and Newtonian ‘hard massy and impenetrable atoms’, believed erroneously that fundamental forces such as these operate at the conscious level.

Causality occupied a great presence in Descartes’ theories of existence. His primal investigations of causality are founded on what he terms ‘free will.’ He says that humans have two choices - knowledge and error. When it comes to error, ‘it is not a simple defect, but a lack of some knowledge.’ Causality, and its relationship with knowledge, was pursued by Descartes with passion. He spent considerable effort to route out the cause of intellectual error or ignorance, and its causes. The concept that there is a God and yet God made humans imperfect, smacks to Descartes of free will, something which to modern science can be construed as an argument for the non-existence of a God entirely. Hume, a long time believer in causality and disbeliever in theology, states in his book A Treatise on Human Nature that ‘all of nature is founded on the relation of cause and effect and that this relation is neither near or remote, direct or collateral.’ Yet he goes on to say that ‘were there nothing to bind them, their relation would be entirely precarious.’ Descartes concept of free will, it seems, is nothing if not a nebulous thing.

Long before Jesus pressed his case for spiritual supremacy before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, Plato theorised the idea of the human ‘soul,’ supposedly driven by love (eros) and expressed through speech (logos). In expressing itself, Plato says, the soul uncovers (remembers) its divine origin. The renaissance of Platonic spirituality in the twentieth century is seen in the new-age spiritualists; a melange of platonic and neo-platonic philosophies, seasoned with a multicultural mix of eastern religions. Plato’s soul, so the argument goes, has a need to find in its own self-made harmony. Its destiny is investigated in Plato’s Phædo, when faith in its eternity helps it accept the death of the body. As a prelude to this trilogy, Plato depicts in the Symposium, the dialectics of eros, the soul’s driving power, that may lead it from the physical love of one body all the way up to the intellectual love of everlasting ‘ideas.’

            Descartes, no doubt cognisant of Plato’s description of the soul, but firmly entrenched in Christian theology, delineates two types of soul action; those which are will (logos) driven, and those desire (eros) driven. The non-corporeal soul can act wilfully either in harmony with desire or in disharmony, depending on a person’s state of logos. As Descartes describes in Passions of the Soul, human desire involve feelings connected with bodily feelings or possessions, whereas human will, which he compares to notions of choosing or deciding, is not associated with the body per se. Where Cartesian logic fails is in not exploring the supposition that free will may inherently be a human delusion. Descartes investigates the notion of ‘thinking’ as being equated to ‘being.’ This correlates to the analogy of a pebble dropped into a pond. Cartesian philosophers assume that if they see ripples, there must always be a pebble that has been dropped. According to Cartesian schools, non-thinking is still thinking, albeit subtle, an argument similar to Buddhist philosophy.

Nagarjuna (200 BC), one of Buddhism’s foremost philosophers, described how our notion of free will is derived from subtle or gross delusions of the mind. Although Buddhists argue that there is pre-determined fate, free-will is also pre-determined based on the capacity of the ego to operate. Our only possibility for acting with free will lies in our ability to manipulate or subjugate our ego (renunciation) for higher (more spiritual) purposes. Nagarjuna posits that only in a state of quiescence (ego-sublimation) does self-hood show its inherent nature, which is nothingness.

‘Happiness alone exists, not the happy person. No doer is found, save only the deed of doing. Nirvana is, but not the person who seeks it. The path exists, but not the person on it[xv].’    

This duality of nothingness, where mind can exist without thought, will or God admits the possibility of inherent sentience to the universe, embracing a far greater circle of life. If it was self-evident to Descartes that sentience exists and God exists, and that humans must therefore have free will, does it not also seem evident that wherever sentience exists, therefore must be included a degree of free will, essence and therefore a degree of selfhood? Descartes opines that free will is limitless, yet does not consider the notion that free will may of itself be self-existing. That is to say, free will may, by Descartes own reason, have a capacity to be inherently self-governing, autonomous and omnipotent beyond the confines of mortality. To give free will a life of its own, so to speak, is to move it into the realms of physics, as if it behaved similar to quantum physics, where subatomic particles appear inherently autonomous, yet behave irrationally when subjected to external forces. Although it would have been beyond Descartes scope of knowledge to predict subatomic research of the twentieth century, his theories of free will are not negated by advances in Chaos, String and Relativity theories.

            Following from his famous line ‘cogito ergo sum,’ Descartes proposes that thought is non-corporeal (i.e. not associated with the brain). He alludes to a ‘supernatural’ mind capable of transcending corporeal existence. Contrary to modern scientific beliefs, he believed that that the mind (that which thinks) is non-corporeal, inherently existent and eternal. This concurs with his first epistemological argument that God exists. That is, God exists, and the mind, being able to conceive of an omniscient, onmipresent and omnipotent being, therefore contains the essence of these things as well. Descartes remained until his death a Christian-based philosopher. Twentieth century scientific philosophers, however, adopt a more non-religious stance -  ‘I think therefore I am and when I die, I am probably not.’ Unable to disprove Descartes, modern scientific thought avoids the argument entirely, rather than trying to prove the unprovable.

Socrates, the gadfly of Athens, made the bold statement, ‘I know not, therefore I know something.’ This is a classic negation of nihilism. To begin in certainty necessitates that we end in doubt, whereas Descartes infers that to begin in doubt by attempting to prove the existence of mind provides a chance of arriving at a certainty that the essence of mind exists. Ockham’s razor (a theory which states that entities should not be multiplied more than necessary; or ‘the simplest theory is usually the right one’) suggests that it is more likely that God does not exist based on absence of proof, but this would simplify what is inherently a complex issue. To say that mind is corporeal (derived by the brain function) negates the notion of will as being more than a function of rationality and something far more transcendent. Yet Descartes’ apparent concept of a dualistic mind which can only exist when I think is in itself flawed, knowing as we do that humans exist even when no longer conscious. This suggests that mind has the capacity to potentially transcend consciousness in some as yet defined way, being of a nature that is neither dualistic, nihilistic or existential, but likely all three or none. Knowledge it seems, might be the way that human free will works on the conscious level, albeit subtlety. According to Hume, knowledge and thus the regulation of human free will ‘is not attained by reason a priori but entirely from experience.’ Like Buddha’s promise that ‘all are borne into suffering and all are able to liberate themselves from suffering,’ Descartes maintains that knowledge will liberate the mind, if not the soul. Though Hobbes asserts that mind, reason and intellect may be corporeal and that human nature differs only in degree of complexity from the inner workings of a clock, the existence of a corporeal soul or a non-corporeal soul is as yet unprovable. That this can’t be proved does not mean it is flawed, merely that it is beyond contemporary philosophy to expunge.

             In science, Descartes discarded tradition and to an extent supported the same method as Francis Bacon, but with emphasis on rationalisation and logic rather than upon experiences. In physical theory his doctrines were formulated as a compromise between his devotion to Roman Catholicism and his commitment to the scientific method, which met opposition in the church officials of the day. Mathematics was his greatest interest; building upon the work of others, he originated the cartesian coordinates and Cartesian curves; he is often said to be the founder of analytical geometry. To algebra he contributed the treatment of negative roots and the convention of exponent notation. He made numerous advances in optics, such as his study of the reflection and refraction of light. He wrote a text on physiology, and he also worked in psychology; he contended that emotion was ultimately a physiological one and debated how the control of the physical expression of emotion would control the emotions themselves. His chief work on psychology is in his Traité des passions de l'âme (1649).

            Descartes, it would seem, in his philosophical work, continued along the same lines of the church philosophers: the deductive approach of accepting notions which have no basis in reality, and then to proceed to build on those. No one can trust the result of such a process: a conclusion can never be more trustworthy than the premises on which it is built. For one to profess a belief in such a process is to profess one’s ignorance of the fundamental universal principles, or natural laws, which have guided man along a very long evolutionary past. 

Descartes adopted the strategy of withholding his belief from anything that was not entirely certain and indubitable. To test which of his previous beliefs could meet these conditions, he subjected them to a series of sceptical hypotheses. For example, he asked himself whether he could be certain he was not dreaming. His most powerful sceptical hypothesis, that there is an evil genius trying to deceive him, challenges not only the belief that the physical world exists, but also belief in simple statements of fact, and thus would seem to call into question the validity of reason itself. But not even an evil genius could deceive someone into believing falsely that he existed. ‘I think, therefore I am’ is thus beyond sceptical doubt. From this Archimedean point, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ Descartes attempted to regain the world called into doubt by his sceptical hypotheses. His solution to the problem was rejected by later generations, however, and philosophers have been struggling with scepticism - especially scepticism about the existence of the physical world - ever since.

            Descartes is known as the father of the mind-body problem. He claimed that human beings are composites of two kinds of substances, mind and body. A mind is a conscious or thinking being, that is, it understands, wills, senses, and imagines. A body is a being extended in length, width, and breadth. Minds are indivisible, whereas bodies are infinitely divisible. The ‘I’ of the ‘I think, therefore I am’ is the mind and can exist without being extended, so that it can in principle survive the death of the body. Despite having different natures, Descartes thought that mind and body causally interact. The human mind causes motions in the bodies by moving a small part of the brain. Motions in that same part of the brain produce sensations and emotions. This problem of whether mental entities are different in nature from physical entities continues to be a primary concern of philosophers and psychologists. Descartes stated that bodies differ from how they appear through senses. Colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat, and cold are merely sensations existing in thought, and there is nothing in bodies that resembles them, just as there is nothing in bodies that resembles our sensation of pain. Instead the properties of bodies are those which are capable of being quantified, namely, extension and its modes, shape, size, and motion. He denied the existence of a vacuum, because what one would be inclined to call empty space meets his definition of body in virtue of being extended in three dimensions. All the phenomena in the created world external to human beings, such as gravity, magnetism, and the cohesion of bodies, as well as the complex functioning of living organisms including human bodies, he believed could be explained solely by mechanistic physics, that is, by the motions and collisions of bodies. He even denied that consciousness must be attributed to animals in order to explain their behaviour. Although his laws of impact, his vortex theory of gravity, and his denial of a vacuum were rejected as physics developed, he deserves credit for one of the first formulations of the law of inertia, which he justified by appeal to the immutability of God.

            Descartes influenced not only the rationalist thinkers who were his immediate followers, but also the whole course of modern philosophical inquiry, and the Cartesian quest for certainty gave Epistemology the central place in philosophical thought it has maintained to this day. In the final analysis, the subject of philosophy as a science was not much advanced by Descartes. It was not until Francis Bacon and those that came after him, before a scientific method, inductive thinking, could be utilised for scientific understanding to advance significantly.

            Julien de La Mettrie (1709-1751) was a French physician and philosopher who offered a materialistic account of human nature. He rejected cartesian dualism and explained mental activity by reference to physiology. In his book Man a Machine, he explained physiology in purely mechanistic terms. On this view, human conduct inevitably flows from physical causes, leaving no grounds for free will or moral responsibility. The Cartesians were correct when they regarded all animal behaviour as emerging from soulless machines, La Mettrie maintained, but the same explanation will also account for human behaviour. 

Epistemology

            ‘Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.’

Francis Bacon

 Our knowledge of who we are as individuals gradually evolved over centuries. The questions which were asked in the time of the pyramids, 1,000 years and more before Christ, have remained essentially unchanged today. Philosophers have for thousands of years debated at length as to whether or not there is a ghost within the machine of the human body, and if there was a ghost, whether animals had one too. What was this ghost? How could it be detected, studied, weighed, measured? Running parallel with these philosophical inquiries about what humans were, was a growing body of scientific evidence about the natural world. Humans grew more knowledgeable about the birds and the bees and the mighty seas. It seemed that the greater our knowledge of our planet and the universe, the more complex the conundrum of our existential life. Scientists in the nineteenth century felt that it was very likely that soon they would solve the mysteries of the universe and thus prove one way or the other the ultimate question of who we are. If they could solve the puzzles ‘out there’ in the stars and stripes of the cosmos, then these same truths would divulge the flagging riddle ‘in here.’ But attempts to answer the hard questions of life grow more nebulous as every answered question raises a further two. The great ‘Why?’ of science still continues as a philosophy known as epistemology.

            The word Epistemology originates from the Greek word episteme, meaning ‘knowledge’ and logos, meaning ‘theory.’ It is a branch of philosophy that addresses the philosophical problems surrounding the theory of knowledge. Epistemology is concerned with the definition of knowledge and related concepts, the sources and criteria of knowledge, the kinds of knowledge possible and the degree to which each is certain, and the exact relation between the one who knows and the object known.

            In the 5th century BC, the Greek Sophists questioned the possibility of reliable and objective knowledge. Can we really be sure that anything is real, even me who is asking this question? A leading Sophist of the time, Gorgias, proposed that nothing really exists, that if anything did exist it could not be known, and that if knowledge were possible, it could not be communicated. It’s hard to imagine such a man like Gorgias could be popular but it seems he was, for reasons of originality. It seems that few before his time were really so cynical! Another prominent Sophist, Protagoras, maintained that no person’s opinions can be said to be more correct than another’s, because each is the sole judge of his or her own experience. Plato, following his illustrious teacher Socrates, tried to answer the Sophists by postulating the existence of a world of unchanging and invisible forms, or ideas, about which it is possible to have exact and certain knowledge. The things one sees and touches, they maintained, are imperfect copies of the pure forms studied in mathematics and philosophy. Accordingly, only the abstract reasoning of these disciplines yields genuine knowledge, whereas reliance on sense perception produces vague and inconsistent opinions. They concluded that philosophical contemplation of the unseen world of forms is the highest goal of human life.

            Aristotle followed Plato in regarding abstract knowledge as superior to any other, but disagreed with him as to the proper method of achieving it. Aristotle maintained that almost all knowledge is derived from experience. Knowledge is gained either directly, by abstracting the defining traits of a species, or indirectly, by deducing new facts from those already known, in accordance with the rules of logic. Careful observation and strict adherence to the rules of logic, which were first set down in systematic form by Aristotle, would help guard against the pitfalls the Sophists had exposed. The Stoic and Epicurean schools agreed with Aristotle that knowledge originates in sense perception, but against both Aristotle and Plato they maintained that philosophy is to be valued as a practical guide to life, rather than as an end in itself.

            After many centuries of declining interest in rational and scientific knowledge, the Scholastic philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas and other philosophers of the Middle Ages helped to restore confidence in reason and experience, blending rational methods with faith into a unified system of beliefs. Aquinas followed Aristotle in regarding perception as the starting point and logic as the intellectual procedure for arriving at reliable knowledge of nature, but he considered faith in scriptural authority as the main source of religious belief.

             From the seventeenth to the late nineteenth century, the main issue in epistemology was reasoning versus sense perception in acquiring knowledge. For the rationalists, of whom René Descartes, the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz were the leaders, the main source and final test of knowledge was deductive reasoning based on self-evident principles, or axioms. For the empiricists, beginning with the English philosophers Francis Bacon and John Locke, the main source and final test of knowledge was sense perception. Bacon inaugurated the new era of modern science by criticising the medieval reliance on tradition and authority and also by setting down new rules of scientific method, including the first set of rules of inductive logic ever formulated. Locke attacked the rationalists’ belief that the principles of knowledge are intuitively self-evident, arguing that all knowledge is derived from experience, either from experience of the external world, which stamps sensations on the mind, or from internal experience, in which the mind reflects on its own activities. Human knowledge of external physical objects, he claimed, is always subject to the errors of the senses, and he concluded that one cannot have absolutely certain knowledge of the physical world.

            The Irish philosopher George Berkeley agreed with Locke that knowledge comes through ideas, but he denied Locke’s belief that a distinction can be made between ideas and objects. The British philosopher David Hume continued the empiricist tradition, but he did not accept Berkeley’s conclusion that knowledge was of ideas only. He divided all knowledge into two kinds: knowledge of relations of ideas - that is, the knowledge found in mathematics and logic, which is exact and certain but provides no information about the world; and knowledge of matters of fact - that is, the knowledge derived from sense perception. Hume asserted that most knowledge of matters of fact depends upon cause and effect, and since no logical connection exists between any given cause and its effect, one cannot hope to know any future matter of fact with certainty. Thus, the most reliable laws of science might not remain true - a conclusion that had a revolutionary impact on philosophy.

            The German philosopher Immanuel Kant tried to solve the crisis precipitated by Locke and brought to a climax by Hume; his proposed solution combined elements of rationalism with elements of empiricism. He agreed with the rationalists that one can have exact and certain knowledge, but he followed the empiricists in holding that such knowledge is more informative about the structure of thought than about the world outside of thought. He distinguished three kinds of knowledge: analytical a priori, which is exact and certain but uninformative, because it makes clear only what is contained in definitions; synthetic a posteriori, which conveys information about the world learned from experience, but is subject to the errors of the senses; and synthetic a priori, which is discovered by pure intuition and is both exact and certain, for it expresses the necessary conditions that the mind imposes on all objects of experience. Mathematics and philosophy, according to Kant, provide this last. Since the time of Kant, one of the most frequently debated questions in philosophy has been whether or not such a thing as synthetic a priori knowledge really exists.

            During the nineteenth century, the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel revived the rationalist claim that absolutely certain knowledge of reality can be obtained by equating the processes of thought, of nature, and of history. Hegel inspired an interest in history and a historical approach to knowledge that was further emphasised by Herbert Spencer in Great Britain and by the German school of historicism. Spencer and the French philosopher Auguste Comte brought attention to the importance of sociology as a branch of knowledge, and both extended the principles of empiricism to the study of society. The American school of pragmatism, founded by the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey at the turn of this century, carried empiricism further by maintaining that knowledge is an instrument of action and that all beliefs should be judged by their usefulness as rules for predicting experiences.

            In the early twentieth century, epistemological problems resulted in rival schools of thought emerging. Special attention was given to the relation between the act of perceiving something, the object directly perceived, and the thing that can be said to be known as a result of the perception. The phenomenalists contended that the objects of knowledge are the same as the objects perceived. The neorealists say that one has direct perceptions of physical objects or parts of physical objects, rather than of one’s own mental states. The critical realists took a middle position, holding that although one perceives only sensory data such as colours and sounds, these stand for physical objects and provide knowledge thereof. A method for dealing with the problem of clarifying the relation between the act of knowing and the object known was developed by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (discussed later). He outlined an elaborate procedure that he called phenomenology, by which one is said to be able to distinguish the way things appear to be from the way one thinks they really are, thus gaining a more precise understanding of the conceptual foundations of knowledge. During the second quarter of the twentieth century, two schools of thought emerged, each indebted to the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The first of these schools, logical empiricism, or logical positivism, had its origins in Vienna, Austria, but it soon spread to England and the United States. The logical empiricists insisted that there is only one kind of knowledge: scientific knowledge; that any valid knowledge claim must be verifiable in experience; and hence that much that had passed for philosophy was neither true nor false but literally meaningless. Finally, following Hume and Kant, a clear distinction must be maintained between analytic and synthetic statements. The so-called verifiability criterion of meaning has undergone changes as a result of discussions among the logical empiricists themselves, as well as their critics, but has not been discarded. More recently, the sharp distinction between the analytic and the synthetic has been attacked by a number of philosophers, chiefly by American philosopher, Quine, whose overall approach is in the pragmatic tradition.

            The latter of these recent schools of thought, generally referred to as linguistic analysis, or ordinary language philosophy, seems to break with traditional epistemology. The linguistic analysts undertake to examine the actual way key epistemological terms are used - terms such as knowledge, perception, and probability - and to formulate definitive rules for their use in order to avoid verbal confusion. British philosopher John Langshaw Austin surmised that to say a statement was true added nothing to the statement except a promise by the speaker or writer. Austin does not consider truth a quality or property attaching to statements or utterances.     

Phenomenology

            ‘To the things themselves’

                        Edmund Husserl

 There can be no complete understanding of objective reality without discussing the philosophical movement known as phenomenology. Phenomenology emerged from a twentieth-century philosophical movement dedicated to describing the structures of experience as they present themselves to consciousness without recourse to theory, deduction or assumptions from other disciplines such as the natural sciences. The founder of phenomenology, the German philosopher Edmund Husserl, introduced the term in his book Ideas: A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Phenomenology arose at the same time as quantum mechanics began to deconstruct the Newtonian paradigm of a universe operating under the basic laws of thermodynamics, gravity and motion. Husserl began to philosophise of examining the universe outside of these pre-ordained laws; trying to observe things as if they existed eternally and independently. That one could conceive of anything in such a ‘vacuum’ was at the time considered anathema to logic, and thus irrelevant to serious philosophy.

            Early followers of Husserl such as the German philosopher Max Scheler, claimed that the task of phenomenology was to study essences, such as the essence of emotions. Although Husserl himself never gave up his early interest in essences, he later held that only the essences of certain special conscious structures are the proper object of phenomenology. As formulated by Husserl after 1910, phenomenology became the study of the structures of consciousness that enable consciousness to refer to objects outside itself. This study requires reflection on the content of the mind to the exclusion of everything else. Husserl called this type of reflection the phenomenological reduction. Because the mind can be directed toward nonexistent as well as real objects, Husserl noted that phenomenological reflection does not presuppose that anything exists, but rather amounts to a ‘bracketing of existence.’ That is, setting aside the question of the real existence of the contemplated object. What Husserl discovered when he contemplated the content of his mind were such acts as remembering, desiring, and perceiving and the abstract content of these acts, which Husserl called meanings. These meanings, he claimed, enabled an act to be directed toward an object under a certain aspect; and such directedness, called ‘intentionality,’ he held to be the essence of consciousness. Transcendental phenomenology, according to Husserl, was the study of the basic components of the meanings that make intentionality possible. Later, in Cartesian Meditations, Husserl introduced genetic phenomenology, which he defined as the study of how these meanings are built up in the course of experience. That something can be studied outside of its existence in time and space was new to Western philosophy, but had been philosophised about ad nauseum by Hindu and Buddhist mystics for two thousand years. Yet Husserl, whether ignorant or dismissive of Eastern learning, contented himself with reinventing what was essentially the oriental concept of Sunyata, dependent arising. All things are ‘in essence’ or at their very heart, non-existent or indefinable except in relation to something else. Or in deference to the bard, ‘nothing is good or bad except thinking makes it so.’

            All phenomenologists subscribe to Husserl’s slogan ‘To the things themselves.’ They differ among themselves, however, as to whether the phenomenological reduction can be performed, and as to what is manifest to the philosopher giving a pure description of experience. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger, Husserl’s colleague and most brilliant critic, claimed that phenomenology should make manifest what is hidden in ordinary, everyday experience. He thus attempted in Being and Time to describe what he called the structure of ‘everydayness,’ or being-in-the-world, which he found to be an interconnected system of equipment, social roles, and purposes. Because, for Heidegger, one is what one does in the world, a phenomenological reduction to one’s own private experience is impossible; and because human action consists of a direct grasp of objects, it is not necessary to posit a special mental entity called a meaning to account for intentionality. For Heidegger, being thrown into the world among things in the act of realizing projects is a more fundamental kind of intentionality than that revealed in merely staring at or thinking about objects, and it is this more fundamental intentionality that makes possible the directness analysed by Husserl.

            The French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre attempted to adapt Heidegger’s phenomenology to the philosophy of consciousness, thereby in effect returning to Husserl. He agreed with Husserl that consciousness is always directed at objects but criticised his claim that such directedness is possible only by means of special mental entities called ‘meanings.’ The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty rejected Sartre’s view that phenomenological description reveals human beings to be pure, isolated, and with free consciousness. He stressed the role of the active, involved body in all human knowledge, thus generalising Heidegger’s insights to include the analysis of perception. Like Heidegger and Sartre, Merleau-Ponty is an existential phenomenologist, in that he denies the possibility of bracketing existence. Phenomenology has had a pervasive influence on 20th-century thought and remains one of the most important schools of contemporary philosophy. Phenomenology’s importance to contemporary society is unfortunately limited because if its complexity of philosophy, lacking as it does any simplistic notion that what we experience has meaning beyond the experience itself. For society, a simplified version of phenomenology is absent. Any attempt to grasp phenomenology leads philosophers grasping at existential nihilism, which is not what Husserl envisaged in his life long search for meaning.

            As a scientific philosophy, phenomenology holds its ground, but as a contemporary school of thought, it retains its ivory tower image. For those searching for meaning, phenomenology falls short of explaining the big questions. Modern religions are still far more popular because they at least provide a warm community of hymnal worship for those too busy or uncritical to study and delve the meaning of the Bible, Koran, Talmud or Sutras. And existentialism, born out of the phenomenology’s protracted labour, is readily accessible to today’s youth, who can delight in the nihilistic pursuits of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll while chanting the clichéd mantra of ‘live today for there is no tomorrow.’

 Existentialism

‘I have nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion’

Jack Kerouac

If there is no reason to life, then all there must remain is life. This has been the premise of what became known in the early twentieth century as Existentialism. Many philosophers believed that reason should never share beds with faith. For example, Søren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, did not think that it was rational to believe in God, rather one should have faith in God even if this seems to reason to be absurd. God is beyond reason, he contends. But contrary to this, Karl Marx believed that ‘God is merely the imaginative invention of human consciousness.’ Marx believed that a concept of God merely encouraged the oppressed to accept their fate, rather than to oppose it. Marx saw it as counterproductive to his communist ideals. ‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed, the opium of the people. The abolition of religion is a demand for their real happiness.’ Krisnamurti, although he believed in an afterlife, challenged his followers belief. He said that we should not believe in something after death if it is because we are afraid of dying, or of coming to an end. He questioned this identification with an afterlife as possibly the last desperate resort of the ego to continue its game.

            Nietzsche believed that God was merely a human concept. In the period that Nietzsche was writing, existentialism was coming to the fore. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche represented opposite reactions to the inability of rationality to give a rock solid theoretical proof of God’s existence. Kierkegaard called for people to embrace God even if it seemed an absurdity, while Nietzsche said it was time to create a new mode of being with human creativity at its centre. Nietzche claimed that religion produces two types of characters; a weak servile character that is at the same time strongly resentful towards those in power, and a superman who creates his own values. He suggests that humans have the will power which manifests as artistic and creative energy. The atheist existentialist Jean Paul Sartre accepted Nietzche’s argument that ‘God is dead,’ and much of his writing is an attempt to look at the human condition in a world that is without a prime mover who could have provided a basis and structure for the understanding of being. But the final meaning of a negative theology, of knowing God by unknowing, of the abandonment of idols both sensible and conceptual, is that ultimate faith is not in or upon anything at all. It is complete letting go. Not only is it beyond theology; it is also beyond atheism and nihilism.

            Existentialism, as an atheistic philosophical movement emphasised individual existence, freedom and choice. Elements of existentialism can be found in the thought (and life) of Socrates, in the Bible, and in the work of many pre-modern philosophers and writers. Because of the diversity of positions associated with existentialism, the term is impossible to define precisely. Certain themes common to virtually all existentialist philosophers can, however, be identified. The term itself suggests one major theme: the stress on concrete individual existence and, consequently, on subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice. Most philosophers since Plato have held that the highest ethical good is the same for everyone; insofar as one approaches moral perfection, one resembles other morally perfect individuals. The 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who was the first writer to call himself existential, reacted against this tradition by insisting that the highest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique vocation. As he wrote in his journal, ‘I must find a truth that is true for me… the idea for which I can live or die.’ Other existentialist writers have echoed Kierkegaard’s belief that one must choose one’s own way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Against the traditional view that moral choice involves an objective judgment of right and wrong, existentialists question whether any objective, rational basis can be found for moral decisions. The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche further contended that the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations.

It is not surprising then that we find the majority of Western ideology slipping from the embrace of Christendom. The human mind has been asked us to accept modern technology, gene manipulation, robotics, massive economic changes, and the dehumanisation of agriculture. We are no longer church-going farmers with work to do. The Industrial revolution of the eighteenth century liberated our bodies and now the technological revolution has liberated our minds. Where once we had to contend with ‘idle hands’ we now also have a problem of ‘idle minds.’ Unfortunately, freedom of the body or mind does not always equate with happiness. Where once we had time on our hands, we now have time on our minds. Technology has failed to satisfying our deeper psychological hungers for meaning. A DVD player doesn’t provide happiness for more than a few days. We are, as we were at the advent of the industrial revolution, unable to find ‘fulfilment’ in technology or its by-product, recreation. In the mid twentieth century, we developed ‘an insatiable satiety.’ Western society’s seems to have ignored the Oriental wisdom of ‘less is more.’ Perhaps we have ignored the truth, only to find it ignoring us.

            Until recent times, our faith in the Crucifix sustained us, lighting the dark areas of the unknown which technology and philosophy are as yet unable to penetrate. However, because of the complexity of our post-industrial world, the West cannot be satisfied with the simplistic view traditional religions provide. Their simplistic moral values are at odds with complex issues. The bible struggles with answers for such questions as ‘Do we use embryos for scientific research? When is quality of life at odds with quantity? Does a cloned human have a soul?’ Theologians are struggling to define unified answers that satisfy a scientific mind. The movement of Oriental religions into the West has questioned our belief in the Bible. Belief in the historical Christian God is becoming untenable. Secular philosophers are demanding evidence of God rather than religious theory. Having lost faith in traditional religion, many find themselves spiritually and emotionally bankrupt. Without a spiritual context they find that life is meaningless, without any direction.

Nietzsche explained in The Gay Science, present-day society’s loss of faith in the spiritual aspect of their nature and an obsession with secular materialism based on individual assertion. To quote Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, ‘Greed - for lack of a better word - is good. Greed is right. Greed works.’ Nietzsche predicted ‘long nights of ruin, destruction and cataclysm,’ as were seen in Nazi Germany during WWII, where social mores will be run by ‘a monstrous logic of terror which will come as a prophet of gloom, as a solar eclipse whose like has never before been seen.’ He envisaged a long and all-encompassing period of social darkness, and predicted the ruin of a society ‘which having been established upon religious convictions, finds itself devoid of that rubric.’ Nietzche’s fear of a return to pre-Renaissance superstitions was always paramount in his search for an existential meaning to life. Yet ultimately, Nietzsche was unable to find meaning through a cognitive study of the blood and bones of human existence. He craved a ‘superman’ who could possess complete knowledge of himself through esoteric metaphysics, and thus prove that humans are more than the sum of their thoughts.

Logic then, appears to fall short in determining what or when or how is God. Theologians, who are as unable to prove the existence of God in secular terms, defer to ‘faith’ as the solution. Dissatisfied, science looks elsewhere, usually in genes and galaxies, protons and pulsars. The big picture gives science a humble perspective of human’s role in the universe, and if anything abbreviates our quest for meaning, since our seemingly minute important in the universe belittles an answer.

Existentialists have long opined that free will is proof that God does not exist. If a benevolent God did oversee humanity, then the atrocities of humanity would never have occurred. QED, an interventionist God cannot exist, only a non-interventionist one. The logical corollary is that if a non-interventionist God does exist, does it matter? Free will then takes precedence. Unlike twentieth century existentialism, the concept of free will is as old as humanity itself. However, even though we espouse the notion that we are free to do as we will, yet rarely does such freedom incorporate a sense of self-responsibility. The upsurge in litigation affirms our desperate need to blame others for our misfortunes. We cannot believe that our inner pain is our own responsibility and not another’s.

What is interesting is that when a wise person is hurt by something or someone, they ask ‘What can I do to alleviate this pain?’, ‘What can I do to stop this from happening again?’ ‘Who can help me?’ ‘How can I make sure no one else goes through this pain?’ But when an unwise person is hurt, they ask ‘Who has done this to me?’ ‘Who can I blame for this?’ ‘Who can help me seek revenge for this?’ and ‘How can I hurt them as much as they have hurt me?’ One road leads to peace, the other, constant torment.

We as humans proudly boast our superiority by comparing ourselves to animals whose lives are supposedly driven purely by lower instincts; ants that sublimate their own needs for the colony, bees who dedicate their lives to foraging for nectar for the hive, herbivores that spend eight hours a day eating, etc. Yet when we consider the vast majority of people who dedicate their life to feeding and clothing themselves and their family, can we honestly say that our motivation is are so vastly different? This is not to demean all human commercial endeavours, but we as professionals have the fortunate situation of being able to give more than this, by developing our knowledge and technical skills beyond the more mundane pursuits of the many. Shouldn’t we make the most of this opportunity to give invaluable contribution of knowledge and service to society in our own unique way?

            All existentialists have followed Kierkegaard in stressing the importance of passionate individual action in deciding questions of both morality and truth. They have insisted, accordingly, that personal experience and acting on one’s own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth. Thus, the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer. This emphasis on the perspective of the individual agent has also made existentialists suspicious of systematic reasoning. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and other existentialist philosophers have been deliberately unsystematic in the exposition of their philosophies, preferring to express themselves in aphorisms, dialogues, parables, and other literary forms. Despite their anti-rationalist position, however, most existentialists cannot be said to be irrationalists in the sense of denying all validity to rational thought. They have held that rational clarity is desirable wherever possible, but that the most important questions in life are not accessible to reason or science. Furthermore, they believe that even science is not as rational as is commonly supposed. Nietzsche, for instance, asserted that the scientific assumption of an orderly universe is for the most part a useful fiction.

            Perhaps the most prominent theme in existentialism is that of choice. Humanity’s primary distinction, in the view of most existentialists, is the freedom to choose. Existentialists have held that human beings do not have a fixed nature, or essence, as other animals and plants do; each human being makes choices that create his or her own nature. In the formulation of the 20th-century French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence. Choice is therefore central to human existence, and it is inescapable; even the refusal to choose is a choice. Freedom of choice entails commitment and responsibility. Because individuals are free to choose their own path, existentialists say that we each must judge the risk and responsibility of following our beliefs, wherever they lead. Kierkegaard held that it is spiritually crucial to recognise that one experiences not only a fear of specific objects but also a feeling of general apprehension, which he called dread. He interpreted it as God’s way of calling each individual to make a commitment to a personally valid way of life. The word anxiety (German ‘angst’) has a similarly crucial role in the work of the philosopher Heidegger; anxiety leads to the individual’s confrontation with nothingness and with the impossibility of finding ultimate justification for the choices he or she must make. In the philosophy of Sartre, the word ‘nausea’ is used for the individual’s recognition of the pure contingency of the universe, and the word anguish is used for the recognition of the total freedom of choice that confronts the individual at every moment.

            The first to anticipate the major concerns of modern existentialism was the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Pascal rejected the rigorous rationalism of his contemporary René Descartes, asserting, in his book Pensées (1670), that a systematic philosophy that presumes to explain God and humanity is a form of pride. Like later existentialist writers, he saw human life in terms of paradoxes: The human self, which combines mind and body, is itself a paradox and contradiction.

            Existentialism has been as vital and as extensive a movement in literature as in philosophy. The 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky is probably the greatest existentialist literary figure. In Notes from the Underground (1864), the alienated antihero rages against the optimistic assumptions of rationalist humanism. The view of human nature that emerges in this and other novels of Dostoyevsky is that it is unpredictable and perversely self-destructive; only Christian love can save humanity from itself, but such love cannot be understood philosophically. As the character Alyosha says in The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80), ‘we must love life more than the meaning of it.’ In the 20th century, the novels of the Austrian Jewish writer Franz Kafka, such as The Trial and The Castle, present isolated men confronting vast, elusive, menacing bureaucracies; Kafka’s themes of anxiety, guilt, and solitude reflect the influence of Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche. The work of the French Nobel laureate-writer Albert Camus is usually associated with existentialism because of the prominence in it of such themes as the apparent absurdity and futility of life, the indifference of the universe, and the necessity of engagement in a just cause. Existentialist themes are also reflected in the theatre of the absurd, notably in the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco.

Some modern physicists endorse what is known as the ‘anthropic centre.’ This philosophy claims that a number of factors in the early universe had to coordinate in a highly statistical way to produce a universe capable of sustaining life. Many who adhere to such a principle such as Stephen Hawkings, John Leslie and Holmes Rolston argue that it demands some kind of extra-natural explanation. However, one can still hold the anthropic centre and still deny its religious implications. Wittgenstein clarifies this using logical positivistic philosophy, arguing that science and religion are just two different types of language games, and that a belief in either system requires comprehension of the language base and symbolism. In his book Culture and Value, Wittgenstein declares that ‘suffering can have a great impact on our beliefs, and that life can force new concepts onto us.’ It is our unique perspective, formed by life experiences, which nurtures our philosophical outlook, and not the other way around.

Neo-Darwinists (scientific naturalists) such as Richard Dawkins use the theory of natural selection to construct an argument against the possibility of a God guiding all biological and human developments. In his book Blind Watchmaker, he demonstrates how the theory of evolution is the only theory that is capable of explaining the organised complexity of the universe. He admits that this organised complexity is highly improbable, yet is still the best explanation. Dawkins concludes that religion and science are in fact doomed rivals which make incompatible claims, and that the conflict is resolvable in favour of science. In contrast to scientific naturalism, Charles Taylor writes in A Catholic Modernity that Darwinism denies humans any authentic aspirations to goals or states beyond the world in which they live[xvi]. In contrast to naturalism, Taylor urges a transcendental point of view; that a meaningful life does not equate with a good life. That this transcendence requires a shift from self-centredness ( a natural state) to a God-centredness. Unable to find value in suffering and death, Taylor deduces that most people focus on the ordinary life trying assiduously to avoid all pain. Resistance to a person developing a transcendent philosophy on life, Taylor says, is the main explanation for social problems of anger, futility and even contempt for life experiences by self and others. The dialectic between goal expectation and rewards is the myth lurking within capitalist dreams.

Pragmatism

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, pragmatism became the most vigorous school of thought in American philosophy. It continued the empiricist tradition of grounding knowledge on experience and stressing the inductive procedures of experimental science. Charles Sanders Peirce, who gave this view its name (from the word pragmatic, meaning practical), formulated a pragmatic theory of knowledge, which defined the meaning of a concept as the predictions that can be made by use of the concept and that can be verified by future experience. William James, whose outstanding work in psychology provided a framework for his philosophical ideas, developed the pragmatic theory of truth. He defined truth as the capacity of a belief to guide one to successful action and proposed that all beliefs be evaluated in ter