Posted on 12/08/2002 12:25:26 PM PST by betty boop
What Voegelin hopes to show you -- or reveal to you -- is the experience of human beings down the millennia, as they have attempted to grapple with the human condition which is still our own condition. Invariably, intellect and transcendence (plus ideation and reason) have been the sources of human understanding of man, his place in the world, and his relations to his fellow men.
Once upon a time, before the concept of radical individualism seized the modern imagination, people understood they were participants in a community of being that had its Source outside the physical universe. Now you may wish to argue that this is a silly superstition. But I would not agree with you. For I have so far been unable to locate reasonable explanations that answer Leibnitz's two famous questions anywhere in the physical world. If we insist the explanation is "there" (which strikes me as a kind of "faith statement"), then neither I nor 6 millennia of human generations have yet to find it. If it's really not "there," then with all our ingenuity, we won't find it "there," no matter how much we want to/"need" to....
Still, reason tells me it must be somewhere. And so if the answer to the questions "Why is there something, why not nothing? and "Why are things the way they are and not some other way?" cannot be found here in physical reality, where can they be found?
Anyone can do the Voegelin cha-cha - it's easy. Just jump right in ;)
Well, which is it, faith or reason that tells you that the answers exist? Why should deep answers to those questions A) exist, and; B) be accessible to us? These would hardly be the first questions, after all, that are fundamentally unanswerable, either because there is no answer or because the answer is inaccessible to us. Of course, pragmatist that I am, I can't help but point out that an inaccessible answer is equivalent, for all practical purposes, to no answer at all.
What if the only tenable answer to the question of "why is there something rather than nothing?" is "How else would you have it be?" Which may seem trivial and unsatisfying to some, but I don't worry about that. In the grand scheme of things, BB, we are small. And it is a curious sort of egoism for small creatures like us to insist that everything in the universe and beyond be accessible and satisfactory.
Voegelin spends much time asking questions that don't have answers, in the hopes that answers can be teased out of the fabric of reality and spirit - of course, he would disagree that there are no satisfactory answers for Leibniz, I think. But recognizing that some questions don't have answers for us is the beginning of developing a sense of perspective, and an understanding of the place we occupy. Carrying on as though the universe can cough up an answer to why there is something rather than nothing is a way of arrogating to ourselves a place we cannot claim, and a perspective we cannot have.
Some things are mysteries to us. Some things will always be mysteries to us. This is the nature of what it means to be human.
It should be pretty clear what Socrates and Aristotle thought about that as well. The connection without gets lost with Kant and Hegel.
Is this a cartesian mediation?
For others, it is the beginning of "Second Realities."
It is! It is! It's a cartesian mediation! It's the cartesian cha-cha!
If there is one, of course. My opinion of Kant tends to vary, based on how foul of a mood I'm in on a given day, but I have no use for Hegelianism, whether right or left....
Close. It's a Cartesian intervention. Don't worry - I'm here to help ;)
While I agree with you to a certain extent that "doctrinal thinking" is limited to our finitude I would contend that revelation is necessarily 'knowledge possessed'.
Isn't the real problem our limitations of analysis?
Both, general_re. For I have it both by “faith” and “reason” that the universe is intelligible; and I seem to be intelligent in some degree. Therefore, there’s something for reason to do….
Why should deep answers to those questions A) exist, and; B) be accessible to us? These would hardly be the first questions, after all, that are fundamentally unanswerable, either because there is no answer or because the answer is inaccessible to us.
These questions may be “unanswerable,” in the sense of not being answerable in the sense of establishing certainty. But because we have no certainty, does that mean the questions ought not to be raised? Our own human experience forces these kinds of questions on us. And for millennia, men have been asking them, and coming up with the best “answers” of which they were capable. There is no “final” answer; for the point is, these are open questions. They are the very questions that human beings ask, and have been asking, apparently ever since there have been human beings.
Perhaps we ask them because of our own perceived sense of “smallness” (a relative term), our sense of finitude, our sense of contingency: “[W]e find ourselves referred back to nothing more formidable than the experiences of finiteness and creatureliness in our existence, of being creatures of a day as the poets call man, of being born and bound to die, of dissatisfaction with a state experienced as imperfect, of apprehension of a perfection that is not of this world … of possible fulfillment in a state beyond this world…. [W]e can see philosophy emerging from the immediate experiences as an attempt to illuminate existence”….
An attempt. Men try. And men fail. But for all that, it seems to be man’s irrepressible nature to try, even at the risk of failure. To try against the background of existential uncertainty seems to be a mark of man.
Where do men get this idea of “perfection” not attained or attainable “in this world?” Where does such a notion come from? For that matter, where did we get the idea that there is such a thing as truth – be it knowable or unknowable?
Of course, pragmatist that I am, I can’t help but point out that an inaccessible answer is equivalent, for all practical purposes, to no answer at all.
Forgive me, general_re, but IMHO, this is a thoroughly “smart-*ss” take on your part. The point is, men act as if there were answers to be had, that all answers are potentially accessible. We might not get them “now”; but we’ll get them “sometime.” If this weren’t so about man, human progress would cease, and mankind would sink into pure animality.
And it is a curious sort of egoism for small creatures like us to insist that everything in the universe and beyond be accessible and satisfactory.
Well, go figure, general_re, that such a small thing as man feels himself up to the challenge of understanding his world. I can’t speak for others; but for myself, I don’t insist that everything be “accessible” to me – for I know that is impossible, for reasons of my own insufficiency, and the sheer size of the problem. And I don’t require the universe to be “satisfactory” to me – in the sense that I believe I can “constitute it” better, that is along lines more congenial to me personally. To try to see the world truthfully as it is, for what it is -- that is enough of a challenge for me.
Personally, I’d prefer a world in which people could be kind to each other, to live in liberty and justice and peace and beauty and goodness and all of that. But I know it ain’t gonna happen – absent divine intervention. And Christian Revelation tells us that’s exactly what’s going to happen some day. I cannot “perfect” the world (though I can try to work on me, recalcitrant material that I am….); if the world is “perfectible” at all, I’m pretty sure that sort of thing is beyond the powers of human kind.
Voegelin spends much time asking questions that don’t have answers, in the hopes that answers can be teased out of the fabric of reality and spirit -- of course, he would disagree that there are no satisfactory answers for Leibniz, I think.
There are no answers if we can’t “tease them out of the fabric of reality and spirit.” There wouldn’t even be questions without that fabric.
Truth, you might say, is a “work in progress.” I don’t think Voegelin puts himself in the position of deciding whether various answers to Leibnitz’s questions are “satisfactory” or otherwise “up to snuff.” The fascination for him is how human beings of different times and cultures answer these questions. He’s fascinated with the ubiquity of the questions themselves – it seems to signify a kind of “property” (if we can call it that) of the human spirit that man perennially engages precisely these questions. In a certain strict sense, there are no “right” or “wrong” answers – the search for truth is a quest, never a final possession.
Some things are mysteries to us. Some things will always be mysteries to us. This is the nature of what it means to be human.
No disagreement here, general_re. Thanks for writing.
For the person who "gets it," I'd say, yes, definitely -- that is valid "knowledge possessed." But we only possess it because it is a free gift to us from its Source -- God. We can't "do it" all on our own. We can't "take heaven by storm." And the Spirit moves where it wilt....
And I have a fairly confident feeling at this point in my spiritual development that God tends to judge man precisely in terms of the kinds of judgments that man renders against his neighbor.... Of course, you do not believe in God. And so this entire conversation is not merely superfluous, but utterly devoid of meaning to you.... (If I had to guess....)
You are guessing betty, - obviously. Just as you are also desperate to find some way to discredit my observation that V. is an intellectual sham. #55 - tpaine.
Now, when I see you make this comment to our general_re:
"Forgive me, general_re, but IMHO, this is a thoroughly "smart-*ss" take on your part."
-- I realise I should have made the same type of retort to you.
Perhaps you should look in the mirror to find the sanctimonious smart ass on this thread.
- "Thanks for writing" -
Is that so, g_r?
Hey, I could be wrong. I'm not exactly making these pronouncements with a high degree of certitude - maybe the answers you seek are out there. I tend to think not, but then again, I don't know for sure. And the uncertainty doesn't particularly bother me.
Our own human experience forces these kinds of questions on us. And for millennia, men have been asking them, and coming up with the best “answers” of which they were capable. There is no “final” answer; for the point is, these are open questions. They are the very questions that human beings ask, and have been asking, apparently ever since there have been human beings.
Really? Most people go their entire lives, wondering only briefly about such things, if they bother to wonder at all. We are born, we live, and we die, and the world continues to turn and the sun continues to rise, regardless of our notions of "truth" and "reality".
We hold up the Kants and Descartes and Voegelins of the world because they think about things most people don't, and so we assume they know things that the rest of us don't, and have discovered things that the rest of us haven't. Lately, I've come to the conclusion that this is exactly backwards - actually, what is happening is that the rest of the world knows things that the Kants and Voegelins don't. Or that they've forgotten. And so, off they go, the Voegelins of the world, looking for answers that are as plain as day to everyone else - namely, that the world is out there, not in here.
But the Voegelins don't know that, or they can't see that - he, being a rather complicated fellow, imagines the universe to be a rather complicated place. But what you end up with is an endless nightmare of reification, where your abstract thought-things are somehow taken to be an accurate representation of how abstract world-things actually are. Which, of course, you have absolutely no way of knowing, because they were immaterial and not formally representable to begin with, and now you have abstractions of abstractions. And every layer of abstraction you introduce divorces you that much more from the true nature of things. So you end up spending all your time trying to cram the entire world into your head, instead of keeping your head in the world.
Well, who needs that? Life is lived, not imagined. The universe exists as it is, in spite of our attempts to impose order on it and make it conform to our desires for "truth" or "reality". It's like looking through a hundred panes of glass, and thinking that you'll be able to see clearly if only you can jigger them into the right order. If only we can find the right combination of abstractions, we'll be able to see clearly the nature of "truth" and "reality". But the real solution is to toss them all out, and start from there, only pulling them out one at a time, as needed, on an ad hoc basis. You want to know "truth" and "reality"? Let's start with what we know is.
An attempt. Men try. And men fail.
They all fail. All of them. All of them fail to answer the question of "why something instead of nothing?" You may see the value of asking the question, but frankly, I don't. Existence is. Like everything else we try to understand, some things have to be taken axiomatically, as a brick wall beyond which the "truth", if any, is unknowable. Why existence? Why this existence, and not some other? Even if you stumble on the "truth" of those questions, how will you know it?
I used to ask myself those questions. But then I realized that life is inherently uncertain. Uncertainty is our lot in so very many ways. Navel-gazing leads you one of two places - nowhere, or unwarranted certitude. And so I have abandoned it is favor of a simple life of hedonism and debauchery. If there is a "right" answer, odds are that my answer is the "wrong" answer also, but you places your bet, and you takes your chances. There are no guarantees.
Where do men get this idea of “perfection” not attained or attainable “in this world?” Where does such a notion come from? For that matter, where did we get the idea that there is such a thing as truth – be it knowable or unknowable?
What difference does it make? Suppose for a moment that you had those answers, with absolute certainty. And suppose that those answers corresponded exactly with what you already believe to be true - that those concepts came to Man directly from God (or whatever the precise details might be for you). What would you do differently if you had that answer? Now suppose that you had the answer to those questions, again with absolute certainty, but it turned out that you were completely wrong about everything - those concepts simply arose by random chance, in an entirely random universe, just as you yourself did. Given that answer, what would you do tomorrow that you didn't do today?
Forgive me, general_re, but IMHO, this is a thoroughly “smart-*ss” take on your part. The point is, men act as if there were answers to be had, that all answers are potentially accessible.
LOL. Smart it may be, but is it true? Are there unanswerable questions? If there are, what would you call someone who insists on acting based upon how they want things to be, rather than as they actually are?
but for myself, I don’t insist that everything be “accessible” to me – for I know that is impossible, for reasons of my own insufficiency, and the sheer size of the problem.
Goodness, BB - you're off on an exploration of God, life, the universe, truth, and reality. Given that, what on earth do you think is beyond your ken to understand? If you think some things might be beyond you, perhaps you should start with more mundane mysteries to test your limits a bit. Explain to me why hot dogs come in packages of ten, while buns come in packages of eight, and I'll put your penetrating insight up against EV any day of the week ;)
To try to see the world truthfully as it is, for what it is -- that is enough of a challenge for me.
And if the hidden details turn out to be ugly and annoying?
Truth, you might say, is a “work in progress.” I don’t think Voegelin puts himself in the position of deciding whether various answers to Leibnitz’s questions are “satisfactory” or otherwise “up to snuff.”
But he thinks there is an answer. I don't.
In a certain strict sense, there are no “right” or “wrong” answers – the search for truth is a quest, never a final possession.
The truth is an asymptote. The harder you try, the closer you can get, although you can never fully get there. Unfortunately, in some things, nobody seems to agree on just where that asymptote should theoretically be. Everyone seems to have a different conception of the God-truth they are approaching-without-ever-reaching. Which leads one to ask, is there really only one God-truth after all? If so, how do we know which one it is?
I like this approach: Ethical Monotheism.
Best.
What I think of revelation? Too deus ex machina for my tastes. Besides, revelations seem to be rather unevenly distributed, and I prefer not to have God get bogged down in the details of distributional justice and equality. ;)
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