Posted on 05/03/2016 7:22:04 AM PDT by Salvation
René Descartes
Over the years I have attempted to trace the philosophical disaster of our modern world. Certainly the fundamental roots can be traced back to the breakdown of the medieval synthesis, the rise of nominalism, and the doubts of Descartes. These introduced a disconnect from reality. Descartes introduced a radical doubt in anything seen or experienced, and this disconnects us from reality. If we pull up roots from reality and the revelation of creation, we live increasingly within our mind and out of touch with reality.
Welcome to the modern, post-Cartesian age, a strange landscape in which reality and stubborn facts aren’t considered too important. (N.B. To me, it is a strange paradox of modern times that we idolize the physical sciences; I have written more on that topic here: On the Cartesian Anxiety of our Times.)
Two of the most extreme examples of the disconnect from reality in our times are the celebration of homosexual activity and so-called transgenderism. If a “cultural Neanderthal” like me suggests that the design of the body speaks against homosexual acts by a simple consideration that the biology of sexuality is violated, I am greeted with responses ranging from blank stares to indignation (“What does the body have to do with it? It’s what I think and feel that matters!”) And thus the disconnect from reality and the retreat into the mind and psyche is complete.
How did we get here?
A few years ago, we priests of the Archdiocese of Washington attended our annual professional day. In reviewing my notes from that conference, I was once again inspired and instructed by the teaching of Msgr. Brian Bransfield, who was then the Associate General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He presented a brief, cogent description of the stages of our collective journey out of reality and into the self-defined world of personal opinion and the mind. It was really an aside within a much longer talk, but I am always appreciative of those who can see and describe the stages of our current malaise.
Allow me to quote from Msgr. Bransfield and then supply some commentary of my own. Please direct any criticism at me, not him, since I am merely excerpting from a larger talk (and context is important).
Here is the excerpt I’d like to discuss:
We can trace the fragmentation of the last four hundred years in steps:
Let’s look at each point in detail. Msgr. Bransfield’s description is in bold, black italics while my meager commentary is in plain red text.
We can trace the fragmentation of the last four hundred years in steps:
Notice the use of the word fragmentation. If we live in our heads rather than in reality, then there is very little to unite us with one another. If what I think constitutes my reality, and if the same is true for you, then we are fragmented rather than united because there is nothing outside ourselves to unite us. Each of us is living in his own little world, not in a shared experience called reality.
This began the disconnect between the actual world and what we think. Descartes entertained or struggled with radical doubt; he could not be sure that there was really anything “out there,” that is, outside his own mind. The only thing he knew for sure was that he existed, because he was a thinking agent. (This was the source of the memorable “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am)). That is all that was certain for Descartes; everything else might have been a dream or deception.
Thus the wall of separation between the thinking mind and reality was introduced.
By the way, radical doubt, though an intriguing theory and one we have all wrestled with a bit, is wholly useless at the end of the day. One cannot possibly live by it. Such folks sit on chairs that may or may not be there and avoid walking into walls that may or may not be there. But of course they are there. The doubters ignore the overwhelming evidence of reality in theory, but must navigate it in actuality. Their theory of radical doubt is useless and they violate it at every moment.
But useless though it is, the theory has proven quite intoxicating to the decaying West, which loves its dualisms and prefers conflict to synthesis.
And thus begins the retreat out of reality and into our minds. We start to live up in our heads and think something is so just because we think it to be so.
What we think becomes more important that what actually is. Thought, opinion, and feeling trump reality. Many people today do not even sense the need to check what they think against the facts. They don’t believe it’s necessary because thinking it makes it so.
Today we often hear phrases such as “That may true for you, but it’s not true for me.” Or (more humorously) “Don’t confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up!” And thus what we think trumps reality. We actually start to believe that statements like “Truth is relative” are real arguments (they are not). It’s really just lazy “living up in our head” and a stubborn refusal to engage reality.
This partly explains the shredding of tradition and the iconoclastic tendencies of the modern age. Who cares what the ancients said or thought? If you and I (who are contemporaries) can’t even agree on what is real, and if all that matters is what I think, then why should what I care what you think, let alone what someone who lived centuries ago thought? If we all just live up in our heads rather than in reality, then what do I have in common with you let alone with The Founding Fathers, St. Thomas, or Jesus for that matter. All that matters is what I think; everything else goes in the shredder.
And thus the modern battle over terminology: pro-abortion or pro-choice, baby or fetus, fornication or cohabitation, homosexual or gay, redefining marriage or marriage freedom, refugee or “undocumented” (or even worse, “illegal alien”).
So much hinges on terminology , semantics, euphemisms, and redefinition; thought overrules reality. If we can influence thought, then reality doesn’t matter. Never mind that a baby has been dismembered alive, this is all about “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” And “sodomy” is such an unpleasant reality; let’s just call it “gay love.” And men can call themselves women and we are supposed to say, “Isn’t that nice.”
It’s as if we suppose that our terminology and thoughts can somehow change reality. They cannot. But in this post-Cartesian fog we’re in, that is exactly what we suppose. Away with reality; all that matters is what I think!
Yes, or so we think.
And here is where things begin to get scary. Reality is what I say it is. No one gets to tell me what to do or what to think; I should answer to no one.
As Pope Benedict warned, while this attitude marches under the banners of tolerance and freedom, the ultimate result is tyranny.
This is because if you and I cannot agree on something outside ourselves to which each of us is bound (e.g., reality) and to which we must answer, then we cannot appeal to that. Instead we must resort to the use of power to enact our view. Raw power—be it political, economic, or merely the power of popular opinion—is now used to impose agendas. Appeals to reason, common sense, justice, religious values, and even to constitutional parameters are becoming increasingly difficult.
In the video below, Fr. Robert Barron laments that we can’t even have a decent argument anymore since we seem to agree on so little; we just end up talking past one another. The final result is the use of raw power. Reality is what I think; I am autonomous. If you don’t agree with me, at first I will first ignore you. If that doesn’t work, I will work to marginalize you, to eliminate your influence. And if necessary, I will destroy you.
Welcome to the dark side of the Cartesian divide.
Yes, today we witness the exaltation of nothing, the outright celebration that “nothing is true.” Indeed, we live in self-congratulatory times where many, if not most, applaud their nihilism as being “open-minded,” “tolerant,” “humanitarian,” and so forth.
But as Msgr. Bransfield points out, all this really does is to sever communion. There is nothing humanitarian about it because there is no real communion between human beings possible when I just live in my own head. Further, there is nothing to be tolerant of because there is nothing out there (outside what I think) to tolerate. And there is absolutely nothing open-minded in any of it, because it is the ultimate in close-mindedness to say, “Reality is what I think it is, and that settles it.” For the modern post-Cartesian, tolerance is “your right to agree with me.” Being open-minded means you agree with me. And humanitarianism is only what I say it is.
So here we are in a post-Cartesian malaise, with the vast majority of us living up inside our own heads. In this climate the Church must keep shouting reality.
It is dark now and it will likely get darker. But reality has a funny way of reasserting itself. Our little collective experiment in unreality will necessarily run its course. Let us pray that our reintroduction to reality will not be too harsh. But I am afraid that it will be.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
That is all that was certain for Descartes; everything else might have been a dream or deception.”
Complete rubbish.
There is plenty of certainty in Descartes...that’s sort of his whole point. It’s just that he wants to obtain certainty beginning on a firm foundation. He only doubts as a starting point, then begins anew.
Now...obviously...you can say that his certainties (which include, incidentaly, some of Newton’s laws....) are not grounded or do not follow. Or you can say that IN EFFECT as a matter of history that his beginning point brought about uncertainty.
But it’s simply wrong to say that Descartes had only one point of certainty.
This is half-assed philosophy. And it’s not helpful.
Incidentally, Descartes also sought the help of a Catholic seminary in his day to try to help him think about truth. He made a very eloquent plea, in fact, and if you read his letter it seems to be in good faith. He was ignored. So he gave it a shot on his own. And this is what he came up with.
So he was ignored then, and he is only partially read today. Very unhelpful.
“4. Man’s understanding of himself and the world has been in a downward spiral ever since. Only the mind and what the mind says is reality, is real.”
This is where Descartes went off the rails. The first 3 points are actually basically in agreement with the Biblical view, just arrived at through a different path.
Now if you rely on logic, alone, point four may seem to flow naturally from the first three, but if you posit point four, any further conclusions that you might draw are worthless, since you could never hope to determine if ANYTHING is real. If you let your subjective mind be the instrument of observation and the sole judge of reality, then everything you experience could be delusion, or fantasy, and you have no way of proving otherwise.
So logic would dictate that you must accept the existence of an external, objective reality as an a priori assumption, if you hope to draw logical conclusions farther than point 4. The failure of the modernists and postmodernists to realize that is what really causes the trouble.
You are confusing Descartes with his philosophy. Marx once said that he was not a marxist. The man is more than his philosophy. But the Philosophy lives on and its idealism morphs into something else. No longer method but a truth in itself. Something of the same happens with Hobbes. His philosophy is born of his exposure to an awful war. (Cromwell’s savagery in Ireland is much underplayed), But we than have Hume and in reaction the idealism of Kant, then Hegel, and then German atheism, made flesh by the followers of Marx and in reaction, by Hitler and, I dare say by the “Christian” Democracy of true EU.
Philosophers of the day found his doubts quite compelling, but not so much his proofs. The blowback from Cogito Ergo Sum seems to have been the unintended consequence of a well-intentioned Christian.
TLTR
Respectfully....I would say that I am making that mistake. The author is.
The author said that Descartes was uncertain.
Descartes was not uncertain, and his philosophy on the face of it leads to great certainty.
However...as it functions in the history of philosophy, some of the author’s points are correct. Descartes’ philosophy is clearly a turning point. But the statement, “Descartes was uncertain” is simply false.
The opposite is true. Descartes was SUPREMELY certain. He may well have been wrong, but he was not uncertain.
And Descartes was not very insightful in that he didn’t see how his starting point was going to unleash havoc in the world....precisely b/c peopel would make the mistake the author has apparently made. They stopped reading after Descartes says that the starting point where we must start is the Cogito. If you stop reading, it seems like that is where he ends, but it isn’t. He keeps going ...and going...and going...and going....and insisting every step of the way that his conclusions follow inexorably from what he just said in the previous section.
In any event...to be continued. :)
yes.
I have often found it very poignant that Descartes tried, apparently sincerely, pretty much on his own....and this is what he came up with.
Incidentally....but related....TS Eliot said the exact same thing about Tennyson’s In Memorium. He said the quality of the doubt is exquisite...but he didn’t buy Tennyson’s utterances which are in line with the orthodox Christian faith.
Why is it that collectively we find doubt more persuasive than proclamations of truth? Arrgh.....
I meant to say, of course, that I am NOT making that mistake.....ba ha ha.
I guess this is how misunderstandings happen when one philosophisizes.
At least Rene wasn’t posting on Free Republic.....and like me hitting post without proofreading....
“Let us pray that our reintroduction to reality will not be too harsh. But I am afraid that it will be.”
There is no separation between the physical and spirituality, the two are one.
Reality is a function of perception and our perception of reality is a function of the frequency of consciousness from which we view reality. I have found that by praying and tuning our consciousness to a higher level, consciousness itself, including thoughts and stored memories become physical objects. There is no dualism.
In fact, the “Tower of Babel” concept relates to the various levels of consciousness. There is much more to this than most understand.
Our reality changes when we cleanse our souls and/or receive the Holy Spirit. The “Born Again” or new way of perceiving is a direct result in the change in our consciousness. We can tune our consciousness so low that mole hills look like mountains or so high that mountains look like mole hills. When you tune to the higher levels of consciousness in prayer, not only are things previously invisible now visible, but you begin to perceive directly from your soul or spirit rather than just your five physical senses.
Just my humble opinion based upon my perception of past experiences
By the way, all thoughts manifest at different levels of physicality. Thus we must be careful what we think as we may as well have done it!!!
Very true what you say.
Descartes work was all about finding a defense of reality of what undeniably exists.
So, though the author is wrong in blaming Descartes for our departure from reality into delusion, he’s correct in saying that it has happened especially in academia.
Not to worry, though, reality will sooner than later get its revenge.
I wish I had a week with nothing else to do, so I could critique this point by point. Instead, I’ll just make one point.
There is reality, and then there is our perception of reality, and they are not the same. We know this because we have enough knowledge of the physical world, and of our own biology, to refute our own perceptions. A simple example: “color” is something we perceive in the world, but it does not exist in the world, only electromagnetic waves c.700-400 nanometers, which are reflected off objects, are absorbed by our eyeballs, and then transduced into electrical impulses sent to our brain, which then creates a conscious fiction that the objects have color—it’s a fiction because there is no such thing as color, and it is conscious because it occurs in our conscious mind. Except that the objects are not solid: we perceive that they are solid because they block our entry, but we also know that they are nothing more than a collection of electrical impulses (subatomic particles) that at any instant only fill one billionth the volume of the object. Except that the electrical impulses are not what they seem, as quantum physics and beyond shows us...
We make a distinction between practical decision-making and knowledge of reality on a regular basis: I don’t try to walk through a wall because I “know” it is only a collection of electrical impulses, because a combination of testimony (other people’s experiences) and personal experience leads me to not take the chance that my attempted walk-through would be successful. However, I also know that, if the electrical impulses that make up my body could be positioned in just the right locations as to not coincide with the electrical impulses that make up the wall, I could walk through the wall and come out the other side without injury to either myself or the wall.
So if I walked with God closely enough to have the faith of a grain of mustard seed, if God were to lead me to walk through the wall, I could walk through the wall, knowing that He is capable of positioning the electrical impulses exactly as necessary—just as I could command the mountain to remove itself and go into the sea, even if I don’t yet understand at all how it could be done, the way I can understand today how walking through a wall could be done.
This is part of the distinction that is made in I Corinthians 2:14, which distinguishes between the “natural man,” which in the Greek means the man of “psyche,” the logical-minded man, and the spirit of God. Ultimate truth can only be found in the spirit of God, because only the spirit of God fully understands the nature of all existence, having proceeded from the Father (and perhaps from the Son, that’s a topic for another time :> ). The best we can know about anything is either what our rational mind is capable of formulating based on reason and evidence—which is what Descartes was attempting to do—or what the spirit of God is willing to impart to us through revelation, which includes the recorded revelation of Scripture, and the present-day revelation of His Spirit to our spirit, which would be additional without being contradictory.
I have written much too much already, but the destruction of reason does not come from Descartes, but from Hegel, and it is in the post-Hegelian world that the antichrist spirit finds its greatest opening to spiral the world towards the end of the age.
I read this early this morning. It is right ON the mark!
Descarte walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Will you have your usual?" Descarte ponders a bit and says, "No, I think not." He then disappears in a puff of logic.
**There is much more to this than most understand.**
I’ll second that!
“There is reality, and then there is our perception of reality, and they are not the same.”
No... they are the same. However there is perception of reality and “false perception” of reality which can exist at the same level of reality or at different levels.
We are holding a conference on this in Chapel Hill NC June 8th to 12th
http://ascsi2.ning.com/page/pre-conference-events
Pre-Conference Workshop
Wednesday June 8 - 10:30 am to 5:00 pm
“The Future of the Science of Consciousness-—After We Awaken Our Experience to the New Paradigms for Reality”
Presented By:
Dr. Vernon Neppe and Dr. Edward Close
Two pioneering scientists, Dr Vernon Neppe and Dr Edward Close have literally applied science to change our understanding of reality by examining the major differences between our day to day experience and our true existence.
yes...the revenge of reality...the world does sort of seem to work like that, doesn’t it.....
Unfortunately, the revenge of reality won’t be pretty.
I love the last two stanza’s of Kipling’s “The Gods Of The Copybook Headings”...
“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
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