Truth in Life and Politics

In the classical theory of knowledge, epistemology, we consider truth to be the correspondence between judgment and reality, between what we think is the case and what really is the case. Finding truth involves perception and reasoning on the judging individual's part and pertains to a moral aspect, namely the human volition to seek the 'truth and nothing but the truth.' Is there a sincere intent to attain truth, or is there a mere desire to mold the perception of reality according to one's values and preconceived notions of politics and social affairs?

Social and political realities are not perceived by a bloodless technocratic entity, but rather by a human being socialized and educated, subject to emotions, and driven by interests and value dispositions. This specification of the human condition must have made Friedrich Nietzsche come up with his famous aphorism: "There are no facts, only perceptions." In other words, only if we cleanse our perceptions from those ingredients that could taint the objective perception and cognition of reality can we attain the facts of life. No human is infallible. And particularly when it comes to judging complex contexts of our existence, this ideal postulation might only remain an approximation. Notwithstanding, all human beings can potentially purge their judgments of truth-hindering additions.  

 

 To become aware of that verity, let alone overcome it, requires a certain level of philosophical erudition and capacity for critical thinking. It necessitates an attitude shaped along with the literal understanding of the term philosopher to be a friend (Philo) of truth/wisdom (Sophia). Not everybody has to be a philosopher, but everybody can avail of a particular philosophical inclination in the sense of being curious for truth and wisdom. 

But where can we still find the attitude of giving precedence to truth and objectivity over pride, prejudice, preconceptions, personal vanities and benefits, individual or group interests? Obstinacy seems to abound in all spheres of life and human interactions. Assertiveness prevails over insight gained from wrong decisions, painful experiences, and errors of judgment. 

To avoid admitting erroneous judgment and thus hurting one's sense of pride, doubling down on premises that have proven wrong and destructive appears to be the business of our time. In our day and age, the dictates of political correctness and affirmative action turn the notions of truth and objective realities into a laughingstock; facts don't count anymore; instead, only false perceptions serving unnatural agendas. In politics and personal lives, cognitive operations appear to satisfy self-absorption and personal gratification primarily. 

I need not mention examples here. The readers can find them in their personal lives and take a blunt look at their social and political environments. The scope of the described phenomenon ranges from gender policies to gun control issues, from the media's general corruption to the individual dishonesty of journalists and pundits, from the rock-bottom perfidiousness of political campaigning to the intellectual and moral decay that is taking place on the campuses.

Who and what is responsible for this deranged approach that seems to dominate so many hearts and minds? 

It owes to the disregard and lack of classical liberal arts instruction, as it has become ubiquitous in almost all fields of education. Only studying the history of ideas and the grand traditions of human thinking can provide for a substantial foundation of human identity. Solely this type of instruction is devoid of the ideological notions of contemporary social and political life. It is getting acquainted with this tradition, on whatever level of intellectual prowess and educational commitment, that instills a sense of morality that resides in the human being's conscience rather than the dictate of external expediency. This type of instruction and the knowledge that comes with it forms autonomous judgmental abilities and reflective competence that strives for objective insight and truthfulness rather than the satisfaction of individual or collective vanities and interests. 

While of significance for every human being, it is of paramount importance for scientists, politicians, physicians, judges, educators, military, and law enforcement personnel; in short, for all those who impact and hold responsibility for human's well-being.

Religion and Science

No Reason! That's the true religion. No Reason! 

What an extraordinary grace has Heaven bestowed upon you!

-- Charles de Saint-Evremond (1728)

 

Secular progressivism is on the rise. Its proponents speak out loud, and their aggressiveness penetrates our political and educational realms. In denial of their ignorance and the shortcomings of their half- or even quarter-knowledge, it peaks in silly comments like, for instance, the one made by Bill Nye, the Science Guy on TV, in September 2012, who warned that creationist views might threaten science education and innovation in the US! 

As we will find out, precisely the opposite is true. The attempt to drive out religion from science classes, get rid of intelligent design, and focus exclusively on a theory of evolution, deprives the western culture of its holistic and spiritual depth. It diminishes rather than enhances our approach to deal with existential challenges of whatever kind. 

The problem is rooted in an epistemological misconception that entails ideological abuse and produces severe moral and ethical consequences, impacting all realms of human affairs. It demonstrates that education that does not comprise profound instruction in the history of Western thinking ideas is not worth much. 

Let us step back for a moment and ask what the cause for all this is? What brought about this "Disenchantment of the West" (Max Weber)? What is the reason for the emergence of the rational scientific mind that claims to be the all-encompassing model for comprehending reality? What led to the hubris of rejecting the transcendent dimensions of our existence by so many?

Against the backdrop of the history of ideas, it becomes clear that empiricism's dominant philosophical mainstream has dominated the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American tradition for the past two hundred years. With its limitation of reality on the observable and experimentally provable, it dominated the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American tradition for the past two hundred years. It prevented it from reaching a more holistic understanding of this world, and it pretends that the final truth can be attained based upon scientific experience alone. Nevertheless, Europe is not much better off. The prevailing philosophy of rationalism, culminating in the Hegelian idealism whose dialectic dynamic of rational progress, brings about the same result – autonomous reason asserts to produce truth out of itself. Essentially, the western mind got stuck in realism and materialism in one extreme and abstract idealism in the other, or a combination of both.

 

Warnings like Friedrich Nietzsche's to withstand the temptations of science "for science lives in a profound antagonism towards the eternalizing powers of art and religion" (Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, Cambridge 1997, p. 120), were thrown into the wind. Forgotten were the insights provided by transcendental philosophy and its most prominent representative, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who has drawn, once and for all, the formal boundary between what can become reliable and unswerving knowledge for us and what cannot.

 

The bulk of intellectuals and educators of all scientific disciplines still behave as if Kant had never lived. If they only neglected or ignored Kant's teachings! It instead looks as if the core findings of transcendental philosophy are no longer even known and dealt with in the processes of science education and academic scholarly work. Who still finds it worthwhile to deal with the Platonic dimension of the dual aspect of the universe, for which transcendental philosophy introduced the terms noumenal (the real world, independent of experience) and phenomenal (the world of experience)?

 

In the present quagmire of a seemingly deadlocked discourse on the subject of religion versus science, only the findings of transcendental philosophy can illuminate us. Transcendental philosophy stipulates that no direct causal nexus exists between the two sides as the noumena do not cause phenomena. Instead, phenomena are how our mind perceives the noumena by way of its processes. Our mind applies the formal categories of time, space, and causality as a priori qualities and thus predetermines any object's cognition. Transcendental idealism recognizes that the objective order of nature and the causal necessity that operates within it are dependent upon the mind's processes. What becomes knowledge for us, particularly the systematic knowledge that science provides for us, must remain within the mind's operations' formal qualities. Consequently, human knowledge and scientific findings can never reach a final goal or arrive at the world's innermost nature, the noumenal, as the confines of the phenomenal world bound them. 

In more pragmatic terms: the religious claim for transcendent (beyond all possible experience) truth can never and will never be endangered by science; yet, scientific truth can rest contented as it will never be threatened by transcendent verities either. Both claims belong to different sides of this one world in which we all live. It is a colossal error of evolutionists to believe that we can overcome this epistemological dualism and obliterate its boundaries by scientific progress and development. It represents their fatal pretension. It is a utopian hope that can only befall those who, for whatever reason, remained or had to stay in the immature state of mind in which one finds himself when getting stuck in realism and materialism in the one extreme, or abstract idealism in the other.

However, there is also a more practical reason for why the scientific mind intends, consciously or not, to oppress, if not eliminate, the more spiritual stance on existential matters. As the transcendental view on the world is far-reaching and entails immense consequences, there are also ideological forces that prevent its influence from taking hold. It is because the transcendental view dismisses realism and its social-political manifestation, materialism in all its forms, as fundamental absurdities and limits the control of knowledge over nature and man. It is adversarial to unlimited progress and the perfectibility of man and society and stands in the way of ever-wider secularism. 

Hard as it may be to accept that progress does not take place in all things, and future-making is limited, the discomforting re-orientation is inevitable if the Western man wants to find a worldview that unmasks the pretensions of functional rationality as dogmatic speculation and puts all the spiritual faculties and forms of cognition given to man back into their rights. 

In more pragmatic and more easily comprehensible terms, the most fundamental insight transcendental philosophy provides for us is this: There will forever be dimensions to our existence that cannot become the subject of verified knowledge. So we will never prove God's existence as an undeniable fact of scientific evidence. Though neither His non-existence. There will always be a demarcation line between what can be known and what can only be believed. No matter how far we push it, the scientific horizon will never encompass the entirety of human existence. 

Therefore, to creationists, I will say this: neglecting the reality and significance of the empirical world and the impact of science investigating it is naïve; but evolutionists (materialists, atheists) I need to tell the following: disregarding the confinements of science and overlooking the ineradicable relevance of metaphysical-religious and intuitive-prerational realities, is intellectually untenable, morally irresponsible and politically dangerous.