AS a pragmatist, I live by the following rule: when the nature of a belief is such that it cannot be corroborated or falsified by observable facts, such belief should be evaluated by the practical consequences it carries if one was to hold it as true. This is the simplest account I can offer to describe what pragmatism means. From this perspective, pragmatism is a rather modest method that offers us a way for evaluating certain kinds of beliefs; it does not prescribe that we ought to use it, it just offers itself as an alternative for dealing with a specific problem.
It is important to notice that this definition of pragmatism narrows its scope dramatically: one should not be pragmatic about beliefs that can be corroborated or falsified by facts e.g. the belief that it is raining outside should not be evaluated on the basis of the practical consequences that its truthfulness carries over me. If the fact that it is raining ruins my day this does not mean that one should be “pragmatic” about it and choose to believe the weather is rather gorgeous. Instead, where pragmatism earns its keep is in dealing with beliefs that go beyond the scope of what can be factually tested. Those beliefs are what philosophers call metaphysical beliefs i.e. beliefs that go beyond the physical world.
Now, it is true that in many cases it is very difficult to know for sure if a certain belief is truly beyond the scope of the physical as there might be evidence that we have not come across yet–or that we do not possess the technology yet to assess—that could prove or disprove the belief in question. That said there are certainly strong candidates for what one could classify as metaphysical beliefs. Moral beliefs, when held as universally valid statements, are certainly metaphysical (or aspire to be metaphysical). For instance, a moral universalist would argue that there is nothing in the world of facts that would prove or disprove the badness of killing babies. Killing babies is bad categorically. Theism, and in particular what we commonly call “faith”, are also strong candidates for metaphysical beliefs. Faith is by definition a type of belief that cannot (and does not aspire to) be established as true through the usual epistemological channels. The strongest characteristic of faith is that it fashions itself as un-falsifiable; this aspiration separates it starkly from common belief: no matter how strongly corroborated a common belief is we all accept that it could always be falsified by the occurrence of a novel fact. In contrast, faith is “epistemologically asymmetric”: the faithful can indeed consider factual evidence as corroborating their faith but cannot consider factual evidence as disproving it. If they could do so, then it would not be faith, it would be plain and simple belief.
That faith is by its own nature un-falsifiable is what makes it an interesting topic for a pragmatic discussion. What pragmatism wants to get out of the engagement with the faithful is not to examine the truthfulness or falseness of their beliefs, but to illuminate the potentially perilous consequences that having un-falsifiable beliefs has in an interconnected and plural world like ours. For us pragmatists, the interminable discussion between atheists and believers around the existence or non-existence of god is certainly interesting but by nature probably unsettable. The more pressing discussion should be around the consequences of taking certain beliefs to be un-unfalsifiable in a world in which our formerly private worldviews are being interlaced and exposed beyond reverse. The rise of fundamentalism calls for a pragmatic reassessment of the way in which we hold certain beliefs and faith should not be excluded from this healthy reexamination. The age of keeping a tightly controlled Chinese wall between our private beliefs and our public engagements is coming to an end either we like it or not. It is inevitable that going forward, those cherished beliefs that we all kept privately will find themselves suddenly in stark confrontation with those of other fellow netizens in this intertwined global village. That faith is by its own epistemic nature problematic in such a globalized and interconnected setting is something that we all need to recognize.
If faith is to flourish in our new set of conditions it needs to take note from the pragmatic recommendation to open itself to conversation and learn to justify itself based on its consequences, like any other metaphysical belief should. And if its consequences are such that it jeopardizes our ability to successfully cope with our current set of conditions, then, it should be righteous enough to consider itself falsified.
If you don't mind, as a postmodern pragmatist myself, I am going to offer a critique, as I disagree with some of your point of view here.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, my first difficulty is with your assertion of physical facts. I am sure you have dealt with Skeptic's Question before (solipism). How do we determine physical reality is what it seems? The answer is, we assume it, according to pragmatism. This is one of the advantages pragmatism has over other philosophies.
However, consider for a second, assumption. Are we allowed to assert that assumptions are physical facts? Because that's what we are assuming, that reality exists, that facts are tangible objects. Can we truly assert that they are real to someone who made a different choice (for example, not to assume)? I don't think we can, in good honesty.
Consider for example, your idea of rain, as a physical fact. Imagine you are talking to a person who believe the rain is an illusion, despite their senses. Can you assert the rain is real to them, when you don't know any better than they do, you have simply assumed? No, we cannot. What we can do is assume it is real for ourselves, and for those who agree with us. But we cannot assert more than that, in my opinion.
This, obviously, is a radical decision of mien, but I am going to try and explain why the assertion of physical facts is nearly as dangerous as the assertion of unfalsifiable premises. I am going to show that all physical facts are also metaphysical moral decisions, and that you can't separate the two as easily as it seems.
So, let me talk about something that happened while I was doing apologetics work. One of the main criticisms that I dealt with was that simply, "Horses went extinct in the Americas long before the Europeans arrived". Over time however, we have discovered some evidence, which originally did not exist (it's been discovered more recently) that suggested this might not have been the case. That is, that groups of horses might have not gone extinct at all, in certain places. It's currently an undecided issue; it hasn't gotten much publicity or discussion, so there isn't much to say there. However, it did lead me to an important conclusion that I made; that our interpretation of events is not always accurate. It was asserted as fact that horses went extinct far before Europeans arrived, but things changed. We have to be very careful about asserting factuality, even with things which are likely to be true because they are backed by scientific data, because sometimes, they, or the interpretation of them, can be wrong.
A second difficulty lies, as I pointed out earlier, in the difficulties of solipsism. We assume things as pragmatists. Is it ethical for us to say people who disagree with our assumptions, or make different ones, are wrong? Consider a person who only assumes four of their senses display accurate information. Or what about a person who assumes there is an extra senses? These are all possibilities, and can we really condemn them considering what we are assuming? Even our interpretation of our five senses doesn't always agree with itself; optical illusions as an example. So what is the result? Well, we realize that what we assume is a choice, a metaphysical option. And since we assume nearly everything, does it not seem that everything we believe is real is a metaphysical moral decision? And thus, subject to the same difficulties we have in asserting unfalsifiable beliefs?
(Continued in next post)
With those two difficulties, I find that factuality claims are nearly as problematic as unfalsifiable ones. Of course, that doesn't draw problems for pragmatism; we simply choose the one we want. But I think we should be hesitant before stating that 'pragmatists should lean more towards factuality' or 'pragmatists should lean more towards unfalsifiables'. Part of our being pragmatists means we are open to both possibilities, that we use both options, according to what seems prudent to us. For one person, it might be one choice, for another, it might be a different one. I myself don't hold to either strategy; I mix and match for different issues, according to what seems right. But I hope you can understand why I thus, have qualms with the assertion that fact is less assailable than faith or belief, I am not so sure that it actually is, because of the reasons I listed above.
ReplyDeleteI did have one other small criticism, and that is, with your discussion of the public versus the private realm. I've read some of your other papers on it. However, I would say, there is also a third realm; the self (separate from the private realm in the sense that they are not communicated directly through words). And I don't think the self-realm will be broken into any time soon; the beliefs that you hold to but don't talk about are quite safe, assuming you can keep up that wall which you talked about. While our private beliefs may be open to more criticism, our self beliefs which we don't talk about, can't really be criticized easily. Even more than that though, our communicated private beliefs can also be defended with some aspect of stubbornness, which can divert most criticism to the point where it is ineffective. For this reason, I don't think that the wall is quite down (nor do I want it to be down, honestly). As long as people choose to separate their beliefs to a degree (which I think most Americans do), the dichotomy between public, private, and self will continue to exist.
Still, a pretty good article, I just had to talk about some things which I disagreed with. I hope you don't mind =).
Best of Wishes,
-TAO