Why is it not intellectually fashionable anymore to be certain of anything?
Maybe it's because we have gone wrong too many times, that we no longer trusts our minds enough to claim certainty?
And although that might sound reasonable, I'd like to draw your attention to what's really at stake here.
If we'll discuss certainty vs. uncertainty, truth vs. perspective, or the fixed character of virtue vs. moral relativism, we're treading on the borders of insanity and nightmares!
Anybody who's ever been a real skeptic would know what I'm talking about here, but for those who have been spared, I present this story:
(I'm copying the whole thing here rather than just linking to it because my post is too attached to that essay... you could say that this post is holding on to its sanity by copying the whole essay within its body, even if that makes it too fat!)
The Extroardinary Cabman.
By G. K. Chesterton
From: London's Daily News and Tremendous Trifles
From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon despair.
On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as possible for all I know if I have really no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening¹s sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
[Editor's Note - From other writings of Chesterton, we know that the "open-minded" friend referred to here is H.G. Wells. Also, we learn from the paragraph to follow that Hilaire Belloc was another of those present at this Soho meeting. And it is quite possible, even probable, that George Bernard Shaw was also in the party.]
Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the corner of Leicester Square to the members' entrance of the House of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a discussion between us which still continues.
It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria Street which I had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite genuine. "Do you know, sir," he said, "you've only given me 1s. 8d?" I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. "Now you know, sir," said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, "you know that ain't the fare form Euston." "Euston," I repeated vaguely, for the phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. "What on earth has Euston got to do with It?" "You hailed me just outside Euston Station," began the man with astonishing precision, "and then you said ..." "What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?" I said with Christian forbearance; "I took you at the south-west corner of Leicester Square." "Leicester Square," he exclaimed, loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, "why we ain't been near Leicester Square to-day. You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said ..." "Are you mad, or am I?" I asked with scientific calm.
I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever (in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner of Leicester Square. He began with the same evident and ponderous sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said ..."
And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like a lamp from the inside. "Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester Square. I remember now. I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, is strictly true.
I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect.
The Extraordinary Cabman first appeared in London's Daily News. It was later collected in the volume of essays Tremendous Trifles.
Do you see what I mean now? If you take skepticism to its limit, and wear relativism as your crown, eventually your whole head will disappear!
And I can't stress enough how terrifying that is to me.
Maybe that's why I need Truth, and can't understand for the life of me how anybody can reduce it to a point of view.
This entry (and the Chesterton article it quotes) seem to me to be either confusing or misleading, because the notion of relativity is not explicitly defined, relativism is a very general word that can have (and is usually associated with) many forms, for ex, are you talking about the relativity of a single "truth" for existence? or the relativity of perception, that there might be a single truth but how we perceive it is relative from one person to the next?
ReplyDeleteIn any case, what Chesterton seems to be implying as certainty remains confusing for me, because where exactly is the line between being right or wrong drawn? if we're speaking of relativism as a philosophical stance that no universal "truth" exists and the universe can be both empty and full simultaneously, then I’d agree that this idea would be, if not fictitious, then it is at least useless in any sensible pursuit of a unique knowledge.
But what Chesterton seems to be talking about is not certainty of the existence of some universal truth, but being absolutely certain of the truth that he believes in, that it is absolutely THE correct truth without the shadow of a doubt of it being completely wrong.
The issue here, as I'm sure u understand, is not in behaving authoritatively about whatever truth one may believe in, I'm sure that both u and Chesterton would agree that if a different truth comes along and proves in a sufficient manner that the truth u believe in was wrong, neither of u would hesitate to accept that other truth as the absolute one, but, as i seem to understand it, the certainty discussed here is related to the universal certainty in one's beliefs, that is , if i believe in something, then there's no way to allow the doubt or skepticism that i might be deceived or tricked.
the issue here, i suppose, lies in how far do we understand or know anything about our own existence, the idea that our own senses might be tricking us into believing or understanding the material existence in an incorrect manner is as old as bathtubs, and then even if we manage to overcome the problem of the senses, we'd still have to overcome other obstacles including the thinking process itself, how it works, how it has begun in the first place and how much is it influenced or shadowed by external or internal circumstances, and whether we come to the world as "Tabula Rasa" or is there some innate moral law that teaches us the basics of what is right and wrong.
all of these are, of course, philosophical inquiries that, by their own nature, will never have a single absolute answer (even though one exists) and while the lack of knowledge in this field is a big obstacle in the way towards understanding this single truth, people, in general, seem to have decided to mutually agree that, as far as we're concerned in our daily life, we'll accept what our senses tell us as the truth, because, also as far as we can infer from our daily observations, that if there's a wall somewhere, it does seem that at least 90% of people not suffering from any impairment related to the senses, seem to agree that the wall does exist and that it can be touched and seen, and if they tap at it, they'd hear the sound of the tapping, does that mean that any of those folks can be 100% sure that the wall absolutely and without the slightest hint of a doubt does exist in an absolute sense? As long as epistemology remains a field of discussion, we have to concur that, no, we cannot be sure.
ReplyDeleteSo in the case of Mr. Chesterton here, the analogy between rejection of relativism and his conversation with he cab driver doesn't work very well, because he's discussing a point related mostly to that mutual agreement between us regarding the (definitely not correct) infallibility of our senses, if Mr. Chesterton were a man of good eyesight, excellent hearing, well-functioning nervous system, and of sound intellectual faculties, then he certainly has all the right to be sure about his position, while it is quite possible that the cabman was just nuts, or he was suffering from some deficiency in his senses that caused the error, all of that is fine and well when we're discussing truths related to our senses, but what about the metaphysics? When it comes down to things that cannot be seen, felt, heard or tasted? can we be similarly sure about our belief in things that are, by their own nature again, unverifiable? can we hold some sort of a mutual agreement similar to the one about the senses, regarding, for ex, God? we can all have our beliefs about the existence or non-existence of God, and we can also believe that the God we believe in is the one that works in a similar manner for anybody else, and that to believe in a multi-faceted God that changes his/her nature from time to time and place to place is nonsensical, but how far can we be certain of that? the major problem here is that the basic dilemma doesn't stop at metaphysics (of course) but extends in our overall conception of what our existence means to each and every one of us, and the theories we have developed regarding humans, and how they go around performing their daily activities and living their day-to-day lives, all the theories that we can construct regarding these problems are built on the same relative notion of how we understand what we perceive, even the circumstances in which we grow and cultivate our theories of life may have a strong effect on these theories.
So, what the whole matter comes down to, is that we can live our lives acting on behalf of the theories we believe in, but to state that we are 100% certain of their absolute correctness is indicative of lack of knowledge or exposure to the elements that can contradict these theories, what I’m going to say now, for ex, is my own theory which can be wrong, but life is ambiguous, far far more ambiguous than we wish it to be, and we if we can know what people want and need in terms of physical needs, the road is quite long till we can explicitly maintain that we are also absolutely sure of what they need in terms of everything else, whether emotionally, cognitively or religiously.
we can only act according to what we know, but how far do we know, and how certain are we that what we know is the truth??
Okay, that was a long comment where you seemed to be repeating the same argument: what do we know for sure?
ReplyDeleteLook, first of all nothing is misleading... because never-ending skepticism in metaphysics is maddening because of the same reasons it is maddening in things directly related to our senses.
The point of the post was not whether it is reasonable to believe in relativism (which is explicitly defined btw, in earlier posts), but to point out that it leaves you on no ground whatsoever and makes it impossible to move forward, whether we're talking about material things (like with the cabman), or in metaphysical things where all your philosophical inquiries would lead to nothing at all, since you'll always sum up by saying "eh, what do we know anyway!" and start all over again the next time you try to think.
It's like Chesterton said at the very beginning (seriously now, did you read this or just skim through it?): "it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening¹s sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever."
That pretty much sums it up to me.