MONTGOMERY COLLEGE COMMUNITY COLLOQUIUM:

NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTIES*

How do you discover and correct errors in your beliefs?

 By Tecola W. Hagos

 I. Our �Golden Age�

I wonder at times whether I would have fared better in another life and in another time. However, when I reflect on my life, and when I place my time in the context of human history, I love who I am as packaged in this very skin, and I am very much curious in �this� setting and �this� period in human history. Yes, the world seems to be on the brink of totally catastrophic events. But that is a matter of perception and of looking at our human condition from a particular and rather narrow trajectory.  It is the fact of our time that fanaticism, racism, greed, et cetera are having tremendous effect in society. Millions die because of war, famine, pestilence, et cetera.  On the other hand, I see great advances being made in human rights, ethics, morality, et cetera around the world. Contrary to the idea of those individuals who are always nostalgic of past �Golden Age,� I believe that mankind is making great social, political, and economic progress at the present time and will continue to do so in the future. Am I being a wide�eyed optimist, a Pollyanna of the Twenty-First Century? Not at all.

I think mankind�s �Golden Age� is in the future. The achievement of science in our time is unparalleled by any other period in human history. This technology is no less than revolutionary, totally transforming the world and people all over the world with hitherto unknown universalized humanism. What is happening in the world now is analogous to the coming of age of mercantilism into the industrialization period of the Nineteenth Century. The new world is being born in political structures, economic systems, technological capacities, new sciences et cetera. To some of my contemporaries and people in general, the present world situation may be terrifying due to wide spread conflicts and wars, famine, natural disasters et cetera. Some may feel that they are losing control of their lives and destiny. The fast paced change taking place all over the world may be overtaking millions of people without giving them any chance to adjust to their new circumstances. As a consequence of such tumultuous time, people may seek clear directions, even dogmatism, and strong-hand guidance from those who are responsible for the upkeep of our political, religious, and economic institutions. 

I attach great value to ethics and morality, especially in a time like ours. The ultimate meaning to our individual promethean efforts to lead a life of knowledge and enlightenment is to be found in our personal relationships with each other. Our personal relationships must of necessity be honest, truthful, constructive, knowledgeable, proactive, tolerant, appreciative et cetera. I realize my expectation is a long laundry list. But not all items on my list have equal significance. Some items are derived from some singularly important events. For example, the capacity to know is the greatest event that had happened in the lives of human beings. Whether we subscribe to the mythological gift of �the fire of knowledge� stolen from the Gods by Prometheus and given to us by such a kind god who suffered eternal torture, or the Genesis story of the Serpent giving Adam and Eve, our ancestors, �the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge,� the fact is that in either case, I believe, we have greatly benefited from that �knowledge� unless we want to spend all of our eternity like ignorant pigs wallowing in the mud of reality being mindless and self indulgent.  

Taking into account the efforts of very many philosophers of the Twentieth Century [1], who attempted to dislodge philosophy from its �lofty� perch, I am greatly gratified to see philosophy ever growing in importance especially in the area of ethics and morality. At the dawn of human history, when the Pre-Socratic philosophers started asking profound question about the nature of reality and attempted to provide answers mainly by observing nature around them, true enquiry away from myths and religious dogmas might be claimed to have started in that part of the world. I like to think that form of curiosity is also to be found around the world where ever human beings had settled and started their civilization. In the nature of all people around the world, and not limited to a select few, we find profound knowledge and a degree of understanding of physical nature. In fact, tremendous monuments can be found all over the world testifying to the fact of the far and wide spread of mankind with similar urge to know the world he lives in and the heavens that surrounds him from above. Thus our search for truth is a universal characteristic of all human beings.  

II. Truth: Basic Understanding**

I asked my students in �Ethics� courses questions dealing with the identification and knowing or the verification of truth. Almost all of them suggested using some form of scientific method making rational/logical inferences of deduction and possibly induction as well. None ever suggested revelation or prayer as a way of finding or ascertaining truth.  I could not help but remember my favorite set of great philosophers commonly known as the scholastics or medieval philosophers. Individuals such as the great Persian and Arab Moslem philosophers Avicenna (Persian) and Averroes (Arab), and their counterparts the European Christian philosophers such as Boethius, Siger, Abelard, Duns Scotus, and others have to bend backwards, even though some indication of their superb reasoning points in the direction of purely deductive/logical approach to the consideration of the nature of reality (ontology/metaphysics) and the verifiability of truth. It seems to me for these superb intellectuals and philosophers having to accommodate the role of a �God� of unnatural existence without essence within their dialogue was a mater of survival; their concession to organized religion more than anything else insured their ability to write extensively on the natural sciences and logic.

Whether one argues to divide truth into �metaphysical truth - faith� and �natural science truth,� such as the Averroists did, in my view trying to keep their scientific truth from being contaminated by non-scientific reasoning coming out of those who believed in reveled and faith based assertions, nevertheless, the fact remains that faith has very little to do with the understanding of facts or physical laws. At times, the position taken about the realm of �truth� by those great Averroist philosophers is referred to as �double- truth� doctrine. [2] I believe that we suffer from the same misunderstanding that led the Medieval Church authorities to ban and condemn the Averroists for delaminating science from faith, not understanding the subtleties that led the Averroists to conclude that metaphysical assertions of the existence of God, the soul et cetera cannot be a subject of natural science methodology. 

What is equally important is to note that the Thomists who opposed the subtle Averroists, by claiming that truth ultimately is one (not double) embedded in one God, have done much harm and disservice to both scientific and social developments censoring and strangling (burning at times) great philosophers like Boethuis, Scotus, Ockham, and scientists like Bruno, Galileo et cetera.  The unity of faith with science is neither faith nor science. It is a chimera of unquestionable ugliness and of possible misanthropic characteristics. However, I must write here about the great intellectual capacity and dedication of the St. Thomas Aquinas. My criticism of his �one-truth� argument is not in any way to challenge the knowledge-base of the great theologian, but a criticism of his his inferences and conclusions.  

Having started out this short paper in the middle of the history of philosophy (natural science and metaphysics), may be I have made certain assumptions that may need articulation and context.  I should step back a few centuries in order to anchor properly the threads of my thought to the philosophers of ancient Greek who started all these discourse that is still going on for three thousand years. I have expressed in so many ways and at different times how greatly I admire the Pre-Socratic philosophers and their descendants. The more I read them the greater my admiration. What is sad is that the fact that individuals like MacIntyre (of After Virtue fame) are unduly creating rifts claiming �virtue ethics� as the sole realm of Aristotle as opposed to Plato/Socrates, when the truth of the matter is that Plato/Socrates have more books discussing the questions of  �virtue� than one can find in the works of Aristotle. The current �virtue ethics� movement has only polarized the great philosophical truth sought by Aristotle in his monumental work.  

When the pre-Socratic philosophers [3] such as Thales, Aniximinder, Pythagoras et cetera started asking fundamental questions as to the nature of reality, such as what is the �stuff� everything is made of or what is the common thing in all things, one may say philosophy was born away into some thing more substantial than mere myth and fables. However, such great start was brought to a screeching stop by a question asked by another of the pre-Socratic philosophers�Xenophanes. The question asked by Xenophanes was as simple as it was thoroughly understandable. He simply conjectured that knowing the truth is an extremely difficult task, and even if we come to the truth by accident how do we know the truth when we get to it. Of course, not everything was lost because of one philosopher�s superb observation. Then came along Parmenides, a few years younger than the rest, and probably the greatest philosopher that ever lived, with answers on the �unconcealment� of truth that to this day philosophers are in some way using his ideas on the �unconcealment� or of verification of truth.

In the fragments of the philosophical writings of Parmenides, the philosopher tells us how he was received by a �goddess� during his travels. Martin Heidegger in his lecture titled �Parmenides and Heraclitus,� which was later edited into a book [Parmenides], devoted his analysis to that very identification of the �Goddess� referred to by Parmenides. It is important that we take note of the distinction that Parmenides is alleged to be making by simply stating the identity of his hostess as the �Goddess� Truth, i.e., Aletheia, and not the �Goddess of Truth� if we accept the interpretation by Heidegger. [4]   

Truth may be one, but how we get to know or approach that truth could be through several ways coming from diverse directions as of necessity because of the fact of multiple trajectory points as well as multiple agents. Here is where one starts encountering problems for it is the case that some philosophers as well as scientists overreach in accepting their manner of inquiry or search methodology as the finding of the �truth� that is the very center of disagreement in contemporary philosophical and scientific enquiry.  Seen from such perspective truth seems to be multiple in some aspect and �one� in another. Even with my limited understanding Eastern philosophies, the Zen masters seem confused on questions of truth and verification for they seem to be thorn between dualism and monism in limited ontological understanding of being.

I believe the overall system of knowing could only be classified in two well evolved systems: The deductive and the inductive systems of truth verification systems. These two again merge to give birth to the following three theories with a possible fourth one in the margines. There are three traditionally acknowledged theories dealing with the establishment or verification of truth:

                  1. The Correspondence theory of truth[5]

                  2. The Coherence theory of truth [6]

                  3. The Pragmatic theory of truth [7]

However, I am adding a fourth theory of truth, which is as capable in resolving certain contested nature of reality as would be achieved by the pragmatic theory of truth. Thus, the fourth I named as the �agency� theory of Truth.

Each approach has its strength and weakness that we can find out as we engage in our quest for truth in establishing both metaphysical and physical nature of reality. For example, the philosopher Popper surmised that philosophical inquiry is not a search for truth, but an effort to establish the falsehood of our assertions or beliefs. The world perceived from such angle then becomes frightful to the individual warping social life from being full of meaning and engagement. One good reason for thinking about the nature of reality with a range of possible levels of relationships is the fact that one is left open to possibilities rather than with a conclusive and deterministic universe.    

Simply put, the correspondence theory of truth or verification is the simplest and most used by individuals from the existential to the metaphysical. What the individual seeks is simply that his or her mental imagery (?) corresponds to the physical reality that has an independence from any individuality. Experienced nature without any mediation except to record compare and contrast by our mind, if that is possible at all, is what is meant by �correspondence� between mind and the external. The problem of this approach is that there is no real distinction in the theory that would allow us to differentiate the quality of our observation as human beings with the sight �observation� of other creatures. It adherers to the idea that the human mind is like a photographic plate simply recording reality. This type of �tabula-rasa� conception of the mind and the nature of reality is not adequate on very many important issues.

On the other hand the coherence theory of truth and verification has far more versatility than the more pedantic and straight-cut correspondence theory of truth and verification, but may lack precision. The coherence of other well-established theories or assumptions with the new one introduced into the gauntlet is purely dependant not on outside verification but rather on how well the new idea fits with accepted theories. This approach is closer to the Parmenidean approach of non-empirical knowledge formation and verification of truth.

The great appeal of the pragmatic conception of truth to some individuals seems to be the fact of its emphasis on what is practical and of use to society and the individual. It is one philosophical thinking that the United States may claim some degree of origination or acknowledgement for it is a home-grown philosophical thinking having its root in the positivist thinking of Charles Pierce further developed by William James. Dewey may be also credited for the humanist tradition in that pragmatic rubric.

My own addition to the understanding of what �truth� may be, which I have identified as the �agency theory of truth� may be also identified as the lazy-man�s truth. In this theory, the truth of a claim is ascertained not by its ontology or falsification/verification, but rather by looking at the credibility of the person (agent) making such assertions. Under such understanding of what �truth� is, it seems the hard work of establishing the truth is already carried out by the individual whose reputation as a scholar, moral teacher, et cetera has the force of evidence or proof without any other reference.

III. The Heisenberg and Godel Dilemma [8]

In the sciences certainty and accuracy of measurement on one hand and precise identification and location of events or items are the very essence of the scientific process. The obvious problem of science is the way scientists discover what they set out to discover. In other words, it seems that the experiment and data collection so pre ordered in such a way that the result is inevitable. And that is very different from discovering some new fact or systems of reality. In other words the truthfulness of scientific findings, whether it has to do with concepts or laws of nature, reflect what is set to be found by the agent. Furthermore, the skepticism that Quantum theory brought with it seems to have left a degree of nebulosity about both �facts� and �truth� that my understanding, as superficial as it may be, still needs some more fine-tuning. Both the �uncertainty� and �incompleteness� principles have added to the paradox of knowing or understanding reality. 

Even though mathematical truth is perceived as objective truth, one must not overlook the fact that it is a positivistic endeavor that structure a model to describe or understand the nature of reality. It is not reality itself per se.

 �This logical assault on mathematical truth continued in the work of Kurt G�del, an esteemed associate of Albert Einstein. G�del�s Incompleteness Theorem, popularized by Douglas R. Hofstadter in his book, G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Basic Books, New York, 1979), caused quite a stir at its publication. This theorem states that certain statements in mathematics exist in a shadow world in which they are neither true nor false; they are �undecidable.� The consequence of this is that there is a fundamental uncertainty in mathematics.�

�G�del�s Incompleteness Theorem is to mathematics what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is to physics. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, published at about the same time as G�del�s Incompleteness Theorem, states that some things in the physical world cannot, in principle, be known. Many physicists, Einstein included, were not convinced that, in effect, some things Man was not meant to know. Today, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is taken as fact, and it is even a useful tool. Likewise, mathematicians have chosen to live with incompleteness. Gregory J. Chaitin of IBM has stated that G�del�s Theorem �has had no lasting impact on the daily lives of mathematicians or on their working habits; no one loses sleep over it any more.�� [9]

Conclusion: It seems to me that we perpetuate our ignorance when we close our minds to legitimate inquiry, or when we stop looking at existing established facts in new light. What is more damaging to a human mind than to draw the curtain of ignorance down in righteousness? Existing economic, social, and religious structures have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

I believe our best quest should start with simple questions dealing with issues that we can easily reach, maybe touch, or experiment with. For example, rather than seeking �God,� we should be looking first for our �souls�; rather than asking �what is Being?� we should be asking �what is a human being?� Rather than be preoccupied wondering about the Cosmos and the depth of Space, we should be paying more attention to our own Planet Earth. Et cetera. However, by making such a statement I do not mean to limit our imagination nor our appetite for adventure and search, but to help us focus our attention on the need to prioritize our survival problems foremost before we devote our time and resources to such other efforts.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.                                                                                      From �Auguries of Innocence� by William Blake

 If we understand things in much reduced scale, we can also understand the vastness of existence and the nature of reality by much more sophisticated knowledge structure in due course. I have looked into such approach and found much satisfaction observing fractal structures. In fact, I identified such philosophical truth-seeking as �Fractal Philosophy.� In another colloquium, I may have a chance to expand on that philosophy.

Tecola W. Hagos, April 11, 2006

*The Colloquium was organized by Dr. Harold Williams, Astrophysicist, at Montgomery College , April 11, 2006 .

** Some of the points discussed in this section are taken from previously posted article by the author in www.tecolahagos.com .

LIMITED REFERENCES AND FOOTNOTES:

1. L. Jonathan Cohen, The Dialogue of Reason: An Analysis of Analytical Philosophy, Oxford UK : Oxford University Press, 1986; L.O. Urmson, Philosophical Analysis: Its Development Between the Two World Wars, Oxford UK : Oxford University Press, 1956;  R. Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, Chicago IL : Chicago University Press, 1956.  Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Baltimore MD : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Flipe Fernandez-Armesto, Truth: A Guide  for the Perplexed, Black Swan, 1998.
2. Julius R. Weinberg, A Short History of Medieval Philosophy, Princeton NJ : Princeton University Press, 1991.
3.  John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, (1930) London UK : Macmillan; - Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cambridge MA : Harvard University Press 2003; - G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, 2nd ed., Cambridge UK : Cambridge University Press, 1995.
4. Martine Heidegger, Parmenides, Trans. Andre Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz, Bloomington IN : Indiana University Press, 1998.
5. O'Connor, D. J., The Correspondence Theory of Truth, London : Hutchinson , 1975.
6. Frederick F. Schmitt, ed. Theories of Truth,  Oxford : Blackwell, 2003; Nicholas Rescher, 1973, The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford UK : Oxford University Press, 1982.
7. William James. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, New York : Longman Green and Co., 1907.
8. Heisenberg, Werner. Philosophical Problems of Quantum Physics, F. C. Hayes, trans. 1952. Woodbridge , CT : Ox Bow Press, 1979; Kurt G�del, (1962, Basic Books) On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems, Trans. B. Meltzer, New York NY : Dover Publications, Inc., 1992.
9. Devlin M. Gualtieri, Proof and Truth in Mathematics, 2003