(Italian philosopher and novelist, b.1932)
Eco's view of philosophy for the possibility that one can speak of 'truth' is quite restricted. Truth is a concept scorned by postmodernist thinkers, who hold that there are many truths, each dependent on an individual's viewpoint and all constructed by consensus within a community. Eco agrees that there can be no truth which is not the result of people interpreting reality, and hence resulting from a social contract. However he writes that "when we come across those lines of resistance which prevent us from making certain statements, that is the closest we can get to truth". He admits that there is something in reality that decrees: 'No, you cannot say this'. This means that for him negation is the closest thing to truth. What is true is that you cannot say something because it crosses the limits.
Eco attacks the postmodernist deconstruction strategy. He rejects the view that it is impossible to say anything about a text. It is true that a text is open to infinity, but there are some things which are not in the text and which cannot be said - just as there are in reality. Eco defines his philosophy as one of "contractual realism": faced with a reality of sorts, a community engages in discussion until it finds a negotiated ('contractual') solution. He champions a conjectural criticism in which interpretations may not be final or decisive, but they can be rejected as "bad or far-fetched." It is enough for him to recognize that it is not true that 'everything goes.' This amounts for Eco to an essential fallibilism that involves the practice of checking interpretations against the consensus of an interpretive community. The path to the truth is littered with useful failures.
In his book The Limits Of Interpretation, Eco admits that every text is open to an infinite number of possible interpretations, yet he acknowledges that there are certain limits. Some postmodernists seem to claim that simply any interpretation would do. Eco claims that although it is often difficult to recognise a good interpretation, one simply knows when one encounters bad or over-interpretation. The limits of interpretation are imposed by empirical facts; an interpretation that does not fit the facts of a piece of writing cannot be accepted. Eco accepts that the need to draw boundaries is a constant in literary and philosophical thinking. He discovers more and more that the basic tool in philosophical thinking is common sense. Against the French philosophy of the latest thirty years, he thinks that it is high time that common sense, so fundamental to the history of philosophy, be reintroduced to the scene. No doubt, philosophy goes beyond common sense in that philosophers question facts that others take for granted. But to go beyond does not necessarily mean to reject or go against. What it does mean is that the philosopher continues to use common sense in order to tackle problems that ordinary everyday life does not raise.
* Eco Umberto, The Limits of Interpretation, Indiana university Press, 1994
(British astrophysicist, 1882-1944)
Observational procedures decide whether what is discovered is true or not.
Eddington titles his philosophical position "Selective Subjectivism". What he means by this expression is in part that the role of the observer is definitional in what is discovered, and indeed that the meaning of science is defined by the proposed means for observing it.
Observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. Physical knowledge must be such that we can specify an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Therefore it must be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure.
This means that the critical point for Eddington is what we can learn from epistemology. He develops an extended analogy between science and an Icthyologist's net which has a hole size of two inches. The first thing a naive Icthyologist concludes is that all fishes are two inches or greater in size. This is Subjectively selected knowledge. But sooner or later the intelligent Icthyologist gets to thinking not so much about the fish as about the net. Epistemology is analogous to examining the net. Here Eddington undoubtedly has in mind the crucial role of observation in quantum physics. But he insists that there must be a priori knowledge, without it we could know nothing. But such knowledge would be impossible if the universe were wholly objective. Hence his term Selective Subjectivism.
Eddington believes that an adequate epistemology can deduce not only the methods and limitations of science but also its content.
* Eddington Arthur, Philosophy of Physical Science, Cambridge University Press, 1939
(German born American theoretical physicist, 1879-1955)
Einstein demonstrated that space and time are relative to the framework of the observer - i.e., utterly dependent upon the motion of the observer. Different observers, moving at different speeds, will experience the same event in starkly different ways. Thus Einstein provided a physical analogue to Kant's epistemological understanding of the role of the human knower in constructing the framework of time/space which organizes our experience. In the rejection of the notions of absolute space and time, Einstein showed that an honest empiricism must involve the observer, that to some extent what is real does depend on us and that an essential element injected into physics by the theory of relativity is subjectivity.
But it is important to note that this "relativity" does not mean that Einstein gave up on the possibility of science achieving a realist understanding of how nature behaves. Rather to the contrary: Einstein's realism is the fundamental ground for his resistance to the views of influential physicists of his time (mostly Niels Bohr) about the interpretation of that area of physics known as quantum physics that deals with the behaviour of objects in the microphysical, subatomic, world. Many of these physicists were committed to an 'anti-realist' interpretation from which it follows that nothing exists unless it is being observed, and that there is no such thing as an objective reality. But Einstein strongly disagreed: he was a realist who believed that there is a real world that exists independently of the human mind.In his views none of the antirealist claims can validly be inferred from the data yielded by experiments in the domain of quantum physics. On the contrary, he claimed, they can be inferred only if one adopts certain indefensible philosophical principles for the interpretation of the data. His antirealist opponents, he would claim, may have done good physics, but have been lured into doing bad philosophy. An objective reality exists whether or not human beings exist or know its features.
Philosophers refer to this claim as "metaphysical realism". According to it, something can exist even if we human beings do not know that it exists. The question whether something actually exists in objective reality is said to be an "ontological" question. The question whether something is known or perceived to exist is said to be an "epistemological" question. Einstein held that it was a grave mistake to confuse ontological questions with epistemological ones.
He believed, to the end, that the goal of science was to discover the way the world really is, as opposed to our perceptions and conceptions of it, and that orthodox quantum theory had not only failed to achieve such a goal but had prematurely abandoned any such quest.
In a famous debate with Einstein, Tagore had expressed the view that "if there be any truth absolutely unrelated to humanity, then for us it is absolutely non-existing". Einstein disagreed and reiterated his firm belief that scientific truth must be conceived as a truth that is valid independent of humanity. And if there is a reality independent of man, there is also a truth relative to this reality. One must attribute to truth a superhuman objectivity, because no one can deny that there is a reality which is independent of our existence, our experience and our mind.
* See Fine, A. The shaky Game: Einstein, Realism and the Quantum theory, University of Chicago Press, 1986; also Tagore-Einstein Conversation,1930, see Internet
(Romanian-born historian of religions, 1907-1986)
Myth has been under attack at least since Xenophanes (see Xenophanes) who criticized the activities of the gods related in the Homeric tradition and Hesiod. Plato reviled the poesis of myth as the enemy of philosophy. Since then the reliance on “rational” rather than “mythic” forms of persuasion developed from an increased valorisation of the empirical/historical as the “real” and the “truth”. That which has historically occurred is seen as more real and true than that which is the human fabrications of myth-makers. Rational discourse based on human experience is esteemed far above mythic persuasion which is unable to provide proofs and justifications. Reason has always condemned mythos and favoured logos in its stead.
Eliade strongly rejects this rationalistic exorcism of mythos by logos. He argues that the word “myth” does not convey the idea of falsehood or fable. He considers this use as “a semantic inheritance from the Christian polemic against the pagan world”. For him the word “myth” does not mean untrue; it does not denote fiction. On the contrary he sees myth as a narrative “considered to reveal the truth par excellence”. But evidently the type of truth intended by Eliade’s description of myth is quite distinct from historical actuality. The sense of true as being in accordance with actual, historical state of affairs and empirical experience, is a specialized usage. The parable of the Good Samaritan, all would admit, is a story revelatory of a certain truth, albeit not a truth identified with historical actuality. For Eliade mythic truth is seen as independent and distinct but certainly not in opposition to historical actuality and scientific knowledge.
It is generally assumed that myths are a special kind of tales and the qualities that make them special are for Eliade that they are reality and truth in this sense that they exceed history in truth value. Cosmogonic myths narrate and reveal the real as sacred. A myth, unlike a fable, is always a true story because it is a sacred story.
Eliade understands myth as the history of what happened “in illo tempore”, the tale of what divine beings have done before time or at the beginning of time. Telling a myth, is proclaiming what happened ab origine. Once told, what is revealed, the myth, becomes the absolute truth for the believers. The myth proclaims the apparition of a new cosmic situation or a primeval event. It is always the tale of a “creation”, the story of how things have come to be. Hence myth is linked to ontology: it speaks only of realities, of what has really come about and has been fully manifested.
Evidently Eliade’s concern is exclusively for sacred realities, because it is the sacred for him which is the real par excellence. Nothing that belongs to the sphere of the profane participate in Being; the purely profane, emptied of its religious symbolism, is meaningless. It belongs to the sacred myth – not to history or science - to unveil the truth of reality.
* Eliade, Mircea, Myth and Reality, Archiv Books Inc.,1968
(French philosopher, 1912-1994)
In his sociological writings, Ellul deals with the new, artificial environment of technology which is becoming the environment of everyday life. His central thesis is that the technological environment has produced a surfeit of images, and led to the devaluation of the word. For Ellul "the word" is the spoken word. Ellul does not accept the common idea that words primarily convey information. For him, words play their most important role in creating an order of knowledge that Ellul labels "truth" (which can also contain falsity). The spoken universe deals with issues of truth, falsity, justice, causation, abstraction. The word can discuss things which are hidden, or which have never been seen. The word is always potentially ready to question, to apply moral or ethical perspectives.
By contrast, the image uses sight as its primary sensory mode. The image creates an order of knowledge Ellul labels "reality"--concrete reality as it is experienced. "Our civilization's major temptation (a problem that comes from technique's preponderant influence) is to confuse reality with truth. We are made to believe that reality is truth, the only truth....We think that truth is contained within reality and expressed by it". Yet, Ellul points out, the domain of reality cannot deal with questions of truth, meaning and value. Since the image belongs to the order of reality, Ellul contends that it will not be subversive of that order. Images just wind up reflecting the received opinion of what the world is like. The new artificial environment of technology is sustained partly by the flood of technologically generated images from cinema and television, but also photography, advertising, etc. Ellul makes the point that this technologically mediated reality is a fiction.
The only serious questioning of reality can come from the domain of truth, through the word. This is why the devaluation of the word and language is so serious, in Ellul's view. In an artificial environment created by technology, and reinforced by a stream of images, the word offers the only possibility for critical thought. Unfortunately the word is increasingly subordinated to the image, for example, used to describe reality "objectively." The goal of "objective" language is to make it seem that it is spoken by no one, thereby robbing it of its power. The devalued word provides no means of approaching, discerning, and grasping truth.
Hence Ellul calls for a new iconoclasm, an evicting of images from (to recover) the realm of truth. He points up the urgency of criticizing images, statistics, and techniques which claim to convey "the (fictitious) truth." He calls for a reduction of jargon, clarity in language, so the word may again convey issues of truth in an understandable manner.
Ellul deplores the triumph of thought by images rather than by words, a state of affair that increases the divorce between reality and truth.
*Ellul, Jacques, The Humiliation of the Word, Williams B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1985.
(American essayist, poet and philosopher, 1803-1882)
The ancient Latin quotation: Ne te quaesiveris extra (Do not look outside of yourself for the truth) sums up the central idea of Emerson's book "Self-Reliance" and the transcendental philosophy behind it: that one should rely on one's own inner voice - intuition and instinct - to make important decisions and put one's life on a righteous path. In other words, rely on yourself.
Emerson taught that individuals should rely on their own sense of truth and right -- but also that such individual truths and rights were dependable precisely because they would resonate, not with social convention, but with the universal law, with the spiritual law that is at the core of the universe itself. Self-reliance is the best way to discover truth. Emerson comprehensively refuted the value of the past: he did not spare men, books (Bible included), events, or documents, but declared that even the most time-honored institutions retained little importance when compared to man's divine Soul.
According to "Self-Reliance," an important sign of a person's integrity, is the person's courage to trust his or her own insights and intuitions, rather than those of established authors and acknowledged authorities. Emerson wrote that "to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius". Emerson excoriates the widespread timidity that makes people anxiously look out for what others may think, and for the canonized opinions of the past that may condemn one's own thoughts as offenses or deviations. Basically the self-reliant individual has to stand up against two forces that tend to diminish its full development and strength: society and tradition.
Emerson laments: "Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticisms. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past?" …"Man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. The truth is that he cannot be happy and strong until he, too, lives with nature in the present, above time".
Emerson was a "transcendentalist": he based his view of the world on an individualism emphasizing self-realization and self-reliance in perceiving the truth. Transcendentalists have in common with the mystics that they believe in the primacy of direct individual experience in discerning the religious truth. Emerson declared that a person's experience of nature contained all the proof required for the existence of God. He rejected external religious authorities, including the institutional church, and dared to love God without any mediator or veil.
If one should worry that individual human beings are fallible, and that it is not safe for them to trust their deepest convictions, Emerson has an answer to this worry about the fallibility of individual judgment. He says that the self we should rely on, in self-reliance, is not the superficial self with its everyday desires, fears, and prejudices. The self he has in mind lies deeper in our character, and it is ultimately the mental side of the universe itself, something like the 'atman' of Indian philosophy. Our most deeply held views are trustworthy, according to Emerson, because they stem from the universal nature which underlies all things, in which we are at one with all things and other people and which he calls "the oversoul" or the universal mind.
Emerson endorsed some sort of pantheistic mysticism. Mystical vision claims to grasp the whole truth, but it seems that for Emerson, it was more important to live in harmony with the truth than to see it. And we can live in harmony with the truth, even if we don't see it completely, by simply being ourselves, and trusting our deepest impulses. We may not experience the whole truth of mystical vision, but we will see those aspects of the truth that are appropriate for us as individuals.
* Emerson Ralph Waldo, Self-Reliance and Other Essays, Dover Thrift Editions
(Contemporary French philosopher)
What is at stake in the claim that truth is a norm of belief seems to be whether truth is a value which should be pursued for its own sake, whether truth is the goal or ideal of our inquiries, whether there is any sort of ethical command that we should search after the truth. Some pragmatist philosophers do not see why we should be aiming at truth, more than utility or pragmatic value. They deny that truth is the goal of knowledge. We do not aim at truth, they say, but at ‘honest justification’ (Davidson).
Engel upholds the view that truth is a norm of belief (or assertion). The point is to have a proper understanding of what is meant here by ‘normative’. To say that truth is a norm of belief can have two senses. In the first sense truth is a norm of belief in that it is constitutive of belief and that belief aims at truth. Asserting something is asserting something that one takes for true. The concept of belief (or assertion) has to be defined or understood through the concept of truth. In the second sense truth is a norm of belief in the sense that it is the goal of inquiry and of our epistemic enterprises. Here truth is the goal of all believers and asserters, and this implies that it is something desirable, valuable and that it is a duty to attain the truth. One can distinguish here two kind of normative concepts: either the deontic kind of normative concepts (such as ought, obligation, requirement) or the evaluative kind of normative concepts (such as good, valuable, desirable, worthy). The first kind of concepts are action-guiding, implying an appropriate response. The second kind of concepts provoke feelings and psychological attitudes. Engel claims that truth as a norm of belief is neither a norm of the first kind nor a norm of the second kind.
Indeed, suppose that it involves a norm in the first deontic sense. In ascribing truth to certain statements, we are in some sense speaking “ought”: “For any P, if P is true, then we ought to believe that P.”. We ought to believe in any particular truth. It would be our duty to believe that there are 30.000 blades of grass on the lawn. But this is absurd. The claim that truth could be a norm in the deontic sense is absurd.
Suppose it is a norm of the second kind. Then the truth of a particular belief would imply that it is valuable and provokes a positive feeling. “For any P, if P is true, then it is valuable (one feels well) to believe that P.” But this is also absurd, it makes no sense to say that we value all true beliefs, including the most trivial.
It follows that in both these senses of ‘norm’, the claim that truth is a norm is obviously false. Truth in general is not a goal of belief. General truth does not interest us. What interests us is relevant , interesting truth. We are not interested in truth as such but in knowledge in so far that knowledge is relative to our interests. We are not interested in knowing anything whatsoever. In the same way we are not interested in believing any truth. Therefore it is false to say that ‘belief aims at truth’ if truth is conceived as the goal of belief or as a form of obligation to believe everything that is true.
Nonetheless it is a mistake to think that this is what one ordinarily means when one says that ‘truth is a norm of belief’. What one means rather is that the concept of truth is constitutive of the concept of belief in the sense that if one has good reasons (is justified) to believe that P, then one has good reasons (is justified) to believe that P is true. The concept of truth goes with the concept of good reason or of justification for belief. Reason or justification for belief is reason or justification for truth. Certainly, saying that a belief is justified does not entail that it is true – justification is not truth – but saying that a belief is justified is a reason for thinking that it is true.
To conclude: one should not say that ‘if something is true one ought to believe it’. We should rather say that ‘one ought to believe only what is true.’ This imperative is obvious for it amounts to saying that claims to belief are claims to true beliefs. It is in that sense only that truth is the fundamental norm of belief and that beliefs aim at truth. Truth is a norm of belief not in the deontic and the evaluative sense, but in the sense that it is definitional of the state of belief.
The important point is that this norm is in place even when one does not take truth to be a goal of our inquiries. The idea that truth is a norm of belief may be a platitude – that may be consistent with a minimalist conception of truth – but it is an important one.
* Engel, Pascal, Is truth a Norm? Paper read at the Karlowy Vary Conference, 1996
(Roman stoic philosopher, 50-120)
Like many other Stoic philosophers Epictetus separated philosophy as a way of life from philosophical discourse. Philosophical theories are discourses about physics, ethics and logic. In contrast, philosophy as a way of life is not theory but a practice which consists of 'living the theory'. Epictetus felt that it was far more important to exercise ourselves with realities than with dialectical speculations. He wrote : "A carpenter does not come up to you and say, 'Let me discourse about the art of carpentry’, but he makes a contract for a house and builds it. Do the same thing….” In his approach to philosophy he gave primacy of practice over theory.
For him the first and most necessary topic in philosophy was that of the use of moral theorems, such as, "We ought not to lie”; the second was that of demonstrations, such as, "What is the origin of our obligation not to lie”; the third gives strength and articulation to the other two, such as, "What is a demonstration, what is truth, what is falsehood". Undoubtedly the third topic about truth and falsehood is necessary on the account of the second, and the second on the account of the first. But the most necessary, and that whereon we ought to rest, is the first. But people act just on the contrary. For they spend all their time on the third topic of theoretical truth, and employ all their diligence about that, and entirely neglect the first. Therefore, at the same time that they lie, they are immediately prepared to show how it is demonstrated that lying is not right.
* Epictetus, A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life, A.A.Long, Dpt of Classics, University of California, Berkeley
(Greek philosopher, 341-270)
Epicurus works out a theory of knowledge on the foundation of the senses, the sole guarantee that we have to be truly acquainted with reality. According to him sensation is infallible for it gives us immediate assurance of the reality of outside things: it is thus our sole ultimate guarantee of truth.
More precisely Epicurus affirms that there are three ways by which one determines what is true: sensations, preconceptions and feelings. Appeal to one or more of these is the sole determinant of what is true.
- Sensations are given to us through the agency of the five sense organs. They are pure perceptual data. As ‘givens’ (i.e., data), particular sensations are irrefutable, there is nothing that can convict them of error. The givenness of sensations implies that one cannot reject them as spurious or illusory. It is undeniable that one has received a sensation when one is aware of it. All knowledge begins with sensations, so that, if one calls into question the reliability of sense data, one cannot think or judge.
Sensations are irrefutable because they are necessary effects of known causes, the efflux of atoms from external objects. Epicurus adopts a naive correspondence theory of knowledge: what one knows quite literally corresponds to what there is to know, since knowledge is contact with a flimsy replica of the original. Truth is attained in sense perception which gives clear vision, whereas error arises owing to the intrusion of opinions when the mind makes additions to the data of the senses and pronounces hasty judgements without awaiting confirmation.
- The second criterion of truth is preconceptions or abstractions from sensations, or universal ideas stored in the mind, that is, a recollection of an external object often presented. Because preconceptions derive from sensations, Epicurus insists that they are always clear and serve as a criterion or determinant of truth. These preconceptions are not Ideas in the Platonic sense, but simply abstractions originating in many perceptions. Like sensations , preconceptions cannot be "wrong" in themselves. Here again Epicurus explains the origin of error as wrong judgment.
- Besides sensation and preconception, pleasure and pain which accompany every sensation provide a third criterion of truth. The evidence of these two opposite affections or passions discloses the cause of pleasure and pain. Thus pleasure and pain are criteria of truth not only in a passive way but in their cause. They are the irrefutable means by which an animate being determines what to choose or avoid. This means that pleasure and pain are criteria of truth, because it is impossible to deny that what is felt as pleasurable is not or, conversely, that what is felt as painful is not.
* Epicurus , The Epicurus reader, tr. Brad Inwood & L.P. Gerson, Hackett Publishing, 1994
(Dutch-born theologian, 1466-1536 )
“We define so many things which we may be left in ignorance or in doubt without loss of salvation. The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible, and in many things leave each one free to follow his own judgement, because there is great obscurity in many matters. Formerly faith was in life, rather than in profession of creed. When faith came to be in writings rather than in hearts, then there were almost as many faiths as men! Articles increased and sincerity decreased. Contention grew hot and love grew cold. When faith is in the mouth rather than in the heart, by terrorisation we drive men to believe what they do not believe, to love what they do not love, to know what they do not know. That which is forced cannot be sincere, and that which is not voluntary cannot please Christ.” (from the preface of “On the immense mercy of God”, quoted in Bainton’s Erasmus, p.224)
Erasmus's prudential approach to religious truth-claims allowed him to have an open mind. Some questions in the Church he considered inessential to salvation, so he chose not to argue about them. Neither did he argue about things beyond human intellectual capacity. Because he thought some questions could not be answered with certainty, he was willing to tolerate debate, and if proven wrong, he would have conceded, being ready to learn from any one who advanced something more accurate or more reliable. Erasmus's willingness to debate, his deliberate avoidance of definite assertions, appalled his opponents. He did not want to follow the leaders of the Reformation who were ready to sacrifice peace for their ideals. Luther took Erasmus for a champion of scepticism. “The Holy Spirit, he wrote, is no skeptic, and the things he has written in our hearts are no doubts and opinions but assertions”. But for Erasmus one should suspend judgement about all “matters that cannot be resolved till the day of judgment”. Unlike Luther Erasmus was endowed with a gentle nature. With him, peace and harmony ranked above all other considerations, and he confesses them to be the guiding principles of his actions. He was convinced that the investigation of truth which has always been the most reputable activity of scholars has nothing to gain from excessive quarreling. Truth is discovered with greater certainty in an atmosphere of peaceful mutual tolerance. Like Gandhi in modern times, Erasmus was the champion of a truth gained by peaceful, non-violent means. Truth and peace or non-violence were for him as for Gandhi the two sides of the same coin.
* Erasmus, On the Immensity of God’s Mercy, quoted by Halkin l. In Erasme, Paris, Fayard, 1987, p.264
(Irish theologian and philosopher, 815-877)
True religion and true philosophy coincide
For Eriugena there are three stages in man’s search for truth. In the first stage before Christ’s coming, human reason, obscured by original sin, was limited to physics in the investigation of the world and in the proof of the existence of God as its cause. After Christ’s appearance, reason entered a second stage in which it receives truth revealed in Scripture by God and accepted on faith. Enlightened by faith, reason now has the task of exploring and contemplating the content of revelation to make it effective in man’s moral life. In the final stage, man will have no need of faith to enjoy the heavenly vision of Christ, the Truth.
Eriugena asserts the identity of Philosophy and Religion. Presently (the second stage), reason finds itself united with faith. That is why Eriugena simply repeated Augustine’s words that "true philosophy is true religion, and conversely, true religion is true philosophy." In virtue of this identity, philosophy is nothing other than the understanding of Sacred Scripture: "What else is philosophy except the explaining of the true rules of true religion, by which God, the highest and principal cause of all things, is both worshipped humbly and investigated rationally." In view of his identification of philosophy and religion, it is not too surprising that he wrote "no one can enter heaven except by philosophy."
Reason, illumined by faith, is the source of authority in interpreting Scripture, for "true authority is nothing else but the truth which was uncovered by the power of reason". Emanating from the same source, divine wisdom, right reason and true authority cannot contradict each other.
Thus Eriugena is not exalting reason at the expense of authority. He maintains a kind of concordism between the two. Justin Martyr held that philosophy was a kind of revelation to the Greeks, just as the prophets were a revelation to the Jews, and that both prepared the way for Christianity. Eriugena is operating in this kind of context. Reason and revelation parallel one another closely, so that there is no question of playing the one off against the other.
Incidentally, the present Pope Benedicts XVI (in his general audience, 10 June 2009) appealed to the work of Eriugena, who taught that true authority and reason can never contradict each other. Eriugena, the Pope explained, is convinced that authority and reason can never be in contrast with one another,” for “true religion and true philosophy coincide.” The Pope endorses Eriugena’s teaching that authentic authority never contradicts true reason, neither can the latter ever contradict true authority. Both originate from the same source that is divine wisdom.
*See Carabine, Deirdre, John Scottus Eriugena, Great Medieval Thinkers, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2000
(Egyptian mathematician, 325-265 b.c.)
Euclid's geometry had established a style of reasoning, wherein truths were deduced by the application of definite rules of reasoning from a collection of self-evident axioms. Philosophy copied this 'axiomatic method', and most forms of philosophical argument followed its general pattern. Euclidean geometry was believed to be a description of how the world was, it was not an approximation, it was not a human construct; it was the absolute truth. Thus beginning with Euclid and for almost two thousand years it was believed that geometric theorems were such pure and perfect Truth that they did not need to be scrutinized by observations of the real world. People in the past took it as a necessary truth that exactly one line can be drawn through a point, such that this new line is parallel to some other given line.
In actual fact, Euclid's geometric theorems merely apply to flat planar surfaces, and if we instead consider curved surfaces, then what is called "non-Euclidean geometry" results. Non-Euclidean geometry began a century-long inspection of the foundations of mathematics, which resulted in a complete reinterpretation of its nature and its applicability to the real world. The system's fundamental terms - in geometry, terms like point, line, and plane - are left undefined. The axioms of the system are not asserted to be true, they are simply assumptions. The theorems are not asserted to be true either; they are simply what follows when you make these assumptions about these undefined terms. And no one guarantees that the application of any particular mathematical system to the real world will yield any true or useful results.
In fact non-Euclidean geometries marked the end of an entire line of human thought, one that had dominated intellectual efforts for centuries. No longer did thinkers search their intuitions to find self-evident truths, then use those truths as the bricks of an unquestionable edifice. The assumptions of all subsequent systems of thought would have to be provisional and based on experience. And when the assumptions are only approximately right, the conclusions drawn from them may be even less correct.
The outcome of it all is that mathematics has broken away from reality; it has clearly and irretrievably lost its claim to the truth about nature, and reason has ceased to be coercive in any practical sense. However, even today, the Euclidian geometry remains familiar. The reason is that most people are restricted to small portions of the Earth's surface and usually the curvature of the Earth is negligibly small in these regions. A bricklayer or a carpenter must use Euclidean geometry, but an ocean going yachtsman cannot.
* Faber, Richard L., Foundations of Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometry, New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1983
(Cambridge Professor of Modern History, 1947 )
Evans wants to reassert the mode of historical enquiry initiated by the XIX c. founder of the “positive school” of writing history, Leopold von Ranke. Ranke was the promoter of the ‘scientific’ way of recovering the past. Like Ranke, Evans is committed to the view that facts and documents speak for themselves and are able to reveal the historical truth, the past “ as it was”.
Evans is a realist in believing that if the history we write cannot be fiercely objective it is “nevertheless true”. The historian is able to really find out how the past happened although the conclusions arrived at by a painstaking process of scientific method will always be “less than final”.
Evans defends the practice of historical realism from the worst corrosions of post-modern theory. Post-modernism insists on the historian’s subjective present and his imprisonment in his own time. For post-modernism there are no hard facts, no final answers, only a ‘plurality of decisions’, from which it follows that there is no authoritative standards from which different perspectives can be adjusted. Evans concedes that postmodernism has brought many benefits to historical study: a sound historical work has to be scrupulous, self-critical and even sceptical. Historians face difficult problems but, if well equipped in the technique of historical analysis, they are capable of giving a proper perspective to the understanding of the past. There are numerous rules for assessing the factual reality of the traces left by the past. It is possible to reconstruct the meanings which past language had, so that historians can distinguish a ‘true’ from a ‘false’ reading. Historians are bound to the facts, they need to be objective through a detached mode of cognition and the avoidance of any manipulation of the ‘reality of the past’.
* Evans, In Defence of History, London, Granta, 1997