I can't believe I didn't come up with this title first: You're Going to Miss Reality When It's Gone. It's another way of saying that you mustn't take is for granted, especially when the culture is forcing you to acknowledge and even celebrate what patently is not and cannot be.
However, upon reading the actual essay, I see that I don't agree with the author, who characterizes himself as a "freethinker," defined as
an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation....
a freethinker is "a person who forms their own ideas and opinions rather than accepting those of other people, especially in religious teaching." In some contemporary thought in particular, free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious belief systems.
I understand the sentiment -- for I am not only as, but much more, skeptical than the next guy -- but freethinking is of no value whatsoever in the absence of truethinking, i.e., the conformity of our judgment with being.
Nor can reality be reached by "logic, reason, and empirical observation," for the first two rely on data which must be furnished by extra-logical and trans-rational means, while empirical observation is only the beginning of knowledge, not the end, otherwise the senses would be superior to the intellect that abstracts from them, and which knows ontological principles and perceives metaphysical truths directly.
In short, there is (obviously) much more to reality than the appearances conveyed to us by the senses. Rather, reality is what is behind, or underneath, or above, the appearances, precisely.
"The validity of a logical explanation," according to Schuon, depends upon
the prior knowledge which this demonstration aims at communicating, and it is clearly false to take as the point of departure, not a direct cognition, but logic pure and simple.
Logic in and of itself is by definition tautological, for it cannot furnish its own premises:
hence it cannot attain to the universal and the transcendent by its own resources; a supralogical -- but not “illogical” -- dialectic based on symbolism and on analogy, and therefore descriptive rather than ratiocinative, may be harder for some people to assimilate, but it conforms more closely to transcendent realities.
Is it actually possible to be a "freethinker" -- which implies freedom from all assumptions, axioms, traditions, and preconceptions? It's a little like being a "free musician": just pick up an instrument and blow. Forget about music theory, or aesthetic vision, or assimilating a tradition.
In the opinion of all profane thinkers, philosophy means to think “freely,” as far as possible without presuppositions, which precisely is impossible (ibid.).
Although the rationalist "draws his inspiration from a pre-existing system," this
does not prevent him from thinking in a way that he deems to be “free”-- falsely, since true freedom coincides with truth (ibid., emphasis mine).
Truth and freedom. Evidently, the necessary relation between these two transcendental rascals isn't obvious.
Coincidentally, all of this is discussed in an essay I read yesterday called Truth and Indifferentism, by Garrigou-Lagrange.
Speaking of whom (and he's just a single example), if the ideal (freethinking) epistemology rejects authority, tradition, revelation, dogma, etc., then why is he so brilliant while soph-styled freethinkers are such epistemological muddlebrows and philosophic dilettantes at best? Clearly, freedom is a necessary condition to get at the truth of being, but not a sufficient one.
Off the top of my head, I'm guessing that freethought is always mingled with pridethought, for which reason the Aphorist says... so many things that the post will probably be hijacked, so we'll have to get to the essay tomorrow. Vis-a-vis "freethought,"
To educate man is to impede the "free expression of his personality."
Educating the individual consists in teaching him to distrust the ideas that occur to him.
Freedom is not an end, but a means. Whoever sees it as an end in itself does not know what to do with it when he gets it.
Freedom from tradition? Well, for starters, my tradition says this about freedom, and it's one of my favorites:
Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [boom] there is liberty.
Thus
The prestige of freedom in a society that professes scientific determinism is a Christian holdover.
Otherwise you have no intellectual defense against, say, "Islamist freedom," which is the freedom to murder Jews. Some freedom!
The idea of the "free development of personality" seems admirable as long as one does not encounter individuals whose personalities were freely developed.
Dávila didn't have to see San Francisco to know that
The price of absolute freedom would be a vulgarity without limits.
And that
Upon finding himself perfectly free, the individual discovers that he has not been unburdened of everything, but despoiled of everything.
Ultimately because
For the last two centuries the man who believes his prejudices are conclusions is called a "free thinker."
But let's get down to the real epistemological issue:
The free act is only conceivable in a created universe. In a universe that results from a free act.
And who can engage in a free act except a person? Thus three conclusions, first,
The life of the intelligence is a dialogue between the personalism of spirit and the impersonalism of reason.
Second,
The permanent possibility of initiating a causal series is what we call a person.
And finally -- for it follows from the first two --
Truth is a person.
This is what both my common sense and my tradition tell me. My tradition also teaches that truth cannot contradict itself, and that all truth is a reflection of the one truth.
Where does this leave us? I suppose with the conclusion that I am not a freethinker per se, but a person who thinks freely, but only because freedom converges upon the truth of being, and is required in order to freely discharge our obligation to the truth. To quote G-L,
We would like to recall here the rights of the truth, without which, obviously, there would be neither true freedom nor a true human life worthy of this name....
Details to follow in the next post.
3 comments:
but freethinking is of no value whatsoever in the absence of truethinking, i.e., the conformity of our judgment with being.
Ironically, "freethinking" still tends to find a sort of conformity of its own, inasmuch as it is natural for people to fall into patterns of behavior and thought. If you aren't conforming to tradition or truth, you're still conforming to something, even if it's only the circular wanderings of one lost in the wilderness with no compass.
I'm reminded of most of the artists I went to school with who considered themselves abstract painters, usually because they found representational art too difficult. Their abstract paintings quickly fell into a rut and then stuck there, the same patterns over and over again on repeat. I mean, everybody has a personal style, but this was more like repeating an earworm over and over, except I don't think most of them were even aware they were doing that.
Freethinking is really not original thinking, but the ability to freely think for oneself so one is conformed to Truth.
Julie, I know many of those sorts of artists. I think punk music fell into that trap too. It was this idea of do it yourself without formal training. While there is vitality in that approach, it burns itself out quickly.
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