Thoughts on the Philosophy of History

Since I've come across, through Sharon's "Early Modern Notes," a number of history blogs I probably would never have otherwise read, I've been thinking about the philosophy of history (discipline). Not that there is, at present, all that much to think about -- most of what's out there is scattered at best. There's Maritain's lovely little work On the Philosophy of History, which actually attempts to rough out the laws of history (course of events). There are a number of works that, in one way or another, are concerned with the same sort of thing Maritain's little text is; but none of them, including Maritain's, ever really gets beyond a very preliminary sort of rough draft. And they only indirectly reflect on the philosophy of history (discipline). One occasionally runs across a more direct discussion; but it just isn't common.
 
What philosophy of history needs is its William Whewell (see here for yet another site). Whewell is the best candidate for a Father of Philosophy of Science; there were people prior to him discussing the subject (John Herschel is the most notable case), but he really got the ball rolling. He did it by publishing two rather massive works, The History of the Inductive Sciences and The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. Both titles are self-explanatory. Were there to be a Whewell of the philosophy of history one could expect him to do the following.
 
1. Extensively research the history (course of events) of history (discipline) -- from the early stages to the present day. Whewell's history of science is still almost unrivaled in scope and competence; there are some, like Pierre Duhem, who have been in his league on these two points, but most of the 'greats' in the field are footnotes in one way or another -- they modify or extend rather than rival.
 
2. Determine a historical (discipline) equivalent of Whewell's 'Fundamental Antithesis'. The basic point of Whewell's Fundamental Antithesis is that inductive sciences are a meeting of mind (reason) and data (experience). Something analogous could be reasonably expected for history's (discipline) study of the data of history (course of events).
 
3. On the basis of (1) and (2) build a comprehensive philosophy of history (discipline). This would include:
 

a. A historical topics, i.e., an overarching logic of the dicipline in terms of whatever would be analogous to Whewell's Fundamental Ideas.
 
b. A methodology, connected with the topics, in virtue of which historians do what they do.
 
c. Discussion of the handful of prior works.
 
d. Some notion of the links between the philosophy of history (discipline) and other, related areas, e.g., the philosophy of history (course of events), anthropology, sociology, etc.

With that philosophy of history would really have begun. Then we can do the heavy work....

(BTW, while I like WYSIWYGs, this WYSIWYG editor they've added to the Blogger post editor has to be the most messed-up WYSIWYG I've ever come across; undoing things is unnecessarily confusing, and the stupid thing does the blockquotes wrong - every time I use them I have to go to the HTML editor and edit out all the things that will make the template go crazy. I generally catch it, but if this page ever looks odd, you know why....)

Parableman's Top 15

Parableman has put up his Top 15. They're all worth reading. Those I enjoyed most were #13 (Does the Bible Count as Evidence for Christianity?), #5 (Matthew's Use of Scripture), #7 (My Amazing Wife), #14 (Review of Bible Translations),  and #1 (Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?), in that order.
 

Shepherd on the First Cause, Part III: The Elements of the Critique of Hume

This is the sequel to two posts, here and here, on Shepherd's theory of causation. I haven't actually reached the point of talking about Shepherd's views of the First Cause; I'm working my way thither in a roundabout way. The first of the prior posts presents some passages that I am, at least indirectly, clarifying in these posts. The second gives a brief discussion of the core idea of Shepherd's positive theory of causation, i.e., that causation is the mixture of qualities. In this post I'll briefly look at Shepherd's criticisms of David Hume's theory of causation. There are more investigative posts to come on Shepherd's causal theory, when I get around to them; in particular, I'll probably look more closely (in no particular order) at some of the arguments against Hume, at the general outlines of her positive theory of causation, at her use of experimentum crucis, at her conception of science, at her use of the design argument for the existence of God, at her speculative conception of God-as-cause, and at the causal reasoning involved in examining testimony about miracles. So there's lots left to examine; and I won't stop until I've traced through all the major parts of Shepherd's views of causation.
 
Shepherd is not at all impressed by Hume. She calls his theory "unstable and confused"; she says it involves "every species of illogical sophistry"; she considers it part of her work "to show that Mr. Hume's reputation for logical correctness has been overrated"; she expresses astonishment that Hume's definition of causation has "continued so long, admired, adopted, and unanswered" (Cause and Effect, pp.  129, 131, 135, 192). Her view is that Hume's position is a tissue of sophisms that are given an air of knowledge and elegance, thus misleading the casual reader. To counteract this, she attempts to strip Hume's position down to its essential elments. This is her result (I have simplified, reordered, and broken it up quite a bit to streamline her summary for this post):
 
a. No idea can be had except derived from an impression.
 
b. Experience only shows certain similar sensible qualities frequently (but not invariably) followed by other sensible qualities.
 
c. Thus in nature events are entirely unconnected and therefore incapable of conveying an impression of necessary connection or power.
 
d. In certain cases, however, there are invariable sequences of sensible qualities, on the basis of which a definition of cause and effect as invariable sequence might be built.
 
e. Since we are acquainted only with sensible qualities, they alone can be causes; but they have no connection with the secret powers of objects on which the effects would entirely depend.
 
f. Therefore like sensible qualities not being like causes might be followed by different effects.
 
g. It is reasonable to suppose, that an invariable sequence might be interrupted, for there is no contradiction in imagining an arbitrary change in nature's course. "Yet should a contrary imagination resist reason, and not conceive in fact this interruption as possible to take place; she may again reconsider the possibility of nature altering her course, forming no contradiction to reason" (p. 131)
 
h. Hence the custom of observing similar sequences of sensible qualities can alone convey the impression from which we get the idea of necessary connection.
 
i. Thus necessary connection is a 'fancy of the mind,' not a natural relation.
 
Shepherd identifies no less than seven problems with this line of thought.
 
1) From an examination of a particular instance, a general negative conclusion is drawn. He also deduces a general affirmative conclusion, that the future shall invariably resemble the past, from particular instances alone.
 
2) It claims we should deny the general relation of cause and effect on the basis of a proposition completely consistent with it, "namely, that like sensible qualities, NOT being like Causes, might be followed by DIFFERENT Effects" (p. 132).
 
3) A general negative conclusion is drawn from negative premises alone, "for it is concluded there is no proof for the existence of the general relation of Cause and Effect between objects;--because experience shows that like sensible causes are not like Causes; and are therefore not necessarily connected with like efects.
 
4) Hume shifts the discussion from examining the general relation of cause and effect to examining the criterion for ascertaining the presence of like causes.
 
5) The proposition that is disputed is used in making this argument: "first, in the statement that impressions are the productive Causes of ideas;--secondly, in supposing the secret powers of an object to be alone the real productive Causes of its future properties; thirdly, in conceiving Nature may alter her course for the express purpose of changing the secret powers; and that they are changed by such an alteration;--and lastly, in alleging custom to be the sole Cause (i.e. producing generating principle) of the IDEA of causation" (pp. 133-134).
 
6)  The proposition, "The course of nature may be supposed to change," is used ambiguously; since it can mean either an uncaused alteration of the subsequent sensible qualities or of the antecedent secret powers.
 
7) Hume attempts to establish that custom, not reason, is the principle of causation, but allows reason to be the sole ground and necessary cause of this belief. (I presume this is part of the point of what I've listed as (g).)
 
Looking this over just very briefly, it looks, just at a glance, like it might be a mixed bag. I'm inclined to think that (1-3) might be fair enough, although Hume usually can be interpreted so as to overcome formal problems like these. (4) could very well be exactly right, and I'll probably look more closely at this one fairly soon. I think she's right about (5) and (6), too, but I'm not so sure as she that any of these actually are problems with the logic of the argument. She has, however, put her finger here on several aspects of Hume's formulations that make Hume very difficult to interpret on this point;  a number of them are, in one form or another, still discussed in the secondary literature on Hume today. (7) is entirely too subtle for me, at least without further inquiry. There needs to be further inquiry on all of these points (my thoughts here are just first suggestions). While the summary is short enough, the overwhelming bulk of Cause and Effect is devoted to detailed arguments supporting these criticisms; and actual evaluation would have to look more closely at each of them. There is more here than meets the eye, although my claim is that what meets the eye is immensely promising.

The Hidden Treasure of the Interior Castle

Saint Teresa of Avila has a fascinating discussion of the soul and self-knowledge in her work, The Interior Castle (which can be found on-line here), a spiritual classic written in 1577 or shortly before. There she pictures the soul as a castle made of diamond or crystal, in which there are many rooms (aposentos), "just as in Heaven there are many mansions" (moradas) (1.1.1).   The 'rooms' of this castle are connected with self-knowledge, for Teresa immediately goes on to say:  

It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or his mother was, or from what country he came? Though that is great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies, and have a vague idea, because we have heard it and because our Faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or Who dwells within them, or how precious they are -- those are things which we seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond, and in the outer wall of the castle -- that is to say, in these bodies of ours. (1.1.2)

So the idea is this: The soul is the castle itself; but the soul also in a sense occupies different rooms of itself through its knowledge of itself. As she notes, linking the issue of self-knowledge with prayer,  

But you must understand that there are many ways of "being" in a place. Many souls remain in the outer court of the castle, which is the place occupied by the guards; they are not interested in entering it, and have no idea what there is in that wonderful place, or who dwells in it, or even how many rooms it has. You will have read certain books on prayer which advise the soul to enter within itself: and that is exactly what this means. (1.1.5)

Most of our self-knowledge is purely superficial - the outer wall of the castle, i.e., our body. Teresa is very insistent that there are many, many, many rooms in the castle; but the rooms also fall into rough groupings that can be distinguished according to interiority. The innermost room of the castle is the room "where the most secret things pass between God and the soul" (1.1.3). The Interior Castle is a guide to moving, through prayer, from the sort of self-knowledge we have in the outer part of the castle, to the sort we have in the inner part of the castle. (She divides the groupings into seven; of these we cannot get much farther than the second on our own - beyond that we need humility, prayer, and considerable reflection and meditation.)   One of the interesting aspects of this whole picture is that Teresa was not the last to make use of it. Edith Stein uses it in Finite and Eternal Being. Edith Stein (1891-1942), for those who don't know, was a student of the philosopher Husserl. Jewish by background, she eventually converted to Catholicism and entered the Benedictine Order as a Carmelite. In 1942 the Nazis arrested her and sent her to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she died. She was canonized a few years back (1998), and so is known variously as "Saint Edith Stein" or "Saint Teresa Benedicta a Cruce," which was the name she took in honor of Teresa of Avila. (Her feast day, by the way, is coming up: August 9.)   The interior castle is introduced in part VII, section 3. There she notes (quotations are from Finite and Eternal Being, Kurt Reinhardt, tr., ICS Publications, Washington D. C., 2002):  

The soul as the interior castle--as it was pictured by our holy mother Teresa--is not point-like as is the pure ego, but "spatial." It is a space, a "castle" with many mansions in which the I is able to move freely, now going outward beyond itself, now withdrawing into its own inwardness. And this space is not "empty," even though it can and must receive and harbor a fullness in order to become capable of unfolding its own individual life. (p. 373)

The soul 'dwells' in various aspects of itself: in the body, as sentient; in the spirit, as extending outside itself to recognize a world of persons, events, and things; and in "the personal I" or "pure ego". Stein is careful to indicate the point at which she is going beyond Teresa, saying, "St. Teresa was not interested in the question fo whether the structure of the soul, aside from being the abode of God, has an independent meaning of its own and whether there is perhaps another entrance 'portal' to the soul's inwardness besides contemplative prayer" (p. 598 n. 33). In Stein's understanding of the interior castle, the dwelling-places are a significant fact about the very nature of the soul's 'inwardness' or self-consciousness; and the other entranceway is what she calls the "awake and conscious ego-life" (p. 375). It plays an important role in her attempt to clarify what it is to be a person. We have a genuine sort of soul-structure,  a multifacetedness in our self-knowledge; spatial metaphors are an attempt to characterize this, given that we don't have convenient words for what is being discussed.  She agrees with Teresa that the "ego which apprehends, observes, and works upon its own self as if this self were a purely external thing evidently does not have its seat in the interior of the castle" (p. 433), and that self-knowledge is closely related to interiority. As she says:  

In its innermost being the essence of the soul is completely overt to itself. When the ego lives in this interiority, i.e., in the ground of its being where it is truly at home and in its own, it experiences in some measure the meaning of its being and feels the collected power that precedes the division into individual powers or faculties. And when the ego's life issues from this interiority, it lives a full life and attains to the height of its being. (p. 438)

 
This transformation to interiority is a gradual process; in particular, it is a gradual process in which the person becomes more fully what they are called to be:  the call to interiority is an appeal to the person, to the intellect, to the free will. And we do experience a call to interiority. It does not compel, but to dwell in our castle in a more interior way is to understand ourselves more fully and to be more at home with who we are; the call to interiority is the call to 'take a stand' with respect to what sort of persons we will be, the voice of conscience: "Reason and faith are both appeals of the soul, calling it 'to enter into its own self' and to mold human life from the innermost center" (p. 440).

This only barely scratches the surface of the investigations of the two Teresas on this point. I find it immensely interesting from a philosophical perspective; in part, because I think they are both on to something very important about the nature of self-knowledge, and in part because it highlights that there is an immense amount of moral psychology and philosophical anthropology locked in spiritual classics. It's perhaps worth noting, too, that recognition of this is important to doing more justice to the actual participation of women in the Colloquium of Ages that is the history of philosophy. There are many important philosophical insights from women located in works of piety and spirituality with which, for various reasons, they often were in more of a position to write than they were to write any treatise that would be more stereotypically 'philosophical'. So the purpose of this post is to begin calling attention to that hidden treasure.

More on Priestcraft and Enthusiasm

This is a follow-up to my "Wisdom from Campbell" post. It occurs to me that, while in practice the use of the priestcraft-and-enthusiasm locus is very vague, and more social in application than anything, both of the words seem to have something to do with way in which revelation is mediated. In 'priestcraft' revelation is entirely mediated by a magisterial hierarchy; in 'enthusiasm' revelation is entirely mediated by personal inspiration, conscience, or inner light. This is likely the origin of the Scylla-and-Charybdis notion; the establishment churches of Britain would have seen themselves - in different ways, obviously - as avoiding either extreme. The social aspect would have come from the actual groups that would receive these labels, and thus would tend to indicate those advocating, from a religious perspective, either hierarchialism (if that's the right word for it)or libertariarianism, in contradiction to the establishment compromises. Thus Quakers, of all people, could be seen as dangerous to society (which some people certainly did consider them to be): their religious views, springing from their notion of 'inner light', would have been seen as a religious excuse for anarchy.
 
Such is my hypothesis, anyway. The facts I build it on are 1) the way philosophical thinkers in the period actually use the topos, and 2) the sort of conclusions they draw from it. But I'm sure there's some intrepid historian out there who, from the more purely historical side, has touched on this distinction in some way that would allow for a more precise filling out (or correction) of this suggestion. If anyone has come across anything in this regard that might be of some use, let me know.

Absolute Proof of My Geekiness

"Gnostical Turpitude" has a post referring back to an earlier post on the issue of whether chess and quizbowl should be considered sports. I agree with him that it's silly to consider them such. But I must confess...
 
In high school I lettered in quizbowl.
 
Seriously.
 
Now that's the most embarrassing thing I've ever had to admit.

A Taxonomy of Evidentness

From Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, 1.2 (I have slightly changed the exact format to make it easier to post):
 
A. Of abstract ideas & their relations (certain) -- a.k.a. mathematical evidence

• intuitive evidence (i.e., the self-evidence of first principles)
• evidence of strict demonstration (from first principles)

B. Of things really existing

• from our own experience (certain): (1a) external and internal sense; (1b) memory; (1c) legitimate causal inference.
• from our own experience (probable): (2a) based on uniformity, i.e., inference from facts experienced to unexperienced facts of the same kind; (2b) based on analogy, i.e., inference from facts experienced to unexperienced facts of a similar kind.
• from the experience of others -- evidence of testimony.

 

Beattie then goes on to defend each of these from what he sees (with some justification) as Hume's skepticism about them.