Postmodern Morass

My Moral Theology teacher at Iona School is a hardcore postmodernist. I find his approach to philosophy in general to be problematic, to say the least. I find his approach to ethics to be confused as well. What he is, is a decent moral psychologist. But he confuses moral psychology with moral philosophy and theology. This is sad, for me, as this is the last of my classes at Iona, and most of the program has been unbelievable... as scholarly and right-headed as any program at any seminary I've ever heard of, which is not to say improvements could not be made. 

I have read the postmodernists with interest, and I've even been instructed from time to time. But the basic approach to human problems and to philosophy which deconstruction represents is all but evil, to me. I write this extended commentary on the approach put forward by my instructor as a way to work out my own intellectual salvation which is I guess the true reason for any blog. Here I will work out my frustrations constructively and hopefully leave a door open for my fellow students who may not have had the exposure to philosophy that I've had. I say to my fellow students: "stop and think for a moment."

Ontology and Epistemology

Almost all the problems in my class stem from one. But this problem is extraordinarily basic, it is something that any first-year undergrad should be able to avoid. My teacher conflates epistemology and ontology. Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowing. It asks what it means to know anything and how we know what we know. Ontology is metaphysics, it is the study of what the nature of existence is. It asks what it means to exist and how things exist as they do. My professor holds to a fallibilist epistemology. Moreover, he is a pluralist about epistemology. Roughly speaking, this means that he thinks that certainty about what we know eludes us, and that there are a plurality of truth-claims about the world that can be reasonably held.

So far, so good. The reasons to be a fallibilist and pluralist about epistemology far outweigh the reasons to reject these positions, as far as I can tell. The problem is that he then goes on to indicate that this plurality of knowledge-claims is equatable to a plurality of worlds in which people life. Roughly speaking, he says that all of reality is determined by what he calls 'narratives'. He went so far to say, for instance, that my belief that my dog is conscious makes him conscious. The stories we tell about life are what make life what it is.

Moreover, he makes narrative the skeletal structure of everything that humans do. In other words, all narratives are, all things being equal, constructed the same way and have the same ontological weight. To explain by analogy, some philosophers seek some basic atomic 'thing' of which all is composed, and believe that at base all we see are particles in the void. All other realities other than these particles are illusory. In the same way, since all is 'narrative', then narrative is all we have. Thus because one can in some way create an analogy between religion and science, religion and science are both the same thing, a 'narrative'. The vast, vast structure difference between the activities of science and religion are all but ignored.

Structural differences matter. A house and a boat are not the same thing because they are both made of wood. Frogs and humans are not the same thing because both are made out of cells. The 'atomism of narrative' my teacher puts forth simply doesn't follow. Even if we grant that this mystical thing he calls 'narrative' is really the substance of everything, it wouldn't tell us anything about what one or another thing actually is, any more than saying all things are composed of atoms tells us much about planets and stars.

But the real problem, the real problem, is that first problem. Ontology and epistemology are different. It is one thing to say that I can be certain of very, very few things. It is another to say that everything I believe is what happens. There are horrific consequences on the semantic, moral (personal discourse, talking out of both sides of your mouth) and theological level. I need to deal with each of these individually:

The Semantic Consequences 
Saying that every statement is equally true is equivalent to saying none are true. The predicate "is true" only makes sense if the predicate "is false" also makes sense. There is a great animated film, THE INCREDIBLES, that deals with this issue. This guy tries to make all people superpowered. He says at one point, "if all people are super, than none are." If there is no way at all to adjudicate between true and false then the meaning of both fails us.

Think about this statement: "X is true in your narrative.' Well what about this statement: "'X is true in your narrative' is true in your narrative." And this one: "'"X is true in your narrative is true" is true in your narrative' is true in your narrative."? Every statement about what we just said is itself just another narrative. That is what philosophers call a vicious regress. It swallows up all we say. In the end nothing we say means anything at all. It doesn't. Because there is no empirical background, no truth, no fact of the world to which our statements back up into. All there is is narrative upon narrative, down to infinity. What none can then convey is the only thing that matters: semantical content.

On this model, nothing we say has meaning, at all. For the definitions of words are always up for grabs. There is no 'fact of the matter', nothing to which our words refer or that fix their meanings, that can make anything we do have any substance. In the end, all human speech is no more than 'quacking'. Even our own thoughts lack content. What is left is duck speak. To accept that every person creates their own personal reality by what they say is ultimately self-destroying. You cannot accept it because even what you say has not reality behind it. You do not really SAY, anything at all. All you do, is quack. This is soul-death and mind-death. At the end of this road there is not only no one way the world is, but no way for the world to possibly be, at all. There is nothingness, bare and absolute nothingness. No God, no you, no me, just the illusion of the illusion of the illusion.

The Moral Consequences
There must be limits even to epistemological pluralism. While much of life may remain to us uncertain and even unknowable, for us to have any ground by which decision can be made there must be at least some rocks on the river of life. George Orwell's book 1984 argues this so succinctly. The basic argument of that book is that the only freedom we have is the freedom to say "2+2=4". The state robs him of his freedom by forcing him to believe what is patently untrue: that 2+2=5. There must be some semantic grounds, and even epistemological grounds.

My professor talked a lot about us choosing one narrative over another. But choosing, the very act of taking a risk and moving from one story about life to another story about life, requires some ability to at least describe what I did as actually, truly, choosing. It cannot be just the case that: 'the fact that you chose to change narratives is true in your narrative.' The semantic problem, above, removes my ability to say that. It makes that statement equivalent to neither choosing nor not choosing. It means that I didn't, in fact, choose at all.

I must be able to assert what I believe and know that, at least, I have asserted it. This requires some island of fact in the sea of uncertainty. Now can I be CERTAIN of any of this? No. But I can assert it and assert it as true, and that assertion has to stand as fact. Not fact 'for me', because the act of asserting it is a public act, an act that is given 'to the world'. If it is not, then it is nothing. One of the huge underlying blind spots in my professor's outlook is the inability to adjudicate between belief, knowledge, and assertibility.

So this ontological confusion robs us of any and all freedom. Additionally, it removes moral responsibility. If anything I say can be construed 'from a certain narrative' to be true, the I can, at any time, adopt this narrative and make what I said true 'for me'. I can lie, cheat, and steal, and these things will be truth, fairness, and charity, so long as I've adopted the proper narrative. I do not have to own anything I do because, in the end, there is no fact of the matter about what I've done. Now I'm not certain about moral objectivity, at all. But to say I do not KNOW whether there are moral truths and to say there are none, are two different things. To say that I do not know which moral perspective is correct, and to say that all are, are also two very different things.

I can act on belief, I can assert what I believe is true, I can work to shape the world according to my beliefs, all the while asserting their truthfulness, and I can be consistent. What I cannot do, is try to convince you that I am right about anything at all, if I think you and I are both right about conditions which contradict one another.

It is, finally, disrespectful to impose my views on other people. It is wrong, and I'd say even evil, to refuse to take people at their word. If someone believes that I am WRONG and they are RIGHT, then forcing my own view upon them, painting what they say in such a way that we are both right, and in fact they are actually saying we are both right, is rude and disrespectful. As I've said elsewhere:

"The real reason to adhere to logical rules when engaging in discourse is respect. In any debate, there must be some rules, without them real discourse is impossible. Logic is, for me, those rules that help ensure that debate is morally grounded, as much as anything else. The either/or fallacy, for instance, makes it possible for someone to cut off debate from a great number of people by making a particular issue about one of two positions. "Religion is either about morality or it is about nothing." What about those who think religion is about happiness, or truth, or any other number of things? Are they just out in the cold now? Why is their position reduced to 'nothing'? Pointing out logical fallacies is not rude, it is a way to stop rudeness. If you speak in contradictions, then you have cut off my ability to respond. I cannot really say anything at all, in response to you."

 The Moral Consequences 2- Talking Out of Both Sides of Your Mouth (Beauty)
One of the things that was frustrating about my professor, is he would openly admit he was talking out of both sides of his mouth. He would make truth claims about God, about sin, and in the next moment say all narratives create our reality. He would assert the Christian narrative as true, all the while saying all narratives are true. He literally used the term 'talking out of both sides of my mouth.'

This happened simply because he wanted to treat the issues as epistemology at some times, and at others he treated them as ontological. But he wanted to maintain the conflation. This is terrible. It is, really, an illustration of the way the semantic consequences bring about moral consequences. I cannot understand anything you say. I have a right, if we are going to dialogue, to know what you mean when you say things. If I don't have that, you have robbed me of the ability to respond to you at all. You can define any word however you want at any time, and in that way 'win the debate' without actually saying anything at all. Not by leading to agreement or even clarity (the latter often being the best we can hope for), but by obscuring to the point that the only person who knows where they are is you. It is selfish, it is self-centered, and it is bully behavior, all in the name, disgustingly, of being magnanimous.

Take the issue of beauty. My professor says we cannot judge a narrative true, but we can judge it beautiful. But judgments of beauty can be deconstructed and relativized faster than anything else. Is is true that the narrative is beautiful? Or is it just 'true for you?' And if it is true for you why can't I make it true for me that being a selfish bastard is a beautiful story?

The worst part is that I am a process philosopher, I believe that beauty is vital to both ontology and ethics, and epistemology for that matter. But I believe in truth claims. I believe that though I cannot be certain that what I see is, in fact, beautiful, it is still beautiful and that I can assert this with warrant. Not with certainty, but in confidence, and in the confidence that what I say is, in fact, true.

The Theological Consequences
One of the worst consequences of all this is the equality of narrative that takes place. On this model, the saintly act is no more special than the act of the cold blooded murderer. Everyone writes their own story, right? But God hath not ordained one story better than another. What's worse, we quickly get into this place where everyone is building their own reality. Your child has cancer? Well change the narrative? You made that happen, or the story you accept did. Do you believe this? Do you buy it?

How do we make sense of God standing with the victim unless there is, in fact, a victim? We can't. How can we make sense of their being a God that we will into existence? Well why not will into existence a God that gives us everything we want? Why not create a God that allows us to be the selfish bastards we are, and gives us all good things BECAUSE of it? This erases the very existence of the only narrative that matters?

I believe that narratives are important for understanding our world. In this and in one other thing (see below), the postmodernists have something. I take people's stories, change them and give them back all the time. But I do this because I think that the narrative I give is, in fact, truer. There may not be one all-encompassing truth that we can just grab hold of, but that doesn't mean such a truth doesn't exist, nor that all attempts at telling the story of existence are equally far from that truth.


That Thing About Certainty
Even when it comes to certainty, we cannot be absolutists. If we claim all is uncertain, we are setting up a dichotomy for no good reason. This is true of relativism, too. The whole idea is to get away from creating strict dichotomies, but by claiming that the world is EITHER a world of facts imposing on values, or values simply interpreting and creating facts, the worldview of the relativist and the pluralist actually rests on a dichotomy. Doesn't the assertion that SOME things may be created by narratives and others not so created make some sense? Mightn't it be true that we are certain about at least a few things?

I believe some things I do not know and am not certain of. I believe, strongly, that my dog is conscious. I know enough about philosophy of mind to know this is a controversial statement. I know that I do NOT know that my dog has consciousness. But I believe it. That I have no certain grounds for this belief does not make the belief arbitrary nor does it mean I somehow make it true (next time someone points a gun at you, go ahead and try to narrate it away... I mean Jesus who really believes this crap?) My belief that my dog is conscious is more important, more action-guiding and more powerful than my certain knowledge that 2+2=4. Beliefs being without certain grounds is not equivalent to beliefs being without any grounds. Knowledge is not certainty and it is not even knowing that or even necessarily how, you know. Belief is not knowledge, and so on.

Conclusion
I ended that earlier-referenced post once in this way:
"Yet the world does not fit into nice logical little boxes, either. There may be times when our language cannot be used to express an ideal exactly, but must rather kind of 'point' to the idea behind the language. Sometimes I have to kick the ladder of logic aside, to paraphrase Wittgenstein. The important thing is to be up front about what game one is playing. If I have left logic aside, I cannot demand that I be taken with the same precision as when I am being strictly logical, nor can I expect my words to have the same air of authority or certainty. It is being honest about when one is dialoging and when one is pontificating. Sometimes no interlocutor is being addressed, or imagined. Yet even here, one must be careful. There are some fallacies that should never be committed, the example given of the either/or being one example. Not because they necessarily get one closer to the truth, but just because they are plain rude."

There may be places where truth eludes us, and where logic cannot help us with certainty. There is no place, however, where truth should be abandoned as a goal and as a hope. There may be places where ambiguity is necessary or inevitable. There should be no place, however, where we should use it to obscure what can be precisely said, and understood.