Being and Natural Law: The Bent Twig and Epistemological Realism

THE NEXT COMMON CRITICISM OF REALIST EPISTEMOLOGY comes from the empiricists such as Locke, Berkely, and Hume. If knowledge of reality is informed by the senses, and the senses are manifestly unreliable, how can our knowledge of reality be reliable? Typically, the empiricists would point to the "bent stick" in the water, the apparent displacement that occurs as a result of parallax, or the discrepancy between those who see color and those who are color blind (who's to say colors are real, and not just something that is in the one who perceives?). A rectangular paper looks rectangular when looked at straight ahead, but it looks trapezoidal when viewed form an angled vantage point. An analogous phenomenon in the sense of hearing is the changing pitch associated with the Doppler effect. With the deviation between our senses and reality, how can we say we know reality when all our knowledge comes by and through these unreliable senses?

A variety of examples of "relativity in perception"


Parallax

Refraction

Color Blindness


The Doppler Effect

Dr. Knasas disagrees that the momentary or occasional deviation in the senses that is at the center of the "relativity in perception" critique of the empiricist school presents an insurmountable problem. "The relativity in perception is not sufficiently great to justify doubt about immediate realism." Though there may be variances in perception as a result of the relativity that is intrinsic to that perception, there is sufficient basis to be firm about the essential fact that we are perceiving something immediately real. There is sufficient information to begin philosophy.

[S]ufficient immediate realism exists for one to initiate his philosophizing. You do not have to know what is the exact shared of color of the poppies, the exact configuration of the paper, the exact subject of the motion. For philosophy to begin it is enough that sense cognition proves real color, shape, and motion.

The epistemological realism of St. Thomas did not demand perfection in the direct knowledge of real things. In attacking epistemological realism, moderns confuse the "immediate cognitional presence of the real" with "an immediate physical presence of the real." "Physical presence," Dr. Knasas insists, "demands exactitude and brooks no exception." However, the "immediate cognitional presence of the real" may not be so exact or so perfect. Often enough real objects impress themselves in our mind "at the end of long chains of physical causality," and, as a result, real things impress themselves in our cognition imperfectly. There are time, however, that the "physical presence" and the "immediate cognitional presence" of the real align perfectly.

Although Dr. Knasas did not suggest it, one should note that the "relativity in perception" can be explained by us, adjusted to by us, which is another way of saying that we can often explain how and why the "immediate cognitional presence of the real" departs from the "immediate physical presence of the real." Our ability to do this indicates that we have sufficient grasp of the reality behind the relativity that is intrinsic in perception to be able to correct for the latter. Thus we can explain why the color blind man does not see color, whereas the normal man does, and we can even invent tests to determine whether someone is color blind and whether he suffers from monochromacy, dichromacy, or trichromacy. We can explain, by understanding refraction and the effect that a change in medium has on the direction of light waves as a result of a modification of their speed, why the image of the twig in the water appears bent. We can explain why vantage point affects our perception of the shape seen. We can explain why the velocity of an object that emits sound affects the pitch of the sound. These adjustments, it would seem, would be impossible if we did not have a grasp of the underlying reality behind the relativity in perception. Moreover, the "relativity in perception" is itself part of reality, as it would not be reflective of reality if my senses did not take into consideration changes in media, in velocity, in vantage point, and so forth.

In summary, the objections of the empiricists seem rather easily overcome. They surely are not sufficient to have us jettison our common sense and advocate a total lack of correlation between the real about us, and our cognition of that real world within us, a cognition that is mediated through the sufficiently reliable senses.

Being and Natural Law: Tarantulas and other Nightmares

WE CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND THOMISTIC ETHICS without understanding the metaphysical basis for it, in particular, the basis or foundation of human knowledge. According to Dr. Knasas, our sense of moral obligation comes to us because we are "intellectors of being" and "willers of good." But before we can talk about "intellection," we must talk about "sensation." In the Thomistic realist epistemology, "intellection presupposes sensation." All knowledge comes a posteriori, that is, it follows from contact with reality, and the first contact with reality is sensory.

Since at least the Enlightenment, and Descartes' dream, Locke's empiricism, Hume's skepticism, and the Kantian critique, realistic epistemologies such as St. Thomas's have been much deprecated. The Thomistic epistemology remains that of the "man-on-the-street," but in the minds of modern philosophical faculty, it is without question the minority view, perhaps even largely considered in disrepute. But Dr. Knasas is not so quick on dismissing St. Thomas's "immediate, or direct, realism." He tackled the two principle objections to philosophical realism, the Cartesian "hallucinatory" or "dream" objection and the objections of the Empiricists which are based upon the lack of reliability of the senses, especially the "relativity of perception."

Is what is in my mind reality, or a dream or hallucination? How am I to know? Perhaps we are dreaming of being before Dr. Knasas, a figment or phantasm produced entirely within the confines of the mind, and bearing no relationship, no link with anything real.

Real Tarantulas and Imaginary Tarantulas

Knasas's response to the Cartesian suggestion that we cannot affirmatively establish that we are not in a dream-like state begins with the notion of "image," for it is through the cognitional device of "images" that we "imagine" hallucinations, dreams or conscious imaginings. Cognitional devices such as "images," Dr. Knasas suggests, have within them an "'intentional' charge," which is a sort of built-in capacity that allows us to step back or "reflect" on these images or ideas and "uncover" or discern them as images. We see them as being a step away from reality, at least when we compare them with reality. Ideas do not have the immediacy of immediate perception, of immediate contact with the real world. Thus, we can "imagine" tarantulas crawling on our back and we shudder in fright, but at the same time this "image" of tarantulas crawling on our back has within it this "'intentional' charge" that allows us to reflect and uncover the image of tarantulas on our back as an image, and not as something immediately tied to the real. In a similar way, an act of remembering, which elicits a "memory," brings forth a similar cognitional device to an image, and this "memory" also has this "'intentional' charge." We are able to distinguish memories from reality. Those cognitional devices, such as memory and images, that come packed with this "'intentional' charge," this ability to "reflect and uncover" them as being something other than an immediate contact with the real, are called by Dr. Knasas (who follows Yves Simon in this regard) "ideas."

We dream, hallucinate, and imagine through these ideas, and the "'intentional' charge" that is part and parcel of them allows us, at least if we are not mentally ill, to reflect and uncover the fact that they are ideas, and not real. More importantly, we can also be aware that we are not having such ideas. We can reflect and uncover the fact that, in experiencing the real, there are no such ideas--such as images of dreams or memories in acts of remembering--going on. We can therefore distinguish between awareness of real things directly and immediately, and an awareness of things that come to us through ideas such as memory and images.

Dr. Knasas believes that an error indulged in by many neo-Thomists is their insistence that sensation also works through "ideas," that reality is mediated to the mind through "ideas," just like imagining, dreams, hallucinations, and acts of memory. "Fortunately," Dr. Knasas notes, "the reflexively ascertainable truth is that sensation does not include ideas," at least not as defined by Dr. Knasas as those cognitive devices that have this "'intentional' charge." Though there may be a superficial similarity, there is in fact a huge difference between "ideas," and the Thomistic doctrine of sensory cognitional liknesses, "the 'sensible impressed species," the species impressa, which is man's sensory and cognitive contact with reality. "The sensible impressed species is the very form of the real thing as it is in the knower." Unlike ideas, the species impressa requires the presence of the object before the knower. We are able to distinguish between the species impressa and the idea, whether the idea be the result of the images of dreams, hallucinations, or imagination, or the result of memory elicited by an act of remembering.

It is in a manner such as this that a Thomist can respond to the Cartesian suggestion that we cannot distinguish between reality and a dream.

Man as a Universal: The Moderate Realism of the Natural Law

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A UNIVERSAL HUMAN NATURE? There are some that would deny such a thing, not on the grounds that there are no such things as humans, but that there are no such things as universals. The existence of a universal human nature is a sine qua non of the existence of a natural law. As Yves Simon puts it in his The Tradition of Natural Law:

Whether there is such a thing as a universal human nature is a question that cannot be dodged; it is a question that must be settled before proceeding to the discussion of natural law. . . . [I]t is meaningless to argue seriously about natural law without having ever raised the question of the universals. . . . It is vain and unprofitable to argue about the universality of natural right or natural law without a minimum of logic concerning the universals, concerning, the meaning of universality . . . .

Simon, 6, 160. To be able to accept or understand a theory of natural law, we must have an understanding of universals such as "man." More, we have to have a realistic, not an idealistic or a nominalistic notion of universals. What does all this mean?

Detail of Placque on Pioneer Space Probe Depicting "Humanity"

Socrates is a man. When we say "man," when we predicate "man" of the individual Socrates, is it a mere description of the individual or is it also a referent: does it only describe Socrates or does it also refer to something real "external" to, and independent of, Socrates and in which he participates? If it does refer, then what is it it refers to? By saying "man," do we refer to a universal or merely to a set? Is a particular man, say Socrates, "man" because he is a member of the set of individuals we classify as "men"? Or is Socrates "man" because he participates in the entirety in this thing called "man"? Philosophers called this latter sort of referent a universal. It is either a type (e.g., "humanness"), a property (e.g., "whiteness"), or a relation (e.g., in betweeness). In this case, when we say that Socrates is a man, the term "man" is a universal of type.

We may break the philosophical understanding of universals into three general schools of thought: realist, idealist, and nominalist. The realists believe that universals have a real existence. The realists may be broken further into two general groups, Platonic (universalia ante rem) realists and Aristotelian (universalia in rebus) realists sometimes called moderate realists. The Platonic view is that universals (the "form") are real and exist independently of and collateral to the particular thing that participates in it. The Aristotelian view is that universals are real, but do not exist independently of the particular thing that participates in the universal. The universal inheres in the particular. The universal only exists in the individual that embodies it. We understand the universal through the process of abstraction.

The idealist or conceptualist believes that universals are realities in the mind only (concepts alone), and have no extra-mental existence, whether independent or not of the particular. The nominalist goes further and rejects that universals are real in any sense, and only accepts the existence of individuals or particulars. For a nominalist, something like "humanity" does not have a real existence; it is but a "name" or a "term" (The Latin word for "name" is nomen, from which the word nominalist comes. An alternative name for nominalist is also a terminist). In terms of whether the universals are real or not, the idealist or conceptualist position collapses into the nominalist or terminist position.

The problem [of universals] may be expressed by considering two interrelated questions. First, can our concepts be grounded in reality if it is the case that universals do not exist in some manner in cognition-independent reality? Second, can the nature of the entities in cognition-independent reality be thoroughly individualized if it is true that our conceptual classifications reflect something real? [Platonic] Realism says "no" to the first question; nominalism says "no" to the second. Moderate [Aristotelian] realism, in contrast, answers both questions affirmatively.

Douglas J. Deny Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen, "Ethical Individualism, Natural Law, and the Primacy of Natural Rights," in Ellen Frankel Paul, et al. eds., Natural Law and Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 35 n. 5. Put simply, when we say "Socrates is a man," the Platonic Realist would say that the most important reality is not Socrates, but "man." The nominalist would say that the most important reality (in fact the only reality) is Socrates, and not man. The moderate realist would say that both man and Socrates are important realities, as the reality of man expresses itself in and through Socrates.

It is important to distinguish a universal from a set or collection. A universal can be predicated, in its whole meaning, to each of its subjects or parts. A universal can be identified in its entirety in any one of its parts or subjects. This is not true of a set or collection. A set or collection cannot be identified with any one of its parts or components; it cannot be predicated of any of its parts. Is "man" a universal in which individual men and women share, or is it a set or collection of individual men and women? Clearly, at least in ordinary usage, "man" is a universal in which individual men and women participate, and not merely an individual member of a set or collection of men and women that have existed, that currently exist, and that will, in the future exist. To see the distinction between a universal of the whole and a set, we can look at the way we predicate the universal and the set on an individual.

The Senate is a "set" of senators; it is what we get when we aggregate a group of senators. Suppose that Smith is a member of the Senate; he is a senator. Though he is a member of the Senate, Senator Smith cannot be said to be a Senate, or to contain within himself the Senate, or to be senate. This is so because a set (Senate) cannot be predicated of any of its parts (Senator Smith).

The matter is markedly different when say that Socrates is a man. It means more than merely that he is a member of the set of men. Since the term man is a universal whole, it may be predicated on Socrates in its entirety. This is so because a universal can be predicated in its entirety upon any parts or subjects since they in some manner participate in and are expressive of that universal. So we can say that Socrates is a man, that Socrates has within himself humanness (manness), that Socrates is man.

Socrates is man, unlike Senator Smith, who is not senate.

We participate in a universal in a manner different than we participate in a set. Thus, the thinking behind the depiction of the humans in the "Pioneer Plaque," designed by Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Frank Drake, is highly unphilosophical. The physical makeup of the man and the woman were determined through a computerized analysis of the "average person," something a nominalist would think of. The universal "man" is not determined by averaging individual men and women. Under the classical view of natural law, "man" is not a set or aggregate of men and women.

Under the classical view of natural law, "man" is a universal whole, a reality that exists outside of us and independent of us, but one that expresses itself and is found only particular or individual men and women. In the view of the natural law, each and every man, woman, child, and fetus from the first moment of conception participates in the universal whole that is man. As such, each individual person participates in the nature of man and shares in the dignity of that universal concept, the attendant duty that comes with it to learn of what it is to be "man," what is the end or purpose of "man," and what kind of activity conforms to and is expressive of "man." In short, the universal is what allows for an objective human nature and an objective law that stems from that universal and objective human nature in which we participate.

This is the viciousness of the Darwinian thesis: that man has an evolving nature, and therefore there is no such thing as a universal in any individual "man." Man is process. Becoming.

Darwinian Rejection of Universal

This human nature, this universal in which we participate, is a "given," it is not one that we make for ourselves. We discover it, we uncover it. We do not invent it or create it. We are servants to the universal, and through our adherence to the natural law that is part of it we find our freedom to become what we are.

Man Created By God: Source of Universal

We are not masters of the universal. Outside of it we are no longer free, but act as if we are something we are not. And there is no question of becoming "superhuman" when we act outside of it. We have no ability to become more than what we are. We only have the ability to be what we are or to be less than what we are. Therefore, we become inhuman, indeed subhuman, when we act outside of the universal.