Intellectual Diversity of Human Thought

[free thinker]

Intellectual Diversity of Human Thought

Man is said to be a rational animal because he can think for himself. Think he does, but many a time, he is not allowed to give expression to his thoughts in many societies. The earliest conflicts in human intellectual activity began between human reason and human beliefs. The ancient Greeks believed in a host of mythological gods and this belief was implicit with majority of them. They believed in their gods uncritically. But then there were some that were troubled by some nagging doubts. For instance, Xenophanes (580 BCE - ) argued, “ Mortals deem that gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form ….yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint forms of gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds… The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed, the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair”, (1). This kind of rationalism emanated from human reason and led to the crystallization of human thought into philosophy which had its most celebrated and ardent proponents in Socrates (469-399BCE), Plato (417-347BCE), Aristotle (384-322BCE), among numerous others.

The rational thought emanated from human reason and included phenomena, which appealed to human reason. Aristotle formally introduced logical reasoning in rationalism. One of the precepts of human reason, which was taken for granted, was that man was the supreme creation of God. Since man lived on the planet Earth, earth then should have the central place in cosmology. Aristotle thus believed that earth was stationary and the center of the universe. All the planets, including Sun, revolved around the earth. The Christian religion, which came into existence more than three hundred years after Aristotle, incorporated this idea into the Christian belief. Whosoever wrote the Biblical story of creation inserted this cosmological idea into it. No body questioned it because it was so obvious and in harmony with human reason. Ptolemaic cosmology was also constructed on this concept.

But the ideas, which are obvious and appeal to human reason, are not necessarily always true. The first conflict with human scientific knowledge and religion was caused by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543 CE) who constructed the heliocentric cosmology. According to Copernicus, if sun were placed at the center of the solar system and assumed to remain stationary and earth allowed to revolve around the sun, the cosmological system became less complicated and much easier to manipulate and explain. However, the hold of the Roman Catholic Church in medieval Europe and the fear of the Inquisition were so overpowering that Copernicus withheld publication of his theory. The book was published after his death and several scientists and astronomers including Galileo (1564-1642CE) took notice of it. While Johannes Kepler (1571-1630 CE), a very religious person, chose to work rather quietly on his laws, Galileo went ahead and put the church on the spot. As a consequence, he was compelled by the Inquisition to recant and was put in house arrest in which he died. He was responsible to herald the dispute between Reason and Revelation, which raged furiously in Europe in the seventeenth century and continued late into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One thing however must be clarified here before going any further. Aristotle’s geocentric concept derived from human reason, as I have already mentioned, and so did the heliocentric concept. So the conflict was between two rational concepts although the geocentric concept had somehow gotten baptized into the Christian faith. There was however one important difference between the two concepts. Aristotle’s concept was based on purely human reason (it was so obvious!) but the heliocentric concept was supported by the astronomical data also. So collection of empirical evidence in support of a rational concept became extremely important. A rational concept verified by empirical evidence is called scientific theory.

This led to the empirical movement in Britain which was pioneered by Francis Bacon (1561-1626 CE), John Lock (1632-1704 CE), George Berkeley (1685-1753 CE), and David Hume (1711-1776 CE). It was concluded that any thing that is not verified by empirical evidence is not necessarily true. It however does not mean that human reason that works logically has lost its import. Sometimes, it lights up the dark avenues of human exploration and urges scientists to collect empirical information of a certain kind to verify the logical consequences. A classical example of monumental contribution of human reason is Max Planck’s (1858-1947 CE) discovery of energy quantum. Analyzing the empirical data of energy distribution, Planck could only put sense into his empirical formulation if he assumed that energy transfer occurred in ‘discrete quanta’ rather than continuously, as the prevalent conventional wisdom had dictated all along. He reluctantly made this assumption and published his paper, which laid the foundation of a new and exciting branch of Physics, which is called Quantum Mechanics. But Planck’s hypothesis was not routinely accepted until it was verified empirically. Similar is the story of ‘antimatter’. Dirac’s theory predicted the existence of an elementary particle, which was similar to electron in all respects excepting its charge, which was positive. This particle was called positron; soon after Dirac’s publication, the positron was experimentally detected. These discoveries led to the philosophy of logical positivism. The logical positivists were thoroughbred empiricists. So far, so good.

Dichotomy of Mind and Matter

So far we have discussed the knowledge of material phenomena. What about the knowledge of immaterial (ethereal) phenomena? What about Soul and Spirit? What about mind and mental events? The ancient Greek philosophers were preoccupied by these ideas. Anaxagoras (499-428 BCE) believed that “..it was the power of nous, or mind, that not only created the world but also was the driving force in its day to day processes”, (2). Descartes (1596-1650 CE) proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am”. This dichotomy of mind and matter had existed from ancient times. Although, this duality has not yet been resolved, it is hoped that the true nature of mind and matter issue will become evident through empirical science and not alone by rationalism and implicit belief. Before the twentieth century, energy and matter were considered to be two different entities but Einstein’s theory of relativity linked them together. The two are different faces of the same reality. Duality of mind and matter may have a similar resolution.

Empiricism, Revelation, and Metaphysics

Any knowledge of non-material entities and phenomena is metaphysical in character, and it is not certain at all. Such knowledge can be postulated but not verified as is testified by the history of philosophy and human thought. The epistemology of metaphysics is intricate, complex, and not easy to appreciate by a person of non-philosophical bearings.

Iqbal, the Poet-Philosopher of the East, delved deeply into metaphysics. The beauty of his poetry and metaphysics moves most of us, but how many really understand his metaphysics. Very few, and those few also have ideas of their own which may not necessarily conform to Iqbal’s metaphysics. Any thing goes in metaphysics, because nothing can really be verified. Iqbal discussed the vendetta between reason and revelation in his poetry and other philosophical writings so recurrently that it became almost jarring. He glorified Intuition (and ishq) over reason vehemently.

Hume criticized the otherworldly aspects of metaphysics rather severely and said, “When we run over libraries, persuaded of their principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume, of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask. Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames”, (3).

In a recent debate between Imran Aijaz and Bill Cooke on the question, “Does God Exist?”, Aijaz chose to follow the old beaten track of producing rational arguments for the existence of God in his opening statement. These arguments had previously been offered by many philosophers of theology and were successfully rebutted by their contenders. Cooke, on the other hand, stated, “My Encyclopedia of Gods lists 2500 gods. On every single page except page 12, Mr. Aijaz and I would be in perfect agreement that none of these deities exist. We would probably agree that they are the inventions of the societies that worship them. But on page 12, and page 12 alone, my opponent would completely change his tack and insist that this one is for real. Were I to be debating a Christian, we would have to wait until page 341 to hear such a claim being made. So, my opponent has not only the burden of proof with regard to a god, he has the extra task of demonstrating that his god is the only valid option among all the gods on offer”, (4).

Cooke’s point is that belief in a particular god is purely subjective. Diversity of intellectual thought is indeed extensive and ubiquitous, and man is caught in his own web.

References
1. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Simons and Schuster, New York, 1972, p.40.
2. http://www.history.mcs.St-andrews.ac...naxagoras.html
3. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Eric Steinberg, Hackett Publishing Company, Cambridge, 1993, p. 114.
4. wysiwyg://51/http://www.infidels.or…/bill_cooke/cooke-aijaz/cooke1.htm