Q&A: Thoughts Following the Book "Truth and Not Stable"
Thoughts Following the Book "Truth and Not Stable"
Question
Hello Rabbi Abraham
I read your book "Truth and Not Stable" and enjoyed it. I thank you for the systematic, illuminating, and deep analysis. The book is also circulating among our students in the yeshiva, and for many of them it is an important voice in shaping their worldview.
The book seeks to contend with the postmodern critique [while explaining fundamentalism as its opposite parallel]. Although I identify with the book’s principal conclusion, I think it does not touch on some of the central and difficult claims that postmodernism raises. In that sense, it solves an important problem, but not the main problem currently on the table.
Let me elaborate.
A short introduction:
Of course, the term postmodernism is a verbal invention. After it became an intellectual fashion, it also became the subject of discussions about what exactly it means. Like many intellectual fashions, and perhaps more than usual, it also includes a large amount of gibberish and claims that are more curiosity than anything serious. But it is my duty to look for the serious claims and deal with them, not to exempt myself by ridiculing the unserious positions. I would like to argue that postmodernism has a very serious claim with which your book does not contend.
The book’s central claim is that the error of postmodernism stems from the expectation of proven and certain truth. This expectation arises from an incorrect understanding of rational thought. After explaining the essential limitations of analytical thinking, you go on to propose a synthetic alternative, based on probability and intuition, which you explain in the last part of the book.
But this is exactly where the postmodernist claim comes in—that intuition itself is deeply influenced by cultural contexts.
Between rationalism and empiricism, this is not a rationalist-type claim but an empiricist-type one. It does not make a philosophical claim about the possibility or impossibility of truth, but rather deals with the empirical study of the ways in which human consciousness and cognition are formed. Historical, sociological, and psychological research seeks to point to the influence of the period (history), the environment (sociology), and drives (psychology) on the most basic ways in which our intuitions are formed, and therefore to argue that they are culturally dependent. According to this position, the rational explanation of our positions is rationalization after the fact—the uniquely human ability to give a thousand and one explanations for its prior intuitions (as Nietzsche wrote, philosophers are nothing but slick lawyers for their prejudices).
If we return to the conceptual framework of the book: the demonstration of synthetic thinking in the book takes several very, very simple cases and seeks to show how one can rationally move from data to conclusions that, while not certain, are probable. But this description lacks a dramatic component in synthetic judgment: proportion and estimation. Since these are not absolute proofs, one must constantly evaluate their weight (if Shimon failed literature and Reuven succeeded, that gives some prediction regarding their success on a composition exam, but I wouldn’t put much money on it). Estimation is a central component of the synthetic process. Such estimation accompanies almost every human deliberation—between different values, between different possibilities in reality, etc. But how is estimation formed? What is the correct weight to assign to different pieces of evidence? Which consideration should be given more force? This is a critical question in the mode of thought you proposed, and you do not provide an answer except in very simple cases. According to the postmodern claim, this is exactly the point at which cultural and personal biases enter and tip the scales.
From another angle:
Logicians usually use simple examples to demonstrate—and implicitly also to prove—that inference is not culture-dependent. The assumption is that, as in the natural sciences, complex reality can also be broken down into simple rules, and the complex is nothing more than those simple rules operating together. But specifically the synthetic option can clarify why this is not a correct description of human thought. As noted, already at the basic stages there is an element of judgment needed in order to decide the proportionality of different intuitions. The weight of this component only grows as one moves to increasingly complex systems, until it becomes the central component of the decision. One can formulate the claim this way: in complex systems, the degree of “interference” from proportional judgment is so broad that the unstable dimension outweighs the stable dimension.
When we speak about the operation of laws in nature, we are speaking about a “dead” operation—the law acts because that is what it is. Therefore, even if it is very complex, it will work because each part of the system does its own action. But when it comes to human consciousness, there is great weight to the forgetting of details in the move to generalizations. That is—when the system becomes complex, it undergoes simplification and abstraction by thought, in order to produce something manageable. In this process, the initial insights of the particulars disappear from the judgment, and are integrated into a generalization that always remains only possible. The building blocks are no longer active. In scientific thinking the assumption is that there is no need for the building blocks, just as after formulating the law of gravitation there is no need for the particular cases of falling apples. But since we agreed that already the first generalization is “truth and not stable”—not a certain generalization but a probable one—then in combining different generalizations the weight of the particulars can change, and therefore forgetting them has a critical role.
This is significant, because it leaves increasing room for “intuition” not only as the assessment that between two lines a straight line passes, but also for judging human situations, making value judgments, and so on. Whereas in the limited logical system there can be components that “force themselves” upon psychology, in complex systems they almost disappear, and psychology/sociology have a field day.
In this sense, I would not attribute your discussion—about the expectation that truth be certainty—to postmodernism, but rather to modern philosophy. It can be presented as an extended engagement with Descartes’ first Meditation in the Meditations, which categorically demands absolute truth: “I must scrupulously refrain from giving trust to things that are not certain and beyond all doubt.” As I understand it, the novelty of postmodern skepticism is that it does not stem from any determination regarding the philosophical meaning of “truth” (whether truth is certain or not, possible or not), but from an empirical determination (originating in the social sciences) that the glasses through which we look are so thick and so smeared with certain colors that talk about what lies behind them is worthless and, above all, unaware of itself.
Again, thank you very much
Best regards
Answer
Hello.
Thank you for the detailed response. There is indeed a point here that did not receive sufficient attention in the book, and that is unfortunate. I will try to explain here my claim regarding the question of cultural biases.
First, I have no crushing argument against skepticism. My goal was not to reject it, but to show the plausibility of another position (because to many people it seems that the skeptical argument is necessary and that it is impossible to hold a position that is not like that—the analytical one).
Second, I think you somewhat understate the influence of the analytical position on the philosophical plane upon the postmodern view. Much of the force of the postmodern argument and doubt stems from a philosophical lack of trust in the ability to arrive at truth. The confirmations from the social sciences merely reinforce that starting point (see below that without it the postmodern conclusion does not necessarily follow from them). Therefore, in my opinion, it is very important to contend with it.
Third, many who hold a postmodern position do not draw from it the various conclusions that follow from it. Even if I cannot confront postmodernity head-on, it is important to show its implications (such as the invalidity of moral values) so that people will not live under the illusion that one can be postmodern and at the same time moral. The worn-out case of Ikhlas Kanaan (which Rabbi Shagar also uses) is a clear example of this. Of course, one can behave morally without holding a moral position. I discussed this distinction in Part 3 of the fourth notebook on my website (and I think also in Truth and Not Stable). I assume that quite a few people will thereby arrive at the conclusion that they do not believe in postmodernism.
Fourth, science too is based on cultural theses, and in principle it can also be attacked with the same arguments (there are fringe people who do so). The fact that its determinations are constantly empirically confirmed means that our supposedly subjective tools (generalizations, causal conclusions, etc., which are not an empirical product—as David Hume showed) are not as subjective as they seem. It turns out that they have validity (though not certainty). This in turn projects back onto the other areas, those that are not scientific, where we have no feedback to show us that we are right. My claim is that from the scientific sphere, where we do have feedback (experiments), we can learn about the validity of synthetic tools and therefore not dismiss them on the cultural-value plane as well. By the way, this is one of the book’s central points (the argument with the graph of scientific generalizations), and it deals with exactly this point. Therefore it is important to engage the simple cases you mentioned. Systematic thinking always begins with simple cases (toy models), because from them one can draw conclusions.
Fifth, regarding the argument about cultural influences, which is supposedly an empirical result of the social sciences—I deny this. The fact that a society’s values are connected to its cultural assumptions is perfectly clear. But the conclusion that because of this they have no validity and are subjective and relative does not necessarily follow from that correlation. I see it like scientific progress. In science too (as I mentioned), culture enabled its progress, and yet people (apart from delusional postmodern fringes) do not think that it is essentially subjective (I am speaking at least about the natural sciences). Therefore, in my opinion, changes in values indicate progress toward truth, not fluctuating relativity with no direction. Of course, this is a generalization (and it is clear that there are mistakes and there are subjective values), but we are dealing with generalizations in this discussion. It seems to me that in encounters between Western culture and another culture, usually Western culture will be dominant. Today almost all cultures are moving in its direction. Even the lunatics of ISIS and other fringe cultures formulate themselves in the language of Western morality (we are right because you are trying to destroy us, not necessarily because you are infidels, period. That is a very small minority). Therefore, in my opinion, there is something objective in Western culture and values, even though it is not politically correct to say so. There are reservations, and of course there are wild phenomena in the West, and still I use this as an example of a perspective that can disconnect between the empirical findings of cultural dependence and the postmodern conclusion that everything is relative and lacks validity.
Similarly, I have already explained several times the troubling correlation that usually those who grow up in a religious education come out religious, and vice versa (there are quite a few exceptions, but the correlation is clear). Ostensibly, this implies that the main thing is educational inculcation (programming) and not personal decision (and the more punctilious will say: there is no God; it is an invention). I deny this, and my logic is similar to what I described above. The fact that mainly those who grow up in religious homes come out religious can also stem from the fact that religious education gives you tools that you do not receive in another education, and therefore you cannot discern certain dimensions of the world/soul, and therefore you come out secular. Even the religious feelings that you have are interpreted in a psychological way or as anachronistic remnants from the religious past that have undergone secularization. Religious education opens another interpretive option for what exists within you: perhaps you really do believe in God and understand that He exists (and perhaps this is not such a foolish thing). I am not saying that this is necessarily the case, only illustrating a logic that can disconnect between the correlation of one’s environment and one’s beliefs, and the conclusion that everything is a matter of cultural programming. The same applies to cultural influences on values in general. Academic-scientific research does not assume that there is one true position and erroneous ones, and rightly so. It is supposed to proceed from an objective starting point, and from that starting point the conclusion is called for that everything is subjective. But I, as someone who believes that there is truth and the rest are mistaken, interpret this differently.
Of course, this does not mean that every hallucination of mine is the truth and everyone else who does not see it is mistaken. But this is a logic that is important to notice, and there is a tendency to ignore it. Especially if we add the conclusion from the tools of empirical science, which teaches us that our intuitions are not merely subjective feelings but have validity (not certainty).
Discussion on Answer
This discussion requires us to get a bit into philosophy of science. You describe science in a Baconian way that is very naive. It is not true that science is based on direct empiricism and naturally progresses from stage to stage. Not at all. Its progress is a “miracle,” as Hume showed, since it is based on our unsupported assumptions (intuition) in addition to empirical findings. Therefore I argue that this progress gives us feedback on the validity of our tools of intuition (synthetic thinking), meaning that there is something to them (they are not a shot in the dark), and from here it is only natural to draw conclusions regarding their use in other fields (such as culture and values). There is no principled difference between science and values, except that in science we have the possibility of receiving feedback and in other fields we do not. That is exactly why I infer from it to the other fields. It is like adopting the theory of gravitation that was observed on Earth and assuming it is correct on the moon. Here we received feedback that it is probably correct, and from here we infer that it is reasonable (though not certain, of course) to use it on the moon and throughout the rest of the universe as well, even though there we have not seen it in the same way.
As stated, this does not mean that these tools are certain, and therefore there can be regression (in science too), but in general there is progress. My claim is only that this is not a shot in the dark (as the postmodern view would have it), meaning that it is not completely arbitrary. Scientific progress proves this, despite local regressions. This is true in values as well as in science. The local declines are only a result of the fact that we are not dealing with certainty. What matters is the graph at low resolution (on the larger scales).
I accept that the distinction is not dichotomous, and that even in exact science there is a “miraculous” component of intuitive progress. I also agree that this validates, on the theoretical level, the possibility of inference in other fields as well. But there is a matter of degree here that is significant, and in the move to the human sciences of various kinds the interpretive component grows stronger, which gives much more room for “interference” from culturality and subjectivity. It also allows for the situation in which the same set of data has more than one possible interpretation, and there is no external way to decide between the two interpretations, or even to determine that one of them is necessarily wrong. One need not go all the way to the extreme postmodern claim that everything is culture and this is a shot in the dark (bombast and exaggeration are a general tendency of French thinkers and postmodernists), in order to accept the fundamental problematic we are facing.
The people in the humanities and social sciences of the Enlightenment wanted to believe that the same strict methodology of the natural sciences could be applied to their field. The famous figure is Auguste Comte, and, in a different register, in today’s popular sphere it is Yuval Harari, who tells a historical story with hidden and unequivocal philosophical assumptions (entirely materialist) and sells it to the public as strict science. As Richard Taylor showed in his book Interpretation and the Sciences of Man, and as others showed before him, this is a misleading approach.
If you’d like, since in the book you take shots at Rabbi Shagar several times, I can send you the thesis I wrote about him, as part of the master’s degree in the Department of Interpretation and Culture at Bar-Ilan, in which I tried to understand his claims in light of their philosophical and intellectual background (Wittgenstein and Lacan and interpretive methods in relation to the thought of those two). I do not think his claims stand up to the test of rigorous philosophy, and I do not necessarily identify with them, but I do think he had an interesting and significant intuition regarding the postmodern challenge, and that one can understand his claim as coherent and plausible thought and not merely as typical postmodern nonsense.
There is indeed a quantitative gap, but we have no way to deal with it. We have no choice but to examine the field in which feedback can be obtained and learn from it about the rest. As I wrote, we have evidence from a certain field that even the non-empirical and non-directly-logical tools give us non-arbitrary results (they are not a shot in the dark). From here I conclude that one may use them also in other fields where we have no way to test them.
Your next remark here misses my main point. My words in the book and in general are directed solely against the postmodern view that everything is culture and construction (the French exaggeration, in your words). I disagree with you and argue that this, and only this, is postmodernism. Everything else is not postmodernism, but only clear-eyed modernist thinking, which certainly also stands against the opposite mistake of Enlightenment thinkers who thought one could do culture and values with the tools of the natural sciences. Indeed, both sides are mistaken, and synthetic thinking argues against both. But my claim is that postmodernism is only the extreme pole, and all the intermediate shades are nothing new. Postmodernism’s novelty lies in turning the question mark into an exclamation mark (or turning the question mark into a certain ideology). There is nothing new in the very existence of a question mark (unlike the aforementioned Enlightenment, which itself was an absurd novelty).
In my lecture at the evening in honor of Rabbi Shagar’s book, Tablets and Broken Tablets, I pointed out exactly that people (including he himself) present standard thinking with no real novelty as a new approach calling itself postmodernism, but that is not so. I have nothing at all against sober thinking that distinguishes between science and culture and values. On the contrary, that is the synthetic position that stands against both poles (the fundamentalist and the analytical). That is what I have against Rabbi Shagar. There is no need or value at all in using postmodern terminology and a new language to express ideas that can easily be presented within the classical framework of thought. See there my distinction between the two components in his books:
I’d be very happy to receive the thesis on Shagar as well, and if you’d like I’ll comment on whatever I can: giladstn@gmail.com
Thank you for the answer.
I accept points one through four.
I’d like to challenge the fifth:
You argue for a continuity between the natural sciences and the worlds of values and culture, and therefore infer from progress in the natural sciences to progress in the realms of value as well. That is a problematic connection. The fact that the natural sciences allow for experiment, which forces itself upon our subjectivity, creates an essential difference: science and technology are always cumulative knowledge, and barring a global catastrophe are necessarily on a graph of progress, since each stage is built on all its predecessors and advances one more step. There is no reason to assume this with regard to culture and values. Germany in 1942 was in every scientific and technological sense a more advanced country than Germany in 1920, but by no means in values and culture. Culture is built on perspectives that replace one another. One wears down and fades (today, for example, nationalism), another comes in its place (globalism). Very often in a pendulum movement (for example in the transition from collectivism to individualism and back), and at other times for all kinds of other reasons. There is no reason to assume (unless one believes Rabbi Kook or Hegel) that this is necessarily progressing somewhere, or is better than what preceded it. As a believer, I do tend to think that the macro-movement is overall progress. If God is in the system, there is room to think there is some overarching plan. But I find it difficult to ground this within earthly thought in the face of the postmodern critique.
Western culture is undoubtedly very successful. The most successful today. First of all economically, and therefore also in military power (when talking about the struggle one should remember that if it wanted, it could wipe out the Islamic world in a short time and with few casualties. The whole struggle is over the degree to which it is interested in using its power), and afterward in other respects as well. Therefore, everyone wants to attach themselves to it and imitate it. But success is no guarantee of truth. One can say that as of today this is what works (and perhaps China will prove in the coming century that there are models more economically successful). There have already been many other cultures that had golden ages and then collapsed. Neither their success nor their failure testifies to the degree of truth within them.
So we return once again to the trap.
(I’ll clarify again that intuitively I agree with the position you presented in the book. I just have difficulty validating it against the postmodern critique as I understand it and briefly presented it. It seems like a kind of magic.)
Thanks again