more thinking on the addiction to belief

CK:

I am intrigued by James's concept of under- and over-belief, and how it relates to addiction specifically. I think it's fair to say that many addicts are aware that their addictions are harmful - especially in cases of more psychological addiction. Cases of addiction that are on a neurological level - things like domestic abuse, anger, self-mutilating behaviors, where access to the "substance" can't be restricted as simply as it can with drugs and alcohol. I wonder if underbelief is a symptom, rather than a cause, in the cases of "bad conscience" as it were. In the case of domestic abuse specifically, it's generally cyclical - abusers often have a history of being abused. An abuser can consciously know, believe, and profess that actions of domestic violence are wrong, but it's rare, even with counseling and rehabilitation, for abusers to break the cycle - the behavior pattern is so ingrained in the wiring of his or her neurons. I imagine living with that level of dissonance might turn a person into an underbeliever.

And of course, the above mentioned are situations that involve an action (or reaction) associated with a stimulus (thought or feeling). There are countless neurological processes that don't necessarily result in direct, measurable action, such as the belief that one can speak with God, or spirits, or aliens. Or the belief that your vote counts (or doesn't). Whether the belief or the action comes first is often a tough call.

I guess what I really wonder is, if one day we could identify the neurological process involved in cases of addiction - be it domestic violence, anger, alcohol, drugs - and zap the brain so that the compulsion to engage in the behavior vanishes - could we also change people's beliefs? If the same mechanisms in physical addiction are present in psychological, could the mechanisms of action and thought (conviction and belief) be altered as well? If this were possible, could someone choose to believe in God when they hadn't before, perhaps to satisfy a partner by converting to a given religion before marriage? I'm sure if that technology existed, some religious faction would have an interest in using it to their advantage...

SB:

James was trained as a physician and brought a medical perspective to

his study of philosophy -- this is also true of many other philosophers --

Rhazes, Avicenna, Averroes … and Karl Jaspers.

James was fascinated by addictions and in particular the vast impact

alcohol had on American society in his epoch.  One of his famous

statements is "the cure for dipsomania is religomania."  That is: the

cure for alcoholism is religious fanaticism.  James thought that in

effect one kind of mania can take the place of another.  He also

reflected that in many cases a person actually gets better because of

outlandish beliefs that he or she holds.  He drew the conclusion that

the benefit we receive from believing a proposition is not in a

one-to-one relationship with its truth.  In some cases we benefit from

beliefs that are false but nonetheless health-inducing, strength- 

inducing, strengthening the will, strengthening the person's

belief in himself or herself -- encouraging the person to get out of

bed and get well; encouraging the person to get out into the world and

do something; helping the person believe that his or her values are

important, worth fighting for, worth the hardship of struggle that

believing them may entail.  In some cases, belief shows its value by

what it brings to life, rather than its literal truth.  He applied

this principle to the study of diseases that have a psychosomatic

etiology (causation); he also applied it to his study of religious

experiences.  He defined the extremes of underbelief and overbelief as

ways of talking about "the will to believe" in medical and religious

contexts.  Underbelief is what happens to us if we let our skepticism

overwhelm our senses and our common sense -- we apply too strict a

standard of evidence and end up missing a whole range of human

phenomena that come into view when we grasp that people can actually

"get better" (or get stronger, get healthier) because of the attitude

that they themselves take about what is happening to them.

Overbelief is what happens to us when we have too little skepticism

and become gullible -- we fail to use our critical faculties and

common sense and end up believing wild ideas that are not only false

but do us no good.

James thinks that all the phenomena that are going on inside human

beings -- ideas, memories, habits, addictions, beliefs, doubts,

impulses, flashing thoughts, urges -- everything that is included in

what he calls "the stream of consciousness" -- is subject to our will.

In some cases the will gets a chance to be active and makes choices

because two or more opposing impulses act simultaneously and thus give

reason a chance to step in and bring rationality to decision-making.

In some cases, reason gets a chance to be powerful because it believes

itself to be powerful -- i.e. because we believe in the power of

rational thought -- i.e. because we believe in ourselves.

Based on all this, James would argue with you about cases such as the

ones you cite -- abuse, domestic violence, addiction, anger,

self-mutilation, weird beliefs such as ideas about aliens, religious

beliefs or powerful convictions really of any kind -- he would not

agree that any of these beliefs have a neurological determining cause.

He would bring the discussion back to human experience and the

choices people make.  Everything that is going on in the thought

process is subject to human will.  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,

Epictetus -- medieval and modern thinkers too -- make this claim over

and over again.  Or maybe again this is not a claim but (as James

expresses it) a decision that we make to consider ourselves powerful.

Nietzsche says that we have to find the strength to carry out the

experiment of belief in our own will -- even if we consider this

strength to be a kind of fiction -- he adds that, if we do not believe

in this will, it is certain that no one else will.

You talk about people who are caught in a cycle of disastrous behavior

and you try to explain it by talking about the hard-wiring being all

messed up.  You also refer to the idea that a new technology could fix

this kind of problem.  A good deal of psychology does refer to

supposed problem-complexes that originate in neurochemistry and that

have solutions in new pharmacology.  There is also much psychology

that refers to problems that date from infancy and that keep inserting

themselves in adult behavior.  We keep going over the same territory

again and again -- this is what Freud called "repetition compulsion."

A newer trend in psychoanalysis is the idea that people keep

rebuilding problematic structures in the present.  Thus we bring the

problems with us to new situations.  We do this over and over again.

We don't know how to live without bringing our familiar problems with

us.  Then we say -- "we can't help it" -- we are powerless -- there's

nothing we can do on our own -- it's our neurochemistry or our

childhood or the traumatic event we suffered.  But these ideas may all

be delusions.  The truth is that we are making choices every step of

the way.  Staying in a cycle of dysfunctional behavior is a choice --

as is getting out of it.  Human agency creates both situations:

carrying the old problems to new situations, as well as jettisoning

the old problems and opening up to self-confidence and new

experiences.

CK:

I certainly agree with the idea that the benefit of a belief does not hold a one-to-one relationship with its truth. The most recent WIRED I received in the mail has an article in it about how the idea of God affects behavior - I haven't had a chance to dig in to it yet, but they doubtless have some interesting up-and-coming research to cite on the matter. I will be sure to report. The placebo effect has intrigued me for a long time, and seems related to this discussion. If you have the chance to read a book called Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, I highly recommend it. Remen recounts her experiences as a therapist, mostly for cancer patients, and some of her own history with chronic illness and healing. It's a book that had a significant impact on how I think of wellness.

I want to address the hard-wiring argument - because I don't necessarily believe that someone can be "hard-wired" to be an abuser - I tend to think much more along the lines of strong neural memory. For instance, if a child of an abusive parent is taken away and raised in a stable, loving environment from birth, I have no reason to believe that some kind of neurological process would be "passed down" in DNA - simply that, perhaps, when a stressful situation is encountered, the mechanisms the child uses to deal with the stress will be markedly different. What might seem like inaction (taking a deep breath when someone says something to upset you, rather than striking out violently) is just as much of a neural process (as in, as many neurons are moving through the brain) as lifting an arm in offense. Of course these habits can be changed, when we are aware of them - it might be natural to flinch when someone gets in your face and yells at you, but people in basic training in the Army learn to get over that impulse every day. Even so, most of these recruits are still fairly young - and maybe have not reached the point where their axons are fully myelinated (meaning that the connective, "white matter" of the brain still has room for development). New research shows that there is more neuroplasticity in people of older ages than was previously thought, but I do wonder if there is a point of no return for some behaviors - if you've engaged in them for too long, there's just no re-organizing, at least not in any natural way. Too much of the original framework has been destroyed for creating a new pathway - which might be why James's theory of one mania replacing another holds weight - if a pathway is too established to be destroyed, one must somehow alter what triggers the chemicals that travel through it in the first place, because the brain still craves their release. Perhaps sometimes a flawed belief is the only thing that can replace a flawed behavior.

You say that we have a choice in our behavior - that we can choose to own our neurons and explain our actions. But how much? When I walk into the bright sun from a dark room, I don't choose to shrink my pupils; I don't choose to squint my eyes, I don't consciously engage my hypothalamus to regulate my body temperature through my sweat glands.I might, with a lot of practice, as it's said some monks can do, one day be able to control some of those normally autonomous functions. But can a person will their heart to stop beating? I ask these questions because, if we aren't able to trace each and every behavior back to a physical process in the brain, a reaction to an outside stimulus, if we allow for some "choice" that comes from somewhere else (and where? the air?), it seems like a tacit admission that there is a higher power, a God. And, further, that we are part and parcel of this higher power (all the allegories of Christianity lend themselves well to this concept). I'm not opposed to this idea of connection; in fact, I like it a lot. It's just that so many skeptical arguments I come across debase the idea of a God, and then exalt the idea of free choice. I have a hard time making that compute - to me, it seems that accepting the idea of free will means accepting some kind of spirituality. Oddly though, that wasn't what I was taught as a child in the church either - my baptist youth minister was very deterministic, and believed that God already knew which people would wind up in Heaven and which would end up in Hell. He encouraged all of us to accept Jesus into our hearts, but also said that it was almost certain some of us would not be accepted into God's kingdom. It was a paradoxical offering of free will at best - like, those of us who chose God would have free will, because we had the free will and good sense to follow the Lord, but those who did not choose God would never have free will because they had never accepted Him into their lives, and their fate was sealed. There is no bridge between the believers and the doubters.

I am sure I'm not alone in recognizing the paradoxical nature of these debates, and I'm sure that's much of their appeal, but I wonder, why such a struggle to resolve it?

SB:

Your idea of no-going back behaviors is compelling.  I wonder if this

is the case.  There is evidence in the other direction -- the

so-called 'undo effect' -- the idea that certain kinds of emotional

experiences help to undo the cardiovascular effects of traumatic

experiences -- love, curiosity, anticipation help people get back to

their physiological baseline.  To me the conclusion about no going

back seems too strong, simply because of the complexity of the brain.

There are over 100 billion neurons in the brain.  A thought, whatever

else it may be, must involve some kind of connectivity between

neurons, and with so many of them, the possibilities for thinking (and

unthinking) are staggering.  But of course it possible to blunt,

poison, damage or destroy the brain.  Everything alive can die.  But

the pathway-logic you suggest is controversial (thoughtful, too).

There may be no already established connection that is (sometimes,

always) more powerful than an as yet established connection.  To me it

seems like wakefulness can always discover a new connection -- this

seems likely

Your hypothesis that flaws (belief) are the only things that can

replace flaws (behavior) seems too pessimistic.  I am a test case for

this proposition.  I have actually been wrong or done wrong and then,

afterwards, seen this and changed -- belief, behavior -- I believe in

learning.  (There is the phrase "failing forward" -- Karl Popper

argued for this kind of approach -- learning via falsification --

basically trial and error)

Choice (I would argue) is not about autonomic behavior, as you

suggest, but I like the question because it tries to poke at the (very

fuzzy) limits of this important idea.  The yogis who can meditate

their way to physiological changes have learned a skill -- thus

learning apparently can reach to some autonomic behavior.  Maybe it's

a matter of degree.  I can calm myself down better today than when I

was an infant, but I still have to register shock before I can find a

way to deal with it.  Autonomic behavior (what is outside our power)

is not the problem for choice.  The problem is taking over the world

of accidents out of which we emerge in an instant of thinking and (by

some mysterious appropriation) managing or coping or dealing or

finding a way through -- taking it over and managing to act like

oneself, with one's values, as the real person one is

Your suggestion that the admission of freedom/choice is equivalent

logically to spirituality or perhaps a God hypothesis is another good

way to test the limits of choice -- another very good question.  I

would not say (as you suggest) that choice means that we cannot trace

any causal process back to the brain and earlier brain-states.  I

think we have to acknowledge that there is a one to one correspondence

between brain-states and mind-states.  The body and the mind are two

aspects of the same being.

Choice does not mean that any weird non-causal process is going on in

the brain.  When we think like this, it makes sense to compare choice

to some bizarre magical power or supernatural being like Zeus.  I

think the philosopher Daniel Dennett is helpful on this subject -- I

think he is updating Kant's position which I think does make sense --

it's something like this:

Choice, freedom is not what tradition generally says it is -- not a

godlike power to exempt oneself from the causal universe -- freedom or

choice is simply our ability to think -- to perceive, mull over, and

act upon our ideas.  Dennett calls this "an evolved creation of human

activity and beliefs" -- which owes its existence to language,

culture, social life, human communication -- it's a variable, not a

binary, value -- it waxes and wanes in individuals and societies.  The

more we see, the more we think, the more we can perceive and act upon,

the more freedom, free will, choice we have.  Freedom is objectively

real and also completely dependent on what we think about it, just

like language, money, music and many other human creations

Skeptical arguments that attack the idea of God, and then exalt the

idea of free choice, tell us that superstition has stood in the way of

critical thinking -- but this has no bearing on real spirituality --

or (I would argue, Peter would disagree) on God -- several great

theologians of recent times accepted this -- Bultmann, Tillich,

Bonhoeffer

So: we jump into a realm of paradoxes and we can't see very far.

Maybe you are right that the appeal these problems have has to do with

their insolvability.  Or it could be that philosophy is another kind

of eros.  Eros is a lack.  You are trying to find something you do not

have.  Philosophers seek wisdom because they are not wise.  Keep going

with it and see if it proves its value for you

more thinking on theology

To Dominic Marbaniang

The huge import of theology and its tremendous consequences among seven billion people -- or six, if it is true that atheism / agnosticism is the third largest 'religion' in our time -- demand thoughtfulness and philosophic criticism and understanding.  

But why are you studying modes of claim-making, i.e. methodologies, styles, traditions of thological argument? -- is this a taxonomy of the odd varieties of god-speech?  -- a proposed alphabet, or ground-logic of god-speech? 

This sounds like an ambitious project.  But there may be a few good questions to ask before we devote more time to cataloging the varieties of religious argument.  Philosophy lets its curiosity loose in this intriguing field -- but to what end?  Perhaps the point is to help people identify and assess religious arguments, since all of us are exposed to them, and many are oppressed by them.  We all need some help.  If that is your project, then it seems worth doing -- it offers an important service.  

The idea of a taxonomy of atheisms, alongside another project in which theology was the subject being divided up into meaningful categories, might offer results.  If there is a rationalist atheism (perhaps the Carvakas or Daniel Dennett), and also a rationalist form of theology (Parmenides and Zeno, who you cite above -- perhaps we should include Spinoza), then some questions follow:

--- is the 'rationalism' more a common factor than the difference over theism?  Perhaps rationalists of all stripes share a common orientation to the world.  God-speech is not therefore a defining orientation for these thinkers.  Regardless of the prime denial, or prime assertion, these thinkers think about the world in fundamentally similar ways

--- if this is the case, what light does this throw on the subject of theology?  Is the prime assertion merely one sort of assertion among many other examples?  Or perhaps it makes no assertions at all -- its significance is not propositional -- here perhaps we would begin talking about kenosis and sunyata and like ideas about unknowing and emptiness.  

--- rationalism is just one case; presumably the principle of the 'parallelism between theism and atheism' is general; thus there are empiricist theologies and empiricist atheisms -- Aquinas argues from observing the world, and so does Richard Dawkins.  Dawkins and Aquinas may therefore be kindred thinkers.  Their antagonism is an artifact of current politics, current trends in popular culture -- in the thirteenth century and presently.  Likewise there are perceptualists among believers (Berkeley) and atheists (Russell).  

This kind of analysis argues for the primacy of philosophical orientation, deeper even than theology.

What is our relationship to the transpersonal -- is it personal, impersonal, or non-personal?  Whatever these relationships or our imaginings about them may be, whatever connection human beings make to the transpersonal, to 'Ultimate Reality,' to God -- to the ineffable -- in whatever case, perhaps we can say: rationalists of one kind denounce this idea and rationalists of another kind assert it.

How can we reconcile transcendence and immanence?  There is the maya theory, that the world is an illusion, and the counterpart idea, the dukkha theory, according to which, whether suffering is real or merely imagined, it is our duty to treat it as if it were real and offer service to suffering.  Suffering supersedes our scruples about reality.  Perhaps that is a theology.  

Theisms and atheisms stand on the same ground, as it were ... they are antagonists about the same proposition ... but more primarily, the prime assertion precedes the prime denial.  Therefore disbelief is a function of belief.  Belief precedes doubt and makes doubt possible (Wittgenstein makes this point).  Strictly speaking, atheisms are forms of theisms.  Both forms work in the same frame of reference, but assertion precedes denial.

Philosophy is more comfortable with openness and theology is more attracted to exclusivity.  (Whatever my 'philosophy' is, it makes sense that there are others.  But perhaps it doesn't seem like 'worshipping' if the object of my worship is mine alone). 

The believing mind does not -- save in exceptional cases -- freely give up its history, symbols and sacred places.  It rarely has the confidence that it will find a new way to express the prime assertion.  

In a sense, even a consistent materialist has a theology -- but 'theology' in this case is roughly equivalent to cosmology: a general theory of the universe.  

Socrates would argue that theism and atheism and cosmology and like studies are all pretty far from the immediate problems of human ignorance facing moral demands.  Philosophy in Socrates' version is simply the obligation to think.  But as we have noted in our discussions, if this stripped-down Socratic quest (to become and remain thoughtful) evolves into a definite philosophy, such as rationalism or skepticism or empiricism, then this new creation is on a par with atheisms, theisms, and other isms … categorized as a definite kind of ism or view.  Then the taxonomic work you are proposing can begin. 

Philosophy descending into 'philosophies' and 'isms' is unproblematic as long as the new creation (whatever it may be) then becomes a new object of scrutiny and has to answer the Socratic elenchus and cross-examination.  This activity seems to me the core concern of philosophy, though we often let our curiosity wander off into distant corners of the intellectual universe.  We just have to learn how to get back to the core concern of thinking.  

recent thoughts on theology

To Dominic Marbaniang -- who proposes a division of theology into four basic kinds -- rationalist (gods of the mountains -- up among the peaks), empiricist (gods of the valleys -- down to earth), intermediate (sharing something of both these trends), and revelational (based on "divine revelation").

*

How many ways are there to talk about God?  How many distinct versions of theology are there? How many importantly different ways of talking about the divine are there -- about otherness, about the transcendent, the highest values?  -- Your classification begins with the division between rationalists and empiricists and also notes that the Critical philosophy attempts to unite these two strains from European thinking.  I think this is a clue regarding your project.  Perhaps there are as many styles of theology as there are for philosophy itself. 

If you are making a classification among types of theology, I suppose an important question is: Why are you making this distinction?  What purpose do you hope it will serve?  Naively the purpose appears to be to understand god-speech better.  Why would we classify types of philosophy?  -- Again, perhaps to understand philosophical questioning better.  Kant perhaps was able to take a step beyond rationalism and empiricism because he clearly distinguished between them and thus had a chance to rethink them and find their deeper underlying unity. 

Let us say that philosophy -- radical critical inquiry -- breaks down into differentiable types or trends -- metaphysics, logic, moral philosophy, skepticism, synthesis, holism, atomism, idealism, rationalism, empiricism, historicism -- probably others too.  Then we are likely to discover schools of theology that follow all these lines of thinking.  

Arguably, Heraclitus is a philosopher (a metaphysician or cosmologist) but also a theologian.  Plato is a moralist, yet again a moral theologian.  Spinoza, Shankara and Vivekenanda are philosophical holists, but they also make theological claims.  Sextus Empircus is a skeptic; so is Nagarjuna; and both talk about God.  

I would argue that the most important distinction among all types of theology is what you are pointing at in making out the category of 'revelational' theology.  That is: there are at least two important kinds of theology; one is experimental, humble, filled with a sense of philosophical doubt, open to revision, open to interpretation, asserted with a questioning and tentative spirit; but another kind is asserted with the summit of human arrogance -- asserted as final, as binding on everyone, as necessary. 

When philosophers start talking about God, there is a kind of test: they cease being philosophers and become dogmatists instead; or they keep their philosophical scruples and tread cautiously in this very troubled, divided land.  

*

To Peter Boghossian -- who proposes to dispense with faith, taken as a delusory knowledge claim.

*

Your study brings up the huge question that emerges out of Western philosophical history in the Medieval period.  For over 1000 years Western philosophy was the ancilla theologiae, the handmaiden of theology -- philosophy the servant of faith.  Much amazing work was done in philosophy during this period -- Augustine, Bonaventure, Anselm, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Albertus Magnus, Aquinas.  There is the interesting push-and-pull between followers of Plato like Augustine and followers of Aristotle like Aquinas.  This same dynamic exists in Judaic, Christian and Islamic philosophy pretty much from the end of the Hellenistic period to the beginnings of the Renaissance.  Aquinas refers to this whole period and his own investigations as fides quereans intellectum -- faith seeking understanding -- as if faith were the questioner and intellect/understanding was the person being interrogated.  You dismiss all this work out of hand with your pronouncements and in the end you may be right.  But I think the period deserves study -- and respect -- there may even be an essential lesson buried in this history.  
Philosophy was the handmaiden of theology; then, freed from the yoke around its neck, it recovered the humanistic tradition from the ancients; this created the conditions in which empirical science was born.  But then philosophy became ancilla scientia -- philosophy became the handmaid, the servant, of science.  The history of philosophy seems to suggest that philosophy has to take an instrumental role.  Philosophy has to serve a purpose -- thus the clarification of thoughts that philosophy undertakes has to serve a purpose -- hopefully, a socially useful purpose.  What purpose is philosophy intended to serve?

Philosophy has to be ancilla vitae -- the servant of life.  Thoughtfulness is a good in itself and a pleasure to engage in.  But thoughtfulness brings us to moral conclusions and thus directs us from thought to action -- thinking serving life.  Philosophy serves a purpose and has an instrumental role -- but not, apparently, that of upholding a cause.  Thoughtfulness serves life by examining it.  Thoughtfulness serves life by creating more thoughtfulness.


*
Question: If philosophy is a way of emancipating ourselves from stupidity (superstition, epistemic arrogance), then -- once we are emancipated -- what do we do with thoughtfulness?  


Answer: We never emancipate ourselves from stupidity -- there is no step beyond thoughtfulness.  


*
A good place to see this is in the Euthyphro and Socrates' discussion there about piety (to hosian).

Socrates is challenging this person who sees himself as knowledgeable about the gods, about ceremonies, religious duties, sacrifices, rituals of all sorts -- Euthyphro is very cocksure about his "knowledge" -- so much so that he is willing to go to the law courts to sue his father who, he thinks, is guilty of impiety and should be punished.  Socrates of course is also charged with impiety.  Now Euthyphro is certainly someone who would agree that faith makes claims about knowledge -- although his vocabulary is very different than the one we are using -- he thinks he knows what piety is and he can cite many examples of piety -- pious deeds, pious men.  But then he has a conversation with Socrates.  In order to be pious, it seems that we have to know what piety is.  Things that please the gods are pious.  But are they pious because they please the gods, or do they please the gods because they are pious?  And in the end the conversation is (of course) aporetic -- it leads nowhere -- it goes around in circles.  Euthyphro is forced to admit that he does not know what piety is.  

Euthyphro doesn't have any problem using the 'concept' of piety (though 'concept' is not what Greeks call it  -- Solon calls it aphanes metron, a non-appearing measure, Plato calls it idea).  But when he examines this thing -- whatever it is -- his clarity vanishes and he realizes that he does not know what he is talking about.   Socrates wants to start the conversation all over again when they discover that neither of them knows what piety is.  Euthyphro walks away.  

Now Socrates is challenging Euthyphro's arrogance, his knowledge claim, his cocksure attitude, and he wants to bring Euthyphro to the same condition that he himself is in -- ignorance, self-conscious ignorance, and humility in place of arrogance.  

But here is what strikes me: he is not trying to make Euthyphro less pious.  Likewise, when he is talking about courage with Laches and Nicias, there is the same result.  But he is not trying to say that these men are not courageous or that there is no bravery in Athens.  Socrates considers justice, piety, temperance, courage and magnanimity to be virtues -- even though he cannot define any of them and cannot say anything definitive about these ideas.  

What I take this to mean is that he is encouraging us to become thoughtful.  Becoming thoughtful is dangerous. It will spoil our illusion that we know what we are doing.  But this is the right kind of life for us -- the examined life -- in spite of all its difficulties.  The point is: Socrates is not arguing for any kind of result that would make further thinking unnecessary.  He wants us to think, to stay in thinking, and bring this problem-seeking behavior with us to all life's experiences.  But he is not trying to take anything away -- except arrogance.  He is not trying to make people less just, virtuous, temperate or pious.  That would imply a new creed -- a new result -- a new account of piety or courage -- but the whole point is that he has no results.  There is, instead, the work of thinking.

You say: reason shows us that certain positions are a priori irrational and thus can be rejected out of hand.  Thus I can reject the notion that the moon is made of cheese.  And for similar reasons you argue that we can reject faith also.  Thus your effort appears to be aimed at taking away certain propositions -- rather than taking away arrogance.  I would argue that philosophy is not about disabusing people of false beliefs and replacing them with true ones; it is more about teaching a general attitude of humility -- of thoughtfulness -- something to be applied in all situations and in every sort of culture -- whether we worship trees or gods or stones -- whatever tradition we belong to.  

I guess my position, which I think is the Socratic position, is that I do not care if a person is religious or irreligious -- I do not care what beliefs or symbols or rituals he entertains, or whether she is devout or an atheist -- this sort of thing does not concern me -- the essential thing is not the idiom in which a person makes a life, but that the person be thoughtful.  That she examine her life.  And this does not square with rejecting specific claims, in favor of different accounts.  It only squares with rejecting arrogance.  Not what the person thinks; but how.  

Important Nonsense

My new work "Important Nonsense / Essays in Philosophy" is available via Amazon.

The weblink is: http://www.amazon.com/Important-Nonsense-Philosophy-Steven-Brutus/dp/0615608809/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335480009&sr=8-1

This work explores a number of themes in the psychology of philosophy.  I am investigating the emotions that incite philosophy, the emotions that sustain philosophy, and the emotions in which philosophy results.  My subjects include suffering, which I think of as an important beginning for philosophy; philalethes, or love of truth, which I see as animating the practice of philosophy; and hope, which I think of as an important outcome of philosophy.

One of the main ideas of this work is that suffering upsets the meaning we give our lives.  We cannot live without meaning.  Philosophy responds to moral crisis and struggles to heal what suffering has injured.  The high calling of philosophy has the humble purpose of enabling us to reenter the world and act.  My study of suffering and of philosophy that struggles with it leads me to the conclusion that resilience in the face of suffering is a choice.  There is no explanation for human strength greater than the decision to be strong.  Suffering incites philosophy and philosophy emboldens hope.  My study of hope and of philosophy that awakens it leads me to the conclusion that human beings can only understand what is directly in front of them by imagining it into a still unrealized future.  The core function of thinking is a kind of hoping forward.  This hope meets one obstacle after another and is repeatedly dashed and rekindled.  Philosophy is therapy for this restless, knocked-about, rising and falling, core function of hope.  This book examines several such offers of therapy, narrates several case histories, and assesses the benefits of philosophic interventions.  All these cures propose to liberate us from the past and all count on the power of choice.  But their recommendations are quite different – they answer different problems – they advocate different lives.  Some try to talk us down.  They look for peace, calm, unknowing.  Some try to psych us up.  They try to get us back in the fight, and to love something worth fighting for.  We have to question all these strategies, thinking beyond them, to pose the question about philosophy and the role it should play in our lives. 

The title of the book is drawn from Frank Ramsey’s 1929 essay entitled “Philosophy.”  Ramsey thought that we are driven to philosophize because we do not know clearly what we mean.  Philosophy therefore is a reflection on meaning.  It tries to make sense of things and cut away nonsense.  But he wondered whether philosophy itself is nonsense.  He added that, if this is our finding, we should not trick ourselves into thinking that philosophy is important nonsense. 

I am also trying to understand philosophy by wondering whether philosophy is nonsense, and what drives us to it, and what it is trying to accomplish, and whether it is in any way important.  

Plato's cave

My friend the philosopher Peter Boghossian set me this problem:

If we think about the Allegory of the Cave, it is the world of opinion
and ignorance (an irrational society) that prompts a Socratic figure
to emerge and begin questioning it.  So it is, apparently, possible
for a Socrates to arise in the cave. How can I reconcile this--if he
can arise in Plato's cave, then can he not arise in a completely
irrational society?

--

How can the philosopher emerge in the world of the cave – in the world
of opinion and ignorance – in the world of fanaticism and dogmatism –
in an irrational society?

In brief, how can philosophy emerge at all? – You are asking about the
origin of philosophy.  You are asking: how can reason emerge from
unreason?  How can questioning emerge from a world without questions?

Here is a discussion about this problem – at least some thoughts to begin.

Plato is a source for the saying that philosophy begins in wonder
(thauma) – this is from the Theaetetus.  This seems an odd thing to
say about philosophy in that its problems have such depth and
seriousness about them.  They seem out of joint with such an innocent
and playful thing as wonder or curiosity.  Plato also mentions (Rep
475c) that the philosopher, once he gets going, does not desire just a
part of wisdom, but all wisdom – which suggests that this deep-diving
thing we are calling philosophical questioning could begin innocently
with something like curiosity and quickly grow into an all-consuming
passion.  This suggests that the big problem with philosophy is not
its origin but its growth into a comprehensive attitude – from one
question to all questions.  The two first moments here are: wonder as
a provocation, and questioning that has its own momentum.

It seems clear that for Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, philosophy
comes up in the individual, and is impelled by or emergent from
powerful thoughts – thus the first philosophers were amazed by the
natural world and began from this awe or amazement to try to build an
explanation.  The first phase of Greek philosophy is cosmology, which
at first is barely a step away from religious mythologizing and
storytelling.  But cosmology becomes ethics – questions about the
natural world become questions about the everyday world of people and
society – metaphysics becomes political philosophy.  In general the
trend is to get from questions about nature to questions about
society.  This means: people in the cave begin thinking about the
nature of the cave (out of wonder and curiosity) and gradually begin
to question the cave society -- the social arrangements that they
themselves participate in in the world of social life.

If we look at other traditions we get a few more ideas about
starting-points.  In some cases, chaotic social conditions seem to
precede creative thinking about how society should be arranged
(Confucius).  In some cases, a willingness to take an argument from
simple premises to ultimate conclusions – the passion for pursuing an
argument all the way to the end – seems the key factor in the birth of
philosophy (the Upanishadic thinkers).  For the Buddha, thinking
begins with suffering.  Suffering is made into a problem and the kind
of thinking that is created lends itself to all sorts of
problem-making – to philosophical questioning in general.

The Indian tradition seems in many places to suggest the idea that
philosophy begins in the problem of self-control.  By trying to get a
handle on all the different thoughts and feelings and impulses
coursing around in our brains/hearts/bodies, we have created the
conditions for explicit thought and philosophical questioning

The Chinese tradition seems to suggest that philosophy has a social
origin and in effect is the result of the break-up of dynasties --
government officials lose their offices and are scattered into
different provinces, where they begin to teach in a private capacity
what they were once required to do in an official capacity – high
officers become literati, soldiers become moralists, astrologers
become metaphysicians.  This is an ancient explanation for what people
call “the hundred schools” – it comes from Ssu-ma Chien and more
recently was restated by Fung Yu lan.

So: a social origin; a subjective origin; wonder at the natural world;
facing harsh reality and trying to come up with ideas to ameliorate
things, to solve problems.  Another idea that I have written about and
that I associate with African philosophy is the idea that there is
something like a philosophical instinct that comes up in everyone,
especially in children, which then gets repressed and becomes replaced
by religious teaching.  This model suggests that virtually everyone in
the cave has the impetus to become a Socrates, without any contact
with anyone else, simply by being human.  They will get there unless
they are explicitly prevented from doing so.

I think many of us have the experience of growing up in irrational,
dysfunctional families (really, the only kind there are) and out of
the chaos of family life and all its pressures, we begin to hear a
“still small voice” that urges us to think for ourselves.  I think I
had an experience as a child, listening to what the adults around me
were saying, when I suddenly understood that I was the most thoughtful
person under this roof; if anyone is going to do some thinking here,
it’s going to have to be me.  So in the darkness of my little corner
of the cave, philosophy got started one more time.