Following up on a post of mine from a few days ago; William James Tychonievich challenged the coherence of my statement that I believe in the reality of many supernatural/ paranormal/ occult phenomena - while disbelieving nearly all specific reports of such phenomena.
How - he asked - could I believe in the reality of ghosts, if I did not believe in any particular report of a ghost? Surely the one depends on the other?
After thinking about his argument a while, it seemed to me that William was discussing epistemology; while I was talking about metaphysics.
That is; he was implicitly talking about the empirical or factual certainty of items of "knowledge"; while I was discussing underlying theoretical assumptions that describe the nature of reality.
I have often argued here that epistemology has been an intellectual dead end - despite being the dominant philosophical mode since Descartes, exactly because it sets itself up as prior to metaphysics (indeed, typically, dismissive of metaphysics).
Thus, epistemology discusses (or tries to discuss) how we can know stuff, without discussing its assumptions about the reality within-which such discussion are supposed to occur.
What I am implying in my discussion of supernatural etc. phenomena; is that we can (and should!) be aware, clear, and explicit about our fundamental metaphysical assumptions - e.g. the assumption that ghosts really are true; yet in a way that does not apply to specific "factual" instances.
This means we do not need to be sure that any specific report of a particular ghost is objectively true in order to believe that ghosts are real.
We can rationally believe in ghosts in principle, but in practice reject many, most or even all of the specific reports of ghosts that come to our attention.
There are some reports of paranormal phenomena from other people that I believe are "true", or at least possibly true; yet that truth which I believe is, in practice, more of a working hypothesis than any kind of certainty or assumption.
Nothing major hinges upon whether any particular exact report really is true.
Much the same applies to aspects of public life that I can never discover. I am confident that some of the totalitarian world leaders are in alliance with Satan in some way (perhaps as willing servants or slaves, or possessed by a demon, or in other ways I don't understand); but I don't know for sure the names of even one of these leaders, and have no conceivable way of checking this in a factual sense.
For me, this is a metaphysical assumption concerning the nature of reality in our world now - validated by intuition, yet with no chance of empirical validation.
Metaphysics is primary. Examples of metaphysics are religions and secular ideologies - nowadays, in the West, it is leftist secular ideology that is dominant. because ideology structures the identity, nature and interpretation of "evidence"; this is why evidence can never (and almost never does) overturn ideology; and why accumulating evidence "against" some ideology, has no effect on it.
It is a commonplace insight that religions are un-dis-proveable. Less obvious, indeed ignored - but more relevant - is that this being undisproveable-by-evidence applies to that mainstream modern ideology (significant;ly; an ideology with no name!) that pervades and rules the West, is assumed in all public discourse, and is taught by every major institutions from the media to the schools and colleges. same applies
Therefore, secular ideology is much more dangerous than any religion (as seen by the unequalled scale and nature of evil of the secular totalitarian states of the past century, since the Russian Revolution). More dangerous than religion because it will not name, and indeed denies, its own metaphysical identity; indeed, denies that it has fundamental assumptions: denies that its ruling concepts (such as class/sex/race "equality") are assumptions - but instead pretends (in a circular argument) that its assumptions derive from evidence.
It is an aspect of my oft-iterated theme, that we need (need spiritually) to honestly acknowledge, become clear and explicit about our metaphysical assumptions - especially that they are indeed assumptions.
Our metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality are believed, and acted-upon - yet such belief is of the nature of a choice and a commitment. This is not a knowledge-based belief, such as is the focus of epistemology.
The qualitative distinction between committing to metaphysical assumptions and belief in particular facts is part of that argument.
1 comment:
Numinous experiences, or paranormal or supernatural occur in general but any description of what one felt is about the personal state of the subject. Someone else listening to the account will impose their own meaning on the words that might be similar but might not be, as with people reading scripture. That's my thought anyway.
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