Space, Time and the Ethical Foundations

Robert Elliott Allinson

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138740730
• eBook ISBN: 9781351727730
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This title was first published in 2002: In Space, Time and the Ethical Foundations ideas about space and time are developed, unique to the history of philosophy, that match the new physics. A well grounded metaphysics is presented which offers a safe haven between stifling scepticism and wild imagination, and an original philosophical method is demonstrated which sharply demarcates philosophy from the empirical sciences. A new foundation is laid for ethics by grounding ethics on the author's psycho-biological deduction of the emotions that offers a progressive model to replace the Freudian paradigm. An originally designed trans-cultural ethics, doubly grounded on both Eastern and Western thought, presents an antidote to the contemporary retreat into relativism. Insights from biology, psychology, evolutionary theory and ethics are brought together in a unique and fruitful synthesis. At the same time, human barbarisms such as the Holocaust are pointed to as reminders that there are just limits to compassion. This book presents a sophisticated text for metaphysics, epistemology and systematic ethics.

Part I
In Between Metaphysics and Epistemology

Largo espressivo

With grave dignity

1
On Certifying What is True in Philosophical Discourse

There is a certain advantage in outlining one’s methodology for establishing truth and one’s criteria of truth at the beginning of one’s investigation. There must be a prior agreement, whether implicit or explicit, as to how truths are to be recognized, accepted, or otherwise known as truths before there can be broad agreement among followers of a discipline as to what will be considered the accepted truths in or of that discipline. There is no value in making truth claims in any discipline in the absence of any methodology for establishing agreement on how what is to be taken as true is known to be true.

In the event that a new, philosophical claim does not fit either pre-established, co-temporary standards for truth, or does not make a case for the establishment or the acceptability of new standards, any claim that is lodged will come to be taken, quite rightly, as an assertion. Why should one assertion hold any claim to allegiance as over against its opposite? Therefore, it would be advisable to explore what means can be employed to certify what is claimed to be true as being true, prior to the lodging of any substantive claims.

It may be alleged that even to propose to begin an inquiry with an outline of a truth finding and truth certifying methodology is to begin with an assumption. Is it not being assumed that there is some means by which a veridical truth claim can be established? While this may appear to be an assumption, it is to be hoped that in what is to follow that this will not stay at the level of an assumption, but will clearly become a part of what is certified. If one were to treat what has been said so far as part of inevitable assumption making, there would be no point at all in beginning from the starting point of searching for the means whereby truth may be certified. One may as well initiate one’s inquiry by asserting the rawest of uncertifiable metaphysical claims, or simply abide by the truths or the criteria for acceptable truths that are already unquestioned and unquestionable in the academy. It is therefore to be hoped that what may appear as an assumption; e.g., that truth can be recognized or that there is truth, will show itself not to be an assumption, but will prove itself to be an undeniable and inescapable fact. The proposal which is being advanced here is that, with due qualification, what is true can be discovered to be true. But, this is no mere assumption. It is a phenomenological fact. How it is a fact rather than an assumption is something that will gradually emerge in the sequel. While the above statement, ‘what is true can be discovered to be true’ might appear to be a trivial truth or a tautology, the point of the statement is that truth is discoverable and is not a product of an inference which in turn is based on a number of unproven and unprovable assumptions. That there is something which can be referred to by the word ‘truth’ is itself a most unpopular standpoint today. ‘Truth’ is a taboo. To be in line with current fashion one must speak of cultural beliefs or at best heuristic and pragmatic belief systems rather than to commit oneself to the pursuit of that elusive quarry of truth. To go even further and propose that not only do truths exist but that they are discoverable and that one can outline a methodology of truth discovery is to commit oneself to a most grave form of political incorrectness.

The proposal is that it is possible to discover a truth or set of truths, which will be revelatory of all human beings as such upon introspection of one’s own subjective insights. This appears to be a kind of assumption which has something of the form: whatever the subject knower discovers to be true about herself or himself has a universalizable applicability. But in reality, this proposal is not an assumption like this at all. In order to discover, however, that this proposal is not an assumption, a putative set of truths which are being held to be subjective universal truths will have to be set out for the purpose of putting this proposal to the test. Only after testing such putative (at this stage) subjective, universal truths will a position will be developed to ascertain that no assumptions whatsoever are being made in the process of staking claims as to what constitutes truth.

After performance of the epoché, whatever one discovers by personal introspection to be an apodeictic, phenomenological truth (within the parameters of one’s consciousness), is capable of so being discovered by any and all humanity. How does one ‘by personal introspection’ become aware of a phenomenological truth that is apodeictic? Once the phenomenological standpoint has been obtained, a truth that discloses itself in the form of ‘that which can never be otherwise’ is an apodeictic, self-evidencing truth. It is not the personal introspection that is the source of the truth: the personal introspection is simply the means by which one may obtain access to the quality of ‘can never be otherwiseness.’ When a truth is cognized as inescapably true and for which no counter-example can be envisioned, it is that type of truth which may be considered a necessary truth of consciousness.

The statement that began the previous paragraph possesses the appearance of an assumption, but it is not being put forward as an assumption. It also appears that another assumption has been made, that human beings are truth-discovering animals. This, however, is also not an assumption despite its appearance of being one. How is either of these claims known to be true? Phenomenological introspection on the part of each and any philosophical reader is the only test for knowing whether either of the foregoing truth claims is true. Without this collaboration on the part of the subject reader, any and all claims, which are set forth within this work, will appear to be ungrounded assumptions.

It is a human capacity to know that whenever one is able to discover some necessary truth about oneself, that selfsame truth is at the same time reflective of and vouchsafed to be true of the human condition, per se. This is the philosophical counterpart to Adam and Eve’s charge and dispensation to name the creatures of nature in Genesis. This is not an assumption, since it can be immediately tested in the consciousness of each subject reader. To claim that each subject knower is a truth-discovering and truth-certifying animal appears as the rawest of assumptions. Is it not an assumption to state that each subject knower possesses a capacity for recognizing what is true in each truth claim within philosophical discourse? No, for what in this case appears to be an assumption or an assertion which requires objective confirmation is, on the contrary, a description of human experience in the private experience of one subject knower, which is a revelation about human nature that is at once accessible to every subject knower. Any human being, speaking from the depths of experience, is speaking as all human beings, since human nature is universal. Man is a truth-bearing and truth-validating animal. Man is, in short, an epistemological animal. Any necessary, subjective truth is at once a reflection of the universal human condition. The only real issue is first acknowledging the universal nature of man. And this is not as difficult to do as it first appears. It only requires setting aside for a moment a most widespread and deep-seated intellectual prejudice that there is no such thing as a universal nature of man.

Suppose one commences with the familiar, very elementary truth of arithmetic, that, 1 + 1 = 2. It is an undeniable fact that each human being can and in fact must make this discovery within herself or himself.¹ It can quickly be countered that such a statement is based on every party to this truth accepting the meaning of the symbols used. This, too, is an undeniable fact. (In fact, this objection itself becomes another illustration of a necessary truth). But the more significant point is that once the meaning of the symbols has been established and agreed upon, all parties possess the capacity for recognizing, and in fact of being compelled to recognize the claim as being true. One may attempt to derogate the importance of this discovery by referring to this as an analytic, or empty truth, but the more important point relevant to the argument being advanced herein is that the possibility of such a recognition and certification at once demonstrates a universal capacity for recognizing and thus certifying the truth claim that is lodged, regardless of what kind of truth it is alleged to be. In a word, there is a universal truth-knowing ability.

Now, while one could argue endlessly whether such a truth as a mathematical truth is an empty analytic truth or a synthetic truth as Kant alleges, there is no need, at the present moment, to enter into such a debate.² For present purposes, all that is necessary is to recognize that whatever type of truth one takes a simple mathematical truth to be; it is a universally certifiable truth claim. This, in and of itself, is a remarkable fact.

What is being proposed in this work is that there are a set of truths, with more substance or complexity than the truth that 1 + 1 = 2, that can also be recognized as being universally true. In the case of the simple truth of mathematics, where nothing much is at stake, there is no questioning this possibility. Some may counter that even these so-called “simple” truths such as 1 + 1 = 2 are debatable and are dependent upon the choice of certain systems of mathematics. Bertrand Russell, coauthor of Principia Mathematica, takes exception to this in his The Problems of Philosophy.³ The point being made in this present, respective work is that whatever the system is within which 1 + 1 = 2, or by which 1 + 1 = 2 is derived, this system also must be a system in which its own assumptions must be corroborated by an immediate intuitive act on the part of a subject knower without the recourse to exterior assumptions. That this system happens to be the system within which or by means of which a direct recognition of the truth claim being made becomes possible is not a proof that this is the best system or the only system of mathematics; it is only an empirical circumstance that this particular system happens to coincide with the immediate truth-discovering capacities of the human being. What is of interest is not the vindication of any certain mathematical system, or any particular type of truth vindication to be found within mathematical systems (logicist, formalist, intuitionist), but only the discovery that there are truths that human beings are in a position to recognize to be truths, which, for human beings, also turn out, upon phenomenological introspection, to be universal truths. In fact, it is only because they are universal truths that it is possible that they are discernible as phenomenological truths in the first place.

It is difficult to find a significant number of fellow inquirers who would agree that there are such universal, mathematical truths. It is even more difficult to find significant agreement that such universal mathematical truths illustrate a universal capacity for truth discovery within mathematics that is shared by all human and perhaps all rational beings. The greatest difficulty that remains is to find fellow inquirers who are willing to agree that there are any universal statements that can be made about the human condition as such. Once it is granted, however, that human beings do possess a truth-discovering ability, no matter how trivial this truth-telling ability is considered by those who grudgingly agree to its existence, one is thereby committed to the reality that human beings possess a truth-discovering and truth-certifying capacity, and this is no small advance. What has been established is that truth, contained in the statement of one human subject, possesses a universalizable applicability. That this is a qualified truth, e.g., that one must first recognize and know how to interpret certain symbols, or subscribe to a certain mathematical system, is of no more moment than that one must first share and therefore know how to interpret the signs of a common language before one can communicate or present a truth. The capacity for language sharing is not identical to the capacity for truth discovery. Once it is agreed upon that human beings do possess a universal truth-discovering capacity, it is no longer a mere assumption that human beings are truth-recognizing and truth-validating animals. It is already an established truth. What may at first have appeared as a “wild” metaphysical claim is in fact a well-founded phenomenon.

The first truth, that 1 + 1 = 2, may be argued to be either analytic or synthetic. But, what cannot be denied is that it is recognizably a truth of some sort. The second truth, that human beings therefore possess a truth-knowing capacity is not a statement that can be reduced to an analytic truth. It is a truth about human beings, which is discovered by and in experience. It is a not a truth that is discovered via the analysis of the meaning of language. And it is an undeniable truth. This second truth is not reducible to knowing the meaning of the symbols that are in use. It is a truth about human nature as such. Thus, the promise made at the outset of this chapter that the truth which was claimed to be a truth would be shown not to be a mere assumption, namely, that all human beings as such possess a truth-discovering and truth-certifying potential, has been fulfilled.

Here, this truth-discovering ability has been labeled a human capacity. The discovery that human beings possess this truth-telling ability has been labeled a phenomenological discovery. What is meant by such a high-sounding phrase? What is meant is that it can be detected, from a simple subjective test, and only from a simple subjective test, that what each subject inquirer understands as necessarily true, is true of the human condition as such. There is no further proof of this, and there needs to be no such proof. Each subject inquirer who recognizes that all human beings possess a truth-discovering capacity is making a phenomenological discovery, which is at the same time a universal truth. There is no other means of access to the understanding of this truth as a necessary truth which is understood as true and understood as necessarily true in the same epistemic moment. One is recognizing that a subjective experience of what is seen to be true by the subject knower can, nay, indeed must be seen to be true by all subject knowers.

It is no mean feat that philosophers can now say that they have at once discovered something that is true, that is not merely a truth within mathematics (that human beings possess a truth discovering capacity), and that this discovery also reveals that philosophers at the same time have discovered a universal truth. What is more, a philosophical methodology has been established in the process. One now knows that if one were able to establish what is true, that a method for establishing what is true can also be articulated. Certain kinds of truths, which are understood to be true subjectively, have a universalizable applicability. In order to be able to know a “subjective” truth to be a universal truth, it must be the case that it is not known to be true in virtue of its being known subjectively, but in virtue of its subjective discovery existing as a universally shared capacity. Its subjective discovery conditions are a proof of subjective universality. This is an example of the beginnings of a philosophical method for the articulation of how one can establish and recognize philosophical truths.

Needless to say, when the realm of more volatile truth “claims” has been entered, agreement will not be so easily reached. What is interesting, however, is that some headway has been made. This amount of headway is already sufficient to dislodge the current claim that all that exists is subjective opinion. This point has already been gainsaid. All human beings possess universal truth-knowing powers, however restricted one may wish to allege such truth-knowing powers to be. And this very acknowledgement, that human beings possess truth-knowing powers, is a very powerful admission. For it grants that what is subjectively seen as true can have a universalizable applicability. One human being can set forth and recognize a truth that must be agreed upon by any and every human being. And this is no trivial discovery. It is a discovery that human nature, while subjective in each subject knower, is also at the same time universal. It follows that truth must be discovered subjectively, but truth is not subjective. Of course, all of this depends upon the recognition of the simple fact that all human beings can and in fact must recognize that 1 + 1 = 2. That other mathematical systems can be devised in which this simple truth is no longer a truth does not affect the truth of 1 + 1 = 2, which is a phenomenological truth. Of course, it can be argued that it may take some training before one can recognize that 1 + 1 = 2. However, with the minimum of such training, such a recognition is unavoidable. It could be argued that this is but a simple truth. The simplicity of a truth does not render it any the less profound. However, the weight of intellectual prejudice is often difficult to remove.

Inadvertently, philosophers have discovered the universalizable quality of human nature in the midst of discovering one universal truth. Philosophers may have discovered something else as well, that the method of going from the subjective to the universal, rather than being an antiquated superstition, is a method that needs to be revived, dusted off and reinspected. For, it has now been discovered that human nature is universal such that the subjective, in such cases as qualified above, is a valid clue to the objective.

A method for finding truth has been discovered in the process of starting with subjective truth conditions. It has been discovered that the way in which one makes and establishes universalizable claims is through subjective introspection and subjective insight. No one can communicate to a potential subject knower that 1 + 1 = 2. This is a discovery which must be made by each subject knower. One can, of course, simply accept the mathematical equation as true. But, this is not the same as seeing it to be necessarily true. If it were to be seen as true, it would also thereby be seen that every subject knower must also see it as true. What can be seen as necessarily true, subjectively, possesses a universal status. The foregoing prov...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• PART I IN BETWEEN METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
• PART II THE NATURE OF ETHICS AND THE BIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL DEDUCTION OF THE EMOTIONS
• 1 TOWARD A NEW ETHICAL FOUNDATION: BIO-EVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL THEORY
• 2 THE MORAL REALM OF TRUTH AND MENCIUS’ PHENOMENOLOGY OF COMPASSION
• 3 THE METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATION OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF ETHICS: ETHICS AS REGIONAL METAPHYSICS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX