The Question of Reality

Milton K. Munitz

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780691020914, 9780691073620
• eBook ISBN: 9780691222134
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

When we read that scientists have come close to pinpointing the "origin of the universe" by means of a Big Bang cosmology, or are engaged in formulating a "theory of everything," as in current ten-dimensional superstring theories of particle physics, can we doubt that such inquiries or their results inevitably raise important philosophical questions? In the present book, as well as in his previous work Cosmic Understanding, the renowned philosopher Milton Munitz attempts to answer some of these questions by examining recent scientific theories of cosmology in a philosophical context.

Part 1

INHERITED
GUIDELINES

ONE

Cosmic Creation

COSMOGONIC MYTHS

It is impossible to draw a sharp line of division between the stage of human history in which cosmogonic myths are prevalent and the stage in which efforts at rational philosophic or proto-scientific inquiry emerged, as in sixth- and fifth-century B.C. Greece. Even if one does draw distinctions between prevalent modes of thought at different stages of human development or in different cultures, so that, for example, one can contrast “myth” and “science,” the influence of myth lingers at least at the points of transition, and in a broad sense, moreover, never disappears altogether, since the reliance on analogy and metaphor to probe fresh or difficult areas of inquiry is present even on the level of the most sophisticated, advanced examples of human thinking.

Mankind’s richly stored fund of cosmogonic myths gives clear evidence that there is hardly a source of analogy with some feature of familiar human experience that has not been put to imaginative and speculative use in accounting for the origin of the world: the world emerged as a small hill from the depths of the surrounding primeval waters; the world was born from a cosmic egg; the different regions of the world came into existence through the agency of a supremely powerful ruler who slew a dragon (or some other creature), cut up its carcass into major segments, and assigned them to subordinate gods; the world came into existence at the authoritative command of an all-powerful God. And so on.¹

Aside from the cosmogonies preserved, for example, in Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology that made use of particular features of local topography and geography in their generalizations about the conditions that prepared the ground for the origin of the world as a whole, other major sources of analogy for purposes of cosmogonic model building have been largely three in number: biological facts of birth and growth; modes of establishing social order; and the making of artifacts by skilled craftsmen.

If, from among the variety of mythic cosmogonies, one identifies certain models as being “obviously primitive,” while others continue to win an underlying sympathetic resonance and understanding even though they are not accompanied by any commitment to their literal truth, this distinction finds its typical justification in various ways. It is there, for example, in the contrast made between an analogy drawn from thoughtful craftsmanship, on the one hand, and an analogy that, on the other hand, appeals to the mechanisms of biological generation, to geographical, meteorological, and physical facts, or, finally, to the manifold types of power, rule, and authority associated with different forms of communal or political life. For in the case of analogies drawn from geographical, physical, biological, or even social phenomena, one may assume the operation of causative conditions to be blind—lacking guidance by a deliberate plan. This naturally invites questions about the underlying conditions that could explain their coming into existence and operation.

In contrast, the situation is different in using the analogy of craftsmanship, at least with examples of recognized originality and creativity. In those cases, what is produced seems to be an act of “creation out of nothing,” or at least something that springs from the artist’s mind. And one is not as prone to look for antecedent conditions to explain the spontaneous origination of genuinely creative ideas. For this reason, we may assume, art and creative craftsmanship become, at sophisticated levels of cosmogonic myth-making, preferred analogical sources for explaining the existence and structure of the world. As thoughtful beings eager to find explanations for even the most fundamental matters, we are drawn to understanding the existence and patterns of the world around us as the handiwork of a supremely wise and infinitely creative Designer and Maker of all things.

It is this fact that explains the powerful and not easily surrendered appeal of theism’s doctrine of Creation. It is this component of theistic philosophy that, in our Western traditions, is worked out in Plato’s Timaeus and by theologians of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious faiths who, building on their Greek heritage, seek to coordinate the inherited insights and arguments of Greek philosophy with the narratives or revelations of their respective sacred, scriptural texts.

PLATO’S TIMAEUS

Plato’s Timaeus is a clear and outstanding example of an entire class of creation myths that seek to answer, in their own way, the question of reality. For purposes of explaining the existence and fundamental pattern of the world and all that it contains, the generic characteristic of such myths is the appeal to a fundamental distinction between two levels or types of reality: the world or cosmos, on the one hand, and what lies “beyond” the world, on the other, yet whose properties and powers in relation to the world explain the reality of the latter as an ordered whole.

For Plato, reality consists basically of two tiers: one a domain of Intelligible Forms, the other a structured cosmos. His myth of creation would link the two through the agency of a Divine Craftsman who practices the rational art of cosmic ordering. In his creation myth, Plato achieved a degree of sophistication and plausibility far beyond anything found in primitive cosmogonies. As a result, for those to whom in general the project of working out a cosmogony, whether in the form of a myth or through some other method, is the basic path to follow in achieving an answer to the question of reality, his views exerted, and continue to exert, a profound impact. To mention just two examples: it set the pattern for many of the details of later theology, and it offered a rationale for the activity of many scientists engaged in actual research. In the first case, unlike other tentative or partial parallels to and anticipations of later theism, Plato’s Timaeus played a crucial role in guiding many of the central theological doctrines of later Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thought. And in the other direction, its influence is found in those philosophies of science that are commonly referred to as being realist in their outlook, and that would support the claim that the inherent structure of the world is essentially quantitative. Such views share with Plato a strong adherence to the Pythagorean heritage, a heritage that has been enormously enriched through the growth of modern mathematics and its manifold successful applications in science. This orientation finds encouragement in Plato’s belief that the Divine Craftsman imposed (in addition to a teleological ordering) a determinate pattern of mathematical (particularly geometrical) intelligibility on Nature. As embedded in material things, this intelligible structure constitutes their objective essence.

Plato writes that “the world has been fashioned on the model of that which is comprehensible by rational discourse and understanding.”² This brief statement sums up not only a crucial feature of Plato’s own philosophy, but points ahead as a beacon in the history of Western thought that illuminates the common orientation of many subsequent versions of realist theories in ontology and epistemology, whether such realist doctrines are directly supportive of theism or even, as in the case of some naturalistic philosophies, in open rebellion against theism. One of my purposes, in what follows, is to review briefly the way in which the realist approach to intelligibility was expounded in classic form in Plato’s philosophy. The important idea I shall focus on is the belief that there is a single, definite, inherent intelligible order in the world, that it can be discovered by human beings, and that it owes its origin and existence to a transcendent Creative Source.

The use of the notion of intelligibility (or intelligible structure), as influenced by Plato’s Timaeus and his other dialogues, has had a long career in the history of Western thought. It has been modified and adapted to serve various special interests: religious, scientific, and philosophic. Whether in ancient, medieval, or modern times, the vast majority of world views held by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and countless other individuals have been realist in their basic presuppositions and orientation. As commonly used in its broad philosophic meaning, realism is the fundamental and unquestioned belief in the existence of an independent reality that is made up of its own component entities, together with their inherent properties and structural interconnections. This reality is taken to exist apart from, and antecedently to, any human efforts to disclose what that reality is. For those who adopt this basic ontological commitment, it is commonly agreed, therefore, that the task of a sound method and trusted source of knowledge is to discover—to bring to light and articulate, as far as possible—the nature of this independently existing reality.

This shared realism holds for a broad spectrum of philosophic views. Each view may be radically or only partially different from another in drawing its own distinctive internal lines of differentiation with respect to the fundamental types, levels, and modes of being that identify the component entities that, for it, comprise independent reality. This common ontological realism is associated, moreover, with a wide range of epistemological approaches—for example, empiricist, rationalist, revelationist, fideist, mystical, or a mixture of some of these. A particular epistemological orientation and preference selects the mode of knowledge acquisition to be relied on in disclosing the nature of reality. The presupposition of realism accordingly underlies such diverse world views as theism, platonism, materialism, subjective idealism (mentalism), absolute idealism, and naturalism. It appears in such differently oriented thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Plo-tinus, Augustine, Philo, Avicenna, Aquinas, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Berkeley, among others. A paradigm of this realist philosophy—one that has exerted an enormous influence on various family-related versions of realism, even those ostensibly in opposition to it at various points—is the kind we find in Plato’s myth of cosmic creation in the Timaeus.

In response to the perennial human need to understand the world and man’s place in it, Plato’s philosophy centers its attention on the role that reason performs in imposing (as far as is possible) a maximally satisfactory, rational order on given raw materials. I shall refer to this as Plato’s emphasis on the general theme of rational art. As conveyed in his various Dialogues, Plato’s philosophy may be viewed as an attempt to work out the details of this fundamental idea, and to show how its general principles could be applied in helping to find answers to such widely different questions as formulating a sound political philosophy, adopting a philosophy to guide one’s personal life, and achieving a conception of the physical cosmos on its most comprehensive scale. In opposition to those who are either ignorant of these principles or deliberately flout them, Plato is at pains to make them explicit and to show that only if we accept these principles can we genuinely make sense both of what human life could accomplish, and of how, more broadly, we may find intelligibility in the existence and structure of the cosmos.

In its original meaning, the Greek term kosmos referred to adornment or order.³ Its application by some Greek philosophers of the sixth century B.C. as a designation for the physical, visible universe as a whole was an innovative extension of this ordinary meaning. Plato takes advantage of this extension in making his own comparisons between the kinds of order to be found both in the microcosm and the macrocosm. For example, in the Republic, Plato shows what a reliance on the principles of rational political art would require in establishing and managing a well-ordered (just) society, and, by way of analogy, what parallels this would have in the application of the same broad principles in achieving a well-ordered personal life. This two-tiered conception of a rational life for human beings (the political and the personal) constitutes Plato’s conception of the microcosm, of what life would be like if practiced in accordance with rational art. His dialogue Timaeus explores the same underlying central, general idea of rational art as a way of coming to understand the macrocosm: the genesis and structure of the cosmos as a whole. In sharp opposition to the views of materialists (for example, Atomists such as Democritus), Plato is convinced that the universe displays the marks of being a well-ordered product of deliberate design: of rational art, not of chance.

For human beings, the achievement of a well-ordered personal life is the outcome of applying reason to a complex set of psychological and biological capacities, needs, and drives. In the case of envisioning what it would be like to have a well-ordered and just society, the problem is one of specifying the interrelations among the distinctive functions and contributions that different classes of society would make to the welfare of the society as a whole. Finally, in the case of the cosmos on its grandest scale, Plato believes that “the world is the best of things that have become,”⁴ and that to understand what makes it a well-ordered, intelligible whole, it is best to conceive it a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contents
• Introduction: Central Questions
• Part 1: Inherited Guidelines
• One: Cosmic Creation
• Two: The Kantian Revolution
• Three: Wittgenstein Carries the Revolution Forward
• Part 2: Between an Answer and no Answer
• Four: What Is Reality?
• Five: The Universe
• Six: Boundless Existence
• Index