Chapter 6.                           (conclusion) 

The basic concepts of math and language got built up in us, both physically and culturally, because those who had them and used them survived in greater numbers than those who didn't.  

If the precursors of language came to be genetically built into us (e.g. human toddlers all over the world grasp that nouns are different from verbs) while the precursors of math are not, this only shows that basic language concepts proved far more valuable in the survival game than basic math ones. (Really crucial concepts, like our wariness of heights or snakes, got written into our genotype long before language arrived.) The innate nature of language skills, along with the usefulness of language, indicates that basic language concepts do not come to us by any inexplicable process out of an ideal dimension. All these human traits have genetic – i.e. Empiricist – explanations.

We do not have to believe – as Rationalists say – in another dimension of pure thought, with herds of “forms” or “distinct ideas” roaming its plains, in order to have confidence in our own ability to reason. By the genetic recombinations that shaped our nature, or by the cultural ones that shaped our nurture, or combinations of the two, we acquire those concepts that enable their carriers to survive. Then, we teach them to our kids. Our ability to reason can be explained in ways that don’t assume any of what Rationalism assumes.

And now Rationalism’s disturbing implications start to occur to us. Wouldn’t I love to believe that there is some hidden dimension in which the forms exist, perfect and eternal? Of course, I would. Then I would know I was “right.” Then I and a few simpatico acquaintances might agree among ourselves that we were the only people truly capable of perceiving the finer things in life or of recognizing which are the truly moral acts. Our training and natural gifts would have sensitized us to be able to detect the beautiful and the good. For us to persuade the ignorant masses – by whatever means necessary – would only be rational. Considering their inability to figure things out for themselves, it would be an act of mercy for us to get control of the nation and run it. 

This view is not just theoretically possible. It was the view of some of the disciples of G.E. Moore almost a century ago and, even more blatantly, of the followers of Herbert Spencer a generation before that.^3,4   

   

              

                             Herbert Spencer (credit Wikimedia Commons) 

 

I am being sarcastic about the sensitivity of Moore’s and Spencer’s followers, of course. Both my studies and my experience of the world tell me there are more than a few of these sensitive aristocrats roving around in today’s world, in every land. (The neocons of the West?) We underestimate them at our peril. The worst among them don’t like democracy. They yearn to be in charge, they have the educations and inherited privileges to secure positions of authority, and they have the capacity for lifelong fixation on a single goal, namely, keeping their power. Further, they have the ability to rationalize their way into believing that harsh or deceitful actions are sometimes needed to keep order among the “brutishly ignorant masses” – i.e. everyone else. 

Out of our discussion of Rationalism, the conclusion to draw is that too often it is a companion of totalitarianism. The reason does not become clear till we understand cognitive dissonance. Understanding how cognitive dissonance works enables us to see how inclined toward rationalization people are and how easily, even insidiously, they give in to it. On what grounds can any of us tell himself that he is above this human flaw? Should I tell myself that my mind is somehow more aesthetically and morally aware or more disciplined, and therefore is immune to such delusions? I’m not aware of any logical grounds for reaching that conclusion about myself or anyone else.

In fact, evidence revealing this capacity for rationalization in human minds – some of the most brilliant of minds – litters history. How could Pierre Duhem, the brilliant French philosopher, have written off relativity theory because a German proposed it? (In 1905, Einstein was considered a German.) How could Heidegger have accepted the Nazis’ propaganda? The Führer principle! "German" science! Ezra Pound, arguably the best literary mind of his time, propagandized on Italian radio for Fascism!

                                                    

                                  George Bernard Shaw (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

                                Jean-Paul Sartre (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

How could George Bernard Shaw or Jean-Paul Sartre have become apologists for Stalin? So many geniuses of the academic, scientific, and artistic realms fell into this trap. Once we understand how cognitive dissonance reduction works, the answer is painfully obvious. Brilliant thinkers are just as brilliant at self-comforting thinking – namely, rationalizing – as they are at clear, critical thinking. And the most brilliant fallacious arguments they construct – the most convincing lies they tell – are the ones they tell themselves. 

The most plausible, cautious, and responsible reasoning I can apply to myself leads me to conclude that the ability to reason well in formal terms guarantees nothing in the realm of practical affairs. Brilliance at formal thinking has been just as quick to advocate for totalitarianism and tyranny as it has for pluralism and democracy. If we want to survive, we need to work out a moral code that counters the excesses of the human flaw called rationalization, especially the forms found in the most intelligent people.

Rationalism is a regular precursor to intolerance. Rationalism in one stealthy form or another has too often turned into rationalization, a dangerous flaw of human minds. The whole design of democracy is intended to remedy, or at least attenuate, this flaw in human thinking. 

In a democracy, decisions affecting the whole community are arrived at by a process that draws upon the carefully sifted wisdom and experience of all, backed up by reference to observable evidence and a process of deliberate, open decision-making. We debate. We find consensus. Then, we act.

One of the main intentions of the democratic model is to handle subversive, secret groups. In this way, democracy simply mirrors Science. In Science, no theory gets accepted until it has been tested repeatedly, and the results have been peer-reviewed. There are no elites who dictate what the rest must think. Focus is on observable evidence that all can see and then discuss. The process is helped, of course, by the simple fact that ideas that do not accurately portray reality lead their adherents to pain. Reality is what it is, and always, given some time, people see that.

While some of my argument against rationalism may not be familiar to all readers, its main conclusion is familiar to Philosophy students. It is Hume’s conclusion. He said long ago that verbal arguments that do not begin from material evidence, but later somehow claim to arrive at conclusions that may be applied to the material world can be “consigned to the flames.”⁵ Cognitive dissonance theory only gives modern credence to Hume’s argument.

Rationalism’s failures lead us to the conclusion that its way of ignoring the material world or trying to impose a preconceived model on the world doesn’t work. We can’t use Rationalism as a reliable base for a full philosophical system. Its flaws are just too blatantly obvious. Its way of progressing from imagined idea to idea, with little or no reference to physical evidence, is all but guaranteed to end in rationalization instead of rationality.

Finding a complete, life-regulating system of ideas – a moral philosophy – is far too important to our well-being for us to risk our lives on a foundational idea that historical evidence says is flawed. In order to build a universal moral code, we need to begin from a better base model of the mind. 

But we’ve seen that Empiricism – a thinking system based only on sensory impressions gathered from the material world doesn’t work either. It can’t adequately describe the thing doing the gathering. Besides, if we lived by Empiricism – that is, if we just gathered experiences – we would become transfixed by what’s happening around us. At best, we would be collectors of sense data, recording and storing bits of experience, but with no idea what to do with these memories, how to do it, or why we would bother.

In the largest view of ourselves, we need concepts/theories in order to make decisions and act. Without mental models to guide us, we’d have no way to form plans for avoiding the same catastrophes our forebears spent so long learning (by pain) to avoid. If both Rationalism and Empiricism turn out to be shaky models on which to base a moral philosophy, then where do we turn?

The answer is complex enough to deserve a chapter of its own.

 

 

Notes

1. Elliot Aronson, The Social Animal (New York, NY: W.H. Freeman and Company: 1980), pp. 99–106. 

 

2. Virginia Stark-Vance and Mary Louise Dubay, 100 Questions & Answers about Brain Tumors (Sudbury, MA:Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2nd edition, 2011).

 

3. “G.E. Moore,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 

Accessed April 5, 2015.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.e._Moore.

 

4. “Herbert Spencer,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed April 6, 2015.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer.

 

5. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, cited in Wikipedia article “Metaphysics.” Accessed April 6, 2015.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics#British_empiricism.