The Role of Reason
Jeff Rubard
other cognitive faculties (belief, knowledge, inference). What is
reason as separate from making our beliefs square with reality? Reason
as a whole can be neatly summarized as the faculty which attempts to
make a person's beliefs square with each other, on the understanding
that it may be impossible to judge whether those beliefs are true or
not. How does reason go about its task? By imposing higher-order
conditions on the *content* of a belief, such that the way in which
that belief can function in reasoning is limited by what it can be
*taken to be* for the purposes of cognition. An example to illustrate
this: if I see a man and mistake him for a man of my acquaintance, am
I being unreasonable? Yes, if the generated belief has the wrong form
as regards its content.
If I could really and truly be mistaken as regards the man's identity
and ascribe the purported beliefs about my acquaintance generated by
the encounter to the actual man, that would be reasonable, but if the
form of the belief is such that I have derived information from the
purported singularity of the actual man which applies only to the
acquaintance, then I have failed to maintain the logically hygenic
attitude necessary for having a belief about either person. The
category of reasonable beliefs is thus constrained, not only by
material reality (for we can of course meet both acquaintances and
non-acquaintances), but by practices of reckoning with occurrences
which invoke not only probability but *moral certitude* as regards the
acceptability of an answer: that is, reasoning which is of a quality
to permit practical reasoning.
If I could not form an ethical or moral judgment about an event
(witness Mencken's quote of J.E. Springarn's quip "this cauliflower
would be good, if only it were prepared in accordance with
international law" for an example of a spurious moral judgment hiding
other deficiencies) I cannot be said to be being reasonable, even in
the case of attending to the evidential requirements of a science. For
if it is ethically proper to perform an experiment, we have already
done all the legwork needed to define the experiment in such a way as
to differentiate it from another experiment: we have an object of
reasoning in several respects other than glossing the mere recording
of experimental data. By contrast, an experience which leaves one
without criteria for judging its success or failure from a practical
point of view is one too poorly understood to permit of proper
reasoning about its results. Reason is, thus taken, a judge of
felicity rather than a gauge of experience.
--
Jeff Rubard
http://opensentence.tripod.com/
Essays on theory, culture and politics
ernobe
> As a faculty of the human mind, reason is rarely studied apart from
> other cognitive faculties (belief, knowledge, inference). What is
> reason as separate from making our beliefs square with reality? Reason
> as a whole can be neatly summarized as the faculty which attempts to
> make a person's beliefs square with each other, on the understanding
> that it may be impossible to judge whether those beliefs are true or
> not. How does reason go about its task? By imposing higher-order
> conditions on the *content* of a belief, such that the way in which
> that belief can function in reasoning is limited by what it can be
> *taken to be* for the purposes of cognition.
From your experience, how morally certain are you of this? Is certitude
itself subject to experiment? It may not be ethical to be uncertain, but
to derive certitude as a matter of course from reason isn't either.
Jeff Rubard
I would say that moral certainty is a species of reasonability, the
nature of which is this: we are morally certain of what makes not the
slightest difference in empirical matters of fact. If one is certain
that murder is wrong, it makes no difference which events one classifies
as murder: if an event was a murder, it was wrong. It seems to me that
reason's proper role is in adjudicating between alternatives based on
extra-empirical criteria. In other words, what we reason about is what
could be merely hypothetical or downright certain, what makes no
difference in the order of the world. Other matters are the province of
science and scientific knowledge, which do not allow of criteria
separate from the empirical distinguishing of events and their
constituent elements.
But on this understanding, another opponent of morality enters, the
follower of Thrasymachus and Machiavelli, who insists that it is per se
wrong to employ notions of extra-empirical criteria and that all
judgments must be internally consistent relative to a given vocabulary.
This *literary* sensibility insists that the exercise of impartial
reason is unvirtuous, on account of its honing "distinctions without a
difference" for conduct: the thing is to hold fast to an empirical
distinction already being employed, whatever practical position one
takes as a result. This critic of reason subjects certitude to
experiment, by stipulating that the higher-order condition used to
discriminate morally blameworthy from morally virtuous actions itself
makes no difference, that is to say is assumed merely for the sake of
argument and fails to further practical interest via conduct.
If one chooses the first of these options, there must be rules which do
not permit of empirical revision (certitude derived from reason): if one
chooses the second of these options, there can be no admitting of a
controlling interest governing our understanding of events (ethical
uncertainty). A third alternative would involve a concept of reason as
aiming at a complete understanding of events, in both their practical
and theoretical aspect: if such a thing were possible, the reasonable
course in adjudication would be to weigh both the accuracy of moral
judgment and the specificity of a given vocabulary for describing
action. But this requires that empirical criteria be on a continuum
with higher-order justifications, and thusly undermines the definition
of reason as separate from a "partial" understanding of events committed
to a particular theory of their characteristics.
--
Jeff Rubard
http://opensentence.tripod.com/
Essays on theory, culture, and politics
ernobe
>
> I would say that moral certainty is a species of reasonability, the
> nature of which is this: we are morally certain of what makes not the
> slightest difference in empirical matters of fact. If one is certain
> that murder is wrong, it makes no difference which events one classifies
> as murder: if an event was a murder, it was wrong. It seems to me that
> reason's proper role is in adjudicating between alternatives based on
> extra-empirical criteria.
Assuming that that which is uncertain is that which one has not found a
reason for, it seems far-fetched that once reasoning appears it would be
entirely extra-empirical, without reference to the context. But lest it
be said that we are introducing a certain literary sensibility here, let
it be said also that the same definition does not apply to immorality.
That which is immoral is that which one is not certain about. Uncertainty
itself is not immoral, it describes a species of reasoning conducted on
moral grounds, though not that "higher order condition used to
discriminate morally blameworthy from morally virtuous actions", which
would be the result of certainty. Something appears to be certain,
however one may describe it, and reasoning is the process by which it is
understood, whether to ourselves or others. Thus the category of that
which is certain is on a different level than what is merely moral:
it shares in and to a certain extent participates with Reason.
Jeff Rubard
As an attempt to work out the difference of perspective, here's a
section from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Preface), following
critical remarks on commonsense philosophy:
Above we indicated the significance of the Understanding in reference to
the self-consciousness of substance; we can now see clearly from what
has been said its significance in reference to the determination of
substance as being. Existence is Quality, self-identical
determinateness, or determinate simplicity, determinate thought; this is
the Understanding of existence [i.e., the nature of existence from the
standpoint of the Understanding]. Hence it is *Nous*, as Anaxagoras
first recognized the essence of things to be. Those who came after him
grasped the nature of existence more definitely as *Eidos* or Idea,
determinate Universality, Species or Kind. It might seem as if the term
Species or Kind is too commonplace, too inadequate, for Ideas such as
the Beautiful, the Holy, and the Eternal that are currently in fashion.
But as a matter of fact Idea expresses neither more nor less than
Species or Kind. But nowadays an expression which exactly designates a
Notion is often spurned in favour of one which, if only because it is of
foreign extraction, shrouds the Notion in a fog, and hence sounds more
edifying.
Precisely because existence is defined as Species, it is a simple
thought: *Nous*, simplicity, is substance. On account of its simplicity
or self-identity it appears fixed and enduring. But this self-identity
is no less negativity; therefore its fixed existence passes over into
its dissolution. The determinateness seems at first to be due entirely
to the fact that it is related to an other, and its movement seems
imposed on it by an alien power; but having its otherness within itself,
and being self-moving, is just what is involved in the *simplicity* of
thinking itself; for this simple thinking is the self-moving and
self-differentiating thought, it is its own inwardness, it is the pure
Notion. Thus common understanding, too, is a becoming, and as this
becoming, is *reasonableness*.
Hegel's point about reasonableness seems to be that, by virtue of
going conceptions of the world, we are inclined to view matters as
determinate whether we engage in speculative thought about them or not:
and the understanding of morality whereby it is constituted by a certain
ethos not corresponding to any particular philosophical system can be
viewed in this light. On this understanding, certainty is not defined
"without reference to context" but as an immediate product of the
thoughts and reasonings we engage in concerning the world as it is given
to us: and a realm beyond certainty is indeed given, the realm of
speculative reason (where we learn about the discursive rationality
embodied in commonplaces via their dialectical decomposition).
So, on a third understanding, it is possible that dialectical
uncertainty is an enemy of common morality: but the idea of impartial
reason suggests that this is an untenable conception, on account of the
impulse we have to describe any behavior contributing to the growth of
reasoning as not fundamentally hostile to the dictates of morality.
Given the opposite task, that of reconciling certainty to morality, I
think that your explanation is a fine one: certainty is a phenomenon
which has a fundamental connection to reason, insofar as to be certain
of something is to employ rational principles rather than "rules of
thumb" in thinking about it, to exercise the prerogatives of thinking on
a grand scale rather than to be bogged down in empirical details.
Morality need not be involved with certainty as described, although it
is certainly compatible with it, and reason is yet a third thing
concerned with both.
ernobe
>
> Precisely because existence is defined as Species, it is a simple
> thought: *Nous*, simplicity, is substance. On account of its simplicity
> or self-identity it appears fixed and enduring. But this self-identity
> is no less negativity; therefore its fixed existence passes over into
> its dissolution. The determinateness seems at first to be due entirely
> to the fact that it is related to an other, and its movement seems
> imposed on it by an alien power; but having its otherness within itself,
> and being self-moving, is just what is involved in the *simplicity* of
> thinking itself; for this simple thinking is the self-moving and
> self-differentiating thought, it is its own inwardness, it is the pure
> Notion. Thus common understanding, too, is a becoming, and as this
> becoming, is *reasonableness*.
He implies here that the definition of existence as Species then becomes
its definition as Generality, on account of an "other". And since the
"other" is fully entitled to his existence as a Species of your same kind,
it is possible to conceive of a confrontation between common morality and
dialectical uncertainty. But nothing impedes the concession that
the determinateness of our relationship was due to the "other", and that
therefore he had realized his own inwardness without manifesting a
confrontation. In other words, our own determinateness is not due to any
previous confrontations, since there is determinateness in the very nature
of our physical existence. Even the notion of general determinate
physical existence is not necessary; the idea that notions can be shrouded
in a fog is nothing but this confusion of the levels of existence.
Jeff Rubard
Hegel's language can be tricky, and I am pretty sure that in this
section he does not mean another person by "other". However, we have
some of the same responsibilities to this general other as we would to
another person: considering how the given quantity of commonsense
reasoning manages to manifest some of the labor of the concept, the
happenstances through which we reason to things as they are. (If Kant's
principle of the transcendental unity of apperception could be rendered
as "thoughts are thinkable", Hegel goes one further and declares that
thinking is the thinking of thoughts; the subject-matter of a particular
cognition, idealizations and all, is not beneath reason as regards its
ability to dialectically right a one-sided conception.)
