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"A Secure Foundation, for the Temple of Human Knowledge"

A Secure Foundation, for the Temple of Human Knowledge


Man is forever constrained between the boundaries of what he knows and what he aspires to know, between a subjective universe and an objective reality; this would be our greatest tragedy, as well as our greatest triumph. All things considered, it's most likely our greatest struggle: that we must strive to understand the world around us while being part of the world, which makes it all more difficult: Pretty much the same as trying to look into our own eyes without using a mirror, one might argue. The greatest problem in understanding the mind is that we have no other means to understand other than using mind itself. Throughout history, many philosophers have tried to understand the origin of knowledge, and within such ambitious epistemological attempts, we should be able to observe the struggle of an individual trying to come to terms with his existence, and the world around him.

Descartes, for example, was one of the most prominent philosophers of the modern age, mostly because he managed to provide us with a brilliant, generalist reflection upon the human condition. His utmost design was to establish a solid foundation of Truth, whereupon to establish absolute, unshakable scientific knowledge. In order to achieve his design, he first recognized that his perceptions of the world were inaccurate. Consequently, he tried to free himself of relative knowledge, in order to assess absolute knowledge. Granted, the only absolute knowledge he asserted trough his meditations was the knowledge of his own existence, which was confirmed by his own scepticism – if he didn't exist, he wouldn't be able to question his own existence; thus his famous remark "I think, therefore I am".

Descartes begins his meditation with a very explicit sentence, which elaborates upon his motivations and intentions for the subsequent monologue: "several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true". The author seems discontent with the entanglement of lies and half-truths that seems to invariably permeate the human experience, and thus he decides to tackle the ambitious task of figuring out what is unquestionably true: "since I have opportunely freed my mind from all cares [and am happily disturbed by no passions], and since I am in the secure possession of leisure in a peaceable retirement, I will at length apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions". By overruling his previous misconceptions of the world, the philosopher intends to distil his understanding of the world, so he can establish a solid foundation upon which secure reliable knowledge can be built.

In order to understand what is true, Descartes first begins by trying to discard everything which he's not absolutely certain of. Instead of evaluating his every single impression, which would amount to an unreasonably complex task, he decides to generalize his premise by considering extreme possibilities that would explain the deception he'd recognized within himself. First, he considers that if he were mad, that would account for his misconceptions, yet he would not know about it. Second, he wonders if he would be dreaming, since dreams appear inextricable from reality, and oftentimes we can't tell the difference. Third, he imagines if there would be an evil, omniscient creature which sole purpose was to confuse him and make him doubt. He realizes he can not even trust his senses, because sometimes senses are deceiving (for example, optical illusions). All things considered, he decides the only thing he can be certain is that he exists.

Hume must have been influenced by Descartes' theories, since he appears to doubt the source of human knowledge, himself. While he considers what he refers to as the "problem of induction", he tries to ascertain the value of using induction to establish empirical truths. Induction involves generalization; it's the process of establishing hierarchies of truths. For example, if all ravens observed thus far have been black, it would be reasonable to assume that all ravens in existence are black. From a consistently recurring set of particular truths, we're able to assert general truths, and such is the induction process, which is frequently used in research.

The question driving Hume's reasoning seems to be something like "So, let's suppose we accept the color of ravens as a universal truth. What happens if we find a raven that's not black? Wouldn't it cause a disturbance upon our comprehension of the world?" This preoccupation causes the author to remain highly suspicious of the validity of induction as a tool for establishing truths. Simply put, the problem of induction is whether we should assume that the future will be like the past, and Hume clearly believes we can't, or at least we shouldn't, were we to avoid the risk of self-deception. However extreminst this position may be, it clearly mirrors Descartes' own impression that the only thing we can be sure is that we exist.

Nelson Goodman elaborates upon Hume's suspicious, and in a way he dismisses them, by introducing the concepts of "grue" and "bleen". Such concepts are pivotal to Goodman's "new riddle of induction". A "grue" object is that which has been thus far observed as green, but it "reserves" the possibility of eventually becoming blue. Conversely, a "bleen" object is that which is blue while holding the potential (however improvable that may be) of eventually turning to green. For example, all clovers observed thus far are green, but if we consider they're actually "grue", we accept that our absolute knowledge is simultaneously relative. In such reserve, we manage to secure our inductions while protecting ourselves from the possibility of deception. In a sense, we accept that the more things change, the more they remain the same; similarly, we don't dismiss induction, we merely take precautions against its potential deceitfulness. Once we realize this, we can manage to be absolutely sure that our knowledge is relative. What Goodman arguably believes is that our awareness of this subtlety possibly makes our knowledge absolute, or at the very least, relatively absolute.

While using a clover as an example, Hume would claim that we can't trust our judgment that all clovers are green because one day a blue clover may be discovered; if we want to be thorough in our knowledge, we cannot afford to dismiss such possibility. Consequently, Hume considers we should not trust our judgment at all, because there's always a possibility it might deceive us. Goodman apparently adds up to this conception, by establishing that as long as we remain flexible enough, there should be no reason to doubt ourselves. By admitting that all clovers are grue, we reserve the possibility that one day we might have to go back and reconstruct our understanding of the nature of clovers. This theory draws certain parallels to the standard legal assumption that "everyone is innocent, until proven guilty".

As far as human knowledge is concerned, absolutely relative is as good as it gets, and for Goodman it appears good enough, whereas for Hume it doesn't. Where Goodman comes across as overly optimistic, Hume appears somewhat paranoid, in his refusal to accept inductive reasoning to protect himself from the chance of deception. Much like Descartes, Hume intends to rid himself of everything which is not absolute; yet unlike Descartes, Hume does not appear to actually realize that the only absolute thing about him is that he exists.

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Posted by: Natalie Saturday

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