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Philosphy has always recognized some connection between "the true, the good, and the beautiful" - that something which is true has a moral component and an internal beauty which is something more than just a plain statement of fact. Mathematicians have also recognized this aesthetic and moral component to truth and have commented that a 'true' mathematical formula has some ineffable internal beauty or elegance within its structure. The following post is an part of and admittedly inadequate exploration of the subject by your humble correspondent cross posted on the "Thinking Christian" blog. With reference to your comment this evening, Dave, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the problem with finding some ultimate definition of good is the same for all systems,[…]
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Martin has suggested that we put aside our “worldviews” and approach the issue free from “the rational and empirical grounds within which we all operate.” I have some difficulty with this suggestion for the simple reason that his reliance on “the rational and empirical grounds within which we all operate” is, itself, an assumption about how we acquire knowledge. Both ‘rationalism’ and ‘empiricism’ have suffered setbacks in the sense that ‘rationalism’ is not supported empirically and ‘empiricism’ is self defeating.
In my own case it was the question of ‘justice’ which led me to my epiphany. “What is ‘justice’?” is another of those problematic Socratic questions. We all know that some things are “just” in the sense of “good, right, and proper” and that other things are “unjust” as in “wicked, wrong, and improper” but itemising and defining them is difficult, if not impossible. It is precisely this uncertainty which is exploited by the proponents of situational ethics and relativism.
The fault of the great mass of logicians is not that they bring out a false result, or, in other words, are not logicians at all. Their fault is that by an inevitable psychological habit <b>they tend to forget that there are two parts of a logical process--the first the choosing of an assumption, and the second the arguing upon it;</b> and humanity, if it devotes itself too persistently to the study of sound reasoning, has a certain tendency to lose the faculty of sound assumption.
G. K. Chesteron, ”Carlyle”
Chesterton’s point is that there are assumptions “all the way down”. Rationalism “assumes” that human reason is capable, through some mysterious process, of distinguishing the true from the false, and empiricism “assumes” that human perception, through some mysterious process, somehow corresponds to reality. I suspect that there is another layer to reality, that layer upon which we perceive “the good, the true, and the beautiful” which transcends the natural world we perceive with our senses. The bare fact that we have the capacity to reason (use immaterial minds to know things) is evidence that something transcends the material world. So, which “assumption” is able to account for the natural world and the fact that we have minds which transcend the natural world?
Pascal considered this question in response to the empiricism of Descartes. How can we be certain of anything? Unless we know our origin then we cannot know our perception has any correspondence with “reality”. Yet we have a natural intuition that guides our actions and beliefs as we journey through our lives. Even the most sceptical of sceptics will hold some things to be true even if it is the incoherent belief that we cannot know the truth.
Now this natural intuition is not a convincing proof of their truth; since, having no certainty, apart from faith, whether man was created by a good God, or by a wicked demon, or by chance, it is doubtful whether these principles given to us are true, or false, or uncertain, according to our origin.
Pascal, “Pensees”, frag. 434
Where we come from informs us of where we are going, it tells us if we can trust our senses and our reason. Pascal asserts that there is only one origin which provides us with the trust in our faculties of reason and perception that we, as rational beings, need to have and upon which we act. His argument is that even the most dogmatic sceptic needs and acts upon the assumption that human reason and perception are a valid reflection of true reality.
“What, then, shall man do in this state? Shall he doubt everything? Shall he doubt whether he is awake, whether he is being pinched, or whether he is being burned? Shall he doubt whether he doubts? Shall he doubt whether he exists? We cannot go so far as that; and I lay it down as a fact that there never has been a real complete sceptic. Nature sustains our feeble reason and prevents it raving to this extent.”
Pascal, “Pensees”, frag. 434
Martin, to his credit, declaims subjectivism, but this rejection of subjectivism is not based upon any sound philosophy, but upon a natural inclination. His philosophy necessarily leads to subjectivism, as the theories of the proponents of such philosophy abundantly demonstrate. Even the proponents of subjective philosophies cannot act the part they proclaim to their disciples. They will assert objective standards of good and truth which, by the definition of their very own philosophy, are nothing more than subjective preference. Without a philosophical leg to stand on they will dogmatically proclaim the very “Truth” which they deny.
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
at ten thousand dollars a show
Captain Hook, “On the Cover of the Rolling Stone”