The Objective Nature of Things

The concept of absurdity seems deceptively dangerous in its implications. Taken to its logical extreme, absurdity could potentially render conscious beings as nothing more than lost consciousness in a universe where nothing happens for any particular reason. Yet absurdity, at least according to Nietzsche, is unavoidable. Although we may like to believe that we can prove things true or false through natural law and deduction, I think particularly of the fields of physics and logic, we fail in that our logical reasoning only takes into account the factors which are in our perspective. As Nietzsche says himself.

“There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective “knowing”” (Solomon 96).

Because we can only see things from a limited number of perspectives depending on the number of observers we have, we can never see more than a fraction of objective reality. Even some of the most studied and well documented processes in physics; Newton’s Laws, for example, have only been observed from a finite number of perspectives, and thus it does not reveal more than an incomplete portion of reality. This ties back into the Problem of Induction, just as we can not extrapolate from past experiences to predict future events, we can also not extrapolate from our small, incomplete perspectives to determine the objective nature of things. Although this does not have an impact on how one should live their day to day life, one should not expect gravity to randomly reverse on day, and it does not even have a significant impact on the results gathered from physics. However, from a philosophical perspective, anyone with particular interest in the concept of absurdity will find this conclusion extremely disturbing. Yet somehow I am expected to continue with my daily rounds as if my grasp of objective reality has not been shaken to the core by Nietzsche’s absurdity.

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

I Didn't Know How to Spell Nietzsche

I’m honestly a little shocked to be reading Nietzsche at this point. Although I knew that Nietzsche was going to be covered in this class, I always felt like I would have a stronger, more concrete grasp of the existentialist prose. Yet here I am, just as lost and mystified in the complex logical reasoning and unconventional thinking as I was almost three months ago (although, in a way that might be the purpose of existentialist philosophy). While I know that a portion of this lack of progression is due to my focus being placed elsewhere and due to the fact that as a physics major, my thoughts processes are more mathematical than philosophical, I can’t help but feel unprepared for Nietzsche. I have always heard reference to Nietzsche in most any semi-serious conversation that involves philosophy, but his works were always used and cited in such a way that they appeared too advanced for the amateur philosopher. After my first reading of Nietzsche, I find that I can see why he was often portrayed as being a much more advanced philosopher than those who are often used to introduce beginners such as I was, or possibly continue to be. Nietzsche, although I will admit that my reading of him to this point has been little, seems almost uninterested in the seemingly mundane existentialist questions and instead goes straight for the ones that seem to epitomize existentialist thought. The death of God, the source of morality, and the cause of consciousness are all questions that Nietzsche has begun to tackle in my limited readings. The death of God concept was especially interesting to me, particularly how Nietzsche describes how the death of God affects philosophers,

“we philosophers and “free spirits” feel, when we hear the news that “the old God is dead,” as if a new dawn shone on us” (Solomon, 68).

This lead me to ask, does the death of the old God lead to expanded avenues of philosophical thought in the same way it leads to expanded thoughts of scientific thought? I feel the death of the old God, Nietzsche seems to highlight the Christian God, may have had the same effect on philosophical thought that it had on scientific inquiry. The effect that, by removing the restrictions placed on questioning based on the religious tradition, scientists in the last two hundred years have made incredible advancement in the amount of knowledge available to humanity. While I am not familiar enough with the development of philosophy in the last two hundred years to say for certain, I feel that Nietzsche described an actual pattern in philosophy analogous to that which took place physical sciences.

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Objective Uncertainty and the Problem of Induction

In a philosophy course that I took last semester, we briefly touched on the problem of induction, the issue that arises when objective knowledge of the past and present is used to predict future events. Because all of our knowledge of the world up to this point is based solely on either current or past occurrences, we have no way of definitively knowing that the future will follow the same rules as the past. This simple logic problem was and continues to be slightly disturbing to me. As a self proclaimed scientist, I have lived most of my teen and adult life in accordance with logic and rationality, believing them to be the only true way to learn about reality. However, this problem of induction, which I still have no idea how to resolve, put skeptical strain on the same logic and rationality that I had placed so much trust into. While this problem has not been sufficient enough to steer me into a life of ignorant bliss, it has remained a problem nonetheless. After reading Kierkegaard’s Truth is Subjectivity, I am struck once again with the feeling that Kierkegaard has very similar thought processes to my own. Kierkegaard seems to differentiate between the actual truth of things and what we believe to be the truth of things. The things that are actually true have an objective uncertainty, a very similar idea to the problem of induction, that makes them impossible to actually know. However, we believe that we know these things, so much so that they appear to us to be facts, despite the fact that due to objective uncertainty we can never truly know anything about the future. The mental faculty that fills the gap between the objective uncertainty of what is actually true and what we believe we know to be true is, according to Kierkegaard, faith. In one elegant swoop Kierkegaard managed to hold to his use of logic and rationality while also justifying and strengthening his concept of faith. A bold and brilliant move that has not been lost on me.

“Faith is just the contradiction between inwardnesses infinite passion and the objective uncertainty”

-Kierkegaard

God Works in Mysterious Ways

Søren Kierkegaard seems to be a striking example of one of the few rational, logician-esque individuals who attempt and succeed at compartmentalizing, and thus holding to, fundamental Christianity and logic. While I surely been influenced by my community, I have generally held the the view that compartmentalizing these two beliefs is not possible and that an individual will only be able to sustain one. However Kierkegaard seems to have come up with an elegant and effective resolution to this potential issue. He proposes that because God performs ‘miracles’, He is at odds with reason. Because logic and proof can only answer things that are not at odds with reason, they cannot answer questions about God. I have heard this idea recently from several different sources, almost always fundamentalist Christian apologists, and generally people who I both dislike and disagree with. These modern apologists seem alien to me, they have abandoned logic and reason in exchange for their beliefs, and they hold values that are almost always in opposition to my own. However, Kierkegaard holds the same basic views with these apologists but he is a man who seems to be cut from a similar cloth to my own. Kierkegaard is a logical, thoughtful man first, and a Christian second. In one striking quote, he demonstrates this conflict,”...it is easier to become a Christian when I am not a Christian than to become Christian when I am one…”. As someone who has personally disavowed Christianity, seeing this analogous conflict to my own, leads me to view his conclusions on Christianity and God in a more favorable light and may even cause me to reflect on some of my own views with more scrutiny than I have before.

As an aside; I am convinced Kierkegaard would be a great wit if he were to live in our current time, just take a look at this gem, “People rarely make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom of thought, instead they demand freedom of speech as compensation.”

What is the Nature of the Self?

The most recent discussion of existentialism in which I was engaged brought back to my memory some thoughts concerning individuality and self that I have not entertained recently. Specifically, I wonder about the nature of human individuality when we are obviously a social animal that relies on social constructs to maintain good health. This trail of thought occurred to me as I was reflecting on an earlier class discussion about Camus’ The Fall. There seemed to be a recurring theme through some of the story plots, of the individual being an entity defined by the observations of those around it. Jean-Baptiste helping the blind man and making it an obvious show, taking the dying man’s water because he is more important to those around him, and his execution where he is a reflection of shame upon on the onlookers. Although I know that this is a secondary meaning of the novel at best, I couldn't help but notice, and it made me ask the question again, what is it to be an individual? Although the romantic side of me likes to cling to the idea that I am an individual independent of my surroundings, regardless of situation and circumstance I would continue to be the same individual. However, the scientist in me is not so easily convinced. A major theme that I have learned in Sociology is the how significantly influenced individuals are by the society that they live in. In an almost completely subconscious series of events, individuals gradually change to fit the society in which they live, and many sociologists have theories of the self that define the self as only being a reflection of those around the person. This makes me wonder what would happen to an individual who lived his life in complete isolation. Would he become a feral animal? Would he live a healthy, although lonely, life? Or would he even survive without some type of social reaction?

Focus on the Ideas, Not the Words - Albert Camus' "The Stranger"

I was struck by the ‘author worship’ that I witnessed during class discussions of The Stranger. I was distinctly reminded of my time in church when I was younger. Not only were the words out of those holy books taken to be perfect and absolute, but equally valid were any conclusions that could be drawn by reading between the lines. I would find myself being praised for pulling a moral “truth” out from the subtext of a verse or a line, a moral that, in hindsight, the author really had no intention of implying. A similar type of thing seems to be happening with The Stranger, at least in the class discussions I have been a part of. With all due respect to Albert Camus, the great philosopher and author that he is, he is but a man and his words should be regarded as such. I find it hard to believe that Camus intended for his work to be the object of intense scrutiny and the template from which diverse conclusions can be drawn. Rather it would seem to me that his work is meant to be the diving off point for discourse to occur separately and independently from the pages of his novel. To spur the kind of existentialist thinking that is demonstrated in his writing. No where is this more clear to me than in the final few paragraphs of The Stranger. With the story of our protagonist drawing to a close, Camus effectively presents the ‘thesis’ of his novel, “Living as he did, like a corpse, he couldn't even be sure of being alive. It might look as if my hands were empty. Actually, I was sure of myself, sure about everything, far surer than he; sure of my present life and of the death that was coming.” Over the span of about half a page, Camus presents the train of existentialist thought that has been gaining speed throughout the length of the novel. This is where I believe he wanted the focus of the novel to be, not on the specifics of Marie’s manner of speech or the way the courtroom was described, the 74 pages prior to this final outburst serve merely as a “slow, persistent breeze” (Camus, 75) in order to set up the final, thought provoking, existentialist message Camus dedicated his life’s work to.