Must Reason Know It's Limits?

Lightkeeper · #1 (**permalink**) 26th October 2007, 07:16 PM

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What atheists Kant refute
Reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable.
By Dinesh D'Souza
from the October 17, 2007 edition

Opinion editor Josh Burek talks with Dinesh D'Souza about atheism.Rancho Sante Fe, Calif. - Religion has faced formidable foes in its history. But atheism hasn't generally been one of them – until today. A recent string of bestselling books has put believers of all stripes on the defensive. Religion, say authors such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, is an unreasonable form of blind faith, often leading to fanaticism and violence. Reason and science, they contend, are the only proper foundations for forming opinions and understanding the universe. Those who believe in God, they insist, are falling for silly superstitions.

This atheist attack is based on a fallacy – the Fallacy of the Enlightenment. It was pointed out by the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant erected a sturdy intellectual bulwark against atheism that hasn't been breached since. His defense doesn't draw on sacred texts or any other sources of authority to which people of faith might naturally and rightfully turn when confronted with atheist arguments. Instead, it relies on the only framework that today's atheist proselytizers say is valid: reason. The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that there is only one limit to what human beings can know – reality itself. This view says we can find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. It holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.

In his 1781 "Critique of Pure Reason," Kant showed that this premise is false. In fact, he argued, there is a much greater limit to what human beings can know. Kant showed that human knowledge is constrained not merely by the unlimited magnitude of reality but also by a limited sensory apparatus of perception.

Consider a tape recorder. It captures only one mode of reality, namely sound. Thus all aspects of reality that cannot be captured in sound are beyond its reach. The same, Kant would argue, is true of human beings. The only way we apprehend empirical reality is through our five senses. But why should we believe, Kant asked, that this five-mode instrument is sufficient? What makes us think that there is no reality that lies beyond sensory perception?

Moreover, the reality we apprehend is not reality in itself. It is merely our experience or "take" on it. Kant's startling claim is that we have no basis for assuming that a material perception of reality ever resembles reality itself. I can tell if my daughter's drawing of her teacher looks like the teacher by placing the portrait alongside the person. With my eyes, I compare the copy with the original. Kant points out, however, that comparing our experience of reality to reality itself is impossible. We have representations only, never the originals. So we have no basis for presuming that the two are even comparable. When we equate experience and reality, we are making an unjustified leap.

It is essential to recognize that Kant isn't diminishing the importance of experience. It is entirely rational for us to use science and reason to discover the operating principles of the world of experience. This world, however, is not the only one there is. Kant contended that while science and reason apply to the world of sensory phenomena, of things as they are experienced by us, science and reason cannot penetrate what Kant termed the noumena – things as they are in themselves.

Some critics have understood Kant to be denying the existence of external reality or of arguing that all of reality is "in the mind." Kant emphatically rejects this. He insists that the noumenon obviously exists because it is what gives rise to phenomena. In other words, our experience is an experience of something. Perhaps the best way to understand this is to see Kant as positing two kinds of reality: the material reality that we experience and reality itself. To many, the implication of Kant's argument is that reality as a whole is, in principle, inaccessible to human perception and human reason.

So powerful is Kant's argument here that his critics have been able to answer him only with derision, as though his arguments are self-evidently fallacious. When I challenged Daniel Dennett to debunk Kant's argument, he responded on his website by saying several people had already refuted Kant. But he didn't provide any refutations and he didn't name any names. Basically, Mr. Dennett was relying on the ignorance of the audience. In fact, there are no such refutations.

Although Kant's argument seems counterintuitive – in the way that some of the greatest ideas from Copernicus to Einstein are counterintuitive — no one who understands the central doctrines of the world's leading religions should have any difficulty grasping his main point. Kant's philosophical vision is largely congruent with the teachings of many faiths that the empirical world is not the only world. Ours is a world of appearances only, in which we see things in a limited and distorted way – "through a glass, darkly," as the apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians. The spiritual reality constitutes the only permanent reality there is. Christianity teaches that while reason can point to the existence of this higher domain, it cannot on its own fully comprehend that domain.

Thus, when Christopher Hitchens and other atheists routinely dismiss religious claims on the grounds that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence," they are making what philosophers like to call a category mistake. We learn from Kant that within the domain of experience, human reason is sovereign, but it is in no way unreasonable to believe things on faith that simply cannot be adjudicated by reason.

When atheists summarily dismiss such common ideas as the immortality of the soul or the afterlife on the grounds that they have never found any empirical proofs for either, they are asking for experiential evidence in a domain that is entirely beyond the reach of the senses. In this domain, Kant argues, the absence of such evidence cannot be used as the evidence for absence.

Notice that Kant's argument is entirely secular: It does not employ any religious vocabulary, nor does it rely on any kind of faith. But in showing the limits of reason, Kant's philosophy "opens the door to faith," as the philosopher himself noted.

Kant exposes the ignorant boast of atheists that atheism operates on a higher intellectual plane than theism. He shows that reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable. Atheism foolishly presumes that reason is in principle capable of figuring out all that there is, while theism at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1017/p09s06-coop.html

Can reason figure out all there is? Does theism know there is a reality greater and beyond that which our senses and our minds can apprehend?

evangelicalhumanist · #2 (**permalink**) 26th October 2007, 08:15 PM

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Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

Can reason figure out all there is? Does theism know there is a reality greater and beyond that which our senses and our minds can apprehend?

Kant's argument definitely seems to be killer against atheists!

Truly, I have to admit that I can never, using reason alone, figure out all that there is. Mine is a mind limited in its scope, fed by senses likewise limited -- fine-tuned for life on the planet Earth.

But wait, I can think of two reasons that this killer argument doesn't do what the author wants it to do:

Atheists are under no obligation to show that they are correct not to believe in god(s). Most atheists, as I've pointed out about a thousand times, do not claim that "there is no God." They claim that reason does not lead them to believe it, a very different thing.
The statement "theism at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend" contains an inherent contradiction. If our minds and senses can never, ever apprehend something, that makes it impossible for a theist or anybody else to know it to be true. Thus, it should be impossible for the theist to state that they even know that such a reality exists, let alone be able to say anything about it.

If my second argument is true, then it seems that theists merely imagine (or hope) that a god exists, and that goes a very long way towards showing why, in the long history of humanity, there have been and continue to be so very, very many different and irreconcilable versions.

This whole thing goes back to the burden of proof. Those making a positive claim have the burden of proof. Those who, without any evidence having been provided choose not to believe the claim are acting perfectly reasonably. You would not permit me to claim that "the Invisible Pink Unicorn must exist if nobody can prove that the IPU does not exist." If I make a claim such as the existence of the IPU, then it is up to me to show why you should give it any attention at all, let alone believe it.

vivamis123 · #3 (**permalink**) 26th October 2007, 09:58 PM

Thank you L.K. for a very good article.

I think Kant is talking about a spiritual realm that can be perceived through something other then our sences. I don't think that most theists believe that.

**Travis Clementsmith** · #4 (**permalink**) 27th October 2007, 03:30 AM

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Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist

[*]Atheists are under no obligation to show that they are correct not to believe in god(s). Most atheists, as I've pointed out about a thousand times, do not claim that "there is no God." They claim that reason does not lead them to believe it, a very different thing.

But, some atheists doclaim "there is no God" and I certainly have not seen a demographic among atheists determining which position is more prevelant. Reason leads me to believe there is a God. So, we have to acknowledge both are nothing more than belief systems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist

[*]The statement "theism at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend" contains an inherent contradiction. If our minds and senses can never, ever apprehend something, that makes it impossible for a theist or anybody else to know it to be true. Thus, it should be impossible for the theist to state that they even know that such a reality exists, let alone be able to say anything about it.

I think what they were getting at was sensory perception. For example, I can "see" the number two in my mind, but that isn't a sensory perception, I'm not really seeing that through visual stimuli. Therefore, they are different categories of perception. I would posit there is another type of "seeing", that being contemplative. But, if you use the wrong method of discovery (sensory perception) to discredit it, you are making the category error, just like you can't see my mental image. You understand my mental image because we have a common base of reference. One can do the same for contemplative, but only if you have actually seen it to have the reference.

-TC

wwwdlhow27 · #5 (**permalink**) 27th October 2007, 04:21 AM

WOW!! Thanks L.K.

I see a commonality between athiests and thiests in as much as many of both views spend an inordinate amount of time defending the indefensable out of a perception of being threatened. If we are uncertain enough about our beliefs a defence is constructed to protect us from being proven wrong. We continue to assert that defence in order to be an advocate of our point of view. There is nothing wrong with that. We are all advocates of our own core belief system and we are all justified in living the way we choose.

The justifications, the defences, the evidence (if you will) we construct to support our freedom to choose is based solely on the experiences of the physical world.
The world in which Kant expounds upon is that of the spiritual being, our true state of being of which we are collectively at ONE with God, The Creator of ALL.
The physical manifestation of believing this to be fact is Faith, period. The physical experiences of one who lacks Faith demands proof, evidence, reason for the existance of God, The Creator.

The innability of both views to prove their infallibility is based in the assumption that the physical world and it's measurable components are the sole reposatory or pool from which we can draw definable conclusions. Such assumptions have been our achilles heel to the enlightenment of all.

evangelicalhumanist · #6 (**permalink**) 27th October 2007, 12:51 PM

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Originally Posted by Travis Clementsmith

But, some atheists doclaim "there is no God" and I certainly have not seen a demographic among atheists determining which position is more prevelant. Reason leads me to believe there is a God. So, we have to acknowledge both are nothing more than belief systems.

And some people claim there is no ESP, or no astral traveling or yogic flying or Loch Ness monsters, or ghosts, or jinn, or elephant-headed gods (or monkey-headed either), or truth to astrology, or lucky/unlucky numbers or alien abductions or bigfoot/yeti or ...(how long do you think this list could get?) ... while other people claim that these things are absolutely true.

It is a trick of words to play "there is no..." and "I don't believe that..." When somebody says to me "I don't believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn, I usually (and probably correctly) infer that their true position is that I'm nuts and the IPU does not exist.

Now, I will go one step further, and say that your reasons for believing that there is a God are yours alone, and I'm fine with them. But the instant that YOUR God begins to make the rules that run MY world -- at any time and in any way and in any aspect -- I will demand that you show me evidence.

Now, can you think of any aspects of life which, even for atheists, are impacted by belief in God? I certainly can.

{Key Point} This is, and has always been, the real issue between the religious and the secular. The secular can demonstrate that humans exists, have needs/wants, bleed when you prick them and so forth, and want society structured accordingly. The religious believe that there is a god or gods with needs/wants (impossible!) and want society structured according to that hoped-for entity's rules -- which of course must be imagined since we have no autograph copy. The risk of a couple of merely human (and very self-serving) codicils slipping in is, I think you will agree, rather large.

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I think what they were getting at was sensory perception. For example, I can "see" the number two in my mind, but that isn't a sensory perception, I'm not really seeing that through visual stimuli. Therefore, they are different categories of perception. I would posit there is another type of "seeing", that being contemplative.

Well, then, we must come back to all of the things we've talked about before, and I think it centers around your use of the word "perception." Since it is well-known that perception can be deceived (through illusion, hallucination, etc. see entry in Standford Encyclopedia of Philosphy the Problem of Perception), but to make a long story short, hallucination allows the perception of what is not in any sense real. This perception may be, in fact, of something which exists, but this instance of it does not. And of course, the hallucination may be of something which does not exist. There is no way to tell.

And short of words, there is no way, even for adepts, to share these perceptions. They are in no sense ostensive. The contents of some perceptions may be instantiated, while others may not.

And given how easily hallucinations now appear to be to generate, it would almost seem as if the brain is wired for just such a purpose (perhaps to facilitate dreaming and knowledge categorization/sorting).

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But, if you use the wrong method of discovery (sensory perception) to discredit it, you are making the category error, just like you can't see my mental image. You understand my mental image because we have a common base of reference. One can do the same for contemplative, but only if you have actually seen it to have the reference.

Now we get into murkier waters, because there is no possible way for us to achieve this common base of reference you refer to, because there is no possible way for me to have "actually seen" the reference -- which is locked within your own mind. What I might have seen within the confines of my own contemplative mind may -- or may not -- be the same as what you have seen, but we can never discover whether it is true or not.

Lightkeeper · #7 (**permalink**) 27th October 2007, 06:12 PM

I think the key phrase is "beyond the senses". People who have impared senses seem to have some heightened experiences. In a way meditation blocks the senses so that a person might experience something beyond the normal. I was wondering what would happen if we all agreed that there was something beyond our senses and stopped arguing about what that might or might not be. Humans have a tendency to name that which they don't understand in an attempt to understand it. In doing that the experience is diluted and/or distorted.

Scripture could hold keys to experiencing something beyond. Maybe if we didn't try to categorize and name everything we might succeed in experiencing more. If we decry all scripture and all religon and refuse to look at it with fresh senses, do we cheat ourselves?

vivamis123 · #8 (**permalink**) 27th October 2007, 07:25 PM

Good Post L.K.
If we decry all scripture and all religon and refuse to look at it with fresh senses, do we cheat ourselves?

I think yes, but I would like to add that anyone that does not look beyond the limitations of their senses is cheating themselves from experiencing a deeper connection to life.