Going on with my project (7) - Response to a Critic

I can imagine someone critical of my position: "You just have your subjective wishes – wishful thinking – that you irrationally accept, and then just construct a philosophy around that." This harkens to the common view that philosophy is nothing but an elaborate justification of what we happen to believe anyway for irrational reasons.

I want to give my response to this kind of criticism.

 

Step One

    Metaphysically, one can either affirm Hamlet's exclamation to Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy - read: science; or deny it, in which case, logically, there can either be fewer or the same (cf. Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien). To affirm or deny any of these possibilities we would have to achieve a God-like perspective, epistemologically, which is logically impossible. Therefore, any metaphysics or other kind of representation or theory that claims to be a mirror of reality as such is ruled out in advance. It can in the best case only capture limited reality from limited perspectives.

   Hamlet’s exclamation represents a metaphysical fork in the road. One can affirm that reality exceeds what is captured in philosophy/science (Hamlet’s position). Or one can deny it, meaning: Either reality is smaller than what we imagine (unlikely, given the history of human discovery); or reality is exactly as we imagine it (which presumes we have already captured the whole truth, an extraordinarily hubristic claim). Since the latter two positions require an absolute knowledge of reality to assert with confidence, only the first position (Hamlet’s) is epistemically humble and defensible.

   The issue, epistemologically, is that we have no God’s eye view. We are mortal, and thus historical; we experience the world through our bodies; we are finite and fallible. Those are brute facts. There are possible realities in the presence of which we as a species are like dogs watching TV. Any claim to fully represent reality, whether through science or philosophy, assumes an omniscient perspective that is simply not available to us. If we could adopt a God’s-eye view, we could adjudicate between competing metaphysical theories as if from outside all perspectives. But as we are finite beings within reality, we can only access reality through perspectives, traditions, languages, and experiences – never as a complete and final picture.

     The inescapable logical consequence of this is that science and philosophy can only be partial disclosures of reality, at least as far as we know. Any metaphysical or scientific system that claims to be a mirror of reality itself is ruled out in principle because it mistakes a limited view for the whole. The best that science or philosophy can do is capture aspects of reality from limited perspectives, but not reality as such. This does not mean metaphysics or science are worthless; only that they must acknowledge their limits.

      Relating this to the line of thought in the last entry, the imagined neutrality of scientific or philosophical reason cannot be logically maintained. Any framework (like Goodman’s worldmaking or logical positivism) that claims to define reality from a supposedly universal stance is making an illegitimate claim to completeness. This underscores my contention – following Heidegger – that reality is disclosed rather than constructed. Since we cannot step outside Being to compare theories to the “real” reality, we must acknowledge that knowledge is gained through participation, experience, and engagement with Being – also following Gadamer here – and not by pretending we are above it.

    This also justifies a more hermeneutic approach to truth – hermeneutic not in the sense of an art of interpretation but a deep philosophy. If all knowledge is perspectival, then truth is not an exact picture of reality but a deepening of insight through dialogue, tradition, and lived experience, as Gadamer showed to my satisfaction. Truth in the sense that matters for philosophy is unfolding, not static, always richer than any given system because Being cannot be reduced to human constructions, i.e. Being is not a human construct but the condition for the possibility of human constructs and everything else.

 

Step Two

  Now I am interested to know whether there is any connection between that situation and the fact that metaphysical thinking seems circular insofar as it to develop must assume some privileged starting point, not in the sense of a logical foundation but in the sense of entering a logical circle at some point.

     I think there is a connection, but it’s subtle. The finitude of our perspective, which prevents us from having a God's-eye view of reality, is what necessitates circularity in metaphysical thought.

     Since we cannot step outside Being to compare our metaphysical theories to reality as such, we can only work from within a perspective. Every metaphysical philosophy must start somewhere and indeed not from a neutral, absolute vantage point but from a given way of seeing the world (whether that be reason, experience, revelation, tradition, or something else). This starting point is not arbitrary – see the entry on my dogmas – but it is also not provable from outside itself. It must be entered rather than deduced, as though joining in a dance. Thus, metaphysical thought appears circular because it is always unfolding its ways of sense-making from within its founding ideas and deepening its understanding of these ideas rather than proving itself from first principles as in a deductive system. This is very different from a vicious logical circle, where an argument collapses because it assumes what it should prove. Instead, metaphysical circularity is hermeneutic: we enter a logical circle not arbitrarily, but because there is no way not to.

     Since metaphysics must start somewhere, each thinker chooses (or inherits) a privileged starting point:

·        For Descartes, it was the self-evident certainty of cogito, ergo sum.

·        For Heidegger, it was Being as that which is forgotten.

·        For Aquinas, it was the analogy between finite being and divine Being.

·        For Goodman, it was the constructive activity of worldmaking.

Each of these enters the circle at a different place, but none of them escape circularity altogether, because all of them already presuppose a certain way of seeing the world.

    The connection to my earlier point about the limits of knowledge is this: since no human being can achieve an absolute, external view of reality, no metaphysical system can be fully grounded from first principles without already having assumed something about the nature of knowledge and Being. This is why metaphysics is always developing within a horizon, to use Gadamer’s metaphor, never from a blank slate. And this is why metaphysics always requires an act of commitment: a moment where one "steps into" a way of seeing the world. Thus, the limit of our perspective (which prevents us from comparing metaphysics to absolute reality) is the same thing that makes metaphysical reasoning necessarily circular.

     Though metaphysics cannot be grounded in absolute certainty, this is not a flaw: just a condition of human thought. (Philosophy leaves everything as it is, Wittgenstein wrote.) The best way to think about a metaphysical philosophy is not by asking whether it "escapes circularity," but whether it is fruitful, disclosive, and deepens our understanding of Being. Since we always enter a logical circle at some point, we should be more concerned with how a framework lets reality show itself rather than whether it meets an impossible standard of external verification – thus my answer to Goodman.

 

Step Three

   And we are not talking about a method of doing philosophy: e.g. Descartes's mathematical approach vs. Gadamer's hermeneutic approach. We are describing the condition for the possibility of philosophical thought, perhaps any kind of thinking that deserves the name. It is what happens, whether we like it or not. It is constitutive of human reality and human reason. What I am describing – following Gadamer – is not a mere choice between philosophical methods (e.g., Descartes' mathematical rationalism vs. Gadamer’s hermeneutics) but rather the condition for the possibility of philosophical thought itself. It is not optional; it is simply how thinking works, whether we recognize it or not. We always begin within a perspective. We never start from a neutral, absolute position but always within a historically, linguistically, and existentially situated perspective. Thinking is always already underway before we formally begin. We can never logically escape our own finitude. We cannot step outside Being to compare our concepts to “reality as such.” Every philosophy, whether it admits it or not, relies on an entry point – a way of framing reality that is not external to the perspective itself. There is, however, the sublime. The mystical, as Wittgenstein put it. Symbols of which can enter the world (the circle).

     It follows that thinking is inherently circular but not necessarily in a vicious way. Since we can never get behind our own thinking to a "pure," pre-theoretical reality, we must always enter thought somewhere. This is not a failure; it is simply the structure of reason itself. It is why hermeneutic understanding unfolds circularly, why phenomenology must begin with attunement to experience, and why no metaphysical system can ground itself in pure deduction. Even in science, one cannot start from nothing. One must already have a theoretical framework that allows questions to be formulated. The same applies to moral reasoning, aesthetic judgment, and religious thought – we do not derive these from nowhere but engage with them from within lived reality. Thus, this is not just a feature of philosophical systems; it is a feature of human rationality itself.

      I think these truths eliminate the illusion of pure neutrality; there is no "view from nowhere" (Thomas Nagel). It follows, moreover, that metaphysics is not a detached game but an existential engagement with Being; that reason is not a tool that stands outside of reality but something embedded in it. Indeed, reason is itself an unfolding of Being.

 

Conclusion

   So this is my answer to the criticism I formulated at the beginning of this entry. The critic assumes that subjectivity is an automatic disqualification for truth claims. But this argument shows that all thought begins from within a perspective. If they object, they must show how their own position escapes this condition (which they cannot do without contradiction).

     This argument shows why a neutral rationality is an illusion. The critic implies that their approach (whether scientific, materialist, or skeptical) is neutral, objective, and untainted by subjectivity. But no one escapes the structure of reason. We all enter a logical circle somewhere. If their perspective is also situated and shaped by pre-existing commitments, then their objection loses force.

     Furthermore, the hidden metaphysics behind the criticism should be apparent. The assumption that any philosophy influenced by deep human experience (love, remorse, awe, etc.) must be "wishful thinking" is itself a metaphysical stance. It assumes reality is indifferent to such experiences. But that assumption is just as much an entry point into the logical circle as mine is. In fact, it is an arbitrary restriction on reality rather than an insight into it. If all thinking begins somewhere, the question is not whether we have presuppositions but whether our way of thinking deepens insight into reality. A philosophy should not be judged by whether it "escapes subjectivity" (since no one does) but by whether it discloses more of reality than it obscures.

   The critic assumes their position is more rational because it is not based on "personal wishes." But this position is based on hidden premises that they do not question:

·        The idea that reality is indifferent to human experience.

·        The belief that scientific neutrality is the highest or only valid form of truth.

·        The assumption that rejecting deep human experiences as sources of knowledge is a mark of rationality rather than a limitation of perspective.

In this way, my answer here does not just defend the train of thought I have been developing; it turns the objection against the objector, exposing the arbitrary assumptions in their own position.

This answer may not refute the critic in a knock-down way, because someone committed to metaphysical naturalism will still reject (existentially, ultimately) my starting point. But it does undermine their claim to objectivity and makes them defend their own presuppositions. Ok, I am waiting for that defense.

     Finally I would say that my dogmas are not wishful thinking – that our loves must not be illusions, our response to the violations of those loves not illusion must not be based on "wishful thinking." I want to know the reasons the skeptic or the naturalist have for denying that love, moral horror, awe, and remorse are genuine disclosures of reality. At the heart of this response is a crucial distinction: wishful thinking would mean projecting meaning onto the world that isn’t really there, a kind of self-soothing illusion; recognition means seeing what is already there, being attuned to reality in a way that discloses what is true.

  

Implications

      The burden, then, is on the skeptic or naturalist to show why our most profound experiences are not real insights but rather mere projections. People do not construct these experiences like fantasies; they encounter them as something given, something that imposes itself upon them. Love, grief, awe, and moral horror appear in every society, and they function as the most serious, not the least serious, aspects of life. The man in remorse does not feel as if he is trapped in an illusion; he feels as if he has finally seen what he was blind to before. Why should we treat remorse as an arbitrary illusion when it is so deeply woven into human experience? The same for the other phenomena. It is not wishful thinking that the grief of a parent over a lost child is a recognition of something real and not a neurochemical illusion. It is not wishful thinking that love discloses something about the intrinsic worth of its object. It is not wishful thinking that moral horror is a response to the real evil of an act, not just a product of cultural conditioning. To deny this is not neutral. It is a deeply revisionist metaphysical stance that requires justification. And I claim that the skeptic or naturalist cannot provide such justification without circularly assuming their own prior commitment to a reality stripped of all meaning. What are the subjective sources being masked here?

      My response does not just defend my view against the charge of wishful thinking but turns the tables and shows that the real wishful thinking might be the skeptic’s belief that reality is a neutral, indifferent void, thus freeing to ego to be “autonomous” and to create the world in its own image. If the burden is to justify why love, grief, and moral horror should be treated as illusions, then the skeptic is in a much weaker position than they realize. And if reality is ultimately disclosed through love rather than reduced to blind mechanism, then we are seeing things as they are – not constructing fantasies.

I think I am trying to make sense of and defend the plainest common sense.

I try to take seriously what human experience discloses rather than artificially reducing reality to fit a pre-imposed model of neutrality.

I understand that truth may be more than we can fully grasp, but that doesn’t mean every disclosing of reality is false.

     But now I hear my critic saying: that is all too good to be true. Reality can’t really be that meaningful, can it?” I agree! I know the feeling. But that feeling itself assumes a hidden pessimistic metaphysics, an unspoken belief that reality must be less than we hope it to be. And why should we assume that? We have been conditioned to believe that truth is disappointing, that the more we know, the more illusions must fall away, leaving behind cold mechanism, blind forces, and an indifferent universe. But in light of my argument, I hope this feeling has been exposed as an arbitrary bias, a kind of wishful thinking in reverse, where people feel intellectually obligated to expect meaninglessness. I think my position is more metaphysically humble than the skeptic’s. I think humility is a very important intellectual virtue. Perhaps reality is, in the end, better than we expect, not in a naïve way – evil, a negation of reality, is a permanent part of human nature, it seems – but in a way that fits the deepest intuitions and experiences that make us human.