Reflections after reading “Sin” by Wendell Berry, in The Need to be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice, p. 133-173.  

 

   As used in the most profound (if not completely error-free) theology – that following St. Thomas Aquinas – the essence of sin can be formulated thus: that which damages or cuts the bonds between the person (the mortal creature) the essential connections, meaning the connection between body and soul, between the human person and other human persons, between the individual and the family, between individuals as well as their families and the community (and its common good or flourishing), between the creature, his community and the Creation (especially the nature of his place on earth, including the other creatures native to that place) and finally between the creature and the Creator, the origin of all that exists, the pure act of Being – pure Reason, Love, and Goodness being attributes of pure Being. In a sense, everything we do, think, and feel strengthens or weakens these defining connections or relations.  

 

Evangelical protestants tend to think of sin in simpler terms: disobeying God’s commands or laws. Here they are, in brief:

 

     I.        Worship one God (the originator of the laws).

    II.        Don’t worship idols – anything finite construct taken as Absolute – as a substitute (e.g. money, nation, race, Church, ideology, etc.).

  III.        Don’t misuse God’s name (e.g. speak it with ostentatious piety).

  IV.        Don’t work on the Sabbath day.

   V.        Honor your parents (not just obey, but listen to, take seriously, be guided by).

  VI.        Don’t kill other people.

VII.        Don’t commit adultery.

VIII.        Don’t steal.

 IX.        Don’t lie.

   X.        Don’t covet.

 

These laws or commands are absolutely binding, to be followed unconditionally, and that is that. In the Catholic tradition, the Ten Commandments are also practical, “a good set of instructions for people who wish to inhabit a land, to keep it, and to live in it as neighbors to one another. The ten, taken together, with the purpose of making something, namely, a community, loving and lasting.” The first four may not seem to have any application to a secular society. Still, when you consider the economic and cultural consequences of a life form that considers nothing sacred, that “treats everything in the natural world, including its ability to reproduce and renew its life, as finite and therefore exhaustible ‘resources,’” then one can rightly wonder whether a sense that the world is sacred is not a necessary condition for a flourishing community. No one of the secular mind would call this reduction of Creation sin, much less desecration or blasphemy. I think this inability to see what is happening to the world as desecration – making something sacred into something profane – just illustrates how meaning-blind the secular mind is. A kind of black hole has taken the place of reason – reason in the more profound sense of being receptive to reality, of seeing things as they are.

. . .

   Mr. Berry discusses the Ten Commandments from the perspective of a man who has lived in an agricultural community most of his life. Wonderful writing. I especially like what he writes about the 6^th commandment:

 

The sixth commandment is “Thou shalt not kill” in the King James Version. The word “kill” in other translations and in commentaries is rendered as “murder.” The comment in the New Oxford Annotated Bible gives what I suppose is the obvious reason: “This commandment forbids murder, not the forms of killing authorized for Israel, such as war and capital punishment.” Construed in this way, the sixth commandment forbids murder as a private enterprise, and makes it a monopoly of government, whether of ancient Israel or any other nation that may subscribe to the commandments. It clearly would not do to allow a religious scruple to stand in the way of war and capital punishment, which after all are necessities of life. 

  

Of course, as Mr. Berry reminds his readers, Jesus made his own commentary on the sixth commandment:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

 

Mr. Berry comments: “That no doubt is the most unknown widely published statement and the best-kept state secret in the history of the world.” The Israelite state – then and now – construe “kill” and “murder”; and like Joshua and his invaders believe that have God’s permission to do whatever they want to do, to the Canaanites or the Palestinians. (Hamas and their supporters, obviously, share that view and would love to do a Joshua-type slaughter on the whole people of Israel. “An eye-for-an-eye makes the whole world blind” as Gandhi said in support of Jesus.) As Mr. Berry again comments: “This granted…a powerful permission to humanity to follow its lowest instincts, and the ‘Christian nations’ since Constantine have followed Joshua rather than Jesus – Joshua and Jesus being opposite Biblical persons with oddly (in Hebrew) the same name.”

 

. . .

 

Jesus’ understanding of the Ten Commandments he reduced to two:

 

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

 

The focus here is on the parallel between loving your “neighbor” and loving God. This parallel or like is the meaning of the Ten Commandments. Who is my neighbor? Jesus redefines who qualifies as his neighbor with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37). Jesus makes it clear in this parable that our neighbor is anyone around us, regardless of their ethnic, religious, or socio-economic status. What if your neighbor is your enemy? Well, I already gave Jesus’s reply to that. As Mr. Berry puts it: “He didn’t say to love your neighbor unless he is your enemy.”

  What does love mean here? Surely not the sentimental sentiment to which it has been reduced in the secular culture I inhabit. I think C. S. Lewis expresses it perfectly: “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”

  The apparent belief of many people that they are “Christians,” i.e. followers of Christ, while at the same time wallowing in the idolatry of populist nationalism and sharing in the MAGA dehumanization of “the least among our brethren” (those forced from their homes by dire poverty and violence) and their “enemies” (the libs) is truly a ground for profound sadness at the current state of humanity.

 

. . .

 

Mr. Berry shows how impoverished communication becomes when it is detached from community (from neighbors) and happens in a public of strangers alienated from each other. He identifies four “sins” that the public focuses on: from the right, abortion and any “governmental interference with the accumulation of wealth.” On the liberal side, the prime sins are sexual aggression against women and racial prejudice. All of these are serious matters, all alienate the soul from essential bonds (though I would say the failure of the government to stop the billionaire-corporate class from preying like a parasite on the body politic is the sin.) But the point is: why only these four?

  The fat, relentless ego is here at work. As Berry says of abortion (which I have written on before in this journal):

Abortion may be the ideal sin for public censure because it so neatly divides the innocent from the guilty: some women have absolutely committed abortion, whereas other women absolutely have not. Also abortion is committed only by women (and some male doctors, who anyhow are not Christian conservatives), leaving the men uninvolved and therefore innocent. We might be justified in supposing that all aborted babies are the products of immaculate conception. The whole drama of abortion, including the public exposure and opprobrium, ought to be construed as a sexual aggression against women. . . .”

 

Abortion as a public sin is used to divide. To set up a group of righteous and unrighteous, pure and polluted. Same for public sins featured on the left. Sexual offenses against women are all committed by men. It “places all women above suspicion and renders all men suspect.” Easy goodness and virtue. Sin is thus used sentimentally, to prop up the own ego by idealizing its innocence at the expense of othering some other group, turning them into orcs. This is pure narcissism. The two hostile camps need the orc-vision of each other to prop up their own self-righteousness.

  Narcissism runs so deep in our culture precisely because we have been driven out of our communities – those boring, provincial communities with all their prejudices that kept all of us potential Horatio Algers and Elon Musks from leaving home and “making it big” – chasing the god-damned “American dream.” [I am not breaking the third commandment but using language very literally here, for I think that was what Christ meant when he said, “You can’t serve God and Mammon” and “It is easier to thread a needle with a camel than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven,” even if by serving Mammon we are trying to “take care of our family.” No purely economic motive, in other words, justifies breaking faith with neighborliness. “But then we would all have to live like the Amish!” Well, not in every detail. But living and working in their community economy, which includes fellowship with the land and animals they live in the presence of,  they seem to me to be as close to the Kingdom of God as we Americans are to Hell. Individual Amish may chafe under the “restraints” imposed on them by a moral economy. Still, it is also imaginable to imagine some of them as having a rare kind of human happiness and fulfillment that can come only from living in peace with the Law and the virtues – a happiness we lonely individualists can only dream of. We could learn a lot from them.]

     Having chosen to leave or (in my case) driven out from my larger family and community networks (by the economy, not by my parent's choice), being deprived of the opportunity to be forced to practice the virtues necessary to live in genuine fellowship with neighbors – the classical virtues: self-restraint, courage, justice, and common-sense, practical wisdom; faith, hope, and love if I am a Christian – I have had only myself to think about. This got complicated when children came, and then a ‘binary’ (how I hate that word) forced itself on my consciousness, their needs vs. my needs. For I could only imagine my needs in individualist terms; how could it be otherwise? So you make “sacrifices” but then, you can’t ignore your needs (so the lore) for if you do, you won’t be able to function as a father. But my needs are defined individually, by me. Neglecting them to do my duty is a “sacrifice” only because of this. With my second family, being closer to death my own fat, relentless ego has loosened its grip enough to allow me some pleasure in fulfilling the needs of my children; to allow me to experience doing for them not as a sacrifice but as part of my own meaning. My ego has been breached and included two other budding souls in my own core meaning and value; spiritual energy has leaked out of my private epistemological bubble and echo chamber and energy from two little souls has entered me. That happiness blows anything else I have experienced away. You become more by becoming less.

     It is still partial and fragmentary. My fat, relentless ego is alive and well, if not quite the irresistible force it used to be. A mighty fortress is the ego, always working to keep love and fellowship out. I read in Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s collected works that he – perhaps interpreting a Hindu text – equated Satan with the ego, the principle of autonomy, the opposite of limits and thus of fellowship, of a common humanity. My ego defines what is real and good. I have my truth, you have yours. We are in competition. My purpose in life is “success”: proving myself more real and valuable on the market of self-worth than as many competitors as possible. What elevates my ego lowers yours and vice versa. My children are nothing but an extension of myself, requiring some sacrifices. I can establish a charity if I am a billionaire to show how generous I am, making me ever greater in the eyes of the world. Self-righteousness is cocaine for the ego. Anything that makes me more moral or virtuous than some group of others gets me off. The secret desire of Ego is to be worshipped, as an idol. To be able to worship myself.

    What is Hell? I know Jesus – if the sayings were really his, as they probably were – used some horrific images of Hell. But Hell is in the most literal sense the victory of the fat, relentless ego over love, and thus over family and community, over nature and God. The fortress has become so strong, reality so unreal, that the self loses even the awareness that the Good, true, and beautiful – reality itself – lies outside it. The exits have been walled up. The self has forgotten where they are. The fortress “Ego” has become a prison whose main function is not only to keep the Ego safely within, unchallenged, but to keep God out (cf. Dante’s depiction of the City of Dis in Hell). As long as we are alive there is hope. Most, perhaps no human being has the power to self-enclose completely. (Hitler? Stalin? Mao? Trump? All worshipped – not really loved in a human way – by the masses they enthralled.)

    My damned ego is plenty relentless enough to make it impossible without extreme narcissistic self-deception to imagine I am much better than most other people dealing with their fat, relentless egos. But it is worthwhile to keep trying to pierce it and let a little reality penetrate you.

   I think, having written this, I understand why Jesus taught loving enemies and refusing to cast the first stone. Constant forgiveness is needed or we are all lost.

 

. . .

 

    My little family is not a community – it is too small, and I am the only adult in it. But it is a primitive community. I can observe how the commandments and virtues work in it. “Don’t lie.” After a lifetime of struggling with truth, I see the point of it very concretely. Our relationships are fragile. The truth, even in trivial matters (e.g. whether Paul brushed his teeth), is the glue of trust, respect, love. We have resolved never to lie to one another. Years ago. There are many occasions when a harmless lie would allow us to avoid having to deal with something we don’t feel like dealing with or get something we wanted in the easiest way. Overcoming the temptation to lie is balanced by the wanting to enjoy trust, community. You know with every temptation: if I lie now, I will damage something fragile. Overcoming becomes a habit after time. Truth becomes more natural over time. You acquire the habit of bucking temptation, of telling the truth, even when it is difficult. Like learning to play the piano: you get better at it with practice, and you know if you don’t practice you won’t become a good piano player.

   Only after this experience, can you really understand what Aristotle, Aquinas, Berry, or MacIntyre have written about the virtues even as you can only understand what a master has written about playing chess by becoming competent in chess yourself. Practice before intellectual understanding. Intellectual understanding sheds light on practice but cannot substitute for it (I lesson I know much better than most!) Wendell Berry understands this better than most and can express the thoughts of Aristotle and Aquinas in a way that could speak to people today if they read – because he has lived in and reflected on a genuine community extended over time (and because of his unique gifts of mind and expression).

. . .

 

Against this, there stands the difficult reality of being sinners one and all. What does that mean? Mr. Berry answers the question by looking at our public reduction of sin to a small number of “media-friendly” and “self-comforting” sins that “have the requisite exclusiveness, sufficiently flattering virtue or vanity, thus sufficiently inflaming passionate righteousness, of those who oppose them, thus magnifying the evil of those who commit them.”

    Our “public discourses” simplify sin to elevate ego and shield the self from the difficult truth that, as Jesus said, “none are good.” Compared to a geometrical circle, all the circles we draw with pencil and paper are imperfect: more more so, others less so. None of us are geometric circles. None of us are God. None of us are Ideal Being – and thus Goodness, Love, Beauty. The myth of Satan wanting to be God is the very practical myth of the Ego that knows in itself it is unlovable. So it must revolt against reality with the secret purpose to make itself “loveable” – which as Ego can only be in the form of Idolatry. It is a law of the spiritual universe what you only become loveable by loving. But loving means acknowledging that something outside the Ego is real and good. To be able to do that – to transcend the Ego – a person needs to feel loved from the time that they were born. Nurturing families and communities practice this self-overcoming. Deprived of that, the lonely, insecure Ego tries to achieve ‘love-ability’ on its own – and down it goes from there.

   Modern individualism, capitalism, autonomy is what the Ego makes when unfettered or unloved. It is free to see nature, work, people as commodities, as resources that it uses to elevate itself. The whole world is de-meaned, de-valued, de-sanctified. The Ego as God, for only God has the authority to do to workers what capitalists do in their sweatshops; only God has the authority to destroy millions of acres of ancient forest. God has this authority not only because he “created it” but because he loves it, keeps it in being, and thus would never destroy it. We would. The capitalist market is nothing but the fencing out of the commandments and virtues from economic activity; a freeing of greed, envy, vanity, and lust to do their thing without fear of community censure. Just look at what it has done to the world and human community if you don’t believe me.

    I feel fairly confident that I would not oppress workers or destroy forests for the sake of becoming a millionaire or a billionaire at this point in my life. Not absolutely certain, for that would be hubris. I feel fairly confident that I have no need to elevate my ego by making myself more righteous than others. This was not so easy in the past. I learned from C. S. Lewis not to dwell on those sins that no longer tempt me. It is better for the soul to focus on the ones that you.

  Mr. Berry’s point is that ‘the Devil is clever’ and sin is complex. Whatever cuts bonds of love and fellowship, whatever sows discord, whatever others other people, etc. – that is sin. Not just the handful of public sins people use to beat each other over the head and so feel self-righteous. And every movement away from Goodness, justice, love, fellowship, family, community – away from the commandments and virtues – poisons the world. Partly by withholding what good you might have given; partly by damaging it with actions. My moral failures have consequences far beyond my own life. Only ensnared by Ego do we imagine that we have nothing to do with the sins of the world. Ego always shields us from realities it doesn’t want to face. Mr. Berry writes:

 

We define ourselves as human only in the weakest sense of that term [“autonomous” individual persons] by our inclination to call wrongs wrong only when we can attach them to other people. The consequent little handful of public or media-friendly sins work as breeders of division and hate, self-righteousness and reprisal. This seems to force the replacement of our old need and respect and love for human goodness or “virtue” by obsession with mere reputation or “public image” or public relations or publicity, or by fear of being caught in violation of some ad hoc code of behavior, or of being publicly accused or suspected of such a violation. There is, needless to say, a critical difference between love of right-dealing between neighbors and fear of public embarrassment. It may prove simply and obstinately true that the sins, rightly named and defined, and the countervailing virtues give to human life a moral structure that is indispensable. It is indispensable because, complicated and conflicted creatures as we know ourselves to be, it defines us complexly enough.

   

 Scrutinizing Core Convictions - Internal Coherence

 

It only makes sense to scrutinize your core convictions if you assume that truth matters and you either have reason to doubt and you don’t see doubting as a sin. Truth matters only if reality cannot be reduced to subjective preferences or ideas and if the mind, our reason (which for me includes an intelligent, well-educated heart) can engage with reality in some way, however limited, however fallible.

 

If you believe you possess the absolute Truth – say it is unmistakably given in the Bible as your congregation reads it; that part of this Truth is that human reason has been utterly darkened by sin; and finally that it is a sin to try to know the Truth by thinking or using human reason in any way – that you are called on just mindlessly to believe – then the value of scrutinizing your beliefs will make no sense. Worse, it would be a form of blasphemy. All the people who don’t believe as you do are lost sheep. You alone with your congregation have The Answer to life’s problems. Of course, it may be easy for an outsider to recognize just how irrational that is, though no one can prove you false, no one can definitively refute you if you are sincere. You might not be. Your religion might be the expression of resentment, of the ego-power of being part of the elite, of the enjoyment of the thought that all those who have looked down on you will burn in Hell. But it need not be the expression of an unbound ego. For the sincere person, doubt must wait until life challenges part of the dogma you live by. Perhaps your child, who you know to be loving and decent, loves another of the same sex and you cannot image your child in Hell. In any case, no logic or science in the first place, but only life can challenge such belief systems constructed to be absolute and immune from refutation. Such belief systems depend on a touch epistemological bubble and a loud echo chamber – usually the church congregation. There are also many non-religious versions of this (e.g. MAGA, WOKE, Scientology, Naziism, Marxism-Leninism, the Scientism of a Carl Sagen or Richard Dawkins).

 

If truth doesn’t matter because a central dogma of your meaning-ecosystem is that truth is relative to the individual – “truth relativism” or “subjectivism” – then critically scrutinizing your beliefs will not make sense. “Subjectivism” or “truth relativism” is the proposition that when someone makes a claim what makes that claim true or false is not reality but the person’s private feelings, desires, or wishes. Why would someone believe such a prima facie absurd proposition? There are the usual suspects of bad reasons associated with the fat, relentless ego: to vaccinate your private feelings, wishes, or desires from outside criticism, for example. More seriously, you might believe either that human reason is utterly incapable of knowing anything important (you might be a skeptic) or even that the very idea of ‘reality’ makes no sense given that an unperceived, unconceptualized, undescribed world seems an empty concept. We, autonomously or slavishly, define what is real, and thus what is true, through our feelings, wishes, and desires. To refuse to just accept your belief system (your “identity”) can only be an attempt to gain power over your feelings, which is a form of disrespect. So we often get a kind of Kantian morality with this, complete with a new categorical imperative: Do not call into question anybody's beliefs, identity, feelings unless such beliefs, identity, or feelings call into question anybody's else's beliefs, identity, or feelings. 

   Imagine that metaphysical philosophy achieves the status of dogma in a person or a culture.  [By ‘metaphysical’ I mean a belief or a philosophy that is not scientifically falsifiable, not definitively supported by intersubjectively verifiable evidence, and not subsumable under precise technical terms with stipulated definitions. Moreover, it interprets reality as a whole, or at least humanity as a whole, sub specie aeternitatis.]

    I almost cringe everytime I hear the expression ‘truth’ prefaced by a personal pronoun: my truth, her truth, their truth, etc. I hear it all the time from my students (I rarely let it pass without comment.) Gwenyth Paltrow said of the man she accused of lying about a skiing accident after a lawsuit in which he sued her: well, that was ‘his truth.’ Oprah is a profit of truth subjectivism, as when she asked Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex: “How do you feel about the palace hearing you speak your truth today?” It seems every time I force myself to listen to a Trump fanatic or a gender ideologue they speak about ‘their truth.’ I hear vocal activists for multiculturalism exclaim we should celebrate diversity and difference rather than take our differences seriously in philosophical or theological discussions. Well, we all have our own truth. I cringe because I can only interpret such language as expressive of a culturally powerful narcissism rather than a consistent philosophical skepticism.

    But to the dogmatic skeptic, though as a dogmatist you can make your truth-relativism immune to definitive refutation, there is something to say. If it is true that reality doesn’t talk back to us, that ‘reality’ is a construct, a projection of our feelings, wishes, and desires onto the blank screen of Being, then either that is true or false. If it is true or false, then it asserts something about reality – namely, it is just a projection of subjective or intersubjective feelings, etc. If you are right in maintaining truth relativism, then most of the world’s religions and philosophies are wrong. You are part of an elite, just like the Southern Baptist who knows the absolute truth of Being. Relativism/subjectivism turns out to be another form of dogmatic absolutism.

  I don’t think this is a knock-down argument. I think it is the beginning of a discussion. To deny that to keep your life free of doubt would be possible, but there is no reason for me to admire that attitude or assume it makes sense for me or you. To embark on a discussion already is to leave dogmatism behind, to become an apostle of reason.

   In any case, to the belief system I earlier described like this . . .

Nature and reality are constructs. Gender is socially constructed rather than an inherent or natural attribute. An individual's behavior conforms to societal gender norms, and they are performing a gender identity. Subverting gender norms exposes their performative nature and reveals the instability of gender categories. Gender identities are produced through repeated acts, and they depend on their continual performance for existence. Power relations shape discourse, and discourse constructs social reality, including gender.

…that would be my reply. It’s up to the individual to decide whether to open their mind or keep it closed. To a belief in dogma as part of one’s core convictions, I would oppose the belief in the spiritual demeanor the love of truth together with the moral implication that the unexamined life is unworthy of a human being.    

 

 . . .

   

Another example of how internal incoherence surfaces with dogma presses against life is the picture of nihilist belief system:

 

Life has no inherent meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral values and truths are subjective and not absolute. There are no ethical standards grounded in reality. The universe is indifferent to human existence and lacks any inherent order or purpose. Traditional beliefs and established social structures are often baseless and should be critically questioned or rejected. Human existence and endeavors are insignificant in the grand scope of the universe. In the absence of intrinsic meaning, any sense of purpose or value in life must be individually created or assigned, as it is not inherently present.

To this I offer the reply of C. S. Lewis:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

 

I am not claiming that Lewis’ argument is a knock-down argument. I am claiming that if the nihilist’s mind is not completely enclosed inside of an epistemological bubble with an echo chamber, he would find a discussion there. Once you discuss, you will probably learn something, gain insights or different perspectives. Learning presupposes that there is something there to learn. Reality can disclose itself – never fully – in discussion.

   The willingness to discuss is already giving up dogmatism.

. . .

  So what about the axiomatic beliefs – the dogmas – without which we cannot have any belief system at all, if I am right? I would say that there are indeed some things you cannot doubt, some things presupposed by the love of truth. Here is an excerpt from a conversation in a Woody Allen movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors (his best, I think), spoken by a devout Jew in response to being pressed by an atheist-nihilist sister: “If necessary I will always choose God over the truth.”

   There is a sense in which I would criticize this. If the Bible says God commands us to stone adulterers, and all of our heart and mind tells us that this practice is an abomination, then the truth trumps God. If God says ‘Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone,’ then no evidence or argument will convince me that this is wrong.

   If choosing God over truth means choosing Goodness itself and Truth itself over finite, fallible human truths, then what the character said makes sense. If choosing God means choosing a God over Goodness and Truth itself, then it doesn’t make sense.

   The love of truth is bound to the love of Goodness, indeed the love of Love. It is bound to the hope and faith that Truth discloses Goodness and Beauty. It is bound with the faith that loving the truth is a way of realizing the goodness in myself, that it is part of my human vocation to struggle with all my power to disclose as much reality as I can understand and bear. It is bound with a faith that the world is at bottom not evil or meaningless, and thus evidence that suggests that it is or could be cannot be the last word. The love or truth, the commitment to a self-examined life, the faith in the openness of reason to reality is all bound with faith, hope, and love. Logically, that is not falsifiable. But life – as with the other examples – can press against the faith, hope, and love that motivate the love of truth.

   All belief systems have a core of ‘faith’ (negative or positive). Some add hope. Others love. We are finite. We can’t be otherwise.

 Eight Theses

Thesis One

I want to say that “core convictions” – our religious or metaphysical matrix (Zusammenhang) of core ideas and beliefs – are not falsifiable by a fact of the matter or any intersubjectively verifiable evidence. If they were, they could not do their job.

 

Thesis Two

Core convictions can be expressed as dogmatic or axiomatic definitions or true state-of-affairs (Sachverhalte). Statements like “sadistic cruelty is evil” and “Treachery against your fellows is evil” can be generalized into statements like

·        “Evil acts are soul-destroying acts. ”

·        “Soul-destroying acts are those acts that violate what is good (including bonds to fellow human beings.”

·        “Soul-destroying acts are absolutely never to be committed.”

Such statements that function as core convictions – I could spend hours trying to list all mine and systematizing them – do not function like standard premises in an argument that can be questioned as to truth or falsity. They are experienced as self-evident truths, experienced as discovered, not invented or constructed.

 

Thesis Three

The organ of understanding is not the cold intellect but the heart aided (or distorted) by the intellect. Without the possibility and intelligibility of deep remorse (Oh my God, what have I done!) and people loving one another (e.g. parental love), for instance, the self-evident moral convictions mentioned above would remain in the dark, unintelligible. Thus core convictions are not usually affected by intellectual reasoning alone. They are deeply ingrained in people’s lives, in forms of life – thus in habitual ways of feeling, thinking, and responding learned over time.

 

Thesis Four

Core convictions always include moral absolutes. The proposition that all moral beliefs are subjective or culturally relative and thus lack absolute validity itself expressed an absolute belief system, claiming to debunk all other known networks of core ideas and beliefs. Such ideas and beliefs cannot be justified because all justification presupposes them.  "If nothing is morally self-evident, nothing can be proved to be moral or immoral," to quote C. S. Lewis, summing up this thesis.

 

Thesis Five

A quasi-factual belief can function as a metaphysical conviction, though that usually turns out badly. Either the belief is plausibly true but subject to continual checking, which undermines its power to serve as a self-evident conviction. Or the belief is not true – perhaps a lie – and thus requires a protective bubble around it as well as an echo chamber. Since much of our fact-based and thus in principle falsifiable knowledge of the world stems not from personal observation or knowledge but from different trusted authorities (without which no community could function), maintaining the lie-functioning-as-core-conviction requires an echo chamber to repeat and reinforce the lie as well as to discredit all the authorities (e.g. science, journalism, the courts, law enforcement, neighborly communication) that call the lie into question. Trump’s big lie is only a recent manifestation of this phenomenon (though social media allows for an exponential increase in the power of the echo chamber). But the worldwide Jewish conspiracy of the Nazis or the sick conspiracy conspiracies of the fools in the so-called QAnon movement are further examples of how factually substantial beliefs as metaphysically defining core beliefs can be soul-destroying. Others are not as obvious. Beliefs like ‘A woman (ceteris paribus) has the natural vocation of nurturing children at home’ or ‘Sex is a social construct’ are often vague between prescriptive norms and factual statements.

 

Thesis Six

No religious or metaphysical idea or belief alone can do the job. They can only do the work of making sense of a person’s life or a community’s life (however darkly or distortedly) as part of a loosely interconnected semantic “ecosystem” or network [Zusammenhang in Dilthey’s use of that word.] Here is a picture of what I have in mind.

 

No religious or metaphysical meaning-ecosystem is logically compatible with a scientific theory or explanation (I think these terms are often synonymous).

Thesis Seven

There is a never-to-be resolved tension between our morality, our finitude, and our fallibility on the one hand, and our inescapable need for absolutes on the other. But it is a mistake to infer from the non-scientific nature of core beliefs that reason should not play a role because they lack all foundations in the end. The form reason takes for the finite and fallible is hermeneutic. I picture Being as an infinite text of which we are a part; we - conscious characters in the text - read and translate from our limited position. So our understandings reflect this position and who we are. And to paraphrase Lichtenberg: if an fool looks into a mirror, no wise man is going to look back. Readings of the text of Being depend on the quality of the mind and heart of the reader. That is not a very democratic image, but I stand by it. 

Thesis Eight

Religious and metaphysical meaning-ecologies are not immune to criticism. They can be internally contradictory. They can fail to make sense of life to the most lucid, well-meaning people. They can contradict known facts or secure knowledge to such an extent that they need an air-tight epistemological bubble with loud echo chamber to suppress the contradiction. This kind of criticism is what philosophy does.

 

of Key Terms

[I tend to use words in a sense only known to myself, so I had better identify those words.]

 

An idea or a concept is an interpretation of a phenomenon that can be expressed by a word or a phrase. A definition is a placeholder for a more extensive interpretation. Art, human life, reality, cause, evidence, morality, person, man, woman, child, family, sex, and God are examples. People have different ideas about such phenomena, with areas of overlap and difference. Such ideas typically signify only as part of a meaning-ecosystem.

 

My term meaning-ecosystem is a metaphor I chose because just as a disturbance of one part of an ecosystem can cause dramatic imbalances in the rest of the ecosystem even leading to collapse, so a disturbance in the network of ideas and beliefs can destabilize the entire network. If a southern Baptist can no longer believe that the Bible is the direct word of God and their interpretation is the clear, undisputed interpretation, then their entire religious beliefs can collapse.

 

Religious and non-religious metaphysical beliefs aim to explain the nature of reality and existence, answering fundamental questions about life, the universe, and human existence. They offer frameworks for understanding the meaning and purpose of life, shaping personal and collective values, and guiding principles. Both types of beliefs often involve concepts that go beyond immediate empirical observation and indeed organize and interpret empirical reality. They are the ideas and beliefs that help individuals understand their place in the broader context of existence.

   While religious beliefs are based on sacred texts, divine revelations, traditions, and the authority of religious institutions or figures, non-religious metaphysical beliefs are derived partly from personal reflection and scientific understanding, but also significantly from cultural narratives and ideologies. Religious beliefs are often oriented toward spiritual salvation, worship, and adherence to divine commandments, usually having a communal and devotional aspect. In contrast, non-religious metaphysical beliefs are oriented toward personal understanding, self-improvement, and making sense of life experiences, and are often more individualistic and practical.

    Validation of religious beliefs comes through faith, spiritual experiences, and conformity to tradition, whereas non-religious metaphysical beliefs rely on personal insight, logical coherence, empirical evidence (when applicable), and cultural acceptance. Religious beliefs typically involve narratives about deities, creation, moral laws, and the afterlife, while non-religious metaphysical beliefs focus on concepts such as the nature of consciousness, the meaning of life, human potential, and the interconnectedness of all things without necessarily involving supernatural entities. Religious beliefs are practiced within a community with shared rituals, symbols, and ceremonies, whereas non-religious metaphysical beliefs can be more individualized, though they may also be shared in philosophical or spiritual groups and through cultural practices. Both types of beliefs serve to make sense of the world and people's lives, providing essential frameworks for understanding existence, meaning, and purpose.

 

Scientific practice or attitude. That is, it is not consistent with the following essential features of the scientific practice:

·        Nothing accepted on authority

·        Data-based explanation: no beliefs not justified by the data

·        Intersubjective verifiability of all data/evidence

·        Agreement in description (‘reliability’)

·        Precision in description

·        Knowledge in the form of law-like generalizations (e.g. An object at rest stays at rest unless a force acts on it.) that are in principle open to being tested and falsified

·        Public review of all results by the scientific community

·        All scientific knowledge is incomplete and tentative, subject to qualification or correction

None of this applies to religious or metaphysical beliefs.

 

Soul-destroying acts are acts that make a person objectively unlovable, acts that if the person could see themselves clearly would lead to the thought: ‘Better never to have been born.’ (I don’t presuppose anything metaphysical about an immaterial soul or a life after death with this expression.)

 

An epistemological bubble is “an informational network from which relevant voices have been excluded by omission.” In other words, a space in which a belief system is protected from any thought – true or false – that might cause doubt. Bubbles create the illusion that everyone thinks the way we do even when they don’t. They live by concealing issues from view. An example: you will never see a major broadcasting company in America thematize the destructive impact of corporate capitalism on so many aspects of life, from the destruction of rural America (farmers and the small towns that used to support them) to the destruction of the land (e.g. in strip mining) to the undermining of the manufacturing base – and the working class –  during the “globalization” phase of capitalism to the influence of corporations in writing the rules we live by, to the concentration of wealth at the top and the pressures on working people as a result of this. More recently, Fox News has created a still smaller bubble by excluding not only those kinds of things but also anything that would cause its MAGA viewers to question the fantasy world created by their reality show host leader, a crazy little bubble in which truth plays no role at all. The other corporate media were bubble creators, but within their bubbles, there were still standards of factual reporting; they couldn’t just make stuff up; there was also a limited space for critical journalism.  (Fox News did have to pay over 800 million in defamation damages promoting the election lie; so not completely free to make stuff up.)

 

More worrying than the bubbles are echo chambers since access to new information and ideas can puncture a bubble. An echo chamber is “a social structure from which other relevant voices have been actively discredited.”  In other words, any argument or factual evidence that might make someone doubt the bubble must – by definition – come from a corrupt source and thus are worthy only of being mocked, not taken seriously. You can identify an echo chamber with a simple question: Does a community's belief system actively undermine the trustworthiness of any outsiders who don't subscribe to its central dogmas? There is no doubt that right-wing Israelis and those Muslims who refuse on principle to coexist with a Jewish homeland are deeply entrenched in echo chambers, and the violence is a result. Much easier for most people to live in a consoling fantasy with ultra-violence than to look at the world and themselves truthfully, impersonally in a way; to see others as real is a lot of work.

[source on epistemological bubbles and echo chambers: Nguyen, C. Thi, "Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles". Episteme. 17 (2): 141–161]

Underdetermination

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Underdetermination

    Underdetermination, as articulated by philosopher W.V.O. Quine, refers to the idea that evidence available to us is in principle insufficient to uniquely determine the truth of a metaphysical system of belief - at least that is how I will apply his idea, which he applied to scientific theories.[1] I almost want to see the idea as a critical thinking tool. It can be illustrated through the historical example of the Ptolemaic and Copernican models of the universe.

   In ancient astronomy, the Ptolemaic model posited that the Earth was at the center of the universe, with the planets and stars orbiting around it in complex epicycles. This geocentric model provided a mathematical framework that accurately predicted the positions of celestial bodies observed from Earth. Similarly, Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model where the Sun was at the center, with Earth and other planets revolving around it in circular orbits. Both models were capable of explaining the observed movements of the stars and planets, but they differed fundamentally in their assumptions about the structure of the cosmos.

    The crucial point here is that during their time, both the Ptolemaic and Copernican models were underdetermined by the available evidence. Observations of celestial phenomena could be explained by either model, and additional evidence beyond mere observation was needed to conclusively decide between them. Eventually, as more precise observations and advancements in astronomy emerged, it became clear that the Copernican model provided a simpler and more accurate explanation of planetary motions but the Ptolemaic model could have been adjusted to fit the data, too. Both systems can predict when Venus will be the morning star and when the moon will rise. They refer to the same observable phenomena but explain them in different ways. This historical example demonstrates how scientific theories can be underdetermined by empirical evidence at a given point in time, highlighting the provisional nature of scientific knowledge and the need for ongoing investigation and refinement. I myself accept this in the abstract, logical sense, but believe there are good reasons to believe the Copernican system nevertheless models the solar system better. But when it comes to core convictions, theological or metaphysical beliefs, or ethics, the matter is more complex. Underdetermination is a more intractable problem in that area. 

   Underdetermination can be illustrated in the context of psychological theories, particularly when comparing Freudian explanations with alternative psychological frameworks regarding the origins of neurosis, such as attachment theory. Freudian psychoanalysis proposes that neuroses stem from unresolved conflicts and desires related to early childhood experiences, particularly the relationship with the mother. According to Freud, experiences such as unresolved Oedipal or Electra complexes, or issues with maternal nurturing, can manifest later in life as neurotic symptoms. For example, a person with neurosis might exhibit symptoms like anxiety or obsessive behavior that Freudians attribute to unresolved psychological conflicts rooted in childhood experiences.

   On the other hand, attachment theory, proposed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, offers an alternative explanation for neurosis based on the quality of early attachments with caregivers, particularly the mother. Attachment theory suggests that the nature of early attachment experiences shapes individuals' internal working models of relationships and influences their emotional regulation and behavior throughout life. In this framework, insecure attachment styles—such as anxious or avoidant attachments—can lead to neurotic symptoms as individuals struggle with interpersonal relationships and emotional regulation. 

   I don't think Popper's falsifiability criterion offers a clean distinction between science and pseudo-science. Scientists usually don't reject a theory because a particular set of data pushes against it. Uranus's' orbit conflicted with Newtonian physics. Rather than give up Newtonian physics, astronomers believed there must be a cause for the orbital differences, which led to the discovery of Neptune. But when it comes to religious or metaphysical webs of belief, the indeterminate nature of the evidence can always in principle be accounted for by different belief systems with no independent check possible. I felt the presence of an angel while contemplating death in the hospital; I suffered from wishful fantasy produced by fear - a psychological defense mechanism. There is no way to evaluate the evidence of my experience that doesn't already presuppose a metaphysics. 

 

    The underdetermination arises because both Freudian psychoanalysis and attachment theory can equally explain observed neurotic symptoms. A person with neurosis may exhibit behaviors and emotional patterns that could be interpreted through either lens: Freudian theory might focus on unconscious conflicts and desires stemming from early relationships, while attachment theory might emphasize the impact of early attachment experiences on interpersonal functioning and emotional stability.  This example illustrates how psychological theories, like scientific theories more broadly, can be underdetermined by the available evidence. Both Freudian psychoanalysis and attachment theory provide plausible explanations for neurotic symptoms. Additional evidence and research cannot definitively determine which theory provides a more comprehensive and accurate account.

   The underdetermination of psychological theories like Freudian psychoanalysis and attachment theory regarding the origins of neurosis highlights the complexity of interpreting human behavior and the limitations of empirical data alone in determining the validity of competing explanations. In the case of neurosis, both Freudian and attachment theories offer compelling frameworks that can explain observed behaviors and emotional patterns. However, neither theory can be definitively confirmed or refuted solely based on empirical evidence. In addition, we must always “make sense” and that is a function of our lives, our belief systems, our conceptual webs such that what makes sense to a Catholic may not make sense to an atheist.

. . .

Another illustration. Thinking about how we can – or cannot – adjust our concepts to accept or reject a new situation, I think we are forced into a situation that most scientists would deny is part of science. In a scientific experiment, the conceptual uniformity made possible by stipulated terms and mathematics makes it possible for reality to almost force its truth on you. In the famous experiment that secured the truth of Einstein’s equations over those of classical mechanics, that is Newtonian physics, the light from the star behind the sun relative to the earth reached the earth, just as Einstein’s equation predicted and the concept of gravity shifted.  A fact of nature pressed hard against Newton’s theory.

        When thinking about marriage, most people of my age started with a conception such that it was only intelligible that marriage was a union between a man and a woman. People who saw marriage primarily as a union based on love, in the context of a history of bigotry against people who for whatever reasons had romantic feelings towards others of the same sex, invited those of us who had only been able to conceive of marriage as a union between a heterosexual couple to re-imagine the concept – and many could, though not all. 

         But as with any use of a word, every individual must ask: does the non-standard use make sense? There is nothing outside the realm of meaning – as the light from the star behind the sun in the famous experiment was outside of both equations that defined gravity in physics – that could force one on pain of irrationality to accept the re-conceptualization of marriage. There is no fact of the matter. Any facts take on significance only in light of the ‘theory,’ which is in this case the conceptual book of marriage people carry around with them. 

       For me, I came to see, what I had been blind to before, that those who would withhold marriage from gay people as expressing with an attitude completely void of love or generosity. But for many of them, given their belief system, some could see their withholding in their own eyes as the only decent thing they could do – much as some people in medieval times thought that burning a witch at the stake was the only way to save her soul. The concept of marriage is embedded in a much deeper web of conceptualizations, attitudes, and beliefs, and it is at that level that further attempts at a fusion of horizons would have to take place.  For example, to accept same-sex marriage a conservative Baptist would either have to give up his belief that the Bible was the sacred – and easily understood – word of God or that he had been living according to a bad interpretation of the Bible, which would imply that the Bible was not so easy to interpret after all. In any case, embracing same-sex marriage would force the conservative Baptist to give up a core conviction that he had until that time lived by. No facts I could cite would alone have to power to overturn that core conviction. If I said ‘Look at that couple, they are loving and responsible; your views hurt them’ – they might reply ‘ I have no doubt they imagine they love each other, but they are violating God’s law, cutting themselves off from their Creator, and for the good of their souls I must not give into your argument.’

. . .

You can believe that Trump won the 2020 election, global warming is a hoax, vaccines are a hoax, the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the solar system, that God is Creator, that the universe is an accident, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our science, that there are fewer things, etc. If you are willing to adjust your other beliefs and concepts such that they cohere.

  Now I don't know how I stand on the philosophy of these matters - I suppose I am a sort of "realist" who also accepts that facts depend on other beliefs. (I roughly agree with Catherine Z, Elgin, "Non-Foundationalist Epistemology: Holism, Coherence, and Tenability.")  However that may be, when confronted with a Big Lie I take it as a sign of irrationality - and perhaps mental illness - to adjust all my other beliefs into utterly absurd beliefs so that I don't have to face the painful truth that the Big Lie is indeed a lie. 

Question: Is that not an essential feature of all properly metaphysical or religious belief systems? Even of all belief systems (like MAGA) that function as a metaphysical-religious belief system?

---

[1] I am no Quine expert, but I believe his attempt to show that scientific theories are underdetermined with respect to the data (reality) relied on making changes in one’s metaphysical conceptual web, i.e. really amounted to a radical underdetermination of metaphysics with respect to reality. That leads directly to Nelson Goodman’s ‘Irrealism.’ But I cannot argue that here. 

 

Metaphysical Interpretations of Reality as Analogous to Pseudo-Sciences: The Inherent Irrefutability and Subjective Resonance

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I am working on a longer piece. I will put it in this journal in installments - first drafts of course. 

Introduction

Metaphysical interpretations of reality are strikingly analogous to pseudo-sciences like astrology or Freudian psychoanalysis: they resist direct refutation by objective, factual evidence. They can always adapt to avoid the appearance of contradictions. These belief systems gain their force from the inherently metaphysical nature of human existence and our fate to have to make sense—genuinely or falsely—of our lives. Metaphysical frameworks, such as traditional theistic beliefs and modern constructivist or existentialist views on gender and existence, are like pseudo-sciences in their irrefutability and adaptability. To show this I draw on the critical thinking tools and insights of Karl Popper, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.V.O. Quine, Alasdair Macintyre, and Nelson Goodman.

   For this I want to work with abstract sets of core propositions taken from complex belief systems and investigate how they function in our thinking and our lives in general. Some like these recognizable belief systems:

·        God created the world. God is Goodness. God is love. God is omnipotent. God is not 'in' space and time; God created space and time. God is not a material object in the universe; God created material objects. All creations stem from an Idea in the mind of God and tend to strive for the perfection of that Idea. All morality is the conforming of the mind and the heart to the reality of creatures – as measured by the Idea and by God’s love for creatures. The perfection of Man is virtue, reason, and love, through which alone Man can be in harmony with himself, with other human beings, with Nature (Creation), and with his Creator. [a version of Catholicism]

 

·        God is a construct only. Nature and reality are constructs. There is no nature or nature does not determine values. Gender is socially constructed, and it is not an inherent or natural attribute. An individual's behavior conforms to societal gender norms, and they are performing a gender identity. Subverting gender norms exposes their performative nature and reveals the instability of gender categories. Gender identities are produced through repeated acts, and they depend on their continual performance for existence. Power relations shape discourse, and discourse constructs social reality, including gender. [A version of Foucauldian philosophy, Judith Butler functioning as a kind of prophet.]

 

·        Existence precedes essence, meaning humans exist first and then define their essence through actions. Humans are condemned to be free, bearing the responsibility for their choices without preordained essence or purpose. Individuals create their own values and meaning in life through their actions and choices. Authenticity involves recognizing and embracing one's freedom and responsibility, rather than conforming to societal expectations. Bad faith is the act of denying one's freedom and responsibility by conforming to external pressures or self-deception. The human condition is characterized by angst and absurdity, arising from the inherent freedom and lack of inherent meaning in life. In the absence of inherent meaning, any sense of purpose or value in life must be individually created or assigned, as it is not inherently present. The self is the ultimate creator of the Good and the Real (autonomy). [A version of Existentialism]

 

·        Life involves suffering (dukkha), and this suffering is an inherent part of existence. Suffering is caused by desire and attachment (tanha), which lead to a cycle of rebirth and continued suffering. It is possible to end suffering by eliminating desire and attachment. The path to ending suffering and achieving enlightenment (nirvana) is the Noble Eightfold Path, which includes right understanding, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. All things are impermanent (anicca), and recognizing this impermanence is crucial to understanding the nature of existence. There is no permanent self or soul (anatta), and understanding this helps in letting go of attachment and desire. [A version of Buddhism]

 

·        Science provides the key to reality. Reality consists of matter-energy in space-time. It is a closed, deterministic system. There exists a reality independent of human perceptions, beliefs, or descriptions. The universe operates according to consistent, discoverable laws (absolutely determined regularities). All events in the universe (reality) have strictly determined causes and effects. The laws of nature are consistent across time and space; there are no dimensions or levels of reality. Human beings are capable of understanding the universe only through science. Human sensory experiences and logical reasoning provide accurate information about the world. When presented with competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions mirrors reality.  Mathematical objects and the validity of mathematical reasoning accurately reflect real-world structures. Scientific theories must be internally consistent and adhere to the rules of logic to mirror reality. Life has no inherent meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value as these concepts are not part of the system. Moral values and truths are thus subjective and not a part of the fabric of reality. There are no ethical standards grounded in reality. The universe is indifferent to human existence and lacks any inherent meaning or purpose. Traditional beliefs and established social structures – like the Church – are often baseless and should be critically questioned or rejected when they interfere with science. Human existence and endeavors are insignificant in the grand scope of the universe. [A version of the scientism of people like Carl Sagen and Richard Dawkins]

 

I could have added many more: Marxism, aestheticism, Perennial philosophy, etc.

 

. . .

  Science is not the only form of rationality – the legal system is another example – but it has been a paradigm for rationality in the society I grew up in. I can’t get into the deep and fascinating issues of philosophy of science. But in a rough-and-ready way, the actual practice of science does feature well-known features that make it rational (i.e. truth-oriented). Science is characterized by its commitment to rationality, which manifests through several key rules (like a constitution of science): falsifiability, observability, data-driven inquiry, intersubjective testability, reliability and precision, and law-like generalizations subject to empirical testing. Falsifiability, as emphasized by Karl Popper, ensures that scientific hypotheses can be tested and potentially disproven by empirical evidence.

     This criterion demarcates science from non-science, providing a robust for distinguishing between justified knowledge and subjective projection – and giving us confidence that airplanes don’t crash or that greenhouse gases in sufficient amounts can lead to global warming. Observable data forms the foundation of scientific inquiry, allowing hypotheses to be empirically validated through rigorous experimentation and observation. Intersubjective testability further strengthens scientific rationality, as independent verification by multiple researchers ensures the objectivity and replicability of findings. This collective scrutiny is enabled by reliability and precision, making possible the formulation of hypotheses that can be generalized into laws, which predict and explain natural phenomena with a high degree of accuracy.

    In stark contrast, pseudo-science and superstitions lack these hallmarks of rationality. Pseudo-sciences often employ unfalsifiable claims that cannot be empirically tested or disproven. For example, astrology posits vague and adaptable predictions that can accommodate any outcome, avoiding direct refutation. This lack of falsifiability undermines the credibility and reliability of pseudo-scientific claims. Additionally, pseudo-sciences frequently rely on anecdotal evidence and subjective validation rather than observable, data-driven research. Superstitions, similarly, are grounded in irrational beliefs and practices that are not supported by empirical evidence. They thrive on cognitive biases and the human tendency to perceive patterns where none exist, rather than on systematic observation and experimentation. The absence of intersubjective testability in pseudo-sciences and superstitions means their claims cannot be independently verified, leading to inconsistencies and a lack of precision. Consequently, pseudo-scientific and superstitious beliefs fail to generate reliable, law-like generalizations, remaining deficient in rationality compared to the rigorous standards of scientific inquiry.

    The solar eclipse experiment of 1919, which confirmed Albert Einstein's hypothesis of general relativity, exemplifies the rationality and robustness of the scientific method. Einstein predicted that massive objects like the Sun would bend the light from stars passing near them, an effect that could be observed during a solar eclipse when the Sun's light is obscured, allowing the stars' positions to be measured. This prediction was a direct challenge to the established Newtonian physics, which did not account for such an effect. During the solar eclipse on May 29, 1919, astronomers Arthur Eddington and Frank Dyson conducted precise observations that showed the light from stars was indeed deflected by the Sun's gravity, matching Einstein's predictions. This empirical validation provided compelling evidence for general relativity and refuted the Newtonian model's predictions regarding light and gravity.

     This experiment highlights several aspects of scientific rationality. The hypothesis was falsifiable: it made specific predictions that could be tested through observation. The experiment provided observable, data-driven evidence, and the results were subject to intersubjective testability, as other scientists could independently verify the findings. The precision of the measurements and the reliability of the experimental method reinforced the credibility of the results. Furthermore, the successful confirmation of Einstein's theory led to a law-like generalization that significantly advanced our understanding of gravity and the cosmos.

    In contrast, pseudo-sciences lack such rigorous methodologies and fail to provide empirical evidence that withstands the scrutiny of objective testing and validation, underscoring their deficient rationality. For example, Freudian psychoanalysis, often cited by Karl Popper as a quintessential example of pseudo-science, starkly contrasts with the scientific rigor exemplified by the solar eclipse experiment that confirmed Einstein's theory of general relativity. Popper critiqued Freudian psychoanalysis for its lack of falsifiability. Freud's theories, such as the Oedipus complex and repression, were formulated in ways that could explain any possible human behavior, making them immune to empirical refutation.

    For instance, if a person exhibited symptoms Freud predicted, it was taken as confirmation of the theory; if they did not, Freud would introduce auxiliary explanations such as repression or denial. A psychoanalyst may have an axiomatic belief – equivalent to a scientific law – that if a child grows into an adult with mental issues, it must be the mother’s fault. If the mother is around too much, she is overprotective. If she is not around the child enough, she neglects her. If she is around sometimes but not others, she is inconsistent. If the psychoanalyst starts with the a priori truth that it is always the mother’s fault, he can find a way to make his explanation of the mental issue fit this law. This oversimplified example indicates how this approach would have no explanatory power at all. The adaptability to any possible outcome renders Freudian theories unfalsifiable and untestable, key characteristics of pseudo-science according to Popper.

     In contrast, Einstein's hypothesis regarding the bending of light by gravity was a bold, precise prediction that could be and was subjected to rigorous empirical testing during the 1919 solar eclipse. The results of this experiment could potentially have refuted Einstein's theory, but they instead provided strong support for it, thereby advancing scientific knowledge. Unlike Freudian psychoanalysis, which accommodates any contradictory evidence without altering its core claims, the solar eclipse experiment adhered to stringent scientific criteria, including falsifiability, observability, and intersubjective testability. This commitment to empirical evidence and the potential for refutation is what distinguishes genuine science from pseudo-science, highlighting the deficient rationality of Freudian psychoanalysis.

        Question: Do not our core convictions – and all metaphysical propositions – function analogously to the psychoanalyst’s a priori conviction that the mother is always the source of neurosis? And disanalogous to Newton’s and Einstein’s tentative hypotheses about the effect of space and gravity on light?