[U.S.]Robert Fogelin: *Walking on the Tightrope of Reason—The Uncertain Life of Rational Animals*, translated by Chen Rongxia, New Star Press, first edition, January 2007, 27.00 yuan
Pages1~2 As rational animals, we live in a world full of hidden perils. The universe in which we live is extraordinarily, almost unimaginably, complex. On this point, Einstein once commented: “God is subtle, but he is not intentionally so.” Yet if we consider the strangeness embodied in reports from the frontiers of science, the universe seems increasingly marvelous. However, this complexity and strangeness do not necessarily make the lives of us rational animals full of uncertainty; they merely make life arduous.A more urgent question then arises, because as human beings we are also irrational animals; among all animals, only we possess this capacity, namely, to build belief on the basis of bizarre phantasmagorical things we casually imagine. Superstition, in both institutionalized and non-institutionalized forms, has long occupied a dominant position in human life; it is tragic, yet not tragic enough to count as tragedy. However, irrationality is not the theme of this book. This book is not concerned with factors that replace or corrode reason from the outside. It is concerned with problems intrinsic to the rational framework, that is, with the problem of making rational thought itself into an uncertain activity.////——This book is rather ordinary in both writing and depth of thought. What attracted me was, first, its theme, and second, its citations of Kant and Wittgenstein. Indeed, rational thought itself is uncertain; this is not a subversion of reason itself. Reason is a pursuit of certainty, but the activity of pursuing it is itself uncertain—if the pursuit itself were extremely certain, then what exactly would we still be pursuing? The activity of pursuing certainty is full of uncertainty. That sounds a little odd, but it is in fact self-evident.
Page10 (The law of contradiction) At first glance, it is so basic that we cannot imagine anyone rejecting it. Yet it has repeatedly been rejected: rejected by Heraclitus (at least someone has read him), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Nietzsche, among others. People in postmodern circles, meanwhile, regard acceptance of the law of contradiction as a sign of naivety. As we shall see, the controversy between the traditional defenders of the law and their opponents is built precisely on a misunderstanding shared by both sides about the law’s status, and it is this misunderstanding that gives rise to the most basic form of ultimate choice. Because this misunderstanding has not yet been dispelled, the dispute is thorny and difficult to resolve. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding is also hard to remove by force. The process will be described in Chapter One.
Page11 Chapter Three, “Pure Reason and Its Illusion,” is based on Kant’s idea of dialectical illusion. At the beginning of his *Critique of Pure Reason*, Kant writes: “Human reason has this peculiar fate: in one category of its knowledge it is troubled by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it cannot dismiss, but which, because they transcend all the powers of reason, it also cannot answer.”
Page12 What is often overlooked is that Kant is speaking precisely of these two kinds of people: one group defends the so-called absolute, while the other accepts different forms of relativism; in fact, both share a tacit agreement about the ideal of rationalism.
Page15 The situation seems to be that reason, when its concept is fully carried through, inevitably leads to paradox and inconsistency(Chapter Two); to dialectical illusion, whether absolutism or relativism(Chapter Three); or to skepticism that brings reason to collapse(Chapter Four). Assuming that the “fate of reason” has its dark side, we naturally ask: how can ordinary life be kept from being trampled underfoot by it? Philosophical anxiety can sometimes intrude into everyday life, for example in adolescent alienation. Intellectual laziness and dullness may indeed spare our intellects from harm. As everyone knows, ignorance is not always a blessing either. Yet simply relying on sluggishness still leaves an unresolved question: if our uncertain condition is precisely the motive force of cognition, then how are we to explain our continuously accumulating intellectual achievements, for example in the natural sciences?
Pages49~51 By adapting an example from Wittgenstein’s *Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics* (3#77&7#29), I will explain what inconsistency is and what it means. The basic idea comes from Wittgenstein; the polishing is mine. Imagine a game that is as interesting and challenging as chess. It has been played for centuries; competitions of all kinds have been held; world champions have been determined; and a great many books and magazines about it have been published. The ability to excel at this kind of game is regarded as a mark of exceptional intelligence. Let us call this game “Ludwig.” One day, two beginners are playing. Foolishly(though in accordance with the rules of play), they bring the pieces into a deadlock; that is to say, at this point the game’s two rules come into conflict. The conflict arises in the following way: “Ludwig,” like other games, has different kinds of rules, which specify in detail the permissible moves. Some rules state that in certain situations a move is mandatory, just as in checkers, when you can jump a piece, you must jump a piece; other rules stipulate that in certain situations a move is forbidden, even though the same move is not illegal in another case, just as in chess you are not allowed to put your own king into checkmate. These two beginners somehow reached this point: at this moment, a particular move is both mandatory and not permitted, and so the board falls into stalemate, with no way forward. The game is thus frustrated, just as a computer program can sometimes cause a crash. Because this possibility exists, we say that “Ludwig” is inconsistent in the following sense: a series of legal moves may lead to such a situation, in which the next move is both required and yet a violation of the rules. We may say that, in this sense, the rule system governing “Ludwig” has a tendency to fall into a dilemma. Finally, let us assume this feature of the rule system—that is, let us assume that “Ludwig” has a tendency to fall into dilemmas—then how are we to evaluate its status as a game? Because this tendency exhibits inconsistency, must we conclude that it is not a real game at all? On this there may be different views. If the game rules are easily revised, then for the sake of precision and brevity one might try changing the rules. On the other hand, because the tendency of “Ludwig” toward dilemma by no means affects serious play, we may also choose to ignore its existence. Even for the sake of avoiding the trouble of printing a new rulebook, perhaps it is not worth getting rid of this inconsistency. The result may also be—and this is perhaps more interesting—that once the rules are revised to prevent the occurrence of such a dilemma, what is obtained is not a satisfactory result.////——This example is still somewhat interesting. One additional point worth making is that, as I once roughly proved, in all games played on a finite board with finitely many pieces and finite rules, one side must always have a non-losing strategy. In other words, if enough computation can be done, then playing such a game becomes meaningless. But can we say that when it is impossible to compute every situation, the game is also meaningless? Or that once we know a non-losing strategy for one side exists somewhere (for example, in God’s hands), the game is no longer interesting?
Pages98~99 So, who is right? Does this world have a beginning in time? I do not know the answer to this question, and I do not know whether anyone else knows it either. But I hope one thing is clear: this question cannot be resolved by the kind of dialectical reason discussed above, that is, it cannot be resolved by thinking that one dialectical illusion is superior to its opposite. If it is to be resolved at the most fundamental level, it must be done in this way: factors such as the universe’s total mass and its rate of expansion must be taken into account. If one proceeds along this line of thought, one must inevitably appeal to science. But such a solution will not satisfy our metaphysical impulses. For example, even if some big bang theory is eventually accepted on scientific grounds, many people will regard it as completely counterintuitive. For these people, if the Big Bang occurred, then(science be damned)something, perhaps God, must have been at work in it. Perhaps a somewhat strange but certainly possible situation is that some people will find religious comfort in the big bang theory.
Page101 If we take Kant as our guide, we can clearly see how things happen: before us appears a new kind of absolutism, which by reversing the positive absolutism of traditional metaphysics produces an absolute relativism. Different forms of radical relativism—whether Protagorean or postmodernist—have the characteristic of reason turning into dialectic. It peddles absolutist coins while falsely claiming that it rejects such coins.
Page143 Only when constrained by certain non-conceptual elements can our conceptual activity avoid complete failure.
Page163 In the previous chapter, I pointed out that in the natural sciences, reason’s excessive abuse is constrained through thought embodied in objects, for example, different kinds of experimental mechanisms and instruments. The disconnect between theory and practice is corrected precisely through the introduction of experimental mechanisms. In this sense, a mechanism is a concrete universal concept. At this point, I believe someone may perhaps object: yes, all of this suits the natural sciences, but in the humanities it is of little use. Am I implying that the humanities should also accept the methods of the experimental sciences? Am I implying that if they do not, they are invalid and trivial? The answer is no. We do indeed have the right to ask how a discipline such as criticism is to solve this problem of resistance, that is, how its concepts are to be limited by something that is not a concept. But we do not have the right to place a priori obstacles in the way of the question of “how to do it.”////——I feel the author’s train of thought is a bit messy, but what he is saying is a very simple fact: experiment is an indispensable corrective mechanism.
Page189 I believe that uncertainty and unreliability are the eternal characteristics of our intellectual life.
September 12, 2007
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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