Critical Theory, Great Books, Liberal Arts

Why I Read the Great Books

by Dave Seng

So, let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not deprived of his due, which is further and further to discover truth. – Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning.

I began my educational journey as a liberal arts student in the late 1990’s, about the time when postmodern critical theory was winding down and scholars were trying to figure out whom won the battles over over the “canon” of great literature and whom lost the “theory wars.” I remember it well. Are we all Marxists, Freudians, or Historicists now? Those who gave up on these language games simply shrugged their shoulders and became Neo-Pragmatists. Leaving this intellectual climate behind, I decided to investigate the nature of the so called canon and the Great Books that are associated with it, to determine for myself where such a curriculum is correct, possibly incorrect, and why it is considered controversial. (I realize that many Great Books programs exist and not all hold to same list, so when I use the term Great Books, I am referring to the collection edited and published by the Encyclopedia Britannica.) With this background in mind, I intentionally reflect on my journey through critical theory as an undergraduate to exploring what I have discovered about the Great Books as a university professor.

When I consider my formative undergraduate years at a private liberal arts college, steeped in postmodern rhetoric, I discover an amazing thing about the Great Books. Those involved in the theory wars, or those bent on advocating their particular critical position often held to schools of thought founded by the Great Authors of the Western intellectual tradition. Those most critical of the Great Books claim that the canon is intolerant, exclusive, and written by “dead white males”. Interestingly, these same theorists usually uphold schools of thought founded by Hegel (historicism), Nietzsche (perspectivism), Kierkegaard (existential subjectivism), Marx (Marxism), or Freud (analytic egoism)—Great Authors, all. Try as one might, it is not an easy thing to discard the inherent value of the Great Books. The reason for this is simple. One must accept the foundational truth claims of the Western intellectual tradition in order to criticize it. Furthermore, the Great Books speak to timeless concerns of human importance that transcend the “isms” and academic fashions of the day. Rather, they seek to enlighten us as to what it means to be rational and thoughtful individuals in the pursuit of truth. These significant insights have helped me make some important applications in my own teaching career.

First, however, we see that foundational and essential truths about reality and logic cannot be denied. Even the most committed existentialist or postmodernist accepts the law of non-contradiction when asserting the subjectivity of truth or that all reality is historically and culturally determined. Every postcolonialist or social justice warrior has to accept the values of the West in order to point out perceived errors. Have you asked yourself, “what is the nature of justice”? So did Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides—they and others in the Great Books investigate this very question deeply and significantly. In a sense, postmodernism, itself, is part of what is known as the “Great Conversation.”

The Great Conversation, a term coined by Robert Hutchins and explicated by Mortimer Adler, recognizes inquiry, discussion, informed rational debate, pursuit of truth, and free exchange of ideas. As enduring values, this conversation began with Plato, Herodotus, and Aristotle, and continues today. Postmodern critical theory owes its very existence to the Western tradition because inquiry and informed debate are foundational values. The tradition of questioning a received tradition is indeed a tradition unto itself, and is discovered in the Great Conversation when one actively reads the Great Books. Plato’s Socrates often confronts skeptics regarding truth and the nature of reality. Hume, Hobbes, and Descartes, just to name a few, often criticized the scholastic tradition that preceded them. In this sense, postmodernism is just emphasizing one side of the Great Conversation (although one of the discontinuities of postmodernism is that very few in the Western intellectual tradition gave up on the idea of truth). There are very few genuinely new ideas in contemporary culture, and when I read the Great Books, I am often reminded that not only are there rarely new ideas, thinkers in previous generations articulated the same ideas we have today with much more perspicuity and lucidity. In addition, since critical theory, itself, is influenced by Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Freud, and even Heidegger, postmodernism ironically demonstrates the enduring values of the Western tradition. While postmodern critical theory has lost its standing in the pantheon of academic fads (many just accept postmodern premises as true and move on), it is important to maintain the critical spirit of inquiry that the Great Books teach us. We must ask ourselves, “what if Descartes, Marx, or Frued were wrong”? And what insights could we gain from such discussion and investigation? One thing I have learned from teaching college students is that they are more than willing to challenge what they think is received authority. Something magical happens when one learns how to rationally, logically, and critically engage Great Ideas and discover enduring truths.

Another thing I learned while reading the Great Books is that every curriculum and field of study holds to a particular canon. One claim against the Great Books is that it is elitist and selective. In truth, however, all fields of human thought have a set of selected, received texts. Consider any course at any university, anywhere. At the class level, every professor identifies a selected book list from which his or her students will learn. Let us take an example from outside the humanities. In computer science, one could hardly be considered competent or knowledgeable in the field without knowing about Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Konrad Zuse, or Grace Hopper. Of course, others can and should be named, but the point is that it is not elitist to draw on the most foundational thinkers in any field. The Great Conversation is simply the development and transmission of Western core values and knowledge—even if this foundational knowledge is sometimes tacit as Hayek, Popper, and Polanyi are apt to remind us.

Moving beyond critical theory, I discovered that the Great Books speak profoundly even in fields in which they may not be apparent. When I became a professor at a large research university, I began to see how my Great Books training served as a deep well from which I could draw, even though I do not teach courses immediately associated with the liberal arts or humanities. Upon a deeper examination, however, the economics of information course which I teach relates to ideas of Marx, Smith, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Keynes, and Weber, and involves timeless truths regarding the nature of wealth, government, and democracy. While it must be admitted that our own culture and technology have changed dramatically since these authors wrote, the enduring truths of which they speak—social cooperation, voluntary exchange, and the nature of supply and demand—persist and remain extremely relevant today. The principles of how value is determined in economics are true whether one is discussing the nature of free markets, digital information goods, or Bitcoin. In my Open Source Culture and History of Hacking class, we not only examine the foundational figures of the field, but explore timeless questions about the nature of reason, rationality, and consciousness as we explore what it means to be rational, intentional beings in an age of artificial intelligence (AI). Aristotle, Plotinus, Aquinas, and Descartes still have important things to say about the nature of rational beings that directly relate to AI research issues today. And many of the Great Books have insightful things to say about the effects of technology on society. In all honesty, I have never had a student complain about one of these Great Authors; in most cases they are fascinated and excited that they can apply the information they have learned in a general education or philosophy course to what they are learning in one of my classes. Far from being irrelevant, these great texts have wonderful things to say about the nature of our lives in the Twenty-First Century. Even today, the Great Books provoke interesting and challenging ideas.

Uncategorized

On Fides Iustificans: The Faith Which Justifies

by Dave Seng



Because justification was the central concern of the Reformation, the focus of this post will be on justifying faith. Most generally, faith is the assent of the mind to something as true on the authority of the one declaring it to be so. The term “faith” comes from the Latin, Fides or Fidere, and has come to mean trust, confidence, and persuasion of the truth of God’s revelation. It also means trust and belief in that truth itself considered as the object or body of belief. For example, confessional Lutherans state agreement with the Apostle’s, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, and the doctrines found in the Book of Concord because they are in agreement with Scripture. This is that which is called the Evangelical Lutheran faith. As such, those writings are expressions of what Lutherans believe, teach, and confess as a matter of faith.

The Lutheran scholastics (Martin Chemnitz, Mathias Haggenreffer, Leonhard Hutter among others) defined other aspects of faith as well. These may be considered along with their definitions. First, there is temporary faith, a faith which although once accepts the datum of revelation as true, but dissipates into unbelief. Second, historical faith, the kind of faith which accepts revelation as true, but apart from any spiritual effect such as the demons who believe Christ died to save the world from sin. Third, miraculous faith, which accepts the promises of supernatural intervention such as the faith which moves mountains. For the Lutheran scholastics, however, the central concern was saving faith (fides salvifica) or the faith which justifies (fides iustificans). Since justification has been stated as the central focus of the Reformation, the remainder of this essay will explore justifying faith.

As with the sixteenth century, Christians, today, are largely confused about the nature of justifying faith. Just a few examples are in order. I once heard a Lutheran Christian say that Lutherans have the same doctrine of justification as Roman Catholics (just a quick examination of the Book of Concord and the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent will demonstrate that this statement is false). Although I graduated from a Christian high school, I never once heard the foundational teaching of justifying faith (I did, however, hear a lot about what I was supposed to do. Christianity is not a system of ethics.)

Perhaps the saddest or most personal example I can think of that highlights the current confusion over the nature of justifying faith is when I worked for an evangelical broadcasting company as a scriptwriter. I once put the Roman Catholic formula for justification—“fides caritate formata,” (or sometimes just “fides formata”) that is, “faith informed by love,” (I used the English) into a radio program. None of my evangelical colleagues were concerned or seemed to care that I put a false, non-Biblical, law-bound definition of the Gospel into the program and out into the listening audience! One can find many other examples of the confusion regarding the nature of justifying faith. Today, if you were to ask a Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or Presbyterian what the nature of justifying faith is, you are likely to get a variety of conflicting answers.

But why might the phrase “faith informed by love,” be considered problematic? As wonderful as it sounds, this formula is denied by orthodox Lutherans, insofar as it rests on a concept of a created grace (gratia creata) implanted or infused into the individual. For the medieval church, infused grace was an imparted gift (donum) which serves to make the sinner righteous. For it to operate, the sinner must cooperate with infused grace in order to be made righteous.

The Lutheran orthodox would remind us that faith justifies not because of itself, not due to infused grace, and not as a quality found in the individual. If faith were infused, it would be impossible to know how much, or whether or not, one has successfully cooperated with, or done enough, to merit divine forgiveness. As the Lutheran orthodox discovered, justification is a divine forensic act of being declared righteous on account of Christ alone. This is the meaning of imputation as Romans 4:11, 4:22-24, and James 2:23 teach. “God credits righteousness apart from works” – Romans 4:6. This divine declaration is why one can be at the same time sinful and justified—simul iustus et peccator.

The full and complete formula for justification is important to remember—justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone. Faith justifies on account of Christ alone, of whom faith lays hold. Christ’s righteousness is not infused into the believer but, rather, imputed to the sinner’s account through faith alone. Faith, apart from works, is that which apprehends the grace of Christ. Faith is that which connects the sinner to Christ and His righteousness.

The Lutheran scholastics used the term “per fides” or “by faith” with a precise meaning in mind. To them, “by” indicates that faith is the instrumental cause of justification or the means by which it is appropriated. Justifying faith is, then, God’s act of counting or reckoning the sinful individual righteous because of Christ’s atoning death. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the believing sinner through faith alone. In other words, God forgives sinners and counts them as righteous on the basis of their faith in Christ, and accepts them as His own reconciled children. Christ alone provides the righteousness and faith.

Why does justifying faith matter? For one thing, it is the orthodox doctrine of the Gospel. Justification is the Gospel. This means that the Gospel is not a system of ethics or law-following. A law-bound gospel is no gospel at all and holds no hope for the sinner. Too many in the Christian tradition say that justification is by faith, but can not or will not present or defend the idea that justification is by faith alone. When explicating Romans 1:17, “the just shall live by faith,” Luther says, “For faith grounds us on the works of Christ, without our own works, and transfers us from the exile of our sins into the kingdom of his righteousness. This is faith; this is the Gospel; this is Christ”

(Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, ed. Ewald M. Plass, 3 vols. 2:921).

Faith indeed grounds us on the works of Christ. Faith, Christ’s faith, given by Him to the believer through the hearing of the Good News, is the instrumental cause apart from, and without, any human merit or work.

The Biblical doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone is not an academic matter or a scholastic quibble over semantics. Justifying faith can be such a great source of comfort for those who have grown up under the law (or for anyone who has been convicted of their sin by the law). For those bound up in their fear of the law or conviction of sin, justifying faith brings reassurance, solace, and genuine relief. This Gospel brings freedom, joy, and love and is profoundly existentially meaningful. The Christian justified by Christ’s imputed righteousness can now draw near to the throne of grace confidently and find help in his or her time of need, knowing that every good gift comes from the loving hands of the heavenly Father.

Special thanks go to Dr. Michael Morehouse for reviewing an earlier draft of this essay and offering invaluable advice.

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Final Thoughts on Intuition

by Dave Seng

Hopefully, this will wrap up some ideas from my last three posts. As always, this feels unfinished but that is the nature of philosophy.

The proper understanding of intuition speaks to how we understand reality. Many philosophers (and non-philosophers for that matter) have a deep distrust of intuition. There is good reason for this skepticism, but not if intuition is properly understood and the totality of person-hood is considered. Intuition, rightly understood, is the idea that we all have ultimate presuppositions, basic assertions, and self-evident truths which are known with certainty as the foundations of all other ideas but which themselves cannot be proved. This position is known as foundationalism. From a strictly logical standpoint, not everything can be argued or there would never be an end to arguing. Aristotle still provides the best presentation and defense of foundationalism and is correct to point out that every argument finally rests on something that cannot be proved, and that it is the mark of an uneducated person not to realize that. How strict should we then be when thinking about intuition as foundational? Philosophers are divided over this point. I would argue that we can learn the truth about ourselves and the world around us not only from science but from imaginative literature and the great works of art, music, and history. Ideas are communicated non-rationally as well as rationally. Intuition and the non-rational make a contribution to what we know. To be healthy human beings we need to integrate the non-rational with the rational. (To become unhealthy, all we need to do is embrace the irrational.) As rational beings, and that which distinguishes human beings from animals, we are able to weigh evidence through careful examination and make evaluations either empirically or through intellectual demonstration by way of argument. Intuition, reason, abstraction, and empiricism must be seen holistically in such a way that they work together—not against each other as Bergson and other philosophers of the twentieth century believe.

We develop ontological constancy and perceive self-evident truths (the law of non-contradiction, for example) at a very young age, even when we can not articulate them. Any parent of a young child knows this to be true. Most individuals achieve psychological permanency by the time they are three years old. This means Aristotle is correct when he describes intuition as the inherent human capacity to grasp self-evident truths. Both cognitively and physically we are all part of and directed toward understanding the external physical world. Intuition is part of that human capacity. In various ways, philosophers like Descartes, Berkeley, and Kant have tried to prove the existence of external reality. This is because they made consciousness epistemically autonomous and discarded common sense intuition. The question of external reality, however, is not a philosophical problem at all. It is impossible to say one is having a sense perception and deny that the external object exists. Perception cannot be separated from reality. If that were not the case, there would be no difference between hallucinating and perception. As Aristotle explains, intuition and perception work together to grasp this foundational truth of reality.

As I indicated in my last post and from the comments above, it should be clear that I lean toward a broad intuitive foundationalism. There are many places in human interactions and the world around us that can not be simply reduced to strictly rational premises. Not everything is rationally analyzable. Human love, true friendship, great aesthetic experiences from works of art, literature, music, and various forms of religious illumination, simply cannot be condensed and downgraded to analytic propositions. Reason, however, plays a part in bringing these things together. Finally, it is important to realize that epistemology (how we know reality) and metaphysics (the nature of reality itself) are two different questions. Epistemology should never drive metaphysics—but that will be the topic of another post.

Metaphysics, Philosophy

More Than A Feeling: Metaphysical Intuition in Aristotle and Bergson, Part Three.

by Dave Seng

Part two can be found here.

Aristotle provides a framework for understanding reality based on foundationalism and the idea that the first principles of reality can be known, either through sense perception, empirically, or intellectually through reasonable demonstration. Intuition is the foundational aspect of sense data and non-discursive reasoning because it apprehends immediate self-evident truths. In Aristotle’s epistemology, human beings are hardwired with a latent ability or capacity to apprehend the world around them. Our rational abilities seem to be tuned to comprehending reality. When the mind is functioning correctly, it makes no sense for someone to assert that they are having a perception of an object and claim at the same time that it does not exist. In ordinary human sense experience, it is impossible to separate a perception from actual existence. The Aristotelian premise that the external world is knowable is based on the common sense judgment that perception is awareness of external objects. This human capacity of apprehending immediate self-evident truths is the rational intuition to which Aristotle points us.

Perhaps the Aristotelian position that describes human knowledge and the interaction between the self and the world can be understood as “embodied intuitive rationalism.” (Aristotle points us in this direction throughout his works but especially in his work On the Soul.) His argument suggests that humans have an inherent capacity through memory, imagination, the intellect, and use of sense perception (empiricism) to make meaning and intelligibility out of the world around them. If this is true, then in human cognition, the body and mind work together in a symbiotic relationship. If the nature of human beings is essentially rational, and dependent on and directed toward external reality, then a proper understanding of intuition is an essential element of embodied rationalism. To be embodied means to have an innate capacity of intuitive reasoning which allows one to grasp the fundamental first principles of reality.

If there is a kind of embodied intuitive rationalism that all humans possess, there might be a significant implication for Bergson’s approach to metaphysics. Some concluding thoughts are in order. While Bergson’s text An Introduction to Metaphysics can be read as an extended critique of Kant’s transcendental idealism, his description of metaphysics as the rejection of symbols and analysis is misplaced. If human beings are essentially rational, it is hard to figure out how analysis, reason, and symbols for communication are not helpful when struggling to think critically about the most important questions of life and reality. Language, analytical reasoning, and the examination of evidence are simply the ways human beings rationally make sense out of reality. Analysis and symbols are used in everyday life and it is impossible to imagine how anyone could live a significantly meaningful life without the use of symbols, analysis, and critical reasoning. It is why parents tell toddlers to “use your words.” Words provide meaning and structure to reality. If Aristotle is correct, all things tend towards their nature, including human nature. If the nature of human kind is to be rational then analysis, examination, evaluation, the use of symbols, and intellectual demonstration are essential and must be used to make sense and order out of the world. Reason is what human beings use to explore the ultimate questions and theories of reality. Discarding reason or throwing out the affirmation of rationalism is not the correct approach to metaphysics.

Bergson’s approach to philosophy is similar to Descartes. He starts with the immediate awareness of the self and distrust of sense data in providing a reliable understanding of reality. Bergson goes further than Descartes, however, and demonstrates an even stronger distrust of external reality than did Descartes. Even mental concepts, because they are products of analysis, render an artificial understanding of reality (74). Bergson explains that if metaphysics is to be a serious project, “it must transcend concepts in order to reach intuition” (75). What is clear from Bergson, is that reason, abstraction, concepts, and analytical thought will never allow one to correctly understand reality. Intuition, for Bergson is the rejection of critical discourse, observation, evaluation, and reason in general. Bergson’s understanding of intuition is irrational and he says quite clearly that the correct way to understand reality is not through analysis or reason. On the other hand, Aristotle holds that intuition is that which apprehends immediate self-evident truths which provide the basis for interpreting reality to a very high degree of accuracy. Reason, whether it is understood as the evaluation of empirical evidence or through the cognitive intellectual processes of the mind alone, is an integral part of what it means to be human and should not be thrown out when examining the great questions of existence.

In some ways, Bergson lays the groundwork for the later twentieth century existentialists such as Martin Heidegger. These thinkers believe that human passions and moods are superior to reason in interpreting reality. Heidegger, in his work, What is Metaphysics? claims that the mood of dread is what opens one up to a proper understanding of being and non-being. Some of these philosophers put moods, intuition, and mystical experience into the category of the nonrational—that which is apart from reason, but not necessarily against reason. Even if the nonrational is a valid category for knowledge development, Bergson goes further and ultimately embraces the irrational. For Aristotle, intuition is not in the realm of the nonrational, or irrational, but a pre-discursive starting point for reason and science itself—and really for any body of knowledge that can be discovered, collected, categorized, and developed.

Bergson might be right in the sense that there could be things in life that are not completely rationally analyzable, such as human love, true friendship, great works of art, indescribable aesthetic or religious experience, but he goes astray by rejecting reason and substituting intuition as the only valid way to interpret reality. Bergson’s concept of intuition must be evaluated, checked, or modified by sound reason and empiricism. Many philosophers, including Aristotle, believe that there is an element of intuition in human knowledge. Aristotle’s approach, as it turns out, is correct. Intuition, sense experience, and reason must work together—not against each other—in the quest for knowledge.

Works cited

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 1. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 7. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 2. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 8. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Bergson, Henri. An Introduction to Metaphysics. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 55. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999