(2002)
Synopsis:
My interest in philosophy began in childhood when I could find no good reason for believing my parents' religion over others I knew of. This led to the question of how we know anything. That we believe seemed indisputable, but knowing was so elusive. In time I would divide "certainty" into two words certainty1 and certainty2. Certainty1 is belief or conviction. Certainty2 is certainty1 certified somehow as true. After expressing these thoughts I declare my philosophy to be naturalism however unphilosophical that may be, and quote a dictionary of philosophy for a definition of naturalism. I then make a history of naturalism in western philosophy to show that most of what we call knowledge today comes from the natural philosophy of the past. The philosophy involved is interspersed with my criticism, both positive and negative. This increases when so-called modern philosophy is reached. Of necessity this history hits only the high points of philosophy, but is sufficient for an introduction to naturalism. This history takes up about three-fourths of the book. I offer the reader who is not a philosophy buff (hoping that there will be some) the option of skipping some of the history if it becomes tedious.
This part of the book is not only a history but also a taking of the reader through my search for a confirmation of naturalism in what has been called philosophy proper. And the entire book has something of a personal testimonial running through it.
From those centuries after the naturalism of the early Greeks until "modern" philosophy, naturalism, with a few exceptions, took a second place or worse to theology-ridden metaphysics. I show that even in that era, philosophers had one foot or at least a finger or two in naturalism, despite the near ubiquity of "faith."
I declare the rationalists a disappointment despite considerable naturalism, but the empiricists, who ostensibly began with science (Locke and Hume) were, with their drift toward idealism, just as disappointing. Despite this, I do recognize their greatness in philosophy, and I do the same with Kant, whose first critique I pronounce the most profound naturalism and the second one a failure.
When I began reading the rationalists I was expecting to find them confirming naturalism, for, in my innocence, naturalism was rationalism. In the end, after going through Hume's ringer on the mind and Kant's reconstruction of it with his natural faculties (categories), I returned to that position and declared that reason, any intelligible discourse whatever, assumes the validity of induction and causation.
I found even the pragmatists not to be whole-hearted naturalists. Pierce, James and Dewey all thought they had found a chink in the armor of determinism. For Pierce it was "tychism", for James it was "free will", and for Dewey it was "indeterminate situations." For moral support from the pragmatists, I quote Sidney Hook.
I at last found a naturalist in Santayana, and it is from the following quotation, my favorite in all philosophy, that I get the title for my book. "We are not asked to abolish our conceptions of the natural world, nor even in our daily life, to cease to believe in it; we are to be idealists only north-northwest, or transcendentally; when the wind is southerly we are to remain realists. . . I should be ashamed to countenance opinion which, when not arguing, I did not believe. It would seem to me dishonest and cowardly to militate under other colors than those under which I live. . . . I have frankly taken nature by the hand, accepting as a rule, in my furthest speculations, the animal faith I live by from day to day." I got goose bumps when I read it.
I agree with those philosophers who hold that the mind is material or Physical--that there is no ghost in the machine. I invoke the position of Francis Crick, among others, for moral support. I argue that the mind is a function of the brain and as such is nourished by the same food that sustains the body, and that thoughts and ideas are some disposition of physical entities, that is, something happens in brain cells that would not otherwise happen when we have ideas, that we are not something, a receptacle, that has thoughts, but that our thoughts are, among other things, us. With this identity of the self I fancy that I have resolved the contradiction of free will and determinism into choice and determinism without contradiction.
I hold that our use of inductive thinking is an instinct, and contrast it with metaphysics. I agree with the logical positivists that metaphysics is not knowledge. At this point I define metaphysics as other than the physical and coin a term, "metaphysics-t" to distinguish how I use the term from the conventional way, if there is a conventional way. The final "t" (a superscript in the book) is to indicate metaphysics as defined by Tichenor. The lower case "t" to coincide with Tichenor being a small philosopher (philosophically).
I declare that inductive thinking as an instinct (and genetic) is part of us, and therefore arguments for its validity by philosophers are not necessary, and their failure to do so (Hume) of no consequence. Our tendency to metaphysical-t thinking is also genetic, but I show there to be a profound difference in the two. Inductive thinking is a constant part of us and makes life possible, metaphysical-t thoughts are variables, largely culturally determined, but also reflecting what we want to believe. Inductive thinking makes life possible, metaphysical-t thinking sometimes makes life more livable, but sometimes less livable. One may, with the positivists, discount metaphysics-t as knowledge, but metaphysical-t ideas are natural events and have profound effects.
Hume's "skepticism," I thought, confirmed my division of ideas into certainty1 and certainty2, that experience, or whatever learning method, produces only conviction. However, all is not lost. When certainty1 is correct it is the practical equivalent of, and serves us just as well as, certainty2. Natural selection has insured the usefulness of certainty1. Man has had to be correct a sufficient percentage of the time to insure survival. Natural selection has selected for the capacity to make certainty1 the practical equivalent of certainty2 significantly often.
So much for the laws of nature and the practicalities of concepts, but I insist that there are criteria for the use of the word "knowledge." Consider a man with his house on fire. Hume was right, we cannot certify that the laws of nature will persist, that fire will burn in the future as it has in the past, but when a man's house is on fire, if he is not too distraught to think, he thinks inductively. That the philosopher's pen cannot certify "knowledge" is of no consequence; the moment of truth comes in experience-in a specific situation. The absurdity of denial of what is occurring in experience is our critique of knowledge.
The first law, or if not law, then the initial step, of concepts is that we believe the first thing we hear by a process akin to imprinting (certainty1). Experience, in time, teaches some degree of skepticism. This may seem to obscure the first law or initial step of concepts, but the metaphysics-t we hear, especially early in life, is reinforced by being self serving--is what we want to hear--resulting in a great body of concepts that is passed down from generation to generation, for which there is no good reason to believe. Inaccurate naturalistic ideas, by contrast, are, for the most part, weeded out empirically and pragmatically, though it is in some cases very slow.
In ethics, I agree with G. E. Moore that ethical terms are unanalisable, which I interpret as meaning indefinable, but I disagree with him that good is an intrinsic property or quality. I put moral philosophy in metaphysics-t and turn to the origin of morals which I find (to over-simplify my position) are made of what we want others to do unto us. I quote Hume, Hobbes, and Spinoza in support of my position. I observe that our wants (our self Interest) are enshrined as the criteria of goodness in no less a precept than the Golden Rule.
These are the salient positions I pursue in my book, but there is more. Such a brief account may distort them some. One would have to read the book to get the full force of my arguments.
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