My overall enquiry is leading towards something, and as time goes on and I begin to open up my thoughts, that end is becoming clearer. However, I’m not at that end yet, nor do I have a clear grasp upon all of the pieces, but I’m in the process of bringing them together and the questions that I ask and the general direction of my enquiry cannot be understood without the goal of my overall project in mind.
And so, what is the goal of my project?
In summary, my goal is to establish or discover a heuristic that allows us to understand how we are to seek the truth. A heuristic is a tool that allows someone to discover something for themselves. The idea is that, aside from the heuristic itself, the heuristic or process will have no truth-content as-such, but will be structured such that it allows someone to discover the truth, whatever that turns out to be.
The motivation for this project comes from a number of sources. First of all, it is, unsurprisingly personal: I had done 5 years of academic philosophy and left it without any actual means of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Instead, I have the option of many different models and methods, but no means of telling between these; no clear understanding of how to take a general approach to truth-seeking. There were a number of candidates for this, but they all had open ends and could not be pursued with full conviction. The second motivation is more general; there is a common worldview, even amongst educated people (in fact, perhaps especially so) that truth is ultimately groundless, and that relativism is ultimately true. Now, I had done enough philosophy to know that this was a senseless position and can demonstrate this. However, it got me thinking about how one could move from simple demonstrations about how relativism is untrue to discoveries of what is or is not, in fact, the case, whilst also accounting for the fact that some of the arguments that relativism is based upon are true (such as the fact that people genuinely draw upon varied and unique perspectives).
In all, I found that the way to address these questions was by travelling two avenues. The first is by recognising that truth-seeking can be tethered to logic or reason and the second being that truth can be tethered in an appeal to what we can or cannot do or what decisions we can or cannot make. Yet, these two approaches fall short in some respect. Let me take this further…
Overall, the idea behind the argument is that logic or reason, our use of reason and our acting in accordance with reason are fundamental to our knowing and living by what is true. Yet, when we consider the arguments for why reason should be adopted, it appears that a gap is left to be filled, that cannot be filled by reason alone. Therefore, if reason cannot justify itself or, at least, justify its own relevance, perhaps something else can. What I will attempt to argue is that the thing that justifies and even necessitates our use of reason is the need to choose and to make decisions. Therefore, reason is justified by its purpose of allowing us, not only to make choices, but to be able to make any choices as-such. However, this shifts the definition of truth because, in a sense, use becomes the measure of truth, whereas the measure of truth is something like consistency according to reason. This definition of truth as measured by use begs the question and cannot justify itself. What I will argue is that it is, in fact, an appeal to the nature of reason that allows for this square to be circled. Thereby, the argument is brought full circle; our adoption of reason becomes grounded in use and decisions, and questions of use and decision become grounded in reason whereby the two become mutually supporting pillars.
In the process of making this argument, there are a number of topics and concepts that I am in the process of unpacking and exploring. Amongst these are: the fundamental problems of pragmatism, the nature of reason as-such, the concept of Logos, its depth and its use, as well as the relationship between such matters. This list is not an exhaustive list because I am still in the process of discovery and this may raise new questions or change the direction of the enquiry. Once the appropriate questions have been explored, I will attempt to draw all of the relevant conclusions together into a cohesive argument.
Overall, the goal is to distil this enquiry down into the aforementioned heuristic that is simple to explain but has a strong philosophical foundation behind it.
Ultimately, this argument may exist in the form of a book and in the meantime, I will attempt to articulate my thinking in both a written and auditory format for ease of access. The majority of this process will be semi-academic and unlikely to be transparent to a layman. Then again, I had set out initially to make this work accessible to “everyone” but realised in the course of doing so that this was both irrelevant and impossible. The very work that I am unpacking brings out a recognition that not everyone will be interested in this kind of enquiry and that will affect their approach to seeking the truth. Then again, I hope that my thoughts will be expressed in such a way that they can be followed by those who have even a nominal interest in philosophy or questions of seeking the truth.
Now, what I also need to recognise from the outset is that I have been engrossed primarily in Christian philosophy and teaching for the past months and may even become a Christian by the time that this work is finished. In light of this, I need to address at least two things: the first is that I believe that the heuristic I will eventually argue for is completely compatible with Christianity. The heuristic does, after all, lack content and there would be no reason for why Christianity would not be found to be true given its use (and that includes Christianity – so to speak – by its own standards, judging truth ultimately by God, and not merely by use and logic). The second thing is that I am not using any of this philosophy or the heuristic itself to prove Christianity, nor must Christian philosophy be invoked for it to be established. If I ever argue for the truth of Christianity and even if I appeal to the heuristic to do so, that does not mean that any Christian belief or philosophy is required to establish the heuristic. They are, in that sense independent. For reasons that I might be able to give more justice to later, it is conceivable to me that use of the heuristic could lead one to adopt any number of religions or schools of thought; it can account for one’s becoming a Marxist as much as a Libertarian; an atheist as much as a Muslim… this might sound like a contradiction or a contrary result to the aim of correcting for relativism. It’s not. This is because the heuristic effects the sorting and discernment of content but is not content itself. However, it will – I hope – demonstrate that the content of our thoughts and intellect cannot simply be sorted in any way, and this makes all of the difference. Moreover, I would also contend that differing schools of thought will not be of equal merit. It is conceivable to me that people can use the heuristic to reach different schools of thought
Therefore, looking forward and even looking beyond, I will eventually attempt to explain how Christianity can be supported by the truth-seeking heuristic. But before I do that, I will need to explain how the heuristic can be generally used in truth-seeking as-such. And, before I do that, I will need to establish a simple model for its rationale and use. Therefore, before I do that I will need to explain and simplify the philosophy that it is based on. Yet, before I do that, I will need to understand the philosophy that it is based upon in more complex terms. And, before I do that I will need to unpack and examine the various concepts and arguments that play a role in the overall argument, in order to see how and why they are relevant to one-another.
From top to bottom, this is the initial road-map for my core philosophy project, although this may be subject to change. The project has the aim of uniting our use of logic and concern for making decisions to provide us with a heuristic that allows us to discern and seek the truth.
This will not be the only topic that I ever discuss as there are many matters that I find interesting, but this will be the primary project that I give the most attention to.