Realism, relativism and reason in religious belief

“However, one must not conceive of evidence for a religious outlook in empiricist terms, as building up piecemeal a body of individually well-evidenced beliefs. Rather, we are confronted with a plurality of rich religious traditions, each with an interconnected body of truth claims” (Pg. 46, Par.2)

 

What that cannot be seen with our physical eyes doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist; hence, we cannot dismiss its presence. What crucial is how the evidences are formed to support the claim that something exists. Should I say that I don’t believe the bloody story of the Khmer Rouge because I didn’t see it with my own eyes and furthermore the eye-witnesses seem to be inconsistent with one another? Yes, I can do so but does my disbelief alter the truth, providing historical evidences to such story? No, I don’t think so; even to the extent that the eye-witnesses vary from one account to another.  What “that is” is independent of my minds; and I can only access to and narrate such truth in so far as my reason can grasp what is revealed to me and my language can express it; therefore, different and conflict accounts of an aspect might vary depending on how people look at such aspect from the limit of their language expression, and how it reveals itself to those who witness.

5. A proper description of an orthodox Catholic religious epistemology

I would describe an orthodox Catholic religious epistemology as a critical realist which is characterized by a claim that there is reality which is independent of the knowers, and that knowing of such reality can be critically evaluated. In the orthodox Catholic religious epistemology, the ultimate reality is God and this knowledge of God is based, first of all, on the “revelation” – God made Himself known; thus this religious epistemology acknowledges that there are two dimensions of knowledge – the intransitive and transitive. It is intransitive because it acknowledges that there is reality which cannot be resorted to the concepts in our minds except that it made itself known to the knowers. Furthermore, it is transitive because it also acknowledges that various knowledges of such reality are formed by the knowers and rendered intelligibly and propositionally; and it is only through critical evaluation that we can come closer to judge this or that knowledge is best captured that “revelation”. Therefore, for the orthodox Catholic religious epistemology, what is real is still what it is – as God cannot be exhaustively explained – and what we know is just what the thing-in-itself is unfolding itself (revelation) to us within our ability to perceive, capture, and express it.

On Ontological Emergence (Revised)

In the chapter on Experiment and Depth Realism, Collier (1994) explains how experimentation enables us to discover causes or mechanisms in nature that are otherwise inexperienced, unactualized, or experienced and actualized differently in nature because of other acting mechanisms, by creating a closed system where the Domain of the Real = Domain of the Actual = Domain of the Empirical (pp. 44- 45) in order to understand isolated mechanisms.  To further explain the need for experimentation in understanding Reality, Collier borrows Bhaskar’s concept of Multiple Strata to explain Ontological Emergence. Where Collier explains events in nature to be caused by a multiplicity of mechanisms (horizontal) that work simultaneously in an open system, Bhaskar’s concept arranges these mechanisms (vertical) in a strata or layers working in an ordered manner and not just in a spontaneous way (p. 46).  This concept of multiple strata or Ontological Emergence acknowledges that known mechanisms also have underlying known and unknown intransitive mechanisms which are objectively existent whether we know of them or not. This suggests that there are more basic or generative mechanisms that explain less basic or complex mechanisms but this does not mean that one outweighs the other in effect or hierarchy (pp. 46 & 48). The less basic or complex mechanisms are unilaterally dependent on the more basic or generative mechanisms but the former is irreducible to the latter. For example, biological mechanisms in our body can be explained by simultaneous underlying physical and chemical mechanisms but a biological mechanism cannot at all be summed up by those physical and chemical mechanisms that work together to cause it, as there can also be other mechanisms that are more complex that act on more basic mechanisms in an open system. This is the reason why we need separate sciences to explore these layers of causes and why the sciences will always be an unending chart of discovery (p. 49), as the Domain of the Real cannot be reduced to a summation of a specific number of mechanisms. The Domain of the Empirical will always be limited to those mechanisms we have experienced in nature and observed through experimentation, and the Domain of the Actual will be limited to the mechanisms that happen as coincidences in nature (as defined in class). But these domains do not at all limit the Domain of the Real which is an open system comprised of countless unknown mechanisms underlying countless known and unknown mechanisms waiting to be discovered.

Reference:

Collier, A. (1994). Critical r ealism: An introduction to Roy  Bhaskar’s philosophy. London:  Verso.

Philosophy and Scientific Realism

Section 01: Two Sides of ‘Knowledge’

According to Bhaskar, there are two dimensions of human knowing; and these are the transitive and intransitive dimension. The transitive one, knowledge is produced dependently on human’s capacity to interact with one another and the nature around them. The intransitive dimension, on the other hand, is the knowledge of the objects as in itself that exist independently of human activity; whether you acquire it or not, it will not cease to exist. Actually, as Collier (2004) claimed that the very fact that there is a claim to religious as fallible is presupposed by the existence of the truth from which our knowledge of it might diverge. From the intransitive dimension of knowledge, we must admit that there is truth – the objective side of the knowledge – which is not relative to the subject; and from the transitive dimension, our certain judgment of such object might be fallible due to the limit of our human capacity of knowing, yet this fallibility will not diminish the fact of the objective side.