Philosophy of Science in the Light of the Perennial Wisdom

By Mahmoud Bina and Alireza K. Ziarani

Backed by its technological achievements, modern science appears as the de facto source of truth to the majority of our contemporaries. Its sole reliance on reason and empirical data gives it an air of objectivity that has conferred upon it an almost unquestioning authority. Against the backdrop of this pervasive scientism, Philosophy of Science in the Light of the Perennial Wisdom is a daring attempt to offer an intellectual critique of modern science in its foundation by rigorously examining the intrinsic limitations of rational thought and empirical investigation. Unique of its kind, this book offers a refreshing look at the traditional doctrines of epistemology and metaphysics as an antidote to the subjective as well as objective errors of modern science, which is thus revealed as no more than a belief system that falls radically short of offering a full knowledge of reality; this, in contrast to the perennial wisdom of the world's great religions that for millennia have offered humankind not only keys to true knowledge, but also the means of attaining it, which precisely constitutes man's reason for being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: World Wisdom
• Release date: Nov 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781936597697

Book preview

PREFACE

This is not yet another academic book on the philosophy of science. Unlike the numerous textbooks and research monographs that exist on the subject, this book is a critique of modern science, its premises and its claims, and an account of an alternative perspective on science based on the wisdom of the divinely instituted traditions that have fashioned humanity since time immemorial. As alien as this alternative perspective may appear to the modern mentality, this was how mankind perceived science throughout all the ages except for the past few centuries. It is all-too-convenient for the modern man of scientistic mind to criticize the worldview of the ancients and their approach to science. Our ancestors are constantly put on trial in absentia and their thoughts are often trivialized by the moderns, with little chance, if any, of being properly heard.

How, then, did the ancients inquire about knowledge and reality? How would they view our modern science if they had the opportunity? How would they respond to the modern criticism of their outlook? This book aims to answer these questions. Far from appealing to religious sentiments on a superficial level, we intend to offer intellectual arguments in support of the views of the great traditions on knowledge and reality. Modern science, with all the wonders it works and all the catastrophes it may be complicit in, is assessed here not in its results, beneficial or detrimental as they may be, but in its principles vis-à-vis the wisdom of the great traditions, which have offered humanity countless men of wisdom and greatness nearly everywhere and throughout almost all the ages.

The modern academic approach to scholarship is cut to the measure of the modern man of scientific mind. Consistent with the central thesis of this book, we do not endorse this approach, and, as such, we do not find ourselves obliged to adhere to its academic conventions, whence the non-conventional character of an exposition that, we hope, the reader will soon find himself immersed in.

INTRODUCTION

I think, therefore I am, wrote Descartes, and thus heralded the Age of Reason—an age in which man wished to free science of all prejudice by grounding it in pure reason. Countless other thinkers followed him, right up to the present age, each offering a new philosophy, at times contradicting the preceding ones, at times corroborating them, at times elaborating on them, and at times opening new chapters of thought; each, of course, expecting others to take their thoughts as expressions of truth, even those who questioned the very notion of truth itself.

But how do we know if anything is true? Some consider logic—the science of reasoning—as the fountain of truth: Descartes’ therefore signals a proof, hence rational thought. But how can we be sure that the rules of logic are valid, that our premises are well founded, and that logic can give us a full account of truth? Others look to sense experience for the foundation of truth: only that is true which is empirically verifiable—or alternatively, logically or empirically falsifiable. But how, then, do we know that experience is the criterion of truth? Yet others see in human sentiment the criterion of truth: that is true which takes account of our feelings as individual sentient beings and, for example, gives us an immediate feeling of happiness. And again, we will ask, what is it that guarantees the truth of such an idea?

But before we can begin to look for the criterion of truth, we have to ascertain that there is such a thing as truth. Now, unless one accepts that there is indeed such a thing as truth, nothing holds: remove truth, and everything collapses. Nothing can get around this: there is no truth cannot be taken as true since it would ipso facto refute itself. Why is it that self-refutation, inconsistency in logical terms, matters? Because an inconsistent thesis, that is to say, a thesis that bears its refutation within itself, has no real persuasive power: to expect others to believe in it would be to expect them to take it as true, hence to expect them not to believe in it. In that case, one would have to keep it to oneself and say: I do not know. That does not mean, however, that no one else knows, either, since that would imply that one knows that the proposition no one else knows is true, which would contradict the initial I do not know. In fact, even to say I do not know—in response to the question of whether one knows if there is such a thing as truth—would be inconsistent, for to say I do not know is to imply that I know that one thing is true and that is precisely the fact that I do not know. He who does not take the self-evidence of truth for granted is bound to remain silent, or else ends up contradicting himself.

The denial of truth, therefore, or doubt about it, cannot be the starting point of any logical system of thought: to avoid inconsistency—that is, to remain logical—one has to assume that there is such a thing as truth before one presents any reasoning. This is a fundamental dogma without which nothing holds. It shows, moreover, that no system of thought can be without a dogma. A dogma-free starting point is itself a dogma, though a self-contradictory one.

To say that there is such a thing as truth is to speak in absolute terms. The notions of being, reality,¹ truth, and absoluteness are thus intrinsically interrelated. Reason cannot prove them; on the contrary, it takes them for granted, that is to say, it cannot function in their absence.

Anyone who has any judgment about anything and communicates it to others has already assumed that what he tells them will mean essentially the same thing to them, and that they will recognize the truth of his opinion, that is, they will have the same judgment. If what one man says has a meaning that is accessible solely to him, and is true solely for him, why then would he even say it to others? In other words, he has already assumed (i) that there is such a thing as truth, (ii) that this truth corresponds to a reality, and (iii) that he, as well as others, has access to this reality. In other words, he has assumed that the truth of what he says relates to an objective reality that is independent of the human subject who says it or hears it. He has implicitly accepted the notion of objectivity. Unless one accepts that man is fundamentally objective, one quickly finds oneself in refutation of oneself.

One has to start with the self-evidence of objective truth. Any attempt to deny the self-evidence of truth—or being, or reality, or absoluteness—will be self-defeating. All one can apparently do to escape this is to be silent and let others speak. This, however, is precisely the opposite of what the man of reason has so often done in the course of the past few centuries—he who wished to ground everything in reason. Never before, in the history of humanity, did man think, speculate, philosophize, and speak as much. Yet never before was he more inconsistent: if the man of the Age of Reason had been reasonable about reason, he would have taken note of its inherent limitations;² as such, he would not have taken reason as the sole agent of the discovery of truth, and his science would not have been based solely on empirical and rational means; he would not have blamed the ancients for having had dogmas while thinking himself free of all prejudice, and so on and so forth. In short, he would not have done much of what he did over the course of the past few centuries.

It should be clear that in showing the inevitable inconsistency of the opinions that deny the notions of truth and objectivity, we are demonstrating the logical absurdity of many of the philosophical movements that have emerged since the dawn of the Age of Reason. Any system of thought that proposes an absolute principle while denying the notion of truth—hence the notion of objectivity—is condemned to self-refutation. This applies to subjectivism, in all its forms, which precisely denies the notions of truth and objectivity. The central thesis of every subjectivist opinion—various forms of the thesis that there is no objective truth—when applied to itself, refutes itself. Similarly, relativism carries the seed of its own negation within itself since it refutes its central thesis that everything is relative by this very thesis. Agnosticism, on the other hand, pretends to avoid the logical inconsistency of relativism by refraining from making a pronouncement on truth while implicitly promoting the idea that man is incapable of knowing it, that is, I do not know is taken as true of every man; in effect, therefore, it promotes the idea that no one else knows, either. An agnostic, to be logical, would have to remain silent, in which case there would be no one to propose agnosticism. The arbitrary, hence self-refuting, nature of the philosophies that proclaim the primacy of experience or feeling is clear, for their overarching principles—which are mental formulations—can be neither experienced nor felt, precisely because mental formulations do not fall within the scope of experience or feeling. For example, the thesis that experience is the criterion of truth means that every truth will have to be empirically verifiable. Now, this thesis itself is not empirically verifiable. Consequently, the proposed thesis is not true according to its own measure. Empiricism, therefore, refutes itself. Not unrelated to this is any ideology that seeks to base truth on the experiences and feelings of man in his subjectivity and individuality: for example, various forms of existentialism, which place great emphasis on the individual’s experiences and feelings.³

To repeat, we must accept that there is such a thing as truth; otherwise, we can proceed no further. But how would we recognize truth as truth when we are presented with it? Logic cannot be the sole source of truth since any logical system assumes the validity of certain rules of inference and takes as its starting point certain premises—axioms or postulates as well as primitive concepts. Yet it can prove neither the validity of its rules nor the truth of its premises. The truth of such premises can be acknowledged only if one possesses their essence deep within oneself. Thus, by virtue of having to assume the truth of certain premises in order to be able to function, reason itself points to its limited capacity as a means of the discovery of truth, and prompts us to look for the foundation of thought in something deeper within us than mere rational thought.⁴

Truth has its root in the notion of the Absolute. Without this ultimate point of reference, every logical argument is devoid of a foundation. Man cannot be certain of anything in the absence of this notion, because as soon as he becomes absolutely certain of anything without the implicit assumption of the notion of the Absolute, logically, he must let go of his certitude of it and start over again in a vicious circle of doubt. Moreover, only when man is certain can he truly find happiness; otherwise, his happiness would be devoid of a foundation, subject to fluctuations, and thus precarious.⁵ The notion of the Absolute, the root of truth and certitude, without which no knowledge holds and no true happiness is possible, is what modern man has forgotten—the man who thinks he knows, and knows much better than traditional man,⁶ that is, man before