The Dualist
Stanford’s Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy
Spring 2016
THE DUALIST
Stanford's Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
Volume XXI
Spring 2016
Understanding the ‘Humean Point’:
Limits of Space and Time in the Treatise
Alice Wright
Philosophical and Theological Problems
of Religious Language
Joshua Pitkoff
An Interview with Alexander Nehamas
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Volume XXI
Spring 2016
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The Dualist
Volume XXI
Spring 2016
1
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Understanding the ‘Humean Point’: Limits of
Space and Time in the Treatise
Alice Wright
King’s College London
Philosophical and Theological Problems of
Religious Language
Joshua Pitkoff
Princeton University
An Interview with Alexander Nehamas
Undergraduate Resources
Acknowledgements
About The Dualist
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56
60
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UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
6
Understanding the ‘Humean Point’:
Limits of Space and Time in the
Treatise
Alice Wright
King’s College London
Introduction:
Part II of the Treatise, ‘Of Space and Time’, is commonly neglected or written
off as the least satisfactory part of Hume’s work: to summarise most criticisms,
it simply amounts to ‘bad mathematics’.1 Objections are often aimed at Hume’s
denial of the infinite divisibility of finite space or extension (both terms are used
synonymously in the Treatise). In recent years, however, there has been an
increase of sympathetic commentators who have argued that Hume’s view is not
purely mathematical, but should be analysed as a metaphysical or
phenomenological one.2 The ‘Humean points’ (the indivisible parts that make up
extension) are central to Hume’s denial of infinite divisibility; thus, any defense
of Hume requires a careful characterisation of the ‘Humean point’ to ensure it
remains useful to the arguments in which it is employed.
1
Broad, Flew and Fogelin all give a classical treatment of Hume’s work (see
Works Cited).
2
Baxter, De Pierris, Falkenstein, Franklin, Frasca-Spada, Holden, Jacquette, and
Newman offer a wider-ranger, sympathetic interpretation of Hume’s theory of
space and time (see Works Cited).
7
ALICE WRIGHT
I will focus on two commentators who offer a defense of Hume’s argument. The
first is Rosemary Newman who defends an ‘atomistic conception of reality’ by
drawing on Hume’s atomistic phenomenalism, established in Part I of the
Treatise.3 The second is Thomas Holden who defends an argument for ‘noncomposite first parts’ by putting Hume into the historical context of an actual
parts theorist (the dominantly held view regarding matter during the 1700s).4
This paper will argue that, whilst both interpretations defend Hume’s view from
mathematical objections, neither can substantiate the claim that the finite
divisibility of our ideas of space is sufficient to deny the infinite divisibility of
space itself. Instead, this paper will utilise a view inspired by De Pierris in her
exploration of Hume’s treatment of geometry: Hume is working within an
epistemic framework established by what is possible with regards to empirically
given phenomenological data.5 This paper will conclude by proposing that the
best way to engage with Hume’s theory is to interpret him as tackling what is
still today a vastly perplexing issue: in what way, if any, can we reconcile
human experience of space and time with the mathematical notions we apply to
them, specifically, that of infinite divisibility?
Mathematical Objections to Hume’s Argument Against Infinite Divisibility:
In Section II, ‘Of the infinite divisibility of space and time’, Hume develops the
theory that extension and duration are made up of discrete indivisible parts. It
has become common amongst commentators to refer to indivisible parts as
‘extensionless’ (with regards to space) and ‘durationless’ (with regards to time).
Whilst Hume never uses these terms explicitly in the Treatise, it follows that if
extension and duration are defined as being made up of indivisible parts, it
cannot be the case that these parts also have extension or duration, else they too
would consist of further parts and not be indivisible. An immediate consequence
of Hume’s theory is that any finite quantity of extension or duration cannot be
infinitely divisible as division must come to a halt when it reaches the
indivisible parts. The first half of Hume’s lead argument goes as follows:
(H1):
“Every thing capable of being infinitely divided
contains an infinite number of parts” (T 1.2.2.2;
SBN 29)
(H2):
“[I]f it be a contradiction to suppose, that a finite
extension contains an infinite number of parts, no
finite extension can be infinitely divisible.” (T
1.2.2.2; SBN 29)
3
Rosemary Newman, “Hume on Space and Geometry,” Hume Studies, 7 (April,
1981): 1-31
4
Thomas Holden, “Infinite Divisibility and Actual Parts in Hume’s Treatise,”
Hume Studies, 28 (April, 2002): 3-26
5
Graciela De Pierris, “Hume on space, geometry, and diagrammatic reasoning,”
Synthese, 186 (May, 2012): 169-189
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
8
Given (H1), that anything infinitely divisible must contain an infinite number of
parts, by contraposition (H2) immediately follows: if something does not
contain an infinite number of parts, it cannot be infinitely divisible. The second
half of Hume’s argument is commonly referred to as the Addition argument:
(H3):
“I first take the least idea I can form of a part of
extension (...) I then repeat this idea once, twice,
thrice, &c. and find the compound idea extension,
arising from its repetition”; “When I stop in the
addition of parts, the idea of extension ceases to
augment; and were I to carry on the addition in
infinitum, I clearly perceive, that the idea of
extension must also become infinite.” (T 1.2.2.2;
SBN 29-30)
That is to say, given that the idea of extension arises form the addition of parts,
the addition of infinite parts can only result in the idea of an infinite extension.
(H4):
“[T]he idea of an infinite number of parts is individually
the same idea with that of an infinite extension; that
no finite extension is capable of containing an
infinite number of parts; and consequently that no
finite extension is infinitely divisible.” (T 1.2.2.2;
SBN 29-30)
A finite extension cannot be made up of an infinite number of parts (otherwise it
would become infinitely extended); so, together with (H2), it follows that a
finite extension cannot be infinitely divisible. Holden gives a concise summary
of Hume’s argument on the standard reading (though he maintains that certain
metaphysical background assumptions are implicit):
“In short: (i) whatever is infinitely divisible has an infinite number
of parts; (ii) whatever has an infinite number of parts is infinitely
large; so (iii) nothing finitely extended is infinitely divisible.”6
Although Hume’s argument specifically regards extension, he later writes “all
this reasoning takes place with regard to time” (T. 1.2.2.4; SBN 31).7 If we
6
Holden, “Infinite Divisibility and Actual Parts,” 5.
Due to limited space in this paper, I will not address mathematical objections
with regards to time; however, Baxter (2007) offers a thorough analysis of
similar arguments. The main thing to note with Hume’s theory of time is that
two indivisible parts (moments) cannot coexist. So the essence of time, for
Hume, is the succession (or replacement) of these parts, rather than any
coexistent form of extension.
7
9
ALICE WRIGHT
assess Hume’s argument within a mathematical system, two serious objections
immediately arise. First, it is not clear that (H1) is correct: Hume does not make
a distinction between actual and potential infinity. If something is potentially
divisible, it need not already consist in those parts prior the division; thus,
something infinitely divisible does not entail it consisting in an infinite number
of parts. As Flew writes, “A cake may be divisible into many different numbers
of equal slices without its thereby consisting in, through already having been
divided into, any particular number of such slices.”8 That is to say, if a cake is
potentially divisible into 8 equal slices and potentially divisible into 5 equal
slices, it follows that the cake cannot already consist in parts of either particular
number. For if it was actually made up of 8 slices, how could it be divisible into
only 5?
The second objection is to (H3), the Addition argument, in that it overlooks the
distinction between aliquot parts (parts of equal size) and proportional parts
(parts of sub-division). Fogelin makes the observation that “the argument for
infinite divisibility depends on the possibility of constructing ever smaller finite
extensions, as in the sequence [1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc.] whose sum approaches, but
does not exceed, 1.”9 That is, if I divide my cake in half, and then halve it again,
and continue to halve it into parts continuously decreasing in proportion (but
never reaching zero), the summation of these parts will just amount to the
original cake — (sadly) not an infinite cake. For example, if I sub-divide 1 five
times, the addition of these parts won’t be determined by the amount of parts,
but the finite quantity I began with:
1 = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32
If I were to continue the division, in infinitum, the addition of parts would still
be equal to 1. It should be noted that Hume is not completely oblivious to this
distinction. In a footnote he writes it has been objected to him that:
“[I]nfinite divisibility supposes a number of
proportional not of aliquot parts, and that an infinite
number of proportional parts does not form an
infinite extension. But this distinction is entirely
frivolous. Whether these parts be call’d aliquot or
proportional, they cannot be inferior to those
minute parts we conceive; and therefore cannot
form a less extension by their conjunction.” (T
1.2.2.2.; SBN 30)
8
Antony Flew, “Infinite Divisibility in Hume’s Treatise,” (1976), in Hume: A
re-evaluation, ed. D. Livingston & J. King, (New York: Fordham University
Press, 259-60).
9
Robert Fogelin, “Hume and Berkeley on the Proofs of Infinite Divisibility”,
The Philosophical Review, 97, (Jan., 1988): 51.
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
10
Fogelin’s observation does not offer substantial reason as to why Hume might
think the distinction frivolous, nor does he give a thorough analysis of the
relationship between our conception of minuteness and division. However, if we
take Hume to be discussing the mathematical division of quantities, Fogelin is
right in pointing out that the distinction of aliquot and proportional parts is too
significant to be put to one side in a footnote.
The division of proportional parts taken in conjunction with the theory of
potential parts highlights why commentators have written off this section of the
Treatise as simply ‘bad mathematics’: “it can be divided, and sub-divided, and
sub-divided as often as anyone wishes: infinitely, without limit. That this is so is
part of what is meant by saying: ‘Infinity is not a number!’”10 The argument
goes as follows:
(i)* Whatever is potentially infinitely divisible need not consist in an infinite
number of parts, rendering (H1-2) false; (ii)* the addition of infinite
proportional parts need not result in an infinitely large quantity, making (H3)
unnecessary and thus (H4) false; (iii)* so, whatever is finitely extended can be
infinitely divisible.
The standard objections above arise from a purely mathematical framework and
do not assess Hume’s theory with any metaphysical or phenomenological
considerations in mind. However, they do give an insightful indication to how
the ‘Humean point’ should be characterised in order to counteract these
arguments: specifically, it must be an actual part that does not admit of
proportional division.11 In the following sections, I will engage with several
interpretations that defend Hume’s theory by attending to and supporting the
notion of indivisible parts.
Atomistic Phenomenalism:
Rosemary Newman was one of the first commentators of Hume to approach the
topic of infinite divisibility with considerations differing from the standard
mathematical interpretation. In “Hume on Space and Geometry”, Newman sets
out to defend the premise (H1): “whatever is capable of being divided in
infinitum, must consist of an infinite number of parts’” (T 1.2.1.2; SBN 26). She
10
Flew, “Infinite Divisibility in Hume’s Treatise,” 260.
It might be assumed that actual parts automatically stop proportional division.
However, there are metaphysical doctrines, such as ‘Gunk Theory’, that propose
“all parts of such an object have proper parts” (Sider: 1993) — i.e. every object
has parts and every part is an object. If it is possible for a metaphysical theory of
actual parts to allow infinite proportional division, an actual parts theory taken
as implicit will not be sufficient to invoke Hume’s use of indivisible parts. One
must demonstrate Hume arguing from an actual parts theory to a thesis of
indivisible parts.
11
11
ALICE WRIGHT
appeals to Part I of the Treatise to defend the notion that Hume intends for our
understanding of the physical world to be embedded in his theory of atomistic
phenomenalism.12 As such, an atomistic conception of reality leaves no room for
infinite divisibility of finite quantities.
Atomistic phenomenalism, in short, is the theory that our phenomenological
experience of reality is made up of atoms. For Hume, phenomenology
(perception) is split into two parts:
“All the perception of the human mind resolve
themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call
Impressions and Ideas.” (T 1.1.1.1; SBN 1)
Impressions are interpreted as sensations and emotions, whilst ideas are found
within our mental faculties, such as memory and the imagination. Following
this, both our impressions and ideas are frequently presented as complex (made
up of parts), but can be reduced to their simple components (or atoms). For
instance, the complex impression of an apple can be split into simple parts, such
as colour and taste (T 1.1.1.2; SBN 2). But the colours or tastes themselves
cannot be further divided: to have an impression of a particular shade of red just
is to have an impression of a distinct shade of red. Similarly, whilst our idea of a
banana can be split into parts, the idea of a particular shade of ‘yellow’ cannot
be separated into other shades of ‘yellow’. Newman develops Hume’s
commitment to our knowledge being grounded in atomistic phenomenalism by
placing emphasis on the role of the ‘Copy Principle’, a principle which states
that our ideas are copies of some first impression. However, it is not simply that
all our ideas are exact copies of impressions; Hume recognises that we have
complex ideas of things we never did see (such as a unicorn). It is more the case
that these ideas can be split into simpler ideas which are ultimately traceable
back to some impressions (for instance, the idea of a unicorn can be split into
that of a horse and a horn):
“That all our simple ideas, in their first appearance
are dervi’d from simple impressions, which are
correspondent to them, and which they exactly
represent.” (T 1.1.1.7; SBN 4)
It is this notion — all our ideas can be split into simple ideas, which are then
traceable back to some simple impressions — that commits Hume to the
conception of our experience or reality as being constructed from simple
(atomistic) parts. It follows that there can no longer be a real distinction between
actual parts and potential parts in terms of our ideas of extension: whatever is
even potentially divisible will be ultimately made up of actual atomic parts. As
soon as this commitment to atomic parts is recognised, (H1) — what is infinitely
12
Newman, “Hume on Space and Geometry,” 8.
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
12
divisible consists in an infinite number of parts — becomes obvious. As
Newman writes:
“Division of any idea by the imagination cannot be other than the
analysis or separation of a complex idea into its component simple
ideas. To conceive of such division as being infinite would require
a preconception of an actual infinity of simple ideas.”13
That is to say, an atomistic conception of our ideas of reality requires that the
idea of something being infinitely divisible is the idea of the infinite number of
its parts. As such, the only notion of infinity that Hume recognises is that of an
actual infinity (consisting in an infinite number of parts), as oppose to potential
infinity (being potentially divisible but not constituted by an infinite number of
parts). Similarly, as Newman points out, the distinction between aliquot parts
and proportional parts does in fact become “frivolous”. Whether I choose to
divide my cake into equal parts or parts of sub-division, I cannot divide it into
parts that are less than the atoms; and so, the smallest possible part of subdivision will be equal to the smallest possible part of equal division.14 Following
the atomistic conception of our experience of reality, the Addition argument
(H3) now has relevance: it is necessary that if extension is the array of atoms,
then their continuous addition, in infinitum, can only result in an infinite
extension. Thus, the conclusion (H4) is restored — a finite extension cannot be
infinitely divisible.
Whilst it is evident that Hume does commit himself to a phenomenologically
atomistic view, invoking this background assumption in arguments against
infinite divisibility presupposes the conclusion. Atomism is already committed
to the notion that whatever is extended is made up of simple first parts, and so
(as commentators have highlighted) to use this premise to establish extension as
finitely divisible would be ‘entirely question-begging’.15 Proponents of infinite
divisibility defend the existence of a spatial continuity and so to argue with an
atomistic conception already in mind is to have assumed the supposition up for
debate. Another criticism that Newman’s account overlooks, is a concern raised
by Franklin (and Fogelin) “[the] most controversial step is that from the
impossibility of infinitely dividing our ideas of space and time, to the
impossibility of infinitely dividing space and time themselves.”16 Holden
13
Newman, “Hume on Space and Geometry,” 8.
Ibid., 8-9.
15
Holden, “Infinite Divisibility and Actual Parts,” 16-17.
16
James Franklin, “Achievements and Fallacies in Hume’s Account of Infinite
Divisibility”, Hume Studies, 20, (April, 1994): 91. Also see Robert Fogelin,
“Hume and Berkeley on the Proofs of Infinite Divisibility”, 52-56. Franklin’s
discussion is inspired directly from Fogelin’s observation; although, Franklin is
slightly more sympathetic in his views in attributing to Hume a ‘bottom-up’
perception of reality, similar to Newman. Franklin maintains, however, that if
14
13
ALICE WRIGHT
proposes that these criticisms can be avoided if we consider Hume’s arguments
in the context of a metaphysical ‘actual parts’ theory. He offers insightful
historical reasons along with textual evidence to support this claim; thus,
perhaps Hume’s position should be analysed with an ‘actual parts’ premise in
mind.
Actual Parts Theory:
In brief, an actual parts theory boils down to the principle that the existence of
parts are ontologically prior to the existence of the whole. The distinguishing
difference between the actual parts and the potential parts doctrine is outlined by
Holden:
“[In the actual parts theory] parts are already embedded in the
architecture of the whole: division merely separates or unveils
them, it does not create them anew.”17
“[In the potential parts theory] parts of a given continuant (such as
a body) are not distinct existents prior to their being actualized by
a positive operation of division. Rather division creates these parts
anew.”18
Holden notes that scientists of the Enlightenment, such as Samuel Clarke, as
well as philosophers, such as Thomas Reid, endorsed the actual parts theory
regarding matter. In fact, Holden gives an extensive list of new philosophers of
the period who ‘ratify this [actual parts] account of material body’:
“[I]ncluding, for instance, Descartes and the Cartesians, Walter
Charleton, Isaac Barrow, Ralph Cudworth, Pierre Bayle, Leibniz,
and Newton and the Newtonians.”19
Aside from the compelling historical reasons to think that Hume held an actual
parts theory, there are also many hints towards this in his writings (though he
never explicitly states his commitment to the doctrine). Hume’s famous
Separability Principle, “What consists of parts is distinguishable into them, and
what is distinguishable is separable” (T 1.2.1.3; SBN 27) is strongly inline with:
‘division merely unveils’. If something consists in distinct parts, the parts will be
distinguishable, and so can be separated in the imagination. Furthermore, the
mental separation into parts does not ‘creates parts anew’, but simply
Hume had not been blinded by his ‘a priori atomism’, he would have seen the
possibility of infinite divisibility. Franklin also briefly suggests that Hume’s
atomistic perception is the cause for several other major problems, such as
personal identity.
17
Holden, “Infinite Divisibility of Actual Parts,” 7.
18
Ibid., 9-10.
19
Ibid., 8-9.
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
14
distinguishes what was already distinct. Donald Baxter also notes that (H1) —
whatever is infinitely divisible consists in an infinite number of parts — rests on
the same ‘Divisibility Assumption’ that “anything divisible, actually (not just
potentially) has parts.”20
Whilst Holden notes that some of the arguments for actual parts offered by
philosophers of the era are somewhat unimpressive, Baxter gives a defense of
the ‘Divisibility Assumption’, inspired by Bayle. The argument concerns the
indivisibility of an Epicurean Atom or physical point (something physically
extended but indivisible): “I can deny concerning the right side [of an atom]
what I affirm about the left side. These two sides are not in the same place.”21
For example, if the left side of atom b touches atom a, and the right side of atom
b touches atom c, then the left side of b must actually differ from the right side:
for one side touches one thing whilst the other does not. If the two sides actually
differ, then they cannot be identical and must be numerically distinct. Since the
two parts are actually distinct, they must actually be existent in the whole. Thus,
“anything divisible, actually (not just potentially) has parts.”
Baxter
emphasises that numerical distinction does not constitute actual division.22 A
whole can have numerically distinct parts without a process of division actually
taking place. This is in line with the main requirement of an actual parts theory:
division ‘unveils parts’ that already constitute the whole, it does not require they
are thereby already divided.23
Further evidence for Hume’s commitment to the actual parts doctrine is his use
of the Malezieu argument, which he notes as “very strong and beautiful”:
“‘Tis evident, that existence in itself belongs only to
unity, and is never applicable to number, but on
account of the unites, of which the number is
compos’d. Twenty men may be said to exist; but ‘tis
only because one, two, three, four, &c. are existent;
and if you deny the existence of the latter, that of
the former falls short.” (T 1.2.2.3; SBN 30)
20
Donald Baxter, “Moments and durations,” in Hume’s Difficulty: Time and
Identity in the Treatise, (New York: Routledge, 2008): 23.
21
Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections, trans. Richard H.
Popkin, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991), 360, Zeno of Elea, Remark G
22
Baxter, “Moments and durations,” 23-24.
23
Baxter shows that Flew’s objections to Hume’s assumption — whatever is
infinitely divisible has an infinite number of parts — only holds if one confuses
numerically distinct parts with being divided into parts or needing a process of
division. Baxter argues that the point of Hume’s ‘Divisibility Assumption’ is
that undivided parts are numerically distinct, and therefore actual.
15
ALICE WRIGHT
That is to say, if I consider a real quantity of extension, for example 10 meters,
it would be absurd to suppose that 10 meters exists and deny the existence of
each meter. Following this, if we consider any finite extension to always be
made up of further parts (proportionally divisible all the way down), then there
cannot be any fundamental parts (or units) to constitute existence of the whole.
The worry is also found concerning the ontological regress for actual parts (the
existence of actual parts always being further dependent on subparts). An actual
parts theorist must invoke “an ultimate bedrock”24 upon which the existence of
the whole depends. Whilst there are metaphysical theories that endorse both
actual parts and infinite divisibility, such as Gunk Theory, an argument inspired
by the worry of ontological regress does not presuppose a theory of simple parts,
but rather motivates it.25 This marks the distinction between Holden and
Newman’s position: Newman relies on already having an atomistic conception
of reality to support Hume’s arguments against infinite divisibility. The
Malezieu argument is a demonstration of Hume arguing from an actual parts
thesis to a simple parts thesis. As such, Hume does not begin with his
conclusion, but rather (according to Holden) establishes it from a commonly
held metaphysical assumption of his era.26
Holden goes further, however, and argues that, unlike atomistic phenomenalism,
an actual parts doctrine allows for the denial of infinite divisibility concerning,
not only our experience of extension, but also the metaphysical. If the
underlying assumption in Hume’s argument is a metaphysical actual parts
theory, then it will be applicable to physical quantities. Holden maintains that
Hume’s argument “expressly applies not only to the internal realm of ideas, but
also to extended things out there in the real world.”27 This assumes ‘actual parts’
that make up physical extension are directly applicable to the arguments which
utilise the notion of indivisibility. However, ‘Humean points’ are only ever
characterised in phenomenological terms, so it is unclear whether Hume intends
for there to be a direct parallel within his metaphysics. If the characterisation of
indivisible parts is not carefully articulated, one becomes dangerously close to
thinking Hume holds a theory of physical pointillism.28 The following section
will engage with objections to various characterisations of indivisible parts and
the responses offered in the Treatise, particularly in Section IV, ‘Objections
Answer’d’.
24
Holden, “Infinite Divisibility and Actual Parts,” 12.
Given that the topic of this paper is concerned with motivating Hume’s theory,
I will not explore contemporary arguments for or against the ontological regress
of actual parts. The importance of the Malezieu argument is that it shows Hume
was aware of the concern about an ontological regress and used this to motivate
his introduction of indivisible parts.
26
Holden, “Infinite Divisibility and Actual Parts,” 15-17.
27
Ibid., 17.
28
De Pierris, “Hume on space, geometry, and diagrammatic reasoning,” 177.
25
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
16
Characterising the ‘Humean Point’:
In what way does Hume characterise indivisible parts, such that they give rise to
the quality of extension but can be utilised in his argument against infinite
divisibility? Hume assess two options — mathematical and physical points —
before offering his own. A common objection to mathematical points forming an
extension is that a mathematical point lacks any magnitude. That is, it doesn’t
matter how many points of zero magnitude you add together, you will never get
a magnitude greater than zero:
“[T]he system of mathematical points is absurd; and
that system is absurd, because a mathematical point
is a non-entity, and consequently can never by its
conjunction with others form a real existence.” (T
1.2.4.3; SBN 40)
Intuitively, one might think that if indivisible parts are to constitute a real
extension, then each part must have, at least to some degree, physical extension;
but in the same section Hume responds:
“A real extension, such as a physical point is suppos’d
to be, can never exist without parts, different from each
other; and where objects are different, they are
distinguishable and separable by the imagination.” (T
1.2.4.3; SBN 40)
The passage is reminiscent of Baxter’s argument inspired by Bayle regarding
Epicurean atoms (referenced in an earlier section of this paper) and clearly
demonstrates Hume rejecting physical points to defend his position. The
question then remains, in what way can Hume characterise indivisible parts to
refute the doctrine of infinite divisibility?
“[Objections to indivisible parts of extension]
wou’d be perfectly decisive, were there no medium
betwixt the infinite divisibility of matter, and the
non-entity of mathematical points. But there is
evidently a medium, viz. the bestowing of colour or
solidity on these points.” (T 1.2.4.3.; SBN 40)
Falkenstein has carefully articulated how the bestowing of colour and solidity on
mathematical points gives rise to the quality of extension:
“A pointal impression set beside another pointal impression does
not add its volume to the volume of the first pointal impression; it
rather marks a location immediately outside of the location of the
17
ALICE WRIGHT
first pointal impression, thus marking an interval consisting of two
adjacent locations.”29
As such, we should interpret ‘Humean points’ as giving rise to the quality of
extension by the manner in which they appear, or the “manner of disposition”
(T 1.2.3.5; SBN 34).30 Extension is thus expressed by an ‘immediately-adjacentto’ relation, rather than ‘a summation of parts’.31 The characterisation allows for
the points to retain their ‘extensionless’ quality without being a “non-entity”.
Thus, whilst the points are unextended, the manner of appearance of their
infinite addition could only give rise to the quality of an infinite extension. The
argument is that expressed in (H3): “When I stop in the addition of parts, the
idea of extension ceases to augment; and were I to carry on the addition in
infinitum, I clearly perceive, that the idea of extension must also become
infinite.”
Whilst Holden maintains that Hume’s argument is a priori, resting on an actual
parts theory,32 Falkenstein rightly underscores its empirical nature, thus making
it a posteriori. The characterisation of indivisible parts with regards to Hume’s
denial of infinite divisibility is undeniably phenomenological. Thus Holden’s
use of actual parts in defending Hume should be strictly limited to
phenomenology, similar to Newman’s atomistic phenomenalism. However, we
now find ourselves faced once again with the concern raised by Fogelin, “So
much for our ideas of space and time; how about space and time themselves?
Are they infinitely divisible?”33 In the final section I will turn to the most serious
criticism of Hume’s theory.
Radically Empiricist or Uncharacteristically Rationalist?
The most troubling passage in Hume’s discussion of the infinite divisibility of
extension is found at the beginning of the section. The claim is thus:
29
Lorne Falkenstein, “Space and Time”, in The Blackwell Guide to Hume’s
Treatise, ed. Saul Traiger (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006): 62.
30
For an extensive account on the role of the “manner of disposition” regarding
our abstract ideas of space and time, see Lorne Falkenstein, “Hume on Manners
of Disposition and the Ideas of Space and Time,” Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie, 79, (July, 2009): 179-201. Falkenstein deals with a frequent
criticism that Hume’s use of “manner of disposition” violates the Copy Principle
(that all our ideas are traceable back to some initial impression). Falkenstein
argues that Hume’s account of the origin of our ideas of space and time lead to
nothing more than an ‘amendment’ in the principle which in no way
compromises his empiricism.
31
Falkenstein, “Space and Time,” 63.
32
Holden, “Infinite Divisibility and Actual Parts”, 17.
33
Fogelin, “Hume and Berkeley on the Proofs of Infinite Divisibility,” 53.
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
18
“[O]ur ideas are adequate representations of the
most minute parts of extension; and thro’ whatever
divisions and sub-divisions we may suppose these
parts to be arriv’d at, they can never become inferior
to some ideas, which we form. The plain
consequence is, that whatever appears impossible
and contradictory upon the comparison of ideas,
must be really impossible and contradictory without
any further excuse or evasion.” (T 1.2.2.1; SBN 29)
The claim that the results of our adequate ideas of extension guarantees certain
things about the nature of extension itself has been heavily criticised.34 There are
two concerns presented by Fogelin that this paper will address:
1. The resuscitation of this traditional argument against infinite
divisibility is unnecessary since Hume could have argued
directly that we have an adequate idea of extension as
containing only finitely many minimal parts, and therefore
extension itself has only finitely many minimal parts.35
2. [Hume needs to defend] the claim that we have an adequate
idea of the ultimate parts of extension and also [give] a
defense of the general rationalist principle that adequate
ideas of objects are eo ipso true of them.36
(1) is a misunderstanding about the phenomenology of space, as well as the
process of Hume’s argument. Firstly, one cannot begin with an adequate idea of
‘extension containing finitely many minimal parts’, because our phenomenology
of space simply doesn’t present it. Space does not appear discrete; space appears
continuous. It is the “confounding” of minima sensibilia (pointal impressions)
that gives rise to the idea of extension (as opposed to extension appearing as a
discretely ordered set).37 However, we do find indivisible minimal parts at the
34
Fogelin (1988), Franklin (1994), Falkenstein (2006), and Frasca-Spada (1998)
all make acknowledgement to this problematic passage, Fogelin being by far the
most critical, and Frasca-Spada the most sympathetic to Hume’s investigation
(see Works Cited).
35
Fogelin. 54.
36
Ibid.
37
See Graciela De Pierris (2012) for an insightful discussion into Hume’s
contribution towards understanding the appearance of a spatial continuum. De
Pierris argues Hume’s treatment of geometry shows him insightfully working
within the limits of empiricisms to show that we can never attain complete
certainty of the measurements of continuous quantities, but at most of discrete
quantities.
19
ALICE WRIGHT
end of a diminution of extension. The famous example Hume provides is the ink
dot experiment:
“Put a spot of ink upon paper, fix your eye upon that
spot, and retire to such a distance, that at last you
lose sight of it; ‘tis plain, that the moment before it
vanish’d the image or impression was perfectly
indivisible.”; “encreas’d [the dot] to such a degree
as to be really extended, ‘tis difficult for the
imagination to break it into its component parts,
because of the uneasiness it finds in the conception
of such a minute object as a single point.” (T
1.2.1.4, 1.2.4.7; SBN 27, 42)
As such, we cannot divide our idea of extension into finitely many minimal
parts, but rather only diminish it into a single minimal part at the end of a
temporal succession.38 The experiment highlights the empirical reliance on
phenomenologically given data in determining the adequacy of ideas. This hints
towards an answer for (2): why should Hume assume that the disposition of our
ideas tells us anything about the disposition of the real parts of extension?
To answer (2), I would like to draw on a view expressed by De Pierris in her
examination of Hume’s treatment of geometry39 — that Hume is working within
an epistemological framework established by phenomenology. In this sense,
Hume is not at all being uncharacteristically rationalist, but radically empiricist
in his approach. Not only is the ink dot experiment an indication of this, but the
characterisation of the ‘Humean point‘ — “endow’d with colour and solidity”
— is specifically phenomenological. Further evidence to support Hume’s
specific use of pointal impressions in his denial of infinite divisibility is found in
his later work An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:
“Whatever disputes there may be about
mathematical points, we must allow that there are
physical points; that is, parts of extension, which
cannot be divided or lessened, either by the eye or
the imagination. These images, then, which are
present to the fancy or senses, are absolutely
indivisible, and consequently must be allowed by
mathematicians to be infinitely less than any real
part of extension; and yet nothing appears more
certain to reasons, than that an infinite number of
them composes an infinite extension.” (Endnote
[O], EUH 156; SBN 131)
38
39
De Pierris, “Hume on space, geometry, and diagrammatic reasoning,” 172-4.
Ibid., 169-189.
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
20
The passage above may offer a small amount of confusion with Hume’s use of
‘physical points’. But it is clear that this refers to what is “present to the fancy or
senses” and “cannot be divided or lessened, either by the eye or the imagination”
— that is, a perceptual point (something with colour or solidity) that cannot be
divided either by the imagination or with regards to the senses (for example, the
ink dot). Thus, Hume is radically (or naively)40 empirically reliant on
phenomenologically given data in his argument. Another clarifying point can be
made by taking note of Hume’s description of our perceptual points as
“infinitely less than any real part of extension”, rather than adequate
representations. This is crucial to realising that Hume does not intend for our
phenomenological experience of points to directly characterise indivisible
geometric points. De Pierris notes, that in theory it would actually be impossible
as pointal impressions are literally unextended, and thus have no geometric
location.41 It is more the case that Hume is working within an epistemic
framework that empirically determines which metaphysical doctrines we ought
to believe, based around the possibilities with regards to phenomenology. The
claim is reminiscent to Hume’s Conceivability Principle:
“Whatever the mind clearly conceives includes the
idea of possible existence, or in other words, that
nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible.” (T
1.2.2.8; SBN 32)
If we allow Hume to be working within an epistemological framework
established by these observations, we can now see why Hume thinks that the
doctrine of infinite divisibility is absurd:
(1) Although space appears continuous, whenever we phenomenologically
divide an extension we always reach an indivisible point.
(2) An indivisible point lacks any parts and so must always be less than any
real part of extension (something with geometric location).
(3) The continuous addition of indivisible points always results in an infinite
extension.
Premises (1-3) establish the epistemological framework based on empirical
observations in our phenomenology. Having established the framework, several
consequences follow when we try to derive the doctrine of infinite divisibility:
(4) Infinitely dividing a finite extension results in an infinite number of real
parts of extension.
40
Willard Van Orman Quine, “1946 Lectures on David Hume’s philosophy,”
Eighteenth-Century Thought, 1, (2003): 171-254
41
De Pierris, “Hume on space, geometry, and diagrammatic reasoning,” 178.
21
ALICE WRIGHT
(5) Given (2), an infinite number of real parts of extension cannot be less than
(6)
an infinite number of indivisible points.
Given (3-5) an infinite number of real parts of a finite extension must result
in an infinite extension, which is a contradiction.
Having arrived at a contradiction, it is clear to see why Hume thinks the doctrine
of infinite divisibility is absurd. As such, Hume is not denying the impossibility
of infinite divisibility based on a rationalistic conception of the adequacy of our
ideas, but is heavily reliant on empirical data, specifically, phenomenological
sensory images. Hume’s argument appears most insightful when analysed within
its epistemological framework: the metaphysical doctrine of infinite divisibility
is entirely at odds with our experience of space and time. Thus, the better way
(for Hume, at least) to develop our understanding of space and time is with a
metaphysical theory consistent with our experience. As many sympathetic
commentators have noted, Hume shows we are not metaphysically or
epistemically required to accept the doctrine of infinite divisibility; I push this
argument further, however, and state that Hume demonstrates we simply cannot
derive the doctrine of infinite divisibility from our ordinary experience of space
and time.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I have argued that both Newman and Holden’s interpretations of
Hume deal with the traditional mathematical objections. Emphasis is placed in
the right areas by introducing an atomistic conception of reality and an actual
parts theory. However, Newman’s account suggests Hume presupposes an
atomistic conception (as opposed to establishing the premises empirically) and
thus assumes the supposition up for debate. Holden takes Hume to have an a
priori conception of indivisible parts developed from prior metaphysical
assumptions, and consequently overlooks the uniquely phenomenological
characterisation of the ‘Humean point’. It is the subtle use of the
phenomenological nature of the ‘Humean point’ within Hume’s epistemic
framework that underpins his argument against infinite divisibility. As such,
Hume should not be read as making any rationalist leaps concerning the
adequacy of ideas and real extension. Instead, Hume should be read as working
within an epistemological framework to determine which metaphysical doctrines
we ought to believe, given the empirical observations of our phenomenology.
The epistemic framework itself is an indication of the nature of Hume’s
arguments: he is not making a mathematical objection to infinite divisibility, he
is simply trying to reconcile human understanding of space and time with our
experience of space and time. It just so happens that the consequence of this is
the denial of infinite divisibility.
UNDERSTANDING THE‘HUMEAN POINT’
22
Works Cited
Baxter, Donald. “Moments and duration.” In Hume’s Difficulty: Time and Space
in the Treatise, 17-29, New York: Routledge, 2008.
Broad, Charles. “Hume’s Doctrine of Space.” Proceedings of the British
Academy 47 (1961): 161-76.
De Pierris, Graciela. “Hume on space, geometry, and diagrammatic reasoning.”
Synthese 186 (2012): 169-189.
Falkenstein, Lorne. “Space and Time.” In The Blackwell Guide to Hume’s
Treatise, edited by Saul Traiger, 59-76. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing,
2006.
“Hume on Manners of Disposition and the Ideas of Space and Time.”
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 79 (2009): 179-201.
Flew, Anthony. “Infinite Divisibility in Hume’s Treatise.” In Hume: A ReEvaluation, edited by Donald W. Livingston and James T. King, 25769. New York: Fordham University Press, 1976.
Fogelin, Robert. “Hume and Berkeley on the Proofs of Infinite Divisibility.” The
Philosophical Review 97 (1988): 47-60.
Franklin, James. “Achievements and Fallacies in Hume’s Account of Infinite
Divisibility.” Hume Studies 20 (1994): 85-102.
Frasca-Spada, Marina. Space and the Self in Hume’s Treatise. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988.
“Reality and the coloured points in Hume’s Treatise.” (1998). British
Journal of the History of Philosophy 5:2 (2008): 297-319. doi:
10.1080/09608789708570968
Holden, Thomas. “Infinite Divisibility and Actual Parts in Hume’s Treatise.”
Hume Studies 28 (2002): 3-26.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter
Millican. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Jacquette, Dale. “Infinite Divisibility in Hume’s First Enquiry.” Hume Studies
20 (1994): 219-240.
David Hume’s Critique of Infinity. Lieden: Brill, 2001.
Newman, Rosemary. “Hume on Space and Geometry.” Hume Studies 7 (1981):
1-31.
Quine, W.V. 1946 Lectures on David Hume's Philosophy. Eighteenth-Century
Thought (2003), /, 171- 254.
23
ALICE WRIGHT
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
Philosophical and Theological
Problems of Religious Language
Joshua Pitkoff
Princeton University
Introduction
“How can one designate by a name
That which is greater than all?”1
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook
“I will tell of your glory though I have not seen you,
Imagine and describe you, though I have not known you.”2
Song of Glory, from the Sabbath liturgy
“May your glorious name be blessed;
Exalted though it is above every blessing and praise.”3
Nehemiah 9:5
1
Kook, Abraham Isaac Kook, "I am filled with love for God" 373.
Sacks, The Koren Siddur, 570.
3
JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, 1875.
2
24
25
JOSHUA PITKOFF
These religious sources highlight a philosophical question that lies at
the intersection of theology and analytic philosophy: the problem of religious
language. In reverse chronological order, the above sources from the Jewish
tradition span centuries—ranging from the early 20th century to the composition
of the Hebrew Bible—which only emphasizes the elusive challenges they pose.
From them, we can distill two unique problems, both of which can be
characterized as addressing the topic of religious language. The first two sources
raise an issue that we can clarify in the terms of analytic philosophy: when using
the word “God,” what could we possibly be referring to? What is the feature of
reality that this word is depicting? These questions are, after all, the natural
outgrowth of a logical empiricist approach to meaning, which emphasizes the
importance of reference to observable phenomena. Predictably, this renders our
talk of God, the paradigmatic unobservable entity, especially problematic—and
represents an opportunity to apply the contemporary tools of analytic philosophy
to an age-old religious question, as found in the Song of Glory and poetry of
Rabbi Kook. A second problem, as captured in the quotation from Nehemiah, is
the more religiously oriented worry of inappropriately speaking about God in
our limited human language. I divide these two concerns into the philosopher’s
and the theologian’s problem of religious language:
A. Philosopher’s problem: Does religious language depict reality, and
how can our words refer to these non-observable phenomena?
B. Theologian’s problem: How is it acceptable for man to talk about
an unlimited God in our limited language?
This paper aims to address both versions of the problem of religious
language—predominantly through the lens of the Jewish tradition with which I
am most familiar. I do, however, believe that it can remain useful and relevant
as applied to analogous problems in other faiths, and I have kept my language
neutral for that reason. In Section II, I present the solution of philosopher Janet
Soskice in her book, Metaphor and Religious Language, which takes a realist
approach to solving the issues of reality-depiction and reference. She does not,
however, address the practical functions that religious language often fulfills,
and Sections III and IV are an attempt to move beyond Soskice’s account to
capture and survey these non-reality-depicting functions. After outlining the
theologian’s problem in more detail in Section V, I explore the possibility that
we can extrapolate Soskice’s solution to answer the theologian’s problem as
well. To do this, in Section VI, I examine an argument by Rabbi Yitzchak
Hutner that employs methods similar to Soskice in addressing the problem, but
ultimately fails to adequately solve it. Finally, in Section VII, I reexamine the
theologian’s problem and explain the assumptions I take to underlie it, arguing
that it can be reframed to reflect an opportunity for enhancing and promoting
religious commitment.
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
II
26
Soskice’s account of religious language
Professor Janet Martin Soskice, faculty of theology and philosophy at
Cambridge, provides a solution to the problem in her book, Metaphor and
Religious Language, by appealing to an account of metaphor. This theory of
critical realism, as she calls it, can be summarized by the claim that religious
language should be considered like metaphors and scientific models. Both
purport to be reality depicting in some sense, but also not exhaustively
descriptive.
I will begin specifically with the latter half of the book, where Soskice
provides an account of scientific models. She focuses specifically on
paramorphic models, in which the subject differs from its source; for example,
the billiard ball model for gas molecules.4 Soskice argues that these, as opposed
to homeomorphic models like a model train or home, more often concern the
theoretical scientist. In this capacity, paramorphic models serve to illustrate
features of a theory that remain elusive by “suggest[ing] candidates for
similarity” between the model and the theory.5 Similarly, the billiard ball model
depicts the reality (since rejected) that atoms are solid, indestructible units.
Religious metaphors function similarly to these scientific models. The
billiard ball model can be both reality depicting and not exhaustively descriptive
because no scientist would claim that gas particles are literally billiard balls with
colors and numbers. Similarly, the religious metaphor, “God is our father,” both
purports to communicate some features of reality—God is our guardian, keeps
us safe, provides us with moral direction, etc.—but is not exhaustive in
describing all that God is. Understood as such, religious language can
successfully depict reality while not purporting to be exhaustive.
Soskice raises the objection to this comparison that the models of
science are meant to explain certain phenomena, but the models of religion are
only affective. That is, we can understand how it is that the billiard ball model is
meant to convey the properties of atoms—functioning in an explanatory
capacity—but the use of religious models might not be similarly descriptive.
Instead, perhaps they are meant to elicit certain emotions. Soskice contends,
however, that the dichotomy between explanatory and affective is false. While
religious models certainly function in an affective capacity, it is only secondary
to the model’s cognitive, explanatory function. Without any explanatory
capacity, there can be no paramorphic model, and if we are to assert that
religious models are, in fact, models, they must draw an explanatory connection
between the model’s subject and source.6
Soskice’s second task, after establishing that religious models can be
understood as explanatory in light of scientific models, is to account for a theory
of reference: “If we admit that Christians handle their models as though they are
explanatory, we seem obliged to provide an explanation of how the terms of our
Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 102.
Ibid., 103.
6
Ibid., 108–109.
4
5
27
JOSHUA PITKOFF
model refer, and, in view, of the precarious and tentative nature of anything we
say about God, this problem of reference seems great indeed.”7 While there are
several frameworks in which one can couch the discussion of religious
language,8 Soskice chooses to pursue a realist framework. (Many would, after
all, consider this to be the most interesting to discuss, as it poses the biggest
challenge.) Specifically, she advocates for a position of ‘critical realism’: the
models are reality depicting without referring to observable terms. Her
challenge, though, is to explain how this is possible. There is clearly a tension
between her commitment to statements about God depicting reality and the
obvious fact that God is unobservable. This tension highlights the problem of
reference. How could a word like “God,” if truly reality depicting, successfully
point to an unobservable entity?
Soskice presents the argument of Saul Kripke for proper name
reference, using the specific example of Christopher Columbus. As ordinary
language users, we not only successfully refer to Columbus despite having never
met him, but also when using a false identifier (“the man who discovered
America”). As such, we see that our ability to refer to a subject is neither
dependent on the truth of the sentence itself, nor our own direct observation of
it. Instead, Kripke argues that our successfully referring to Columbus depends
on being members of a linguistic community in which the name is passed down
from user to user. That is, someone initially referred to Columbus directly—a
“baptism” of the word—and then was able to pass it down in a chain of
historical usage. From this account of proper names, we can extrapolate to
explain the possibility of reference in religious language. The philosophical
work done by Kripke’s account for religious metaphor is twofold. First, we can
now dissociate reference from description; terminology is able to successfully
refer to reality without necessarily providing a correct descriptive account.
Second, we can successfully refer to God, like Columbus, without a personal
experience of direct observation.9
If our theoretical terminology can successfully refer to non-observable
entities when initially baptized and then passed down a historical chain of usage,
in the religious context, we must confront the problem of locating this initial
baptism. While successfully referring does not depend on personal observation,
there must have been some initial experience of the term’s referent in relation to
us. But must that have been an observable experience of God? That appears too
high a barrier, as we successfully refer to many unobservable phenomena.
Soskice instead notes that this initial experience need not have been “direct
ostension”; rather, she gives the example, “whatever made the needle jump is
electricity.”10 Therefore, just as one could have initially referred to electricity
without directly observing it, but by observing a measured effect of it, Soskice
claims that it suffices for the referent to have been in causal relation to us.
7
Ibid., 117.
Ibid., 118–122.
9
Ibid., 127–129.
10
Ibid., 137.
8
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
28
As such, the ability to successfully refer to God depends on our being
causally related to Him. Especially given the centrality of religious experience to
the religious individual, it appears possible to ground such a referent in religious
experience: “God is that which Moses experienced as speaking to him on Mount
Sinai.”11 However, there are obvious problems with grounding the initial
baptism of our referring terminology in the personal experience of an individual.
The first is that he or she may be mistaken and hallucinating god. Second, the
experiences are not replicable, as they would be in scientific models—the needle
moving with electricity, for example—which exacerbates the risk of relying on
the experience of one individual.12 These problems are by no means fatal,
however, so long as the religious believers admit to their own fallibility.
Additionally, in the (unlikely) event that the religious experience functioning as
such a baptism is proven to be demonstratively false, religious individuals must
be ready to abandon their theism.13
I find that Soskice’s account of the ability of religious language to both
non-exhaustively depict reality and successfully refer is quite compelling and
goes a large part of the way towards solving the philosopher’s problem. As such,
instead of focusing on micro-level criticisms—for which there is certainly a
place—I will take this opportunity to further the conversation by attempting to
extend her account in two ways. First, I will explore the practical functions of
religious language, which will occupy the paper for the next two sections.
Second, I will attempt to extend her account to answering the theologian’s
problem as well, which will occupy the remainder of the paper.
III
Practical functions of religious language
What exactly do I mean by ‘practical’ functions of language? My goal
in this section is to answer this question by providing an example that
demonstrates these functions in the context of religious language. Earlier, I
noted that Soskice acknowledges certain affective functions that religious
language fulfills, but she argues that they are secondary to the primary function
of description. I disagree.
When thinking about our use of language, there are many times when
our words are doing something besides just describing reality. Clear examples of
this include our making promises or ascribing a name to something.14 When
considering religious language specifically, then, it is important to consider
these other functions as well.
But how do we know that religious language has these practical
functions in the first place? I believe that our best indication lies in the fact that
11
Ibid., 138.
Ibid.
13
Ibid., 140.
14
See Austin, How to Do Things with Words. and Searle, “How Performatives
Work.”
12
29
JOSHUA PITKOFF
contradictions in certain kinds of religious belief are considered possible, and
arguably encouraged. If religious language were to be considered entirely
realist—or critically realist, as Soskice would have it—and one is faced with
contradicting statements, one of those statements would be false. However, as
the following example illustrates, there are religious statements whose meanings
would entail contradiction on a realist account, yet are considered
simultaneously valuable in religious discourse.
Howard Wettstein, in his book The Significance of Religious
Experience, cites the classic Hasidic tale of Rabbi Simcha Bonim of Peshischa
who advocated that one always carry two pieces of paper. On one should be
written a quotation from the Mishnah in Sanhedrin 4:5, “For my sake the world
was created”; on the other is a quotation of Abraham in Genesis 18:27, “I am but
dust and ashes.” Wettstein highlights that R. Simcha makes no attempt to find a
theoretical coherence between these two claims, one depicting man’s
significance and the other his insignificance. Rather, they are meant to be lived
coherently; one should find a practical balance between the two.15
These statements, I will argue, are most sensibly understood as
contradictory. Let’s elaborate a bit further what they mean. The first statement
describes that the world was created for the sake of its speaker. In the second,
the speaker describes that he was created from dust and ashes. One can, of
course, try to read these statements as simply making unrelated points: why
persons were created entails no contradiction with the materials from which they
were created. However, there are two reasons why this seems to be an
irresponsible reading of the text. First is that it ignores the whole context of the
verse from Genesis: “And Abraham answered [the Lord] and said: ‘Behold now,
I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am but dust and ashes.’”16
Paraphrased, this amounts to Abraham’s statement that he has undertaken
arguing with God even though he is but dust and ashes—i.e., despite his being
wholly insignificant. In the context of the verse, then, Abraham’s sentence
would make no sense if he was merely discussing the material from which he
was created, and not using that a way of indicating his insignificance. Second,
and perhaps more importantly, R. Simcha’s exercise (and Wettstein’s read of it)
is pointless if these sentences don’t contradict each other. R. Simcha may have
sacrificed precision for poetic effect in choosing these two statements, but it
seems clear that if pressed, he would agree that ‘I am insignificant’ and ‘I am
significant’ stand in for his two statements just as well.
As merely descriptive sentences, I have argued, these statements
contradict each other. If their descriptive content were primary, we would
understand the story to communicate that one of R. Simcha’s beliefs must be
false. If the religious language only communicated descriptive content, then the
story would have nothing notable to contribute; a rabbi would simply have
believed two things that, properly understood, contradict. However, because the
story does communicate something else, there must be more than purely
15
16
Wettstein, The Significance of Religious Experience, 97.
Genesis 18:27, JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh.
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
30
descriptive content in R. Simcha’s religious language. (For Wettstein, they are
meant to motivate a certain kind of attitude towards life.) The religious
language, then, must include some non-descriptive, practical element.
Additionally, this practical content seems to ‘trump’ the purely descriptive
content, as only the former is critical to the story’s message. Thus, not only does
this example demonstrate that there exists some practical content, but also that
the practical content must be so integral to the language use that it can, in a
certain sense, override the descriptive contradictions.
The primacy of practical content is worth examining further. Let’s
consider the example of a mourner whose visiting friend provides comfort by
saying, “It was God’s will that your father passed away at this time.” The realist
would claim that this sentence is describing God’s will. According to Soskice,
the critical realist would claim that this sentence depicts reality to a certain
extent, but is not an exhaustive description. Soskice even claims that this reality
depicting function is primary, writing that “the model can only be effective
because it is taken as explanatory.”17 Here, I disagree and do not believe the
affective component’s reliance on the explanatory can sufficiently indicate that
the explanatory function is primary. In this specific example, the descriptive
content amounts to something like God’s having a plan, of which this death is a
component. However, the affective component of this sentence is the comfort in
our lack of control over and understanding of tragic events. Of these two, it is
clear that the mourner’s friend is primarily intending to evoke the latter, which is
non-descriptive. Deriving that comfort does depend on the descriptive
component of the sentence—that is, believing that God has a plan—but the
primary intention of this religious language is a practical one.
I want to caution against reading this as a wholesale critique of Soskice
or as advocating for an entirely non-cognitivist view of religious language. The
theological non-cognitivist would claim that, like moral statements for the moral
non-cognitivist, religious statements contain no truth-value and instead serve
another purpose, perhaps fulfilling various affective functions. I want to be
clear, though, that I am still committed to Soskice’s claim that religious
language does depict reality, at least partially. In this section, and the coming
section, I mean to further elaborate what I take to be another set of critical
functions for which religious language is used. I do, however, disagree with
Soskice that reality depiction is the primary function of religious language, as it
seems clear that for many instances of religious language use, the practical, nondescriptive function is primary instead. What, then, are some of these practical
functions that religious language is fulfilling? This brings us to our next task.
IV
Specific practical functions of religious language
While in the previous section I dealt with practical functions of
religious language more generally, I aim here to present specific examples. To
17
Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 109.
31
JOSHUA PITKOFF
be clear, I make no attempt to construct a unified theory for these uses. Instead,
we will survey four non-reality-depicting functions that the language fulfills—
the understanding of which necessitates moving beyond the account Soskice
provides—hoping to begin accumulating the evidence that can later, in further
philosophical work, be integrated to create a more robust philosophical account
of the sort that (and which can complement what) Soskice provides. These four
functions are action guiding, demonstrating a commitment to a worldview,
emotive, and community building.
(1) Action guiding: “God commanded us to keep the Sabbath.”
Because many in the Jewish tradition would claim that the religious
person is characterized by his or her actions, as opposed to beliefs, this practical
function of religious language is extremely significant. Users of religious
language often speak in terms of what God demands from them, and while these
statements may depict reality for them, their primary function is to motivate
certain actions. This is a more expansive category than the mere citing of a
commandment, though. As a rather trite, but telling example, take the popular
bumper sticker, “What would Jesus do?” When faced with a decision, religious
individuals may offer the guidance, “God would prefer X.” Whether or not this
statement has any factual validity, it is clear that its primary function is action
guiding. This function is often present in religiously motivated moral or legal
statements.
Samuel Lebens highlights the importance of this function for the
Jewish tradition in his article, “The Epistemology of Religiosity.” One thesis he
defends is that mere belief does not itself sufficiently capture what Judaism
demands; the religious Jew must instead make-believe. Belief is a stagnant
category—one believes that the world is round and plummeting through space at
dangerously high velocity without this belief affecting one’s daily experience at
all. Religious beliefs cannot be stagnant as such, simply sitting dormant in some
belief box, alongside the belief that smoking causes cancer and during autumn,
leaves change colors. Make-believe, however, is the active engagement with a
belief, or, as Lebens writes, “to make-believe that p is to try and experience the
world, and your place in it, as if p were true.”18 Notably, Lebens is not using
“make-believe” in the same pejorative sense it is often used to describe
dollhouses and action figures. His neutral use of the term is devoid of any
implications of falsehood.
(2) Affirm or demonstrate one’s commitment to a religious way of life: “Thank
God, I’m doing well,” and “Shabbat is starting.”
It is quite common for religious language users to respond to the
question, “How are you?” with the answer, “Thank God.” Or to preface one’s
answer as such: “Thank God, I’m doing well.” It is clear that “I’m doing well”
alone would have sufficed as a complete answer to the question, and our task is
to interpret exactly what extra work the preface of “Thank God” does in such a
18
Lebens, “The Epistemology of Religiosity,” 9.
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
32
response. It’s difficult to locate any real descriptive content in this preface, aside
from that which effectively repeats the sentiment, “I’m doing well.” I would
argue, though, that it demonstrates the speaker’s alignment within a specific
worldview and the attribution of wellness to God. That is, such a person
experiences the world through the lens or framework provided by religion, and
prefacing the answer with “Thank God,” demonstrates just that.
Tamar Ross, in her book Expanding the Palace of Torah, locates this
specifically within the Jewish tradition in the phrase of “Barukh Hashem,”
which literally translates to “Blessed is God,” and is often used synonymously
with “Thank God” as explained above. She notes that “Barukh Hashem” can
also be used to preface that which one may not actually be thankful for: “Barukh
Hashem, my kids are driving me crazy.” Here, the speaker is not necessarily
involved in the act of praising God, but rather “expressing her faith in God’s
management of the world.”19 I would, however, amend Ross’s characterization
here somewhat, as I feel her use of “expressing” is too imprecise. It appears we
have two options in interpreting her analysis: By prefacing with “Barukh
Hashem,” the speaker is (1) expressing the descriptive content of “I believe in
God’s management of the world,” or (2) demonstrating her commitment to the
belief that God orders the world. I believe that in context, it seems much more
likely to be the latter: when saying, “Thank God,” we would be hard pressed to
argue that those words are describing such specific content. Thus, that person
demonstrates a commitment—like in above example of “Thank God, I’m doing
well”—to interpreting life experience through his religious framework.
I’ll move now to the second example: “Shabbat is starting.” Because
Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, begins every Friday afternoon at sunset, the first
thing to note is this sentence’s descriptive component: one is describing a real
world phenomenon, similar to our saying, “The new year is starting” at midnight
on December 31. But consider what else is communicated by these declarations
of time. As would also apply for New Years, saying, “Shabbat is starting”
demonstrates that one’s week is structured by the framework of Shabbat. Just as
people who say, “The weekend is coming” are demonstrating that in their time
structure framework, they accept the dichotomy of weekday and weekend,
religious Jews demonstrate their acceptance that Shabbat, as indicative of their
commitment to a religious lifestyle, is an ordering framework for their week.
In order to better understand exactly what I mean by “religious
worldview” and “religious framework,” we can look at a beautiful, well-known
excerpt of Halakhic Man, a book by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the leading
figure of the American twentieth century modern Orthodox movement:
“If a Jew cognizes, for example, the Sabbath laws and the precepts
convening the sanctity of the day in all their particulars, if he
comprehends, via a profound study and understanding that penetrates to
the very depths, the basic principles of Torah law that take on form and
color within the tractate Shabbat, then he will perceive the sunset of a
19
Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah, 195.
33
JOSHUA PITKOFF
Sabbath eve not only as a natural cosmic phenomenon but as an
unsurprisingly awe-inspiring, sacred, and exalted vision—an eternal
sanctity that is reflected in the setting of the sun. I remember how once,
on the Day of Atonement, I went outside into the synagogue courtyard
with my father [R. Moses Soloveitchik], just before the Ne’ilah service.
It had been a fresh, clear day, one of the fine, almost delicate days of
summer’s end, filled with sunshine and light. Evening was fast
approaching, and an exquisite autumn sun was sinking in the west,
beyond the trees of the cemetery, into a sea of purple and gold. R.
Moses, a halakhic man par excellence, turned to me and said: ‘This
sunset differs from ordinary sunsets for with it forgiveness is bestowed
upon us for our sins’ (the end of the day atones). The Day of
Atonement and the forgiveness of sins merged and blended here with
the splendor and beauty of the world and with the hidden lawfulness of
the order of creation and the whole was transformed into one living,
holy, cosmic phenomenon.”20
The first thing to note is that this excerpt illustrates a “religious
worldview”: perceiving the world’s ordinary phenomena through a filter that
attributes to them religious significance. Secondly, while this passage does not
explicitly address the functions of religious language, I believe that we can
easily abstract from it our worldview-demonstrating function. According to R.
Soloveitchik, the paradigmatic religious worldview necessarily involves
experiencing the religious significance in ordinary phenomena. Thus, when
seeing the sun set on the Day of Atonement, R. Moses elucidates both
components explicitly: the sun setting as an ordinary ‘secular’ phenomenon and
its special religious significance. Similarly, when a religious Jew says, “Shabbat
is starting,” he or she is not merely witnessing the “natural cosmic phenomenon”
of the ordinary setting of the sun on Friday afternoon, but an “eternal sanctity”
through his religious worldview. I would argue that his or her words must also
reflect this dual nature of religious experience, containing both the ordinary
descriptive and the worldview demonstrating function. Seeing as his or her
worldview is fundamentally different from one who merely sees the ordinary
phenomenon, the religious individual’s language functions as a testament to his
alternative worldview.
It is clear that the religious individual’s use of “Shabbat is starting”
varies greatly from the secular individual (or an individual who believes in a
religion other than Judaism) who may, in an entirely different context, say the
same thing. When considering the non-descriptive functions of language, it is
important to recognize their dependence on context. Similarly, “Shabbat is
starting” may also contain an action-guiding component. Because the religious
Jew is prohibited from using electricity on Shabbat, we can imagine a mother
telling her daughter to get off the computer on Friday afternoon by saying,
20
Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, 38.
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
34
“Shabbat is starting.” In this case, we would certainly see its action guiding
function at play.
Two things can be learned from the example of “Shabbat is starting,” in
addition to simply emphasizing the point that religious language can
demonstrate a commitment to a religious worldview. First, as shown in the
above paragraph, non-descriptive functions are not mutually exclusive with
other non-descriptive functions, and can often be employed in tandem with each
other. The second point relates to the descriptive nature of this statement. It is
clear that the religious Jew is attempting to describing some element of reality
when saying, “Shabbat is starting,” just as the average speaker says “Today is
Saturday” to describe a feature of reality. However, it is also clear that even if
the religious Jew would say that a feature of his metaphysical reality changes on
Friday afternoon at sunset, nothing changes for the non-Jew. That is, he or she is
only describing a metaphysical reality unique to the Jewish people. That might
seem at odds with standard notions of metaphysical realism, which don’t depend
on the viewer or speaker. And even more context dependent is the recognition
that Shabbat starts and ends at a different time depending on one’s latitude and
longitude (not to mention time zones). So this degree of ‘metaphysical reality,’
and pinning down exactly what the speaker is claiming to describe, requires
further explanation, but as I have hinted to, I believe this picture will resemble
that of our more general statements describing states of time. For example, New
Years for New Yorkers is three hours before New Years for Californians, but
notably, we still believe that at midnight on December 31, respectively, “The
new year is starting,” is reality depicting for both. From this, we learn that the
descriptive element of “Shabbat is starting,” and similar religious language, does
not necessarily depict an entirely universal reality. Rather, it can be depicting
context-specific or framework-specific reality. Thus, our examples illustrate,
first, the compatibility of multiple practical functions, and second, the context
dependence of ‘reality’ depiction. These are both in addition to the broader point
of this subsection that one practical function of religious language is to
demonstrate commitment to a religious worldview.
(3) Emotive – “God loves you”
A third practical function of religious language is its emotive function,
which aims to arouse certain emotions. For example, the phrase “God loves
you” is clearly meant to arouse an emotional closeness to God, or perhaps a
more covenantal obligation towards God. This is certainly deeply interconnected
with the action-guiding force of religious language, as strong emotions will
often motivate actions, but can also function independently.
It is worth noting how this emotive function differs from the purely
descriptive content of other examples. When saying, “I love God,” one is likely
only describing his internal emotional state. In order for language to have this
emotive function, it must arouse emotion and not merely describe it.
Let’s revisit the statement of Abraham in Genesis 18:27: “I am but dust
and ashes.” As the classic Hasidic tale goes, Rabbi Simcha Bonim wrote this
verse on a piece of paper to keep in his pocket (along with the conflicting verse),
35
JOSHUA PITKOFF
not for its descriptive content per se, but to fulfill a certain purpose. When he
would find himself feeling too haughty, reading this would arouse humility
within him. We again see the importance of context in determining the function
of a sentence, but arousing humility by reading, “I am but dust and ashes,” is an
example of the emotive function of religious language at play.
(4) Community building – “We are God’s people.”
It is clear that a central role played by religion is in the creation of
strong communities. Whether or not we consider it to be religion’s express
purpose or a secondary by-product, the importance of community building in the
religious project cannot be denied. As such, it is also reflected in the use of
religious language. For example, in saying, “We are God’s people,” one is not
only depicting the reality that God has designated mankind (or even a specific
religion) to play a role in the world, but engaging in the very act of building a
community of people who identify with that sentiment. The nature of being
designated special by God is just as significant as the fact of considering oneself
a part of a “people” in the first place.
V
The theologian’s problem
Until now, I have presented Janet’s Soskice’s account of religious
language and its ability to both adequately refer to God and be reality depicting,
at least to a certain degree. I have also argued that, in addition to her account of
reality-depiction in religious language, it is important to account for the varied
practical functions of religious language, four of which were elaborated in the
above section, and which can often be the language’s primary function. Now, I
turn to a second extension beyond Soskice’s account, transitioning to the
theologian’s problem of religious language.
We can see this problem manifest quite explicitly in a passage from the
Talmud. In Tractate Berakhot, what I have called the theologian’s question is
posed by Rabbi Hanina to a man who rambles in his praising of God. His first
three praises, “Great, mighty, and awe-inspiring,” are those that were spoken by
Moses and then codified into the Jewish prayer service, but he continues with
several more descriptors of God. Here is the text in full:
“A certain [reader] went down in the presence of R. Hanina and said,
‘O God, the great, mighty, terrible,21 majestic, powerful, awful, strong,
fearless, sure and honoured.’ He [R. Hanina] waited till he [the man]
had finished, and when he had finished he said to him, ‘Have you
concluded all the praise of your Master? Why do we want all of this?
Even with these three that we do say, had not Moses our master
mentioned them in the Law and had not the Men of the Great
21
The Soncino translation of this Hebrew word, “norah,” is a bit different than
most. I believe “awe-inspiring” is a better approximation than “terrible.”
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
36
Synagogue come and inserted them in the [prayer service], we should
not have been able to mention them, and you say all these and still go
on! It is as if an earthly king had a million denarii of gold, and someone
praised him as possessing silver ones. Would it not be an insult to
him?’”22
There are three important points to consider in this excerpt. The first is
R. Hanina’s statement of the theologian’s problem, albeit a bit sarcastically,
“Have you concluded all the praise of your Master?” It implies, of course, that
there could be no conclusion to the praises of God, and by attempting such a
feat, this man has created the illusion of exhaustiveness. This becomes clear in
the parable given by R. Hanina, which raises the second point to consider. Our
praises are inherently deficient—only able to call “silver” what really is as
precious as gold. To draw the parallel explicitly, this man’s—and by extension,
all of our—praises are more insulting and limiting than they are able to praise.
When we use these descriptors of God, they necessarily fall short of His
greatness (if even that can be said). This leads to the third point, which is that
even those first three descriptors, said in prayer services three times daily,
ordinarily would not be permitted. Because such descriptors are inherently
insufficient for describing God, their use insults Him more than aggrandizes
Him. Thus, we are confronted with the theologian’s problem of religious
language: our speaking about God in limited human language is necessarily
insufficient and thereby insulting.
VI
Applying the metaphorical account to the theologian’s problem
While Soskice does not address the theologian’s problem directly,
perhaps her account of religious language can be extrapolated in order to help
answer this second facet of the problem.23 I turn now to an article by Rabbi
Yitzchak Hutner, a leading rabbi from the twentieth century in Europe and then
America, in his book, Pachad Yitzchak. As we will see, R. Hutner employs a
similar methodology to Soskice in his interpretation of religious language, but
instead focusing (though not explicitly) on the problem stated in Tractate
Berakhot by R. Hanina. Thus we can better evaluate whether the metaphorical
account of religious language can also solve the theologian’s problem.
22
Epstein, Soncino Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakoth: 33b.
To be clear, whether or not her account can be extrapolated to solve the
theologian’s problem will not impact its relevance to the philosopher’s problem.
There is no need, so to say, to reconcile the solutions to each problem. Instead, I
am exploring the possibility that perhaps Soskice’s answer to the philosopher’s
problem can be extrapolated to solve the theologian’s problem as well.
23
37
JOSHUA PITKOFF
In Article 61, R. Hutner begins by discussing our preference for
metaphor over pure descriptors. He cites the Vilna Gaon,24 a massively
influential eighteenth century Eastern European rabbi, who writes that of the two
praises, “elevated” and “presider over heaven,” the limited nature of praise that
is characteristic of the former is absent in the latter. This is because the latter is a
“picture of reality” instead of direct praise. Thus, R. Hutner summarizes the
Vilna Gaon’s position as follows: “When the praise is an explicit description
without a picture, he is establishing a limitation on the praise itself; but if the
praise comes as a picture, it is only a limitation on the picture’s existence—
without the limitation touching the essence of the praise at all.”25 The Vilna
Gaon is clear to differentiate pictorial praise from purely descriptive praise,
noting that pictorial praise is not subject to the limitation that directly affects
descriptive praise. (We will return later to evaluating this claim.)
How, then, are we to understand the direct praises that we use in daily
prayer? R. Hutner raises the Talmud’s discussion and notes that we clearly do
employ direct praise. After all, “Great, mighty and awe-inspiring,” are certainly
not pictures, and therefore are still subject to the problem of insulting God, at
least according to the Vilna Gaon. In the Talmud, R. Hanina seems to say that
because Moses said those three words, we are permitted to use them. But R.
Hutner challenges that regardless of whether Moses applied them or not, the
direct praises are still limited! Why was Moses even permitted to use them? To
provide a tentative answer, he cites the Maharal,26 a sixteenth century rabbi from
Prague. R. Hutner paraphrases, “[Moses] did not have the intention of speaking
praise, but rather to effect the fear of Heaven in Israel with the strength of these
praises.”27 This should sound familiar from our above account of the emotive
function of religious language. The Maharal argues that because Moses was not
praising God with these words, but rather attempting to instill an attitude of fear
into the Israelites, the necessarily limited descriptors were not insulting God. As
such, we are also permitted to use these words in prayer.
R. Hutner digs his heels in once more, arguing that it may even be true
that in Moses’ initial usage, these three descriptors were not meant as praise and
therefore he was permitted in using them. But how can we possibly argue that
their usage now—especially, in the context of the prayer service that is
specifically designated for praise—is not meant to praise?!28 His answer to this
question is quite mysterious and employs some mechanisms of Kabbalisitc
mysticism, but amounts to the following: When Moses uses these three
24
His full name is Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer, but he is known as the
‘Vilna Gaon,’ i.e. the Genius (Gaon) from Vilnius, or by the Hebrew acronym
GR’A (ha’Gaon Rabbeinu Eliyahu).
25
Hutner, Pachad Yitzchak, Pesach: 61:2. All translations from Pachad Yitzchak
are mine.
26
His full name is Judah Loew ben Bezalel, but is known by the Hebrew
acronym MaHaRaL (Moreinu Ha-Rav Loew – our teacher, Rabbi Loew).
27
Hutner, Pachad Yitzchak, Pesach: 61:6.
28
Ibid.
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
38
descriptors, he transforms them into characteristics of the human soul. In effect,
they become signifiers of the Jewish people—literally their “face,”29 as R.
Hutner writes—and as such, when we use them, they are actually functioning as
praise with the permitted status of pictures, as explained by the Vilna Gaon. Just
as saying “presider over Heaven” is considered a picture and therefore
appropriate and not insulting, saying “Great, mighty, and awe-inspiring” is also
considered a picture of these characteristics of the Jewish people and therefore
appropriate and non-insulting.30
We can summarize R. Hutner’s response as incorporating two claims:
(1) Praising through pictures does not insult God through their limitations in the
same way direct praise does, and (2) when Moses uses the descriptors, “Great,
mighty, and awe-inspiring,” he instills them into the nature of the Jewish people
and therefore our use of them is better understood as praising through pictures.
Because I claimed above that R. Hutner’s article amounts to a Soskice-like
claim about the problem of religious language, I would first like to flesh out
those parallels. Second, I will analyze the claim in terms of its ability to answer
the theologian’s problem.
Soskice’s mechanism for explaining how reality is depicted in religious
language is the metaphor. Like the billiard ball metaphor, our God-talk reflects
reality, but makes no claim to exhaustiveness or a definition. Additionally, our
ability to successfully refer to God despite never having had observable contact
with Him is based on Kripke’s claim about historical chain usage and the initial
baptism. The parallels between these arguments and R. Hutner’s are rather
compelling. For both Soskice and R. Hutner, descriptors are transformed into
pictures or metaphors, and our use of religious language relies on the ‘Mosaic
mechanism.’ The biggest difference of course lies in how this mechanism is
employed: Soskice to enable reference and R. Hutner to enable transformation
from what appears purely descriptive to metaphorical. Soskice would therefore
claim that all religious language functions metaphorically and R. Hutner
requires that which appears purely descriptive to undergo the mystical
transformation before functioning metaphorically. Both accounts, however,
clearly indicate their preference for metaphor and use it to address the problem
of religious language.
I want to acknowledge that what I have been referring to as their
Mosaic mechanisms are the weakest points in both Soskice’s and R. Hutner’s
arguments. On Soskice’s account, as mentioned above, our ability to properly
refer to God is grounded in the experiences of certain prominent religious
figures who have passed down the usage to us. This weakness is brought out
once we consider the implications of falsifying the Sinai myth, and our inability
to properly account for many details of ancient history. Regarding R. Hutner’s
Mosaic mechanism, from a purely philosophical perspective, the mechanism by
which Moses transformed the descriptors into pictures is suspect at best—
unrelated, of course, to the legitimacy of his argument on mystical grounds. But
29
30
Ibid., Pesach: 61:8.
Ibid.
39
JOSHUA PITKOFF
even if R. Hutner’s mechanism is acceptable, and the descriptors do function as
pictures or metaphor, is that enough to solve the theologian’s problem? This is
the question I want to focus on moving forward.
Let’s return to the Vilna Gaon’s claim that direct praises are insulting
in their limitedness and pictorial praises are not. Referencing the Talmud’s
parable of praising a king for his silver, R. Hutner paraphrases the Vilna Gaon as
writing, “Neglecting the praise of gold [by instead praising for silver] can be
explained by the limited ability to find a sufficient picture for this praise.”31 It
appears that the reason pictorial praises do not insult God is because instead,
they reflect a limitation of humanity. Because man is unable to find a suitable
picture, the picture he or she does use is only reflecting poorly on him or her.
The problem with the Vilna Gaon’s explanation is that it applies
equally well in the case of praising God directly. Perhaps, just as our inability to
find suitable pictures to praise God does not insult God, so too our inability to
find suitable direct praise does not insult God either. This seems like a reason to
permit all praises, both direct and pictorial. But it also misses the point of the
theologian’s question: it is exactly our limitations that are the source of our
insulting God when praising him. Saying that we are only demonstrating our
limited capacities does nothing by way of explaining how those limited
capacities do not ultimately result in our unacceptably insulting God.
What we need in order to answer the theologian’s problem is an
account for how the pictorial praise differs from direct praise in such a way that
it is no longer insulting. While the Vilna Gaon’s cannot do so, perhaps we can
propose another account that can better support R. Hutner’s greater argument.
The first proposition is that maybe when using pictorial praises, we are
implicitly acknowledging the inadequacy of such praises. For example, religious
liturgy is full of diverse pictorial praises and no one religious language user
operates with the assumption that each alone is adequate. The classic refrain
from Jewish High Holiday services, “Our father, our king,” makes it abundantly
clear that we are relying on two pictures and one alone would be inadequate. As
such, pictorial praise is so inadequate that it’s obvious they aren’t meant to be
singularly exhaustive. We can distinguish these from direct praise because we
are more likely to believe that descriptors are actually adequate.
This proposition suffers from two shortcomings. Similar to our using
“our father, our king,” we also use many descriptors at once; for example, as
mentioned above, “Great, mighty and awe-inspiring.” If we know pictorial
praise is not meant to be exhaustive because we use many different pictures, and
even several simultaneously, the same is true for descriptors. The second issue is
that this proposed difference between pictorial and direct praises wouldn’t solve
the problem of limitation. The fact that we are acknowledging our inadequacy,
or it is obvious that the language is inadequate, does little to address the
problem.
The second proposition is that perhaps only direct praises are subject to
a scale of superlativity. That is, saying, “God is great” is limited because we
31
Ibid., Pesach: 61:2.
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
40
could have said, “God is the best.” This seems to accord with the parable that we
praise God for silver instead of gold. Alternatively, this proposed distinction
states that pictorial praises do not suffer from an analogous scale of comparison,
and are therefore not limited. But this seems to run counter to our intuition and
experience comparing pictures (and metaphors) all the time. Just as saying,
“God is good” insults in virtue of its not stating the superlative (“God is the
best”), saying God is the “judge of all the land” might be insulting because one
could have said God is “presiding over Heaven.” It is true that pictures are more
difficult to compare, but we still frequently compare various paintings to each
other. Once there is also a hierarchy of pictorial comparison, we would be
forced to admit that the inferior pictorial praises are also insulting. But what if
we only praised using the very best metaphor? I would argue that the subjective
nature of such evaluation—that is, the varying standards of such evaluations—
renders a communal liturgical service impossible.
Thus we see that neither the Vilna Gaon’s suggestion, nor my two
suggestions, can successfully differentiate pictorial praises from direct praises in
such a way that pictorial praises are able to avoid insulting God in their use. As
such, it seems that R. Hutner’s effort to apply a similar methodology to Soskice
fails in its attempt to answer the theologian’s problem.
VII
The theologian’s opportunity
“Who impedes me,
Why can’t I disclose in writing all my thoughts,
The most hidden musings of my soul?
Who prevents me,
Who has imprisoned my thought in its shell,
And does not allow it to emerge into the world?”32
(Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook)
Having seen that an effort to extend Soskice’s answer to the
philosopher’s problem of religious language does not work, we will now move
to a second strategy of addressing it. First, we will consider what underlies the
theologian’s problem: the suggestion that language, generally, is limited.
Second, we will see how that creates problems for religious language
specifically. Third, we will consider an alternative answer to the problem.
In what way is our capacity for language limited? We can answer this
first question by recalling the moments in which we each feel most inarticulate.
Consider the overwhelmingly emotional feelings when in love or proud of one’s
child, when getting out the right words feels both strenuous and feeble. Or, the
experience of articulating an idea that was clear internally, only to find that
when put into words, the idea was not precisely captured. What can account for
these phenomena?
32
Kook, Abraham Isaac Kook, 385.
41
JOSHUA PITKOFF
I believe the answer lies in the fact that many of our internal processes
happen instantaneously—or at least much quicker than anything we are able to
articulate. Especially when emotions are involved, we are often able to
experience multiple thoughts and desires simultaneously—consider all the times
we feel “conflicted” about decisions. Feeling conflicted does not entail
alternating between feeling a distinct desire for x over a certain duration of time,
and distinct desire for y over another duration of time. Rather, detailing this
piecemeal oscillation is precisely an example of our attempt to break down
simultaneous concepts into words that express them. Feeling conflicted is more
accurately a simultaneous desire for x and y, though they might conflict. David
Foster Wallace, in his short story “Good Old Neon,” articulates our sense of an
inability to articulate quite eloquently considering the task:
“This is another paradox, that many of the most important impressions
and thoughts in a person’s life are ones that flash through your head so
fast that fast isn’t even the right word, they seem totally different from
or outside of the regular sequential clock time we all live by, and they
have so little relation to the sort of linear, one-word-after-another-word
English we all communicate with each other with that it could easily
take a whole lifetime just to spell out the contents of one split-second’s
flash of thoughts and connections, etc. — and yet we all seem to go
around trying to use English (or whatever language our native country
happens to use, it goes without saying) to try to convey to other people
what we’re thinking and to find out what they’re thinking, when in fact
deep down everybody knows it’s a charade and they’re just going
through the motions. What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and
all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines
of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.”33
As Wallace points out, our language is limited because the linear and successive
character of our speech operates differently than—and therefore cannot
adequately reflect—our mental concepts. Thoughts happen instantaneously; our
words must be strung together “one-word-after-another-word.” To be clear, I’m
not claiming that Wallace has done the extensive neuroscience research I would
prefer to cite, and that is ultimately beyond the purview of this paper, but his
articulation of simultaneity strongly resonates as reflecting the inarticulate
feeling we have all experienced at one time or another: concepts happen
instantaneously in our minds, but words require laying them out step by step.
And this limited capacity applies to all language—not just religious language.34
33
Wallace, Oblivion, 150-151.
I should note the fact that most people wouldn’t say, “This table is brown”
suffers from a limitation of language. Therefore, either we can argue that certain
conceptual or emotional language is subject to limitation more than others, or
that even ordinary descriptive sentences suffer from this problem, but those
examples of limitation are merely insignificant.
34
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
42
It seems clear, then, that if all language seems to be limited, religious
language would be limited as well. It is not, however, clear why this is
problematic. Maybe it actually eliminates the theologian’s problem—if the
problem is much more widespread, there’s nothing special about religious
language being limited. This, though, ignores a critical feature of religious
language for its users: inadequately praising God seems tantamount to insulting
Him, as we saw in the text of Tractate Berakhot above.
In a sense, then, this feature of language being limited only strengthens
the theologian’s problem, making it seem even more intractable. However, I
want to propose an alternative strategy for answering the problem. To be clear,
this answer is not a solution; it does not solve the problem, but instead casts it in
a new light, which I suggest is more encouraging to the theologian. Instead of
causing the problem of religious language, the general problem of language, in
the eyes of the theologian, should be seen as enhancing and promoting religious
belief and experience. When considered in this light, the theologian’s problem is
actually better seen as the theologian’s opportunity.
Let’s return to Wallace’s explanation of limited language. We have
seen that language in general is limited in its expressive capacity. As such, our
use of language demonstrates a limitation of ours as human beings. Wallace
writes, “As though inside you is this enormous room full of what seems like
everything in the whole universe at one time or another and yet the only parts
that get out have to somehow squeeze out through one of those tiny keyholes
you see under the knob in older doors.”35 When using language, one is actively
engaged in a process of stuffing concepts through the small keyhole, thereby
bringing to light one’s own limitations. But here’s the true moment of religious
significance: upon recognizing our limited capacity, we are forced to consider
that which is unlimited. Our limitations point to that which is without
limitations: God. This, in turn, leads us to the problem of religious language
because once we consider the unlimited, we immediately develop the impulse to
talk about it—to put into words exactly that experience brought about by a
limitation of general language. Thus, our limited capacity, when brought to light
by general language use, brings us to the problem of religious language.
We can see an analogue to this in the writings of Rabbi Abraham
Joshua Heschel, a twentieth century major American rabbinical figure, whose
poetic style combines secular philosophy and religious mysticism. In his book,
Man is Not Alone, he writes that the religious person is guided by a sense of
wonder in confronting the world. His ‘radical amazement’ at the world’s beauty
and grandeur arouses a sense of the ineffable, which alludes to a transcendent
meaning. He writes,
“We are struck with an awareness of the immense preciousness of
being; a preciousness which is not an object of analysis but a cause of
wonder; it is inexplicable, nameless, and cannot be specified or put into
one of our categories. […] Thus, while the ineffable is a term of
35
Wallace, Oblivion, 179.
43
JOSHUA PITKOFF
negation indicating limitation of expression, its content is intensely
affirmative, denoting an allusiveness to something meaningful, for
which we possess no means of expression.”36
For Heschel, the ineffable reaction of wonder itself alludes to the transcendent.
This allusiveness is further detailed in a later chapter: “To be implies to stand
for, because every being is representative of something that is more than itself;
because the seen, the known, stands for the unseen, the unknown.”37 In arousing
wonder, the world and our experiences are like pointers to the ultimate. The
limited nature of our language, I argue, is no exception. Just as the world stands
for the unseen, thereby pointing to that which lies beyond it, so too the word
points to that which lies beyond it.
In confronting the general problem of language, we see our own
limitations in light of that which is unlimited, and crave to express it, bringing us
to the theologian’s problem. I want to argue that focusing on the problem of
religious language misses a critical step along the way: the moment of
recognizing our limited capacity pointing to that which is unlimited. That
experience of confronting the unlimited is entirely glossed over because we
immediately attempt to articulate the experience, running up against the wall of
the theologian’s problem. But the theologian should be celebrating the first step,
not decrying the second. Confronting our limitations—as seen otherwise in
contemplating the endlessness of the universe when observing the stars—is itself
a religious experience38 that points to God: the theologian’s opportunity.
IX
Conclusion
The critical realist and metaphorical approach to understanding
religious language, coupled with its practical functions, should suffice to
schematically answer the philosopher’s problem. But theologians must fight a
different sort of battle, and engage with the constant struggle of using limited
language to describe the unlimited. Their religious language is problematic, but,
as I have argued, also affords them a great opportunity. Embracing mankind’s
limitations is a first step towards humility, of standing in awe of our
insignificance.
36
Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, 22.
Ibid., 31.
38
What exactly qualifies as a “religious experience” is itself subject to debate—
in not just philosophy and theology, but areas of public life as well (e.g.
applying the First Amendment). A more exact definition is certainly warranted,
but here we can see at least one example according to Heschel: an experience
where one is aware of “the immense preciousness of being” and feeling
“wonder.” See Wayne Proudfoot’s Religious Experience for a more detailed
discussion.
37
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
44
It is clear that many philosophers have argued that religious language is
nonsense. But accepting this fact amounts to accepting the collapse of all
webbing that binds religious communities, restricting religious life to the realm
of private language. In order for religion to be a guiding force in one’s life, as
opposed to merely in one’s consciousness, one must depend on religious
language.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that philosophy comes to a screeching halt
at the border of theology. This paper has attempted to demonstrate the
usefulness of philosophical methodology for understanding the language of
other disciplines, as it has also been for scientific and aesthetic discourse.
Similarly, philosophy can benefit from its wider application beyond logic and
science to disciplines that encourage thinking about the whole human life; not
just our words but why those words matter. Philosophy and theology, then, need
not oppose or engulf each other. Even while maintaining independent goals and
foundational commitments, they can mutually benefit from sharing tools and
ideas, and in doing so, flourish together.
45
JOSHUA PITKOFF
Works Cited
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. 2nd ed. / edited by J.O. Urmson and
Marina Sbisà. William James Lectures, 1955. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1975.
Epstein, I, ed. Soncino Babylonian Talmud. Translated by Maurice Simon. Vol.
Tractate Berakoth. London: The Soncino Press. Accessed April 15,
2015.
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion. New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.
Hutner, Yitzchak. Pachad Yitzchak. Vol. Pesach. Brooklyn, NY: Gur Aryeh,
1997.
JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh: the traditional Hebrew text and the new JPS
translation. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publishing Society, 2003.
Kook, Abraham Isaac. Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, The
Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems.
Edited by Ben Zion Bokser. The Classics of Western Spirituality. New
York: Paulist Press, 1978.
Lebens, Samuel. “The Epistemology of Religiosity: An Orthodox Jewish
Perspective.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 74, no. 3
(2013): 315–32.
Ross, Tamar. Expanding the Palace of Torah : Orthodoxy and Feminism /
Tamar Ross. Brandeis Series on Jewish Women. Waltham, Mass:
Brandeis University Press, 2004.
Sacks, Jonathan, ed. The Koren Siddur. Jerusalem; New Milford, CT: Koren
Publishers, 2009.
Searle, John R. “How Performatives Work.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12, No.
5 (1989): 535–58.
Soloveitchik, Joseph. Halakhic Man. Translated by Lawrence Kaplan. 1st
English ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983.
Soskice, Janet Martin. Metaphor and Religious Language. Oxford: Clarendon,
1987.
Wallace, David Foster. Oblivion. New York: Back Bay Books, 2005.
Wettstein, Howard. The Significance of Religious Experience. Oxford
University Press, 2012.
INTERVIEW
46
An Interview with
Alexander Nehamas
Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature
Princeton University
Spring 2016
Each year The Dualist includes an interview with a contemporary philosopher
chosen by the staff. This year we are very pleased to have Alexander Nehamas
answer questions posed by The Dualist and the Stanford Faculty.
The Dualist (asked by David Hills):
I often reread the wonderful translations you did with Paul Woodruff of the
Phaedrus and the Symposium. I learn new things each time but can’t always
tell whether the things I learn are things that Plato wants to teach. Near the
end of the Symposium, which up till then has been a sequence of competing
speeches in praise of love, Alcibiades wanders in drunk and uninvited and
offers a speech of his own in praise of Socrates. (His praise is all the more
47
ALEXANDER NEHAMAS
striking and all the more heartfelt for coming with so much confusion and
complaint.) Throughout the dialogue up to this point, later speeches have
pointed out and corrected shortcomings in earlier ones. Does this process of
ongoing correction and refinement come to a halt when Alcibiades breaks in
and changes the subject? Or should we see him as inadvertently spotting and
correcting real shortcomings in the views of Socrates and Diotima, opinions
he wasn’t privy to in the first place, opinions which otherwise survive the
dialogue pretty much unscathed? What if anything does the Symposium as a
whole invite us to think about love and beauty and the distinctive values of
each?
Alexander Nehamas:
Several scholars think that in Alcibiades’ speech Plato gives a much more
personal account of love as a corrective to what they consider the less personal
account Socrates gives through Diotima’s speech. But I am not at all sure that
we should attribute to Socrates a particularly impersonal view of love in the
first place, as Gregory Vlastos charged in a famous paper, “The Individual as
Object of Love in Plato.” His interpretation was widely accepted and
philosophers who did not want to attribute such a view to Plato himself such a
view turned to the speech of Alcibiades as a countermeasure.
But does the lover who, according to Diotima, “ascends” from the love of a
single boy and to the love of the abstract and perfect Form of beauty abandon
his personal relationships? I suspect that he doesn’t. And I am sure that if he
does, that happens long after where we usually take it to occur, that is, right
after the very first step, when the lover realizes that the beauty of body in
general is of higher worth than the beauty of a single boy’s body and turns
toward it. But Plato doesn’t write that the lover now disregards the boy: it is
the “wild gaping after just one body” that he “despises”; that is, he gives up
the passion with which he has been pursuing a single boy! In fact, at the next
higher stage, the lover is still attached to a single individual, “decent in his
soul.
Nowhere does Plato say that the lover stops being concerned, at least in part,
with the boy with which he starts his ascent—only that he will not be too
attached to any particular boy (he will be concerned with the boy along with
others, just as Socrates himself was). We have assumed that when Plato
characterizes the end of the ascent as a “contemplation” (theõria) of the Form
of beauty, he has in mind a purely theoretical activity that one pursues silently
and by oneself—where is there room for any other individual in such a
context? But Plato is very clear that the lover who finally sees the Form will
“create true virtue.” That, however, presupposes that the lover will have
contact with other people in whom such virtue can be created. The notion of
theõria, I am convinced, has a definite social, interactive component and that
of course is reflected in Socrates’ always being surrounded by the young men
who want to learn his “secret.”
INTERVIEW
48
I am not suggesting that Plato believes in the “intrinsic” worth of the
individual. But I think the charge that he completely ignores the importance of
the individual is inaccurate and unfair. And if I am right, we don’t have to
look at Alcibiades’ speech for Plato’s acknowledgment that Socrates was
wrong. On the contrary, we can look at it as what I believe it is: an encomium
of Socrates, who, though he has left the first stage of love way behind him, is
still concerned with all those who want to learn from him, including
Alcibiades himself.
The Dualist (asked by David Hills):
You admire both Nietzsche and Socrates and portray them as kindred spirits;
you’d like to persuade Nietzsche that his famous disdain for Socrates was
rooted in misunderstandings. Surely many of these misunderstandings have to
do with Socrates’s cultivation of irony. Sometimes irony is a figure of speech. I
rather like Robert Fogelin’s suggestion that an ironic speaker speaks so as to
stand corrected by her listeners: she speaks so as to pretend to take a clueless,
complacent, mistaken view of the matter at hand, with the intention of eliciting
some specific corrective response — a response listeners must construct for
themselves, relying on their own judgment and their own epistemic resources
to do so. So it is the listener, not the speaker, who takes responsibility for the
truth of what the speaker was out to get across — a result that’s especially
valuable when what the speaker was out to get across is something the listener
only reluctantly believes. (“Admissions are more valuable than accusations,”
as Fogelin himself puts it.)
Not long ago I came across a passage from Human, All Too Human (Section
6, Aphorism 372) where Nietzsche seems to take a Fogelin-‐style view of irony.
He concludes that although ironic speech and ironic stances have their place,
it is and needs to be a small place. He insists that irony among acknowledged
equals is always bad or at least, always in bad taste. More surprisingly, given
his aristocratic reputation, he seems to assume that living with others on terms
of acknowledged equality is always good or at least, always necessary. Here’s
the passage; I’d love to hear your thoughts:
Irony. Irony is appropriate only as a pedagogical tool, used by a teacher
interacting with pupils of whatever sort; its purpose is humiliation, shame, but
the salubrious kind that awakens good intentions and bids us offer, as to a
doctor, honor and gratitude to the one who treated us so. The ironic man
pretends to be ignorant, and, in fact, does it so well that the pupils conversing
with him are fooled and become bold in their conviction about their better
knowledge, exposing themselves in all kinds of ways; they lose caution and
reveal themselves as they are–until the rays of the torch that they held up to their
teacher's face are suddenly reflected back on them, humiliating them.
49
ALEXANDER NEHAMAS
Where there is no relation as between teacher and pupil, irony is impolite, a
base emotion. All ironic writers are counting on that silly category of men who
want to feel, along with the author, superior to all other men, and regard the
author as the spokesman for their arrogance.
Incidentally, the habit of irony, like that of sarcasm, ruins the character;
eventually it lends the quality of a gloating superiority; finally, one is like a
snapping dog, who, besides biting, has also learned to laugh.
Alexander Nehamas:
I am not sure that Nietzsche actually misunderstands Socrates. I think he
doesn’t know how to take him. He admires Socrates’ individuality—the fact
that he has made a unique contribution to our idea of a good life—but detests
the anti-individualist nature of the contribution itself—that the good life is the
life of reason. Nietzsche actually thinks that in the age of Socrates, among
men of fatigued instincts, among the conservatives of ancient Athens who let
themselves go—“toward happiness,” as they said; toward pleasure, as they
acted—and who all the while still mouthed the ancient pompous words to
which their lives no longer gave them any right, irony may have been required
for greatness of soul (Beyond Good and Evil, 212).
The trouble, though, is that because Nietzsche couldn’t decide which of
Socrates’ two aspects was genuine (or because he thought that both were) he
took Socrates to have addressed not only his decadent contemporaries but also
those, who like Nietzsche himself, were his equals ironically. And that,
indeed, was something he considered in bad taste. After all, even the nobles of
On the Genealogy of Morality, who can be so vicious toward their inferiors,
are held so sternly in check inter pares by custom, respect, usage, gratitude,
and even more by mutual suspicion and jealousy, and . . . on the other hand in
their relations with one another show themselves so resourceful in
consideration, self-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride, and friendship. (GM, I.
11)
Among such people, irony, which isn’t always in good taste (is it?), would in
fact be inappropriate and incompatible with many of the habits and traits
Nietzsche praises here.
If irony is proper only between teacher and student (a particular instance of the
relationship of superior to inferior), as Fogelin’s very interesting account also
suggests, Nietzsche may be right that to engage in it with one’s equals gives
one “a quality of gloating superiority.” But isn’t that how, in some cases at
least, Nietzsche himself appears to even some of his most sympathetic
readers?
INTERVIEW
50
The Dualist (asked by David Hills):
In Only a Promise of Happiness you draw on Plato and Nietzsche to construct
an account of beauty sharply at odds with the contemplation-‐based, judgment -‐
based, taste-‐based account in Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer and other moderns.
Among its features:
Convictions as to the beauty of a thing or person should be findings yet they
are never judgments. Beauty isn’t something we experience when we adopt
some specially disinterested and impartial judicial perspective; our experience
of it is always profoundly interested, profoundly partial. And no matter how
we manage our experience of a thing (or person), it will testify to the beauty or
lack of beauty of it (or him) only in a radically tentative, radically defeasible
way. When it comes to beauty, our findings never amount to verdicts because
the jury is always still out.
To find a thing or person beautiful, I must deem it (or him) to possess a value
and power and interest, a capacity to contribute to my happiness, that I can
confirm, understand, and benefit from only in part at least so far. Beauty
always promises more than it has thus far delivered, and the more that beauty
promises is always uncertain, always indeterminate, and always such that
might simply fail to be there after all, in which case beauty shall have broken
its promise to me. And to avail ourselves of what beauty promises, I must make
myself over more or less thoroughly, adapting my powers to confirm,
understand, and benefit from beauty to the special requirements of this very
special love object. In at least this sense, we must devote ourselves more or
less fully to the particular beauties whose promise we propose to take
seriously.
So beauty always attaches. Our attention to a beautiful thing can never be
broken off without felt loss, because relinquishing that thing involves
relinquishing our attunement to it and whatever portion of our life and
energies we invested in achieving that attunement. And beauty’s appeal is
always parochial, never universal — never a matter of what all of us
necessarily can and should like.
This is a powerful and suggestive vision but I have two small reservations
about I’d invite you to explore. First, it can sound more like an account of the
fascinating than an account of the beautiful. I’m not sure beautiful rooms,
beautiful dishes, beautiful clothes and the like keep us in the kind of suspense
or require from us the kind of devotion you vividly describe, but aren’t they
beautiful in the very same sense as your more demanding beauties? Second,
you seem to endorse Stendahl’s suggestion that what beauty promises is
always some kind of happiness or contribution to happiness. Is this right?
Aren’t some seductively beautiful people bad news not simply in what they
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ALEXANDER NEHAMAS
deliver but also in what they promise? And when it comes to the free natural
beauties that made such a profound impression on Kant and on Valéry in his
sea shell essay, aren’t they suggestive of an orderliness in natural laws and
processes we humans might understand and appreciate in the fullness of time?
Isn’t what those beauties promise coherence rather than happiness?
Alexander Nehamas:
This is an excellent summary of my ideas about beauty and the two questions
you raise go to the heart of it.
You are absolutely right to emphasize how important fascination is to my
account. But to me fascination is not an alternative to beauty but part and
parcel of it. You are right that not every room or outfit, or painting, or person
we find beautiful inspires us with passion. But the difference is a difference in
degree. We often look at a room we find beautiful, feel a certain pleasure in it,
and then—more or less—pass it by. We certainly pay more attention to it than
we do to something to which we remain indifferent, which we hardly notice,
but we don’t find in it “enough” to keep us with it much longer. Someone
else, though, may look at the same object and see, as I put it in the book, a
whole world in it. When I am in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, I feel I need
to stay there for a long time, try to imagine what life in such a space may have
been like, see how it differs from other grand halls I have seen, learn about the
people who used it and, for all I know took it for granted. Is the room we take
in in a few glances “beautiful in the very same sense as [my] more demanding
beauties”? Well, yes, it is, but is less beautiful (to me, it may be more
beautiful to you) as a room that provokes the more involved reaction I try to
articulate in my book. It is important to remember that what I am concerned
with in Only a Promise of Happiness is not whether objects or persons are or
are not beautiful but only with the question what it is for us to find something
beautiful. So, what is a conventionally beautiful thing (something, that is, that
I understand others may like but that fails to attract me directly) need provoke
nothing but indifference to me; but everything that I find beautiful to some
extent or other is likely to provoke me to become, if you want, “fascinated” by
it to the very extent that I find it beautiful.
My fascination, moreover, is connected with happiness. You ask, “Aren’t
some seductively beautiful people bad news not simply in what they deliver
but also in what they promise?” But the question presupposes that these
people are beautiful independently of what they promise. This is connected to
the previous point. I am only concerned with people whom we actually find
beautiful, not with those whom we can recognize as beautiful but of whom we
merely understand why others might find beautiful. And, if you do actually
find someone beautiful, you will not judge what it is that they promise—
however much I may try to warn you against them—to be anything other than
wonderful. When you consider someone “seductively beautiful” to be bad
INTERVIEW
52
news, it is precisely because you yourself are not seduced by their beauty but
are worried about those who are.
As for free natural beauties, my own sense is that whenever I have been
moved by the beauty of “nature” (most certainly a cultural construction, that!)
I have always thought of it as if it was someone’s creation and therefore as not
completely natural. That is part, I think, of what Oscar Wilde had in mind
when he credited J.M.W. Turner with inventing sunsets!
The Dualist (asked by Joshua Landy):
In a draft of the On Friendship book, you wrote the following: “if at some
point you feel that you know all that matters about me, that there is nothing
more you want to know about me, our friendship is over”; “When once we feel
we know what there is to know about a person, that nothing new will come of
our interaction, we have already become indifferent to them: our friendship is
effectively over.” Do you still feel this way? Doesn't, for example, Holmes
know all that matters about Watson, or Frédéric about Deslauriers? Or at
least, don’t they know all they’re going to know? (And yet they remain
friends…)
Alexander Nehamas:
As a matter of fact, yes, I do still feel that way. Your examples are intriguing:
Holmes and Watson are constantly together in the Conan Doyle novels and
Frédéric and Deslauriers seem perfectly content while they do nothing but
reminisce at the end of Flaubert’s Sentimental Education. Two points may be
relevant here. First, there is a sense in which even when a friendship is not as
intense and passionate as it may have been in its earlier states, one still enjoys
it because it is not only the friend but the relationship itself that is of value to
its participants (that is a point Niko Colodny made in his “Love as Valuing a
Relationship,” although I think he exaggerates the important of valuing the
relationship to love more generally). Second, we simply don’t know, and
don’t know how we could ever find out, whether these characters do in fact
“know all that matters” about each other. How could we go about it? In any
case, you will remember that Flaubert’s characters are recalling an event that
had embarrassed them and got them into no end of trouble in their
adolescence. As they think back to it, they both come to the conclusion that
“that was the best time [they] ever had.” Is there any reason to think that this
is not something they only now realize both about each other and about
themselves? On the contrary, I think this is a clear instance of their finding out
something that neither one of them had known already.
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ALEXANDER NEHAMAS
The Dualist (asked by Joshua Landy):
What are the differences, if any, between finding a person beautiful and
finding an artwork beautiful?
Alexander Nehamas
In my opinion, the differences are much less significant than we believe. In
Only a Promise of Happiness, I refer to Mary Mothersill’s view that the fact
that we can’t marry our favorite novel is not novels and people are beautiful in
different ways but simply because it is a novel and you can’t do everything
you do with people with artworks as well—and conversely. But what you
want of and for an artwork you find beautiful—an artwork you love—is not so
different from what you want from the people you love. You want to spend
time with it, you want to understand it better than you already do and find out
what exactly it is that makes it so beautiful, you want to be changed (for the
better, you hope) by it and, most important, you want it to change (for the
better, you hope) because of you.
That last point is, to my mind, the most controversial. What I mean by it is that
you want to understand the work in a way that differs as seriously as possible
from the way others have understood it so far. If you see it simply as others
have seen it, if you just accept someone’s else’s interpretation of it, you are not
reacting to it as an individual: the work remains generic, an object that two or
more of you can share. But we don’t want to share what we love with others:
we want “to make it our own.” And in making something our own we make it,
to some extent or other, different from everything that others take it to be. Of
course, we often agree with others on what we call our “interpretation” of a
work. But I am convinced, and try to argue for that view, in my book that in
the end no two interpretations of a work can be strictly speaking identical.
Even when I adopt your interpretation of a work, when, as we say, I make it
“my” interpretation, I end up changing it. The same is true of people who have
the same friends. As I try to show in On Friendship, it is impossible for two
people to have the same friendship with someone else. Love—in all its many
varieties and intensities—is always focused on individuals.
The Dualist (asked by Joshua Landy):
Some people say it is "creepy," or narcissistic, to want to make one's life
beautiful—a distraction from the needs of other people. How do you respond?
Alexander Nehamas:
I agree that there is something creepy about wanting nothing more than to
make your life beautiful, with no concern for others. I also think that we have
assumed much too easily that a life devoted solely to the needs of others is
necessarily a good life. My purpose is to open a space where important
values, which we have ignored because they are not moral, can arise and play
INTERVIEW
54
a role in the economy of life. Don’t forget, also, that my understanding of
beauty, although it emphasizes individuality, is fundamentally social. To find
something beautiful is to want some others, at least, to find it beautiful as well:
what people find beautiful creates a small society around it—a society larger
than one but smaller than everyone. And in engaging with that society, you
will necessarily get involved with the needs of its members, involved in a
manner that is not always purely aesthetic. You care for the people who share
your tastes, though you don’t thereby care for their tastes only.
Admiring beauty and thinking that a beautiful life is a good life is not at all
incompatible with caring for others in all sorts of ways—any more than
valuing a moral life is not at all incompatible with trying to make your life as
beautiful as you can (in “Moral Saints,” Susan Wolf has shown how exclusive
attention to morality can deform a life). Philosophy has overemphasized the
values of morality. I am trying to remind us that they are not the only values
there are.
The Dualist (asked by Joshua Landy):
You note that the judgment of taste reveals my individual character.
(“Character and style are an essential part of what distinguishes a person
from the rest of the world. They are the grounds of individuality.”) Yet tastes
can be held in common with others; they seem to place me in micro-communities (e.g. the Frazier fan club). How do these two things go together?
Is it my combination of tastes that individuates me?
Alexander Nehamas:
This is connected to the previous question. You are right that my tastes place
me in micro-communities; as I said, the judgment of beauty has a definite
social dimension. But within each such micro-community, which may seem
uniform to those outside it, there will also be more particular differences,
ultimately individuating each one of us from the rest of our peers. Belonging
to a group is not in itself incompatible with being an individual: it is
impossible for anything not to belong to some group or other. But neither our
combination of tastes, as you point our, nor our most detailed likes and
dislikes are likely to be the same as those of everyone else in our group—no
more that two maple leaves, though both maple leaves, are still going to be in
some ways different from one another, in size and shape and consistency.
The Dualist (asked by Joshua Landy):
You cite Nietzsche’s remark about having "a single taste.” Is there some
principle of unity behind your own aesthetic tastes?
Alexander Nehamas
55
ALEXANDER NEHAMAS
If such a principle exists, it is, I am afraid, something for you and not for me to
establish!
RESOURCES
56
Resources for Philosophy
Undergraduates
This section includes listings of journals, conferences, and contests
available to undergraduates in philosophy. If you have comments,
suggestions, or questions, or if you would like to be listed here in the next
issue, please contact us and we will gladly accommodate your request.
JOURNALS:
Information given is as recent as possible, but contact the specific journal
to ensure accurate information.
Aporia: Brigham young University. Submissions are due early fall.
Papers not to exceed 5,000 words. Send submissions to: Aporia,
Department of Philosophy, JKHB 3196, Brigham Young
University, Provo, UT 84602. Visit: http://aporia.byu.edu/
The Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly: Edinboro University of
Pennsylvania. Visit: http://www.lehman.edu/deanhum/
philosophy/BrSQ/
Dialogue: Phi Sigma Tau (international society for philosophy).
Published twice yearly. Accepts undergraduate and graduate
submissions. Contact a local chapter of Phi Sigma Tau for details or
write to Thomas L. Predergast, Editor, Dialogue, Department of
Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee WI 53233- 2289.
Visit: http://www.achsnatl.org/society.asp?society=pst
The Dualist: Stanford University. Submissions are due early 2017.
12-30 page submissions. For more information, see
https://philosphy.stanford.edu/dualist-journal or contact
[email protected]. Check website for information on
submitting a paper and updates on the submission deadline.
Ephemeris: Union College. For more information, write: The
Editors, Ephemeris, Department of Philosophy, Union College,
Schenectady, NY 12308. Visit: http://punzel.org/ephemeris
Episteme: Denison University. Due November 14. Submissions
must be at most 4,000 words. Contact: The Editor, Episteme,
57
RESOURCES
Department of Philosophy, Denison University, Granville, Ohio
43023. Visit: http://journals.denison.edu/episteme/
Janua Sophia: Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Submissions
and inquiries sent to Janua Sophia, c/o Dr. Corbin Fowler,
Philosophy Department, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania,
Edinboro, PA 16444. Visit:
http://januasophia.cs.edinboro.edu/JanuaSophiaSiteAboutPage.php
Hemlock: University of British Columbia. Visit
http://philosophy.ubc.ca/community/philosphy-studentsassociation/prolegomena or write [email protected] or
Prolegomena, Department of Philosophy, 1866 Main Mall,
Buchanan E370, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada. V6T 1Z1.
Princeton Journal of Bioethics: Princeton University. Visit
http://pjb.mycpanel2.princeton.edu/wp/
Prometheus: Johns Hopkins University. Prometheus strives to
promote both undergraduate education and research, and looks for
submissions that originate from any scholarly field, as long as those
submissions clearly demonstrate their applicability to philosophy.
Visit http://prometheus-journal.com. Write
[email protected] or Prometheus, c/o Philosophy Dept.,
347 Gilman Hall, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218.
Stance: Ball State University. An international undergraduate
philosophy journal. Submissions due mid-December. Visit
http://stancephilosophy.com
Stoa: Santa Barbara City College. For more information, write The
Center for Philosophical Education, Santa Barbara City College,
Department of Philosophy, 721 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara, CA
93109-2394. Visit:
http://www.sbc.edu/philosphy/website/STOA.html
The Vassar College Journal of Philosophy: Vassar College.
Dedicated to both quality and accessibility, it seeks to give
undergraduate students from all disciplines a platform to express
and discuss philosophical ideas. Questions about The Vassar
College Journal of Philosophy can be directed to
[email protected]. Visit:
http://philosophy.vassar.edu/students/journal/
R
RESOURCES
58
CONFERENCES:
There are many undergraduate conferences, so contacting the philosophy
departments of a few major schools in a particular area or researching on
the web can be quite effective. The conferences below are by no means
an exhaustive list.
American Philosophical Association: The APA website, http://
www.apa.udel.edu/apa/opportunities/conferences/, contains an
extensive list of conferences.
Butler Undergraduate Research Conference: Butler University.
The conference is held in mid-April. See
http://www.butler.edu/urc/in- dex.html for details.
National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference: Notre Dame.
Visit http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/events/nubec.shtml or write
[email protected].
Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference:
Pacific University. The conference is held in early April. Visit
http://www. pacificu.edu/as/philosophy/conference/index.cfm for
details.
Rocky Mountain Philosophy Conference: University of Colorado
at Boulder. Visit: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/
rmpc/rmpc.html
Undergraduate Women in Philosophy Symposium:
University of California at Berkeley. Email:
[email protected]
ESSAY CONTESTS:
The essay contest listed below aims at a broad range of undergraduates,
but there are many other contests open to students enrolled at specific
universities or interested in particular organizations.
Elie Wiesel Essay Contest: open to undergraduate juniors/seniors
with faculty sponsor. Questions focus on current ethical issues.
Submissions are due in late January. The top prize is $5,000. For
more information, visit:
http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/EthicsPrize/ index.html
59
RESOURCES
R
60
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Dualist would like to thank the following contributors from Stanford
University:
The Philosophy Department
Special Thanks to:
R. Lanier Anderson
Nadeem Hussain
Krista Lawlor
David Hills
Joshua Landy
Teresa Mooney
Eve Scott
Emily Atkinson
Erika Topete
61
THEDUALIST
THE DUALIST is a publication dedicated to recognizing valuable
undergraduate contributions in philosophy and to providing a medium for
undergraduate discourse on topics of philosophical interest. It was created
by students at Stanford University in 1992 and has since featured
submissions from undergraduates across North America. This year we are
pleased to grow internationally.
If you would like to receive an issue of THE DUALIST or to submit a
paper, please contact us at the address below. We prefer that submissions
be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style guidelines.
Papers should be submitted in electronic form only.
Visit our website for submission information: https://philosophy.stanford.edu/dualistjournal
Please email us with any inquiries:
[email protected]
Or write to:
The Dualist
Philosophy Department
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305