Ray Harvey

The definition of philosophy — judging, at least, from very nearly every philosophy dictionary on the planet — has confounded philosophers for many centuries, the concept being too large, it is sometimes said, to properly convey in a concise fashion. Yet, at the same time, in all branches of philosophy, minutia is cataloged to complete weariness.

This spurious problem is nothing more than skepticism and its little bitch postmodernism running amok again. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, for instance, a thoroughly postmodern compilation, says this:

“Some readers might be surprised to find that there is no entry simply on philosophy itself. This is partly because no short definition will do.”

That statement — and all others like it — is flatly false.

The definition of philosophy is as follows:

Philosophy: the science of rudiments and foundations; the study of fundamentals.

A philosophy is an organized system of ideas and arguments.

Etymologically, the word, as you know, comes from the Greek term philia (meaning love) or philos (meaning friend or lover); and sophia (meaning wisdom).

A fellow by the name of Diogenes Laertius claims that the term philosopher was coined by Pythagoras, in place of the word sophist, which meant “wise man.” But Diogenes Laertius was squirrelly, and his Pythagorean claim is therefore dubious.

Oxford — evidently not as equivocal as Cambridge — defines philosophy thus:

“The investigation of the most general and abstract features of the world and the categories with which we think, in order to lay bare their foundations and presuppositions.”

Not bad; better still, however, is Penguin’s philosophy dictionary, which says that philosophy studies “the most fundamental and general concepts and principles involved in thought, action, and reality.”

And yet the best of them all comes not from a philosophy dictionary, exactly, but a man named Désiré-Félicien-François-Joseph Mercier — a.k.a. Cardinal Mercier — the late nineteenth-century thinker, who spoke well when he spoke thus:

“[Philosophy] does not profess to be a particularized science [but] ranks above them, dealing in an ultimate fashion with their respective objects, inquiring into their connexions and relations of these connexions.”

Philosophy, he continues, “deserves above all to be called the most general science” (A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy).

Lexically, here’s all you really need to know:

Philosophy comes first, and last.

Philosophy is the alpha and the omega; it is the most fundamental science because it studies the foundations of all subsequent knowledge, and that is why all the other sciences depend upon it: because knowledge forms a hierarchy.

For humans, to live is to think; our life is in large part our consciousness: we are defined by the entirety of our actions, but our actions are shaped by our thoughts.

Thinking, as stated once before, is the human quiddity.

Philosophy provides the gauge for, and also defines the limits (or lack) of, all human knowledge, as well as systematizing the proper methods by which we are able to know.

That is the definition of philosophy.

A reader writes:

Dear Harvey Ray: Is there proof of God? Can science prove that God doesn’t exist?

Signed,

Hopelessly Devoted

Dear Hopelessly Devoted: No, science cannot. In fact, nothing can. Yet we can be certain that God doesn’t exist — by virtue of the very nature of proof.

The meaning of proof precludes proving something for which there is no evidence.

God is primarily of metaphysical and ethical import. Proof, on the other hand, is epistemological.

Proof is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that admits no alternative.

Proof, by definition, requires evidence. Indeed, proof is evidence.

For this reason, the attempt to prove something for which there is no evidence is a contradiction in terms. The philosophy of science presupposes this principle, but historically, up to the present day, it’s been poorly defended.

You’ve no doubt heard the platitude: “You can’t prove a negative.”

The reason this statement contains a kernel of truth is that proof requires data, as opposed to an absence of data. And that is why the burden of proof falls upon the person making the claim.

If, for example, you claim that little green men exist inside the human brain, and that these green men are responsible, through an intricate process of lever-pulling, for human consciousness, it is you who must prove this — by providing data — and not us who must disprove it.

What you’re really referring to in your excellent question is a thing epistemologists call evidentialism, or the law of the arbitrary.

If the onus of proof were on me, for instance, to prove that these little green men didn’t exist, what, may I ask, do you think that would entail?

I’ll tell you:

Among other things, it would entail that anyone could say whatever he wanted about anything, regardless of data, and I’d have to spend the rest of my life trying to prove him wrong without any data, while he sat back and fabricated more arbitrary claims. And, indeed, many people do just that.

Fortunately for the human race, this is not how the reasoning process actually works.

The proper response to these claims is simply to dismiss them categorically for what they actually are: neither true nor false, but whimsical — that is, arbitrary — until some hard evidence is put forth. But the evidence must come first, before the claim.

That is what you must always remember.

Evidence constitutes proof.

Merely claiming does not constitute evidence; that’s too easy.

Thus, if you claim God or if you claim green men, it is you, not me, who must produce the data.

Epistemologically, there’s no significant difference between green men, God, the Great Spirit, or, for that matter, Grendel.

Which is why for the mystically inclined, fideism is the best bet, although fideism too runs spectacularly aground, but in other ways, less epistemolgic, perhaps, but clearly more dramatic.

A reader writes:

Dear Sir: You are reported to have said that there is no order or disorder in the universe apart from what man himself puts there — this in spite of your well-known preoccupation with a fluid and congruent universe. Can you tell us how you reconcile this, with regard in particular to your views on God?

Sincerely,

Sarah H

Dear Sarah H: I don’t recall my exact wording of that statement, but I’m certain it’s not as you recapitulate. Presumably you’re referring to my conviction that order and disorder are epistemological words, not metaphysical. By which I mean, they are products of the human brain, and nothing in nature is “disorderly”; it simply is. To speak of order or disorder apart from the human mind is like speaking of color to a person born blind.

Using a slightly less elaborate metaphor, I might, however, concede that nature is “congruent” in the sense that each thing in the universe, however small or large, has a specific nature and must act in accord with that nature.

In this way — and this is also known as the law of essence or identity — the universe is indeed congruent and elegant.

Matter acts and reacts as it must. Matter does not possess will. That is why there’s really no such thing as chance.

It is in this sense that the Nobel Prize winning doctor Christian de Duve, in his fine book Vital Dust, speaks of the universe as a “cosmic imperative.” By that he means nature does not possess volition – or, if you prefer, nature does not possess choice, as humans do.

Nature must act as it does because the identity of each thing determines how it must act. This applies as much to a bursting star as it does to a microscopic particle.

As for God, I can only explain Her popularity by an atheist’s nighttime sweats.