Sunday, May 21, 2023

Why the incoherence?

One of the most obviously incoherent aspects of modern thought is the presence, at the same time, of both voluntarism and materialism/naturalism/scientism. These things would not seem to go together well at all. The voluntarism suggests that it is our own wills which define reality. If I say I am a woman, even if I am a man, then that is what I am and I should be treated as such by society. This conflicts with the materialism/naturalism/scientism which sees reality in terms of material processes. According to this outlook it would be genetics, chromosomes and hormones and such like that would determine my sex.

Many moderns hold to both voluntarism and scientism with equal force, despite the apparent incompatibility. How can we explain this? I don't personally have a modern type mind, so cannot answer with confidence, but I can suggest three possible explanations.

a) Accretions 

It can be the case that certain philosophies influence a culture over the course of that culture's history. Instead of these philosophies being harmonised, they simply "enter the mix". If this is the explanation, then the voluntarism might come from a variety of sources, e.g. from the theological voluntarism of the Middle Ages, or from German idealist philosophy of the nineteenth century, or more generally from the emphasis on autonomy as the goal of a liberal politics. The scientism/materialism/naturalism is derived from the rejection of scholastic philosophy in the Early Modern period and perhaps from empiricist schools of philosophy.

b) Science as a servant of human desires

My understanding is that modern science was launched, in part, with the idea that by understanding natural processes, humans could obtain the resources to satisfy unlimited wants. In other words, if the larger aim is not to live within the natural order, but to pursue our individual wants and desires to the furthest extent possible, then science could be employed to create the conditions in which those wants and desires could be fulfilled.

If this is so, then you can understand why moderns cleave to both scientism and voluntarism. The voluntarism represents the unfettered pursuit of whatever we will for ourselves. The scientism the means by which to obtain these wants and desires. 

c) The loss of value in nature

If nature is seen only from a scientistic/naturalistic viewpoint, then it will seem merely mechanical. It will no longer be a bearer of value in the way it once was when it was appealed to morally (i.e. when saying "it is natural/unnatural to do x, y or z" as a way of endorsing or condemning certain acts). 

I think it can be difficult for those raised within a Christian tradition to understand this. Christians are used to the idea of a purposeful act of creation, so that our relationship to the natural world is invested with meaning (even when we apprehend a certain mystery in the created world). But there are moderns for whom nature is just a mechanical process coldly indifferent to human life. There is nothing for them to relate to in the natural world.

So values, for such moderns, must then come from ourselves: they must come from our own subjective wills. We do not discover objective values inhering in the created world; instead, we assert the power to create values through an act of will (which perhaps represents a deification of ourselves in the image of a voluntarist concept of God).

You can see, then, why the scientism/naturalism/materialism goes together with a voluntarism. The scientism disenchants and de-values; the voluntarism is then necessary to reassert value. You get both, despite an apparent incompatibility between the two.

I'm not sure which of the three explanations is the more likely reason for the coexistence of both voluntarism and scientism. Perhaps all have had an influence, or there might be some other reason I have not considered.

5 comments:

  1. For my part, of the three I think B is probably the most likely. I think it probably goes even further than you outlined. If I might digress for a second though…

    The law of non-contradiction would suggest that false theories must necessarily self-contradict. The contradiction of whatever one chooses to call the modern program would therefore be expected, a feature rather than a bug.

    But I don’t think the adoption of either of these impulses has proceeded from a desire or attempt to adopt a rigorous and universally coherent worldview. If you think about it merely from the pragmatic perspective of unchaining human will, both voluntarism and scientism are must-haves. Modern science was obviously in the business of making human mastery over the world ever greater, and of course voluntarism is all about being able to reshape the world to your will. That this eventually lead to a contradiction when people inevitably seek to redefine the things science rests on doesn’t seem strange from that perspective.

    In fact, you could almost say that science has outlived its usefulness, and I think that’s reflected in that fact that outside of media rhetoric very few elite intellectuals really even bother with scientism even in passing. For the program of unchained human will to continue, some sort of “post-science” that could rewrite the very laws of the universe will have to emerge.

    Which is a long-winded way of saying what I started with, that B is most compelling, but a sort of extension of B. I say extension because I think the key difference I am proposing is that the impulse for adopting voluntarism and scientism wasn’t logical or out of a desire for truth but because both were very useful in fulfilling that very primordial human desire to be mini-gods, getting frustrated every time our wills are not complied with.

    The accretion theory is sound but for the fact that it lacks an explanation for why some things have been attracted and absorped while others haven’t. I think that “force” is that above mentioned desire.

    C then I would argue is just the consequence of already adopting both scientism and voluntarism.

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    1. The law of non-contradiction would suggest that false theories must necessarily self-contradict. Yes, James Kalb used to make a similar point.
      If you think about it merely from the pragmatic perspective of unchaining human will, both voluntarism and scientism are must-haves. I think this is a helpful way of posing it.
      The accretion theory is sound but for the fact that it lacks an explanation for why some things have been attracted and absorped while others haven’t. Yes, that makes sense.

      Guest Ghast, a very helpful comment, thank you.

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  2. they are just following orders, they aren’t allowed to think. the one barking the orders, the devil, just wants people to be damned and/or dead before one can do as God Created an individual for.

    As for why the devil does it, its because he’s dead and can’t make his own decisions an is permanently stuck in his last moments. It’s allowed because that’s what God allows to impartially sift trash from Substance in His Creation: by letting people prove it on their own.

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    1. those who try to use terms like that are the worst slaves of all, and they violently want that slavery.

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