Epistemology and Empiricism

Epistemology is the name given to the theory of knowledge. How do we know anything, and how certain is our knowledge? The topic is a massive one: much debated by philosophers from the time of Plato onward. I do not claim to be a philosopher, and what I'm offering here, with some trepidation, is just a few thoughts of my own on the subject.

Classical British philosophers of the 17th to 19th centuries, from Bacon and Hobbes through to John Stuart Mill, generally saw knowledge as coming through empiricism (a word derived from a Roman Epicurean philosopher, Sextus Empiricus). This derives our knowledge of the material world through the experience of our senses. Knowledge is established through perception, and is refined by observation and experiment. This carries the presumption that only the material world is real, and what cannot be observed by the senses (metaphysics) is unreal, even non-existent.

It has been said that philosophers tend to start by talking about tables and chairs, probably because these are present in the rooms where they hold their discussions. So if we take a table, what can we know about it?
Our senses tell us that it has a certain shape,dimensions, colour and texture. If we hit it, a certain noise results. It has a smell and a taste as well, though these are less important to us. (A dog, by contrast, would probably describe the table in terms of its smell) Using other knowledge, I can deduce that my table is a man-made object, constructed from wood. An intelligent person who had never seen a table (a paleolithic human, or an alien life-form?) might guess, from its flat, level surface, that it was constructed for the purpose of having things placed upon it.

But how far can we trust our senses? Descartes based his philosophical system on his famous "Cogito ergo sum". He thought: what can I know for sure? Well, here I am, sitting at my desk - or at least, I think I am: but many times in the past I thought I was, only to awake and realize I'd been dreaming. Or I might be mad, or bewitched, or I might even have died and failed to notice it. But the one thing I can be sure of is that, even if I'm asleep, dead or mad, I'm undeniably thinking about the problem. Hence, "Cogito ergo sum": "I think, therefore I must exist". (Some philosophers have denied the validity of this, on the grounds that all he had proved was that there was some thinking taking place somewhere)

A point occurs to me here. As mentioned above, my senses perceive certain things about my table. But I might be dreaming about the table, in which case there was nothing there in reality. If I was drunk, I might perceive the table as moving about. If I had taken LSD, I might perceive the table as a purple elephant. If I was a paranoid schizophrenic, I might think the table was persecuting me. So what justification do I have in thinking that the table I perceive when I am sane, sober and awake is the "real" table, and the table I perceive when I am drunk, drugged, mad or fast asleep is "unreal"? If all are equally valid, then I would say that scientific knowledge is impossible. Or is this just a cultural prejudice? Hippies in the 1960s thought that perceptions obtained under the influence of drugs were perfectly valid, and the validity of dream experiences is given support in the Bible. Some philosophers thought this conundrum could only be resolved by bringing God into the occasion: the table as perceived when I am sane, sober and awake is the table as perceived by God, and the other perceptions are thus unreal and false. This was sometimes seen as a strong argument for the existence of God, without which there could only be chaos.

The question of whether we have any sources of knowledge other than empirical investigation is a vast one, which I shall leave for a later occasion. Instead I would like to pass on to a different issue: why do I call the object I perceive a "table"?The most obvious answer is "Because it looks like a table", which takes us straight to Plato and his notion of the "forms" or "ideas". We are aware of a "form" of an ideal table, to which objects may bear a close enough resemblance  to be classed as "tables". Furthermore, the actual table I have before me now is only a temporary object: it is only a few years old, and its lifespan as a table will probably be quite short; but the  table "form" is eternal. Mystical Neo-Platonism might speculate that the "forms" exist somewhere: in the mind of God, perhaps? (Plato's theories seem most applicable to mathematics. Two plus two would make four and Pythagoras's theorem would still be true even if there was no intelligent life anywhere in the universe)

Can something act as a table without being a table? Clearly, yes: if I sit on a table it won't have become a chair; neither will my chair become a table if I rest a cup of tea on the seat. Students once asked me the following: if Pedley, one of their number, went down on all fours and let someone put a plate of food on his back, would he have become a table? We thought not. But what if, after he died, Pedley was stuffed and mounted in this position and used for this purpose: would he have become a table then? We thought in that case, probably yes.

Who was he?

He is the most famous person ever to serve as Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury. He was in his thirties when he first came here, and had already been an M.P. for a couple of years, but had left his previous constituency because of a dispute over election expenses. At this stage in his career he was not taken very seriously; in fact he was widely regarded as a figure of fun.  In addition, he had built up enormous debts which he had no prospect of ever paying off. Despite all this, and despite a bitterly contested election which featured vicious personal attacks, a nation-wide swing towards his party helped him to be elected as Member for Shrewsbury.

During the next few years he emerged for the first time as a front-rank political figure. Having been denied office, he became famous for his witty and devastating attacks on his own party’s leaders, with such effect that he succeeded in bringing down the government. He also found the time to write three best-selling novels on political themes. He did not stay in Shrewsbury for long, because at the next election he transferred to Buckingham. His financial position was scarcely any better than before, but his rich friends were so impressed with his talents that they helped him to buy his own country house in his new constituency.

He never set foot in the Shrewsbury again, but he left the town as one of the highest-profile politicians in the land. Even so, hardly anyone at the time would have predicted that he would go on to become one of Britain’s most famous Prime Ministers.

So who was he?     

(The answer will follow shortly)

The Zennor Mermaid

Zennor is a village west of St Ives, not far from the extreme tip of Cornwall. It was home to quarry-men and tin-miners (the local pub is called the "Tinner's Arms"), and the granite coastline is splendidly rugged:-

In the First World War, the locals became suspicious of two strangers staying in the village: might they be spies, secretly signalling to German submarines? The strangers were driven out. They were D. H. Lawrence and his partner, Frieda (born von Richthofen), who had left her husband and three children for Lawrence, thus making him a real-life "Lady Chatterley's Lover". Not surprisingly, Lawrence did not think much of the people of Zennor.

The church in Zennor is dedicated to St. Senara, one of the many Cornish saints (though in her case, possibly a Breton) about whom nothing is known for certain.

The Zennor Mermaid is to be found on one of the pew-ends. An old tradition is that mermaids are always shown with a comb and a hand-mirror. I don't know why this should be, though it is possibly linked with the fact that a "mermaid" symbolized a prostitute. Mary Queen of Scots's enemies portrayed her as a mermaid.

Seeing a mermaid was regarded by sailors as a sign of impending disaster (as in the sea-shanty of that name). The legend attached to the Zennor mermaid is that she lusted after a young choirboy named Matthew Trewhella, and lured him down to the ocean at Pendour cove. He was never seen again, but it was said that on quiet nights the two of them could be heard over the water, singing together.

Castles of the Welsh Marches

The borderland between England and Wales was a "wild west" for most on the Middle Ages. Wales was conquered by Edward I in the late 13th century, though there was a major rising under Owain Glyndwr, who proclaimed himself Prince of Wales in 1400, but was driven from his strongholds and died around 1415. Because of the turbulence and lawlessness, the great noble families who dominated the borderland, Bohun, Clare, Mortimer, Montgomery and others, known as the "Marcher Lords", were given extraordinary powers. Later, under the Yorkist kings, the Council of Wales was set up, usually under a member of the royal family, to try and impose some law and order. It was only in the 1530s that the Marcher lordships were abolished, with Wales fully integrated with England and Welsh M.P.s elected to the Westminster Parliament. The borderlands remain thinly populated even today.

The region boasts a number of fine castles. One of the best is Ludlow, the seat of the Council of Wales, still dominating the crossing in the River Teme to the west. (I have more pictures of Ludlow castle on an earlier blog entry)

Clun castle was a stronghold of the Fitzalans, but the large windows in the late 13th century keep suggest that it was not expecting a serious assault by that time

Montgomery castle is over the modern border, in Powys. It was first built in the 1220s, and stands on a natural outcrop of rock in a splendid position overlooking the plains to the north and east. It was partially destroyed after surrendering to Parliamentary forces in 1644.

Wigmore castle, in Herefordshire, was founded not long after the Norman Conquest, and soon came under the control of the Mortimer family. Their most famous member was Roger Mortimer, who in 1327 deposed and murdered Edward II and for a brief while ruled England as the lover of Queen Isabella, before himself being overthrown and executed by the young Edward III in 1330. But the Mortimers soon returned to favour, and all English monarchs since the 15th century have been descended from them

Shrewsbury was once the site of an important castle, but what we see now is mostly a replacement built by Thomas Telford at the end of the 18th century.

All that survives of Bridgnorth castle is the Norman keep, now leaning at a precarious angle!

The "castles" at Stokesay and Acton Burnell are really only fortified manor-houses, designed to do no more than look impressive and perhaps deter the odd Welsh cattle-raid. (See other blog entries for details and pictures of these)
Some castles only survive as earthworks, like the remains of this little motte-and-bailey at Rushbury, nowadays defended only by sheep.

The motte at Pulverbatch doesn't even have sheep!

Sunni and Shia

The division between Sunni and Shia Moslems, which has become so prominent in Iraq, goes back to the earliest days of islam,and has received far too little attention from our political leaders.
    The success of the First Crusade was very largely due to this division. Jerusalem had recently been taken over by the Egyptians, who were ruled by the Fatimids, a Shia dynasty. The Egyptians and the Turks (who were Sunni) hated each other at least as much as they both hated the crusaders, and were never able to co-operate properly against them. But once Saladin had conquered Egypt and restored it to the Sunni faith, the crusades were doomed.
   Saladin was a Kurd, from a family of mercenary soldiers. His battles against Richard the Lion-Heart won him the reputation in Europe as a romantic chivalrous warrior. Dante in his "Inferno" places Saladin, uniquely, in the circle of "Virtuous pagans", alongside the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. But as far as I am aware, Saladin is given far less status in Moslem tradition.

The hero in mythology

In his writings on mythology, such as "Jocasta's Crime" and "The Hero", Lord Raglan discusses the characteristics of a typical mythological hero. We can list these, with a few additions and amendments:-

*The hero is the firstborn child (often the only child) of his mother, who may be of royal descent, or a priestess

*His father is of royal descent, often closely related to the mother, but:-

*It is believed that his true father is a god

*His birth takes place in unusual circumstances, and is attended by various signs and omens

*Soon after his birth, powerful people attempt to kill him, and he has to be spirited away to a distant place

*Little is known about his childhood and youth, though there may be the occasional story illustrating his prodigious talents

*Embarking on his career, he undergoes some ordeal or religious initiation, or:-

*Alternatively, he may kill a monster, or the existing king

*He then marries a princess, who may be the daughter of his predecessor, and becomes the king

*He may be a warrior-king, but he also prescribes laws and religious observances, and rights social injustices

*Eventually he loses the favour of the gods and/or his subjects, and is driven out, or:-

*He is betrayed to his enemies by someone close to him

*He suffers an ignominious death, often on top of a hill

*He is not succeeded by his son (often he has no children)

*He has no tomb, but:-

*There are several holy sites devoted to his cult

Lord Raglan then runs through the stories of various heroes to see how well they tally with these criteria, mostly from the classical corpus (i.e. Graeco-Roman): Oedipus, Theseus, Romulus etc, but then ranging further afield; through Moses, Siegfried, King Arthur, Robin Hood and Llew Llaw Gyffes to Nyikang (Sudan) and Watu Gunung (Java); noting the similarities of the stories.

Why should there be such extensive similarities? Raglan, drawing upon the pioneering work of Sir James Fraser ("The Golden Bough") wonders whether the myths have spread outwards from a central source (perhaps Egypt?) and are based upon an ancient religious ritual: the Sacred King who is sacrificed every year to ensure the continuity of the seasons and the fertility of the crops. Robert Graves ("The Greek Myths") wonders if the myths are a distant memory of events which actually happened, in the time of the Indo-European migration into Europe in the early Bronze Age. Neither theory explains how similar stories are told in very distant cultures. Perhaps the myths embody ideas deep within the human psyche? Freud suggests this in "Totem and Taboo"

As an alternative, we may ask how reliable is our understanding of the myths and legends of distant cultures. These were mostly collected from peasant oral traditions by 19th century western European researchers, and translated and retold for western European audiences. Both the collectors and their readers would have been steeped in the classical traditions, and would always be inclined to interpret the new stories in that light: they would know in advance what ought to happen to a mythological hero! For the same reason, genuinely historical heroes tend to get suitable legends attached to them, especially concerning their frequently obscure childhood years. Such pseudo-history may become attached to, for instance, Alexander the Great or William Wallace.
      Raglan carefully refrains from giving a rating to Jesus considered as a mythical hero, but maybe the same considerations apply. The notion that God could come down to earth and father a child upon a human woman would be anathema to orthodox Jews, but very familiar to anyone brought up on the Classical myths. We are likely to have a convergence of stories, from history through pseudo-history, legend and mythology to pure fiction: from William Wallace through Robin Hood and King Arthur to Hiawatha.

The theories of Raglan and Graves are generally discounted by modern scholars, but have been very useful to novelists: for instance, the ritual sacrifice of the Sacred King as being an actual historical event features prominently in Mary Renault's "The King Must Die"

Utilitarianism and the Arts

The founding father of utilitarian philosophy was Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). He argued that everything should be judged by its "usefulness"; by which he meant its ability to increase pleasure and diminish pain. These two concepts were self-defining: "pleasure" = "what I to like to experience": "pain" = "what I dislike". The purpose of the arts was obvious: namely, to give people pleasure. But this led to a famous controversy, which has been summed up in the phrase, "Poetry versus Pushpin" (Pushpin being a trivial game played in pubs). Some people enjoy reading Shakespeare; other people enjoy playing pub games. But can we say that in any sense it is "better" to read Shakespeare than to play pub games? Bentham thought, "No". The purpose of both poetry and pushpin is to provide pleasure to the participant: if it achieves this, it has fulfilled its purpose; if it does not, it has failed. It is quite futile for me to tell someone that he "ought" to like Shakespeare, rather than "wasting his time" playing pub games which he enjoys.

Bentham's most famous follower, John Stuart Mill (1806-73) took a very different attitude. Mill was a mid-Victorian, and an exact contemporary of Karl Marx, and like Marx he was obsessed with the idea of "Progress", a concept quite unknown to Bentham's contemporaries. The western world was industrializing, creating a completely new form of society, and in consequence was rapidly taking over the rest of the world. Nothing like this had ever happened before in all human history. Why had this progress occurred, and how could it be maintained? Mill's answer to this was different from Marx's. To Mill, progress was achieved by individuals who dared to think for themselves; to experiment with new ideas and new ways of living: conformity led to stagnation and the likelihood of being overtaken by more progressive cultures. Mill has been accused of being interested only in a "clerisy"; a small elite of enlightened individuals who would provide leadership and guidance, but this is most unfair. What Mill wanted was for the whole community to be "a mentally active people", who would be prepared to think for themselves and make rational judgments, not simply blindly accept what they were told. Mill therefore argued for greater democracy, including votes for women, because he believed the mass of people in his day were capable of independent thought; and, furthermore, that participatory democracy would encourage it.
     Mill therefore profoundly disagreed with Bentham on the "Poetry versus Pushpin" issue. There was no question that, from the point of view of achieving progress, reading Shakespeare was much better than playing pub games. Reading Shakespeare encourages you to think about important issues! It involves exercising what Mill called the "mental muscles", which, he believed, just like the physical muscles, would atrophy and decay without frequent use. The purpose of the arts is educative: they should be a stimulant, not a sedative. If a poem or a painting is "difficult" to understand; so much the better! By striving to understand it, even if you eventually decide you don't like it, you have achieved something; exercising your brain and expanding your field of knowledge. If we are to progress, both as individuals and as a society, we must always be open to new ideas, to accept that other people might know more than us, and to listen to them. Of course, this does not mean we always have to accept the new ideas, or to believe what the so-called experts tell us, but we should always give such things careful consideration, although we may ultimately reject them. Without this process, replacing the old ideas with new ones where necessary, there can be no progress.
      (Living in the 20th century, Mill would have made the point that taking time to study Shakespeare could, at the very least, be highly utilitarian in that enables you to pass exams and thus qualify for a better-paid job. Nowadays, with soap operas and pop songs being the subject of university dissertations, this has become more questionable: though Mill might have conceded that the important thing is the exercise of the critical faculties rather than the subject itself. And we shall pass over the people who are able to earn a good living by playing, not pushpin, but other pub games!)

I once discussed with a conservative philosopher the question of whether there had been any "progress" in the arts (he thought not). The point I made was that where there has undeniably been progress is in access to the arts. The great mass of the people can now experience good art, literature and music (however we choose to define "good"), at little or no cost, in a way unimaginable until quite recently. I'm sure Mill would have approved.    

What, and who, ultimately decides whether one poem or painting is in any sense "better" than another? Bentham would have said, what is best is what gives most pleasure to most people. Mill undoubtedly thought that some poems and novels and paintings were better than others, and if pressed he would probably have said, listen to what the experts have to say and then make up your own mind. But are there any objective standards by which the arts can be judged? A rigid classicist like, Doctor Johnson in the 18th century, would unhesitatingly say, "Yes!" But things are less clear today. If merit were to be decided by democratic vote, then the latest soap-opera would be judged better than Shakespeare, chocolate-box art better than all abstract expressionism, and a pop song better than Mozart or Beethoven, and we are right back to Jeremy Bentham. Should instead the evaluation be done by a handful of cognoscenti, as Mill was accused of favouring? But that sounds distinctly elitist, and furthermore calls into question the validity of democracy in other fields as well, such as the assessment of the government's economic policy. I cannot see any easy answer to this question.

Once when I was talking to a man who lectured in modern art, I admitted that I found much of it difficult to understand. He replied (rather loftily, I thought) that a mere layman like me couldn't be expected to understand these things; it should be left to the experts to provide guidance. I told him that he was in danger of converting me to Socialist Realism. This is a term which merits explanation.
    It is often forgotten that Russia at the start of the 20th century was one of the great centres of experimental abstract art, with such masters as Malevich, Tatlin, Chagall and many others. Several of these artists supported the Bolshevik revolution, but when things had settled down, Lenin instructed them to start producing revolutionary art. They replied that their art was revolutionary, but of course that was not what Lenin meant. To Lenin, art served no purpose unless it was easily accessible to the mass of the people: pictures painted with photographic accuracy, straightforward novels and stories about ordinary people's lives, poems which could be readily memorized and recited, tunes which everyone could hum on their way to work. Anything over and above this was elitist and (the ultimate hate-word!) "bourgeois". Also, the arts had a propaganda purpose, pointing the way to the communist future. As our guide put it on my first visit to the Soviet Union, "'Art for art's sake' was replaced by a superior concept: 'Art for the people's sake'". This was utilitarianism in the arts returning with a vengeance! What resulted was Socialist Realism.
    What was so destructive of the arts in the USSR was not so much Socialist Realism in itself as the fact that soon nothing else was officially permitted, and that under Stalin all the arts became instruments of crude propaganda. Paintings showed mostly scenes of heroic workers and peasants, and literature was full of the most servile praise for the Soviet leadership and its achievements. Many of the brightest literary talents, like Mandelstam and Isaac Babel, perished in the purges; others, like Anna Akhmatova, were officially denounced but managed to survive. Even in music, Shoshtokovich found his opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtensk" savagely attacked and was forced into a grovelling recantation. (It has been pointed out that Stalin shared with Hitler the artistic tastes of a mid-19th century conservative: a preference for paintings which had a clear and obvious "message", for poetry which rhymed, for music which had recognizable tunes) Russian cultural experimentation was damaged beyond recall.
    In the end the Soviet Union and the whole communist system collapsed, largely because it was unable to keep up with the capitalist west in productivity or in living standards. This would not have surprised Mill. He never had any faith in the ability of the state to plan progress, and always cited Russia (under the Tsars in his time, of course) as a country whose progress was severely retarded by an oppressive government and a lack of individual freedom. We in this country are fortunate in that the artistic tastes of our political leaders are of no importance whatsoever!  

 George Orwell once said that the only true test of the arts is survival: will the books still be read decades or centuries later? By any literary standard, George Meredith was a much better writer than Conan Doyle, yet hardly anyone reads Meredith's novels nowadays, whereas Sherlock Holmes is one of the best-known fictional characters in the world. (Interestingly enough, Conan Doyle thought his best work was his historical novels, which are now completely forgotten). Orwell's definition is not foolproof, but I have yet to hear a better one.