Autor: Schindler, David C., Jun

Buch: The Catholicity of Reason

Titel: The Catholicity of Reason

Stichwort: Nichtwissen - Anmaßung 2; Variation sokr. Nichtwissens (Ich denke [meine], dass ich nichts weiß) -> Absolutierung d. eigenen Ich; Isolation eines Teils vom Ganzen -> Absolutierung d. Teils

Kurzinhalt: ... which is to say that one keeps oneself away from the world and in one's own head — which is to say, further, that one absolutizes one's own ego over and against God, reality, others, whatever it may be, all of which is equally irrelevant to that ego.

Textausschnitt: 24a Before we turn to that issue, let us first ask whether, in light of the comprehensive content that turns out to lie, admittedly somewhat hidden, in Socrates' knowing that he does not know, the more typical claim of ignorance is more modest than the Socratic variety. In other words, is it less presumptuous simply to say I think that I don't know, but I could be wrong? Or perhaps to admit that I know some things, in a delimited area, but to make no claim one way or the other about anything that lies outside of that area? What connects these statements is the assumption that a suspension of judgment is a gesture of modesty, though that suspension has a different scope in the two cases. In the first, the scope is universal: one expresses a general reluctance to claim truth, "absolute knowledge," in any particular instance. But note: this stance implies that the question of whether or not one's ideas, in one case or another, are true in fact is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. The phrase "all intents and purposes" is particularly appropriate here because the stance willy-nilly absolutizes pragmatism. But there is an outrageous presumption in this: if pursuing the question of truth requires one to venture, as it were, beyond one's thinking to reality, dismissing this question means resolving not to venture beyond one's own thinking as one's own, which is to say that one keeps oneself away from the world and in one's own head — which is to say, further, that one absolutizes one's own ego over and against God, reality, others, whatever it may be, all of which is equally irrelevant to that ego. What reason does one have for dismissing the question of truth and suspending one's judgment? While it could turn out in a particular case or another that suspending judgment is prudent, there can in fact be no reason at all for a universal suspension of judgment, insofar as accepting a reason as true requires suspending this suspension. It follows that this suspension is strictly groundless; it is a wholly arbitrary a priori, which claims preemptively that no statement will ever have a claim on one's judgment without obliging oneself to listen to and consider any given statement. It may be that one opinion or another that one happens to hold is in fact true, but the suspension of judgment neutralizes its significance for me qua truth, again for no reason. I thus absolve myself of all responsibility: if I make no claim on truth, then truth never has a claim on me. (Fs) (notabene)

24b The second alternative above, namely, that I claim knowledge about things in a delimited area, but make no judgment one way or the other regarding anything outside the limits, is at least apparently less presumptuous than the first, ironically because it does indeed admit that some of its knowledge is true. The difficulty is in fact twofold. On the one hand, as we observed at the outset of this chapter, one can set limits in the proper place only if one is already beyond those limits, which means that to the extent that self-limitation is strictly a priori, and not the fruit of an encounter with what lies outside of oneself, the limitation is an act of presumption: one is acting as if one knows what one does not in fact know. On the other hand, and perhaps more profoundly, to allow oneself judgment on one side of a boundary and at the same time to suspend judgment on the other side is to claim — again, in an a priori way, which is to say without any sufficient reason — that what lies on the other side does not in any significant sense bear on my understanding of the matter or matters lying on this side. But of course to make this claim without investigation and justification is presumptuous. (Fs) (notabene)

25a It does not in the least do to insist, "But I am limiting my claims only to this particular aspect!" because this begs the very question being raised here. Plato describes the tendency of experts in a particular craft to presume expertise about the whole.1 If we penetrate below the surface, however, we see that this is not a (mere) moral critique about the way some people happen to act. Instead, there is a logical necessity here: to claim expertise about a part is already — and precisely insofar as it is a claim of expertise concerning the part — to presume regarding the meaning of the whole. The ignorant presumption can be very obvious, or it may be subtle. For example, one might isolate economics from politics as a closed system in itself, which is evidently misleading insofar as the "agents" of economic transactions are living members of communities whose choices inevitably reflect in a significant way the nature and structure of those communities. Perhaps less obviously, but with analogous implications, one might also separate politics from philosophical anthropology, anthropology from metaphysics, or metaphysics from theology. The problem will be there whenever one isolates a part from the whole in a way that excludes the relevance of the meaning of the whole to the meaning of the part, which is to say that one fails to approach the part as a part, i.e., as related to what is greater than it, and so one (presumptuously) makes it an absolute in itself. To avoid this presumption, one might first seek to attenuate one's insistence on knowledge within the delimited sphere in light of one's ignorance of the larger whole, which would seem to acknowledge at least in principle the significance of that whole. But in fact this is a retreat into what we showed above to be the greatest possible presumption, namely, the universal suspension of judgment. The only way to avoid the dilemma is in fact to achieve actual knowledge about the whole. (Fs)