views on views

I was talking with Charlie a few days ago and, forgetting the greater value in listening than speaking, I went off for a while about the distinction between the view we operate from and the view we advocate. When we talk with other people about our worldview or answer "what's your view on X?" we've generally moved into advocate mode before beginning to speak.

So what exactly do I mean "the view we operate from"? What I mean, I suppose, is something like the view from consciousness. I don't intend to digress here into some sort of phenomenology or a full blown description of consciousness but there are some characteristics that are important to the larger discussion (and you'll have to pardon me if your consciousness doesn't resemble my own). When we're not under duress or anything in our day to day existence our "view" is primarily characterized by the loudest subset of two groups of voices: recent events and what we repeat to ourselves. I also tend to take a behavioristic approach to what "the view we operate from" is. So where this perspective from consciousness starts to feel too subjective I switch frames to see what sort of behaviors myself and others exhibit and derive "the view we operate from" from that.

From there the question arises "where do worldviews or the views we advocate fit into the view we operate from?". Well, they're some of the voices we repeat to ourselves. I would argue our cultural/linguistic story, the historical time and place we're set in is generally the loudest voice of those we repeat to ourselves and the other views are perceived within the context of that louder voice. When we advocate Christianity or scientific materialism (to ourselves) I take it we're often trying to get an accurate view of the world to help us better predict and prepare for the future. I prefer to advocate a form of perspectivism in the service of both accuracy and sanity. I often repeat to myself these words of Jesus:

[D]o not be anxious for what you shall eat and drink, and wherewith you shall be clothed. Life is more wonderful than food and clothing, and God gave it you.

Look at God's creatures, the birds. They do not sow, reap, or harvest, but God feeds them. In God's sight, man is not worse than the bird. If God gave man life, He will be able to feed him too. But you yourselves know that, however much you strive, you can do nothing for yourselves. You cannot lengthen your life by an hour. And why should you care about clothing? The flowers of the field do not work and do not spin, but are dressed as Solomon in all his glory never was. Well, then, if God has so adorned the grass, which to-day grows and to-morrow is mown, will he not clothe you?

Do not trouble and worry yourselves; do not say that you must think of what you will eat and how you will be clothed. This every one needs, and God knows this need of yours. And so, do not care about the future. Live in the present day. Take care to be in the will of the Father. Wish for that which alone is important, and the rest will all come of itself. Strive only to be in the will of the Father. And so, do not trouble about the future. When the future comes, then it will be time to do so. There is enough evil in the present.

Tolstoy The Gospel in Brief p.83-84

I don't necessarily believe in the accuracy of the statements but I understand the sentiment and can thereby adopt the corresponding attitude if the voice of one of life's situations requires it. When I'm concerned with predictive accuracy or trying to make something work I use a scientific approach. Once again not because it's more accurate ultimately but because it lends itself to the type of need I'm trying to meet.

Of course this isn't enough for most people, they want Truth (because this is how they've been conditioned?).

One more bone to pick. C.S. Lewis states at the end of Is Theology Poetry "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." For the reasons I've specified above I think this is utter nonsense. One's personal view of the world is never solely informed by one worldview. It's informed to various degrees by a multiplicity of views. It is incorrect to imply that a person can undergo a worldview in a totalitarian way; nor would we wish such a thing. When we come near to this we usually call it brainwashing. We don't generally undergo a worldview but we do undergo processes that have an impact on the view we operate from. Our personal view of the world is generally formed by various processes -- acculturation, socialization (upbringing/parenting), experiences of all sorts.

Unfortunately I think Lewis' sort of naïve nonsensical characterization of worldviews has found its way into the thinking of many a non-Christian as well.

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Wow, that was convoluted. It is however the type of crap that I think about when you say "I'm a scientific materialist" or "I'm a Christian". No, you're not. If you're like me then you're a ball of snakes who advocates.

many eyes

  
source: wikimedia commons

At this point I'm at least vaguely familiar with Nietzsche's perspectivism (GM 3.12 below, HAH, I, 618 or "argonauts of the ideal" GS 382) but I wonder about Nz's view in comparison to, say, a Keirkegaardian or Dostoevskian perspectivism. In Kierkegaard's case we have the pseudononymous authorship which must reflect some similar commitment though I don't know the extent of it. In Dostoevsky's case, the Brothers Karamazov stands as a monument to perspectivism (especially "The Grand Inquisitor") about certain views. I get the feeling Dostoevsky thoroughly understood each perspective he presents personally. Where Nietzsche articulates a perspectivism in pursuit of knowledge, I see Dostoevsky as articulating a perspectivism as an extension of a troubled psychology in the service of art. The idea being that a more troubled psyche may have the capacity for deeper commitment to alternate perspectives (think Tyler Durden). He embodies one and then the other; this is not at all healthy but it is at the core of what it means to be human.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this subject.

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But precisely because we seek knowledge, let us not be ungrateful to such resolute reversals of accustomed perspectives and valuations with which the spirit has, with apparent mischievousness and futility, raged against itself for so long: to see differently in this way for once, to want to see differently, is no small discipline and preparation for its future "objectivity" -- the latter understood not as "contemplation without interest" (which is a nonsensical absurdity), but as the ability to control one's Pro and Con and to dispose of them, so that one knows how to employ a variety of perspectives and affective interpretations in the service of knowledge.

Henceforth, my dear philosophers, let us be on guard against the dangerous old conceptual fiction that posited a "pure, will-less, painless, timeless knowing subject"; let us guard against the snares of such contradictory concepts as "pure reason," absolute spirituality," "knowledge in itself": these always demand that we should think of an eye that is completely unthinkable, an eye turned in no particular direction, in which the active and interpreting forces, through which alone seeing becomes seeing something, are supposed to be lacking; these always demand of the eye an absurdity and a nonsense. There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing"; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity," be. But to eliminate the will altogether, to suspend each and every affect, supposing we were capable of this -- what would that mean but to castrate the intellect?

Nietzsche GM 3.12