Hegel, one of the more influential modern
European Philosophers, saw the history of
human thought as a battle between dogmatism
and skepticism, between absolute "black and
white" and relative "shades of grey" understandings
of truth.
Those who argue for absolute truth say that
some beliefs are true regardless of place,
time, or perspective, while those who argue
for relative truth say human truth is never
absolute, but varies by perspective and degree.
Hegel saw Aristotle and Heraclitus of ancient
Greece as the first philosophers to embody
these two sides in the history of human thought.
Unfortunately, Hegel was rather Eurocentric,
and gave Egyptian and Indian thought little
consideration, and Chinese thought none at
all, though he could have found this dynamic
in these places and others.
Examining these two sides of human thought
tells us much about the human mind, as well
as the positions we each take in our everyday
thinking.
Aristotle argued that genuine knowledge, unlike
mere opinion, must be eternal and universal,
true in all times and places.
For Aristotle, if something is genuinely true,
it is exclusively true and cannot be false
at all, just as if something is genuinely
good, it is exclusively good and cannot be
bad at all.
Aristotle argues that it is the job of the
philosopher to distinguish the true from the
false and the good from the bad using reason,
and that without absolute truth, nothing can
be said with certainty.
Heraclitus, a far more skeptical thinker than
Aristotle, argued that human understandings
are always relative and limited, and wisdom
shows us that we can always improve our perspective.
Heraclitus argues that experts who acquire
knowledge often become proud and ignorant,
believing their perspective to be absolute,
forgetting that they only see part of the
picture.
While we want certainty, this can limit our
perspective such that we do not open up to
perspectives outside and opposed to our own.
What is true in one perspective may be false
in another, just as what is good for someone
may be bad for someone else.
Heraclitus argues that it is the goal of the
wise to encompass all perspectives as much
as possible, rather than be certain that one
is on the single and simple side of truth.
One of the questions I am often asked by students
is, "Can't we take both sides?".
The truth is that we find ourselves on both
sides everyday.
Sometimes we want to defend beliefs, traditions
and authorities, explaining away counterexamples,
and other times we want to doubt and question
them, drawing attention to counterexamples.
Learning and questioning the positions of
thinkers on both sides strengthens the mind
we use to take these positions ourselves.
Aristotle believed that the ancient Egyptians
were masters of acquiring knowledge, and he
defended what they and he did as genuine.
However, we also find Ptahhotep, vizier to
the Pharaoh of Egypt, sounding much like Heraclitus,
two thousand years earlier, saying:
"Do not be proud of what you know, nor boast
that you are wise.
Talk to the foolish as well as the wise, for
there is no limit to where wisdom can be found.
Good speech is rare like a precious jewel,
yet wisdom is found amongst the maidens at
the grindstone".
Aztec poets questioned the existence of the
gods, the afterlife, and the possibility of
knowledge.
In the Discourses of the Elders, a text Aztec
students would study, it says:
"Do we possess any truth?
If not, our song is no longer true.
Is anything stable and lasting?".
If the dynamic between the Aztec poets and
priests was anything like that between theologians
and bishops in the Catholic Church, the Aztec
priests told the poets to quiet down, revere
the gods and perform the rituals.
In ancient India, Gotama and his Nyaya school
took the position of Aristotle, constructing
forms of deductive proof and defending traditional
Hindu dogmas, while the Jains and Buddhists
took the position of Heraclitus, arguing that
all human understandings are partial and mortal.
Some modern scholars argued that the Buddha
was in fact Heraclitus, and others that Heraclitus
was in fact the Buddha, because the two had
remarkably similar lives and philosophies.
Both were believed to be in line for kingship,
but renounced the throne to be sages, and
both said that everything changes continuously
like a river.
It is likelier that they were two individuals
in two different places, taking similar positions
against absolute knowledge in the name of
wisdom.
In ancient China, Confucius, like Aristotle,
argued that studying the trusted sources of
knowledge and learning to distinguish the
true from the false is the way of the scholar,
while the Daoists, like Heraclitus, argued
that we often mistake our perspective for
the whole, and what appear to be exclusive
opposites are in fact one and the same thing.
Zhuangzi, the second patriarch of Daoism,
sounds remarkably like Heraclitus, using differences
between animals and humans to illustrate the
importance of perspective.
Today, the same positions found in Aristotle,
Heraclitus and throughout the ancient world
define the central debate in Philosophy of
Science.
Positivists argue that scientific fact is
exclusively objective and confirmed, while
Pragmatists argue that scientific theories
and models are useful descriptions and tools,
but not complete explanations that are final
or unimprovable.
We have acquired so much knowledge and technology
throughout human history, and yet it still
remains valuable to take one side or the other
of this endless debate depending on whether
we want things to be questioned or unquestioned,
whether we want things to change or remain
the same.
When we want certainty, relativity makes us
insecure, but when we want change, certainty
makes us claustrophobic.
Exercising both sides of our minds gives us
the ability to consciously take better positions,
make better arguments, and be better human
beings.
