This book, published originally in 1973, offers again the scope of Clark’s epistemological theory against rationalism, empiricism, and irrationalism. Dogmatism is Clark’s theory. By the use of reduction, Clark asserts that dogmatic principles are the hallmark of every system, rational or empirical. “Thus a presuppositionaless description is impossible” for anyone who attempts to build a Weltanshauung (118). This must be kept in mind as we begin to critique Clark’s work.
This book, published originally in 1973, offers again the scope of Clark’s epistemological theory against rationalism, empiricism, and irrationalism. Dogmatism is Clark’s theory. By the use of reduction, Clark asserts that dogmatic principles are the hallmark of every system, rational or empirical. “Thus a presuppositionaless description is impossible” for anyone who attempts to build a Weltanshauung (118). This must be kept in mind as we begin to critique Clark’s work.
Concluding the Introduction Clark is very clear as to how each system is to be evaluated. It is, perhaps, this clarity that is so troublesome for many to grasp his thinking. It is not filled with the cumbersome academic technical terms found in many philosophies. It is worthy to quote the final paragraph at length. “To evaluate an argument, one must examine every step made to see whether the whole is logical or whether it contains an invalid syllogism somewhere. One fallacious link would break the chain and render the whole a failure” (25). Obviously, the methodological choice is Aristotelian logic, namely the law of contradiction. “Philosophies must be evaluated on the ground of what they begin with” (25). He closes with the question, “What method shall we choose?” and this, choice, becomes central in his thought. Since indemonstrable principles (non- logical statements in modern speech, in that they are not deduced) cannot be proven, they must be chosen. Some choices are better than others.
Clark begins his critique with rationalism. Rationalism, basically, asserts that from logic alone the essential building blocks for ethics, politics, history, and for some philosophers, metaphysics, can be founded. It is a non-empirical foundation from the start. Logic is seen as a necessary instrument, innate in the mind of man. It is how man unavoidably thinks.
Augustine, though not strictly a rationalist as described above, knew that if the Scriptures were true, then we must be able to know something. How we come to know anything at all, then, becomes his quest. He starts with logic. With logic he reduces the skeptics of his day to absurdity. For example, the skeptics argued that what we know is only approximate, or probable. First off, is this statement “only probable?” If it is, then they have not said anything. Secondly, if we know the probable of something, then we must know in ratio to what it is probable of, and this would be truth. “A person who does not know what is true cannot know what approximates the truth” (31). This is a thoroughly logical refutation. Modern positivists, who insist that science is uncovering the truth, must first know what it is that they are uncovering. For instance, Alan Sokal, a physicist, states that Newtonian mechanics is now seen as “wrong.” Quantum mechanics is a “closer approximation” to the “truth.” He concludes, “every scientist knows perfectly well that our knowledge is always partial and subject to revision – which does not make it any less objective” (all quotes from The Sokal Hoax, ed. by Lingua Franca). Partial to what? Truth? If we know that it is partial, then we must know what it is partial of. Finally, objective to what? This entirely ignores the problem of correspondence between what is seen and the thing itself. The argument is devastating, but empiricism is alive and well today.
Anselm, following Augustine, sought to demonstrate through logic that the God of the Bible exists. He wanted to so rigorously establish this so that, in his words, it “cannot be conceived not to exist” (34). This is the classic ontological argument for God’s existence and is still a much-debated topic. Anselm made his mark.
Immanuel Kant wrote in response to this proof, The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof. He made a sharp distinction from what is thought to necessarily be, and what really is. There is no necessitated correspondence between the two. Logic is necessary for all thought, but it is not an external object. Kant supposedly established that God is a heuristic principle. God is necessary for thought and morals, but may not actually exist. This, as Clark notes, does not follow. It does not follow that because there may not be a correspondence between knower and objective reality (if there is such a thing as objective reality), what is supposed about that reality still can serve as a necessary principle.
Kant’s critique goes on to great lengths against the ontological proof. However, he does not prove that God is non-existent. And this he admits. If the arguments for God’s existence are invalid, then it does not follow that God does not really exist. The problem, after wading through taxing difficulties, is that the term “exist” is a useless word. The predicate can be attached to everything. Dreams, myths, books, cups and the square root of two “exist.” If the predicate can be attached to everything, then the predicate loses any significance for anything. It fails to diferentiate the subjects it is predicating. Thus “Of course God exists. Anything exists, so far as the term has any faint meaning at all” (44). However, if God is a cup, or a book, then we have asserted something substantial. “God” by itself is a vague term. “God exists” is even worse. Clark does not outright reject the ontological argument, but neither is it compelling for him because of the useless term “existence.” What needs to be shown is what kind of God exists. For Spinoza, God is nature itself. So far, rationalism deals with the questions of God’s existence, but it cannot substantiate what God is. So much for rationalism.
After this analysis Frederick Ferre and Edwin A. Burtt are considered before closing the chapter on the theory of revelation knowledge. They pose an anthropological question concerning man’s mind and ability to know anything about God adequately. Burtt’s argument is as follows: If man’s mind is competent, then it will solve its problems on its own without the need for revelation, contrariwise, if man’s mind is inadequate, then can it be mistaken in supposing that it needs revelation? Clark solves this argument rather easily. “The trouble lies not in man’s mind, depraved or innocent, but in the lack of premises” (47). This refutes Ferre as well. Logic, and man’s ability to think logically, did not “fall” in the rebellion of Adam. Adam, rather, was cut off from knowledge, which now, was supplied ab extra from God. He can think invalidly as well. This capacity for error, however, does not diminish his ability to “think God’s thoughts” in the least. 2+2=4 was true before the fall, and after. There are no resources, either, to which man could ostensibly point to and gain knowledge. Natural theology fails. Revelation provides man with the necessary propositions with which to reason in the world.
I must distinguish between the two types of empiricism. On one hand, Aristotle began with sensation and abstracted universal ideas, including God, from them. This is the scientific methodology. Its advance is in the supposed notion of common verification. I can show you what I am talking about. We can send a man to the moon. Clark states that this method is “astounding” in its advances, as he does in other writings. The second approach, mentioned above, is more mystical, or emotionally oriented.
Aristotle, and Aquinas after him, represents the type of approach so common in our everyday parlance. For God’s existence, motion is sensed, and from this the Unmoved Mover is abstracted. Rather than appealing to a priori arguments as did Anselm and Augustine, Aquinas starts with sensations. He also equates essence with existence. What is predicated for man cannot univocally be predicated for God. God is “good” and man is “good” do not mean the same “good” for both. They are analogical. This has serious repercussions for theology. Aristotle has analogy in his examples, but allowed for a univocal relationship. Aquinas does not allow for any. Existence for God, and existence for man are not the same at all. This refutes Aquinas’ proofs for God, if indeed we cannot truly know anything about God. After noting other problems in his arguments, Clark goes on to William Paley and David Hume.
Paley develops the teleological argument of God’s existence by positing the finding of a watch and inferring a designer. So it is with the universe. The problem here is that no one has ever seen the whole universe. Hume demolishes every argument for the existence of God. But more than this Hume denied that sensation can observe the relationship between cause and effect, and this brings us to, perhaps, the most troubling area for understanding Clark. Clark denies that sensations, or observation, gives any knowledge whatsoever (71). And this “most people are unwilling to admit.” Indeed.
It must be made clear what he means. At first, it seems insane that I would deny this computer in front of me, or the flowers on that table over there. Common sense tells me that such a questioning of these arrangements, seemingly verifiable (I can point the computer, and if you turn your head, you can see the table and the flowers), is insanity. However, to impose the veto that such matters cannot be analyzed, or that to do so is merely toying with semantics and philosophical gibberish is a veto that is not observed; it is assumed. Thus, my first line of argument is that since this veto is assumed and not seen, I have full logical right to question these arrangements in front of me, to find out what they are, how it is that come to see (know) them, and if, in fact, they constitute “knowledge.” Perhaps nothing will come of it and the common sense approach would be justified. Yet, maybe there is “more than meets the eye.”
“Surely empiricism must have a world of trees and stones” (70). Individual objects form the basis of empirical thought. If empiricism cannot account for individual things, then the theory crashes. It must prove by showing how knowledge comes by sensation. Clark writes that this is nothing new. Kant and Hegel questioned sight and knowledge. Malebranche and Blanshard as well. Clark begins with the Greek skeptics.
Pyrrho, according to Diogenes Laertius, wrote against the consistency of sensation. The same impressions received in one man, may not be the same in the other, and we could never tell if they were. Animals have differing impressions as well. If we range the eyesight of a fly to that of a man, we may offer a degree of perception based upon optical complexity. This degree of optical sharpness, however, implies that if man has not the sharpest perceptive equipment, then an even sharper perception would exist, thus altering the knowledge of what we perceive. Who can say? “Hawks have keen sight,” says Pyrrho, “but dogs have keen smell.” Sharper sensation would imply keener knowledge if all knowledge comes by sensation. The only way an empiricist can say that we have any actual truth concerning that tree is because we have developed stronger sensations. But does this follow?
Does perception of the thing organize our thoughts, or do we organize our thoughts concerning the object. This involves the question of what role, if any, the object plays when we “see” it. Are we passive when we see a computer? Or, is the memory of the computer constituting what it is I see. Without memory, is there any “computer” there at all? Clark does not deny external objects. God created trees. But this is revelation knowledge and cannot be sensed. What the empiricist must show is that there are trees, and he must show how he knows this as well as what, exactly, a tree is. And he must do this without resorting to any assumptions, for assumptions are not seen, either. What Clark is doing here is holding the empiricist to consistency. If all knowledge comes by way of sensation, then it ought to be able to show how this occurs without any appeal to non-sensory assumptions. It must start with sensation, and finish with sensation. If it can’t, then it is self-refuted.
Clark is under no obligation to show how the mind comes to view this object as a tree. Some might say that here, Clark is contradiction himself when he refers to Scriptures as revelation knowledge. Does not one have to read a book, words on a page, and is not his very act receiving knowledge by sensing the words by the eyes? This will answered as we continue.
Brand Blanshard defines perception as, “that experience in which, on the warrant of something given in sensation at the time, we unreflectingly take some object to be before us” (78). Thus, sensing a book before me takes place before the perception “a book is before me” occurs. “Sensation,” wrote Clark, “gives something. It furnishes data. Perception, apparently, gives nothing. It is an action by which we take, suppose, or conclude that there is some object before us” (78,79). What occurs, then, between sensing an object and inferring “a book before us” is the crux of the problem. A book, having a weight, color, size, shape, extension, never occurs alone, but occurs within a myriad of other objects. This differentiating of a book from that table occurs so rapidly in our mind (not to mention memory) that the process of breaking down each step becomes impossible. But this is exactly what the empiricist must do. He must show how the inference from sensation to perception occurs, and that each sensation inferring a perception is valid. Nothing can be
taken for granted.
taken for granted.
Clark wrote, “Upon the warrant of a blue sensation we take a silk dress to be before us. This we do” (80). Clark admittedly assigns here what it is that we do. We infer from sensations that book is before us. This does not, however, tell us what a book is in itself, its own inherent property. Sensations are instrumental for manipulating matter into useful mediums, like a book, but sensations fail to show how it is that we do so, and what the process is. Common sense simply assumes that such is the case, and Clark is not against common sense oriented living. He wrote books. But this description is not an explanation, and if one wishes to begin a comprehensive, systematic philosophy based upon a book before him, then he may do so. He will not get very far. “To explain perception as an inference is one thing; to show which, if any, of these inferences is valid is another thing” (80).
Again, I want to try and sum up what it is that Clark is saying here. Clark is not denying sensation, or that we have sensations. He is not denying that he has eyeballs that that optically function in a world of things. What he is asking is how these eyes come to grasp and distinguish one object from another in a myriad of constantly occuring sensations in the world. If perception is an inference, then for the perception to be correct, the inference must be valid, logically speaking. But how can one know that every sensation at a given moment is validly drawn? This would be a tedious task to say the least. For the empiricist, it is not enough to assume that I hear a bird, see a tree, green grass and my son playing in the yard, distance (space), time involved, and a myriad of other things I could list, seen and unseen, like bacteria. He must show how, because his system is based upon the starting point that all knowledge comes by way of sensation. Clark’s empirical means operates from an a priori. He is an operationalist in science, and also in matters of sensation. Sensations are practical, but the explain nothing of how the world moves, or what the world really is.
What empiricism wants to show is what John E. Smith pictured. He wrote, “experience is an objective and critical product of the intersection between reality in all its aspects on one hand and a self-conscious being capable of receiving that reality through significant form on the other” (83). Again, Clark asks of this definition, “Is there any evidence of a reality that can intersect with a self-conscious being?” (83). In other words, how can an empiricist demonstrate one-to-one correspondence between self and object? What sensate provides us with this indubitable fact? The question is annihilating.
Finally, my own criticism, which I think Clark would endorse, is as follows. We classify objects based upon connotative and denotative definitions. A connotative definition describes all of the essentialities of a horse (hoofed, four-footed, herbivorous, etc.). A denotative definition lists palominos, arabians, and appaloosas (see Clark’s Logic, p.22). Each one is a horse, but each one is entirely different, thus, deserving a differing name in order to distinguish it. However, they all fall under the genus Horse. These distinctions are based upon differing traits not common in all horses. One must ask that since all appaloosas are also each different, then may we denote them by those differences as Appaloosa 1, Appaloosa 2, et al? Thus denotative definitions are justified for pra ctical purposes. Neither the connotative nor denotative descriptions exhaust or explain what a horse exactly is (this relates to the problem of individuation). If definitions are based upon difference, and since every individual thing is different from anything else, then it follows that we have an infinite amount of differences, never arriving at the true “horse.” Every object can be treated in the same way. So we now come back to the computer in front of me.
Obviously, not every computer is the same, and they are made up of several components. Each of these components, in turn, when seen through a microscope, still take on a complexity, creating even further distinctions. Seeing is seeing, whether with, or without a microscope, and if “seeing” is what makes a thing a thing, we never arrive at the thing itself. Even then, we have yet to explain the processes of the computer, and the properties of each intricate atom that make it work. We have yet to describe its electrical circuitry. Most people are not going to go this far, and most take for granted what a computer is when they say a computer is here. Its “here-ness” is its “this- ness.” Computer takes on a completely practical consideration and no one has in mind everything there is to know about this computer when they say “this computer here.” Thus, shared sensation of a computer between another person and myself is not shared knowledge. We do not have a complete connotative knowledge. All that we have is an assumed shared sensation. Now, if perception is inferred from sensation, yet we are unable to show how this is possible by observation, it becomes quite easy to see that the computer here that we are both talking about only has a practical, operational function. We are never really talking about the actual computer in and of itself, but only what we have inferred from the sensation each of us suppose we share. We have gained no knowledge of the actual computer, but only a sensation in relation to a particular setting (Clark does not deny sensations anymore than he denies actual objects).
Magnified, the computer takes on a more intricate view. Knowledge of the computer is impossible, and when we say, “here is the computer” we are only approximating what is assumed in our sensations. The agreement is a reasonable agreement, but no reason can be inferred from sensations, and thus reason is not empirical. Until empiricism can show how sensations give perceptions, and perceptions, thought, and that the content of that thought is a basis for truth and knowledge, then another course is sought for gaining knowledge. Perhaps irrational mysticism is the answer.
Soren Kierkegaard reacted against the rationalism found in George Hegel. Hegel supposed a system that organized reality. Kierkegaard, on the other hand, openly rejected rationalism. Scholarship, theology, and philosophy contained dead end roads for eternal happiness. Kierkegaard was dialectical as Hegel, but ended the matter with paradox. Life is in constant dialectical unresolve, and faith cannot be ever placed on such a shaky ground as scholarship and science.
Barth, Brunner, and Kierkegaard repudiated logical analysis. They held that historical facts had no basis for faithful communication. Brunner even stated that God can use false doctrine to reveal himself. The analysis of such a view inevitably ends up in skepticism, or solipsism. If offers nothing by way of a comprehensive world view which seeks to unite the whole. If logic is rejected, then there is no point in communication at all.
The fifth chapter deals with Clark’s own perspective: dogmatism. The Deus ex machina becomes the device for solving the problems of a tangled plot. It seems to be inescapable. Suicide, says Clark, may be the only other alternative.
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Basically, as mentioned in the beginning of this essay, Clark sees all systems as having presuppositions. If this is the case, the question becomes, which one shall we choose as the most satisfying?
I dealt with external objects above, and Clark continues the analysis. “Every thinker must decide for himself whether the X that is immediately in the mind is the real object or a representation of it” (121). One may choose that he knows X by sensations. If so, he has two choices. If the object is really there, there is no way to verify that my seeing it corresponds to what it truly is. Another choice is to deny the external object altogether. We only have thoughts of the object. But here, your thought is not my thought, thus, your experience of the image is not my experience and we can never talk about the same thing.
Christian dogmatism must be realistic: “The real object of knowledge is itself present to the mind” (123). Here is Clark’s affirmation that objects in front of us are real. The objection, however, is that empiricism cannot explain how it is that it is real. Clark can based on dogmatism. A sensation of a computer, hardness, black, plastic material “exists only once.” They are never again repeated. The sensations of the computer, when I am not looking at it, “simply do not exist. As individual events they are over and done for. An individual sensation never occurs again” (123). However, “truth is not a sensation. It returns and I can think it again many times” (123). The computer we are both talking about is really there, present in our minds, and it is not so much my thought that you cannot have it as well at the same time. Thus, the truth of the computer is always there, even though the sensation of it is fleeting and momentary.
Truth is not something that is sensed, but is a proposition about a said object. “This computer is black” is a proposition, a statement of truth, and it is in this truth that two individuals (having differing sensations) can talk about the same thing. Again, Clark is not denying the reality of a book, or tree, nor is he denying that two individuals can talk about the same thing, they do. Clark’s point is that empiricism cannot explain how it is that we do this without running into insuperable difficulties. If it cannot do this, and if this is all that we are left with, then truth and knowledge become impossible.
One may say, it is obvious, is it not, that we are talking about the same computer. But, when the nature of language, thought, and philosophy begin to consider the matter, the obviousness of the conclusion becomes obscured. One cannot begin with “what is in front of me” for their interpretation of the world. They must show how the thing in front of me is as I say it is, and how the processes of that conclusion came to be. The mind works in such a rapid rate, that the attempt to trace each individual step in a series from object to mind becomes difficult. But this is what empiricism must do. The relation of space, the distance between eye and object (the in between), light refraction, depth, relation, compound, the operation of the brain (if one posits that the brain does the thinking and abstracting), etc. None of this can be assumed for the empiricist, it must be proven and demonstrated on empirical grounds. Assumptions are not empirical.
The God of the Machine is rested upon the proposition of Scripture. In Him we live, move, and have our being. We think because God thinks, and when we think correctly we are thinking in line with God. The two thoughts are identical. God’s thoughts are certainly more exhaustive, but there is a point in which what occurs in man’s mind and God’s are the same. God and I have the same thought about this computer in front of me because he has so constituted my mind to think thoughts after him. The reason anyone knows anything is because God has made man in his image. Clark is not obligated to show the processes of the mind because he does not think that it can, number one, be done, and secondly, he does not assume that this is how man comes to know things. For Clark, things are not known because of a sensation, then, through a process of abstraction, we come to a perception. Things are known immediately in the mind because “in him we live, move, and have our being.” No doubt this is frustrating to the empiricist, but, what the empiricist must also find as frustrating is his own failure to account for how we come to know what we know. Dogmatism is the answer that survives self-refutation.
