The School of Athens
Monday, March 23, 2009 at 12:34AM 
I've taken quite a few detours over the last few months, for a variety of reasons. But now that I've committed myself wholeheartedly to following whatever philosophical or scientific whim blows through the room, I've ended up in some pretty mind blowing places. It's always nice to be surprised about the nature of things- things you had taken completely for granted, oftentimes through word of mouth. But when they are more closely scrutinized, the proverbial rug ends up being pulled out from under you.
Now that I've spent a lot of time with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, I realize that it is possible to inquire on all things, and though it may be hard to stomach, there might not be an actual answer to said inquiry. For every "concrete" view, there is one that's set to the polar opposite, for a reason that could very well be more astounding than the first. Instead of painting the world with a black and white, good and evil, "with us or against us" brush, it's instead composed in shades of gray and uncertainty. The truth is therefore defined by the argument itself, in the absence of an actual conclusion. According to Plato, this kind of result, while wholly unsatisfying, works just fine.
Aristotle, the star pupil of Plato, felt this methodology was a cop out, and that it was his duty to put a cap on these types of inquiries, in order to make any kind of progress in what was then called "natural philosophy." Every question you could pose had an answer- you just had to go out into the world, study natural phenomena, and arrive at that answer, empirically as it were. Though you can look back and chuckle at what may seem like naive and voluminous writings on the nature of politics, ethics, the cosmos, biology, poetry, etc, Aristotle's method of inquiry for the most part remains the same accepted method that the scientific community uses today. Theories of hard science can't be proven through reason and discussion alone. Someone can't just publish a scientific paper in a major journal with no data to back up their claim. For example, someone could rationalize that clouds exist because little invisible gnomes with paint brushes shuttle across the sky and create them. If you were to claim something like this, contrary to every notion we accept about meteorology, you had better damn well have some strong empirical/collected data that proves such a claim. And even then, it's still just a "theory," right?
It's well substantiated throughout history that even a proven theory may well be refuted just because it isn't supported within the ideology of the common culture. Take heliocentrism, the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun rather than vice-versa, or atomic theory, postulating that all things in existence can be broken down into more basic, tiny components. Both were out and out rejected in their own times, over and over again, simply because the culture of the day refused to accept it. Even today's debates about evolution vs. intelligent design fall solidly into this category, though it's pretty obvious that the evolutionists have largely been accepted as the "winner" in this "contest". Through the mountains of data Charles Darwin and innumerable other scientists have collected, evolution is the accepted nature of existence of humankind- it's the ANSWER. Thus Aristotle lives on.
So what happens if the "answer" is eventually proven wrong? What about travesties of the the past like Witch Trials, where suspected citizens were subjected to the full gambit of "scientific tests" before they were convicted and burned alive? What about blood-letting as a method for suppressing disease or haphazard brain surgery in an attempt to cure mental disorders? How can we know that the things we hold as truths one moment won't vaporize in the next?
The truth: we can't. We can't account for the horrible things we've done in the past in the name of science. Technology only improves with time, and while one day we can't analyze a drop of blood at a murder scene, the next we have DNA testing, sending a convicted murderer with a 30 year prison sentence home after having been wrongly imprisoned for 13 years- for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Like it or not, this is just the nature of science in our world. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our lives, to become more efficient, to live longer, and to feel better- by fumbling through the darkness to find a more harmonious explanation for the things around us. We try to cobble these ideas and data together, and continually pretend that we can somehow grab nature by the horns using these flawed Aristotelian endeavors.
So why do we continue to rely on a 2300 year old method that's inherently riddled with error? Because the benefits of doing so largely outweigh the detriments. Through science, we can propose and live by these fake, temporary "universal truths" quite well, even if they turn out to cause major catastrophes later on. As my Superstring Theory professor said- "science is always right - until it's wrong."
Interestingly enough, the overarching method of battling scientific ideas returns to the form of a perpetual dialectic; an argument or conversation that goes back and forth endlessly, refining our body of scientific knowledge again and again. I can't help but see the irony of this- that the format is a lot like- a Platonic dialogue. So really our methods of scientific inquiry are a hybrid of the philosophies both of Plato AND Aristotle. Neither is mutually exclusive. Perhaps this is why in Rafael's painting, The School of Athens, standing in the center of of a collection of ancient Western philosophical figureheads, is both Plato and Aristotle, their respective doctrines tucked under one arm, while gesturing with the other their opposing viewpoints. Plato points up to the heavens, to indicate the source of universal truth, as if to say "Only God knows," while Aristotle holds his hand out in front of him, as if to say "Everything we can know is right here in front of us." I don't know about you, but I find it thoroughly amusing that the foundations of Western culture seem to rest entirely on these base opposing principles. Instead of agreeing completely with one or another viewpoint, we create harmony out of conflict, rather than out of equilibrium.
It doesn't seem quite right at face value, does it? Yet somehow it works. Maybe the philosopher Diogenes, who lived at the time of Plato and Aristotle, and who was a champion of the writings of my old pal Heraclitus, said it best:
"All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and the sum of things flows like a stream."
The world and all that we know is just a river of chaos. Hope you wore your life vest.
Reader Comments (2)
Wow, Nowell. Let's have tea sometime.
I wonder if you'd enjoy the Rhetoric 10 lectures you can get from UC Berkeley through iTunes? I loved that course.
I listened to the first Rhetoric 10 class and liked it a lot. Thanks for the rec, Naomi! I love to listen to lectures while I work. And we should definitely have tea sometime. :-)