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have to already have a complex mind to explain how you got one.

You also need language. Darwin spent a lot of time looking for animal analogues to human language. I think it fair to say that we are still yet to find anything like human language in any other type of animal. The “language gap” marks us off from other species. However tempted we may be to “narrow the gap” between animal and human, our evolutionary stories about language depend on the compression of the differences (and simultaneous exaggeration of similarities) between complex language and brutish grunts. Like an upside-down Thomas Aquinas, Darwin reasoned by analogy and anthropomorphism. To make his case he often ironed flat the differences between the human and non-human. He tended to describe human behaviours in terms of animal behaviours and animal behaviours in terms of human behaviours.5 But this tends to obscure the differences we are trying to explain: the difference between a grunt on the one hand, and a language capable of expressing a theory of evolution or a truth of mathematics on the other. As Roger Scruton observed in the course of an argument about the limits of Darwin’s explanations of human

5 See C. Darwin, The Descent of Man, chapter 3 and chapter 4.

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behaviour, “You don’t cross that chasm merely by misdescribing the behaviour that creates it” . 6

The plugging of holes in our knowledge with Darwinian filler has been described by the (avowedly atheist) philosopher Thomas Nagel as “Darwinism of the gaps” . 7 Nagel offers an alternative to materialist neo-Darwinism. He argues that any arguments we have – including arguments about evolution, or the emergence of language – presuppose what philosophers have historically called the principle of sufficient reason. The underlying order of nature is intelligible: in principle there has to be a good reason for everything. If we do not presuppose reasonable answers to our questions, there can be no point in asking those questions in the first place; there would be no ultimate rational point to science or anything else. This principle of sufficient reason means that the whole cosmos has to be imprinted with or informed by an underlying structural intelligibility. Nagel admits that this means that he is working “in the tradition of Plato” , 8 and it leads him to argue in favour of a metaphysics of “panpsychic monism” (i.e., that the

6 R. Scruton, The Face of God (London: Continuum, 2012), p. 28. 7 T. Nagel, Mind and Cosmos (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 127. 8 Ibid., p. 17.

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whole of things, universally, is informed by intelligibility).9

It is one thing to say that we are centres of rational awareness existing within the universe. But Nagel takes this a step further and suggests that we are thereby involved in the self-awareness of the universe itself. According to Nagel, “Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself” . 10 We do not have to take this to mean that the cosmos per se is intelligent. We could say that insofar as we are examples of selfconscious (i.e., awakened) minds engaged with the rationality of material things, we are in some way the minds of the universe. But since our minds presuppose the cosmos to be universally intelligible, we then also have to assume that we are part of the monistic unity of the cosmos itself. This assumption that the universe is one intelligible unity means that we have to include ourselves as parts of that whole. In principle, our own reasoning minds must needs also be intelligible because the universe is intelligible. Since we our selfconscious, we can – should – account for our behaviour in terms of rational ideas and reasonable values rather than instincts. As Bernard Bosanquet once argued, “You do not make the world; it communicates your

9 Ibid., pp. 56-57. 10 Ibid., p. 85.

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nature to you, though in receiving this you are an active organ of the world itself” . 11

This allows us to see a bit more clearly what Nagel means when he claims that in our minds the universe is waking up to itself. He means that a biological evolutionary process has led in human beings to the emergence of collective cultural and intellectual processes, and that as a second step these intellectual processes have, in turn, proceeded to make of themselves the shift from merely subjective to objective and universal knowledge. Such universal knowledge is of a type which transcends the limited perspectives of any particular conscious subject. In other words, at least some of our knowledge is of a type that cannot be described as being merely “your opinion” or as only “my view”. Some of our knowledge is universally true. Thus I have knowledge that 2 + 2 = 4 and that this would have to be true even if no one, anywhere, at any time, had ever lived to think it. 2 + 2 just is 4. It does not depend on me adding it up to make it so. The human mind is a part of the universe that has woken up to the deep insight that we do not invent numbers but participate in a world of mathematical truths.

The effectiveness of mathematics in describing the world is quite wondrous. To some, like Eugene Wigner, it seems that if mathematical reasoning did not

11 B. Bosanquet, The Meeting of Extremes in Contemporary Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1921), p. 3.

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necessarily “fit” with descriptions of the material world, it would surprisingly improbable that it should.12 But mathematical reasoning does “fit” with the world. Moreover, any mathematical proof is necessarily true; it could not sometimes be true and sometimes be false in the way that material things sometimes do exist and sometimes do not. Given this it should perhaps be predictable that the worldview (if it can rightly be described as one) of at least some very prominent mathematicians remains recognisably Platonistic. As an example, take what Roger Penrose says: “To me the world of perfect forms is primary… its existence being almost a logical necessity – and the world of conscious perceptions and the world of physical reality are its shadows” . 13 The material universe has somehow got to the point where rational life has emerged and recognised the intelligible ordering of nature as a kind of other world, not itself material, but logical, mathematical, and rational.

One might be surprised by the fact that the world makes any sense to us at all. The universe is no mere swirling chaos, but is something that can be reasoned about; it displays patterns and laws of nature that we can recognise and which make sense to us. We suppose

12 E. Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in Natural Sciences” in Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, 13:1, 1960. 13 R. Penrose, Shadows of the Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 417.

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that such patterns and rules are universal. Indeed, the presupposition of the universalizability of this accordance of reason with the cosmos is something which itself makes empirical science possible. (It is not itself a fact of empirical science, but a precondition of it; no scientist has observed the universe as a whole, and the claim that there are universal laws of physics is itself incapable of any ultimate empirical verification).

So, let us admit that for us there is a harmonious correlation, agreement, and concordance between mind and matter. How do we account for this? Could this harmony or unity be explained as some random chance or coincidence? That would make our capacity to reason a fluke. If reason is the result of chance, there is no rational explanation for reason: reason itself would have been caused by or based in an ultimately irrational and lawless chaos. Even if we entertain the hypothetical argument (of modal logic) that an infinite number of multiverses could by sheer random chance include at least one instance of a rationally ordered universe (our own – the best of all possible worlds precisely as the intelligible world), we are not easily left off the hook. As Thomas Nagel argues, “this is a cop-out, which dispenses with the attempt to explain anything” . 14 Nagel’s argument is that the multiverse theory does not satisfactorily solve the problem. It does

14 Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 95 n.

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not provide a comprehensive account of the natural order as ordered, and gives no intelligible explanation of intelligibility. If we take recourse to multiverse theory, intellect becomes a mere accident that exists only in a hole (a negative space) within a wider chaos. Intelligibility would then have no final significance. If there is no ultimate reason for reasoning we may as be done with it (and theories of multiverses to boot).15

Reasonable structure cannot be exceptional, but must be recognised everywhere as the condition of our knowing a system of nature. Intelligibility has to go all the way down things, right to the very depths. If this (logically) has to be more than a coincidence, what then is it? John Richardson Illingworth was representative of a tradition of post-Darwinian British philosophy when he argued that only purpose can lead to purpose. “For a system which culminates in purpose must be purposeful throughout. Its entire process must be qualified by the character of its conclusion” . 16 This, he argued, was not an argument from design, but a reflection of what he called the “higher teleology” : “What we are here contending with is that the entire material order, with all its infinite complexity,

15 This rather Nietzchean insight reflects various types of fideism as well as any theology which privileges God’s will over God’s logos or truth. If the free agency of God is not governed by (or identical with) God’s truth, reason has no ultimate rational ground. 16 J. Richardson Illingworth, Divine Immanence (London: Macmillan, 1898), p. 15.

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ministers to another and higher order of being, from which it received no reciprocal return, and is therefore intended or designed so to do” . 17 For Illingworth, this is the consequence of recognising the reasonableness of material order as ordered.

How come this ordering? It might be our own doing: the correlation might be caused by us. One of the odder, though surprisingly recurrent themes of quantum physics is the notion that the existence of things in the universe actually depends on you and I, as observers. Much has been made of the notorious “delayed-choice double-split” experiment. This is the basis for John Wheeler’s claim, “It has not really happened, it is not a phenomenon, until it is an observed phenomenon” . 18 But if observers are responsible for observed phenomenon, where do we stop? For Stephen Hawking, the “observations you make on a system in the present affect its past… the universe doesn’t have just a single history, but every possible history… and our observations in its current state affect its past and determine the different histories of the universe” . 19 This argument led Hawking to the logical conclusion that “we create

17 Ibid., p. 20. 18 J. Wheeler, “The Past and the Delayed-Choice Double-Slit Experiment” in A. R. Marlow, ed, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory (Academic Press: 1978), p. 14. 19 S. Hawking and L. Mlodinow, The Grand Design (Bantam, 2011), pp. 106-107.

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history by our observation, rather than history creating us” . 20 If this is true, it follows that the cosmos has been formed by our own minds.

What are we to say? That our minds participate in immaterial rational and mathematical laws which exist outside of time, generating as well as informing the universe? That is a way of explaining how we got here, and a way of providing an account of how our rationality somehow “fits” with the world. Philosophical idealism is back in business.

If human beings can apply reason to everything in nature, they can apply it to themselves, too. Reasoning about reasoning is what Rowan Williams has described as a “doctrine of intelligence”. There are different ways of being intelligent which involve a diversity of questions. There are pragmatic or problem-solving or solution-focussed functional questions. There are also questions about the point, purpose, end, or good of those functions. Likewise, there are questions about the end, or good, of intelligence itself. The finding of one type of answer to one type of question does not stop us asking further questions. Indeed, this is part of the joy of intellectual life. Yet this intellectual life is not “free-floating”, but engages with reality. I cannot just make up truth because it suits me. Reason itself shows us this.

20 Ibid., p. 179.

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Or, as George Orwell observed, “we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we a finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality” . 21 Good education helps us with this. Good education allows us to practise routines of patient attentiveness, acquire the habits of asking good questions, and aims at helping us to sift the superficial from the profound. “Good learning calls, no less than teaching does, for courtesy, respect, a kind of reverence: reverence for facts and people, evidence and argument, for climates of speech and patterns of behaviour different from our own ” . 22

When we apply the principle of sufficient reason to our own behaviour we begin to ask reasonable questions of ethical problems, seek reasonable answers to those

21 The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell. Vol. IV: In front of your nose, 1945-1950 (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), p. 124. 22 N. Lash, Holiness, Speech and Silence (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 62-63. Lash writes in the tradition of John Henry Newman, who believed that the hallmarks of a liberal education included habits of “diligence, assiduity, regularity, despatch, [and] persevering application” . Newman held that education’s lasting attributes are “freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom”. See J. Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1996), p. 94 & p. 77

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questions, and develop and revise moral theories. Ethics cannot be a matter of mere personal preference. Moral judgments are not just expressions of our own feelings and attitudes. If we disagree over what is right, it is not just because I have a very strong emotional feeling that you are wrong. The person who bursts into tears first is not necessarily more moral than another; the person who shouts loudest has not thereby won an argument. We persist in subjecting moral choices to rational argument in the expectation that reason will help supply answers to our moral problems. Further, if we disagree about the best way of doing this, we engage in a philosophical conversation about moral theory. Idealism also opens up old paths in aesthetics. Roger Scruton wrote extensively on the application of philosophical reasoning to beauty. Beauty, he argued, is not merely a matter of subjective preferences, but is in principle something that can be reasoned about intelligibly. Scruton’s book, The Soul of the World (which happens to refer to Nagel) argues that aesthetics is a path to transcendence; our experience of beauty tells us something about truth.23

And religion? We find here a core aspect of the spiritual, philosophical and theological traditions we inherit from St Thomas Aquinas. Thomas was committed to the idea that that truths of religion,

23 R. Scruton, The Soul of the World (Princeton University Press, 2014).

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however obscure they might appear at first sight, could not, in principle, be contrary to reason. God for Thomas is the God of truth. Our scientific and philosophical questioning of the world as well as of ourselves is made possible because the rational Divine mind had provided the grounds for the intelligibility of the world. It sets the mind on a journey towards the discovery of further and deeper layers of intelligibility, all the way down to the depths. This intelligibility opens a path to God. “Wonder is a kind of desire in knowing. It is a cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery” (S. Th. 1-2, q. 41, art. 4, ad 5); “as it stated in the beginning of the Metaphysics (1.2)… a person… wonders… and from wondering proceeds to inquire. Nor does this inquiry cease until one arrives at a knowledge of the essence of the cause” (S. Th. 1-2, q. 3, art 8). How come this desire, this aspiration, for truth? The desire for knowledge makes the acquisition of knowledge possible; the “gift” of desire provides the “dynamism of the participation of the finite in the infinite” . 24 Desire always desires some end, which is a good, and “without some at least partly determinate conception of the final telos there could not be any beginning to a quest” . 25 As far as Thomas was

24 J. Milbank, Being Reconciled (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 8. 25 A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth, 1985), p. 219.

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concerned, if there is no God, there is no satisfying explanation for science.

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCE OF GOTTFRIED VON HERDER

Harry Davis (L6R2)

In this article, I will briefly summarise the works of Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) and the influence his work had on philosophers such as Hegel, Nietzsche, and J. S. Mill. Herder’s work also contributed to the establishment of the basis of modern linguistics. He was also a central thinker in the foundation of nationalism and the belief that all people who speak the same language should live in the same land.

Herder's best-known works are written on the theory of language and they give us a fascinating insight into the origins of language. He argued that language should be described in human or natural terms and that the divine source cannot give us a direct interpretation of the origins of language.

David Hume wrote that, “mankind is so much the same in all times and places that history informs us of nothing new or strange”, but Herder believed that this opinion was wrong. If this is to be so, then why has there been such a vast variety of traditions, concepts, and values around the world in various periods of time?

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To answer this question, Herder came up with the theory that thinking depends on language and location and that one can only think if they have a language. This is why various fields of thinking have been established in different locations around the world. Someone who speaks Hindi would think differently to someone who speaks German as it is part of their human nature. This is why we have different cultures around the world.

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His thesis challenged the early view that had dominated in the 17th and 18th century which was that language and thought and meaning were completely unrelated. His works were seen as ground-breaking and went on to influence many modern philosophers.

This idea is also the foundation of cultural nationalism which is the belief that each country has its own values based on language and so therefore liberalism cannot be applied across different nations, as people who do not speak the same language have a language barrier which may cause issues between people due to their lack of understanding. These issues could be religion based or just cultural differences that the people disagree on. Herder saw having one language within a country as a way of peaceful co-existence with a more liberal form of government as all the people would have similar beliefs. This was an early view of nationalism but the meaning of nationalism was severely distorted in Germany in the 1930s and the early 1940s when Hitler came to power. Despite being Austrian he shared the view that language unites all German speakers much like Herder. The country Hitler constructed though was very different from that desired by Herder. The war hungry Nazi Germany was almost the complete opposite of Herder’s idea of a peaceful and free Germany.

Herder also developed a new theory on translation, which is complicated by different languages having different concepts. He states that there can be two

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types of translation, a “lax” approach where the text can stray from the original source in order to adapt to the language it is being translated into, or there is the “accommodating” approach which is where you should stay as close as it possible can to the original text. Herder preferred the accommodating approach as the fundamental goal of translation is semantic faithfulness. However, when using the accommodating approach, he claimed that one cannot always translate a text with the same meaning in another language. An example he gave was English humour: the jokes made in English quite simply do not convey the same meaning when being translated into another language.

He derived a solution which was to make sure that the text must capture the emotional tone of the original or the oral aspects of its language. He gives an example of this in his translation of Genesis 1 where the English translation states, “And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light” – which he translates into German, “Gott sprach: ‘Sei Licht!’ und’ s war Licht!” While the meanings do not match word for word the use of the exclamation mark encapsulates G-d’s command and the force that he is speaking with. Herder himself translated texts in a range of languages including some of the works of Shakespeare to help prove his point about language. His essay titled “Shakespeare” changed the way we approach historical texts as he claimed that we must judge a piece of work by their own historical and cultural context. He also

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believed that it is vital to learn other languages so that we can express things which our mother tongue cannot.

His work on translation helped found a whole new area of academic work known as linguistics. This is the scientific study of language form and meaning with analysis focussed on the historical and political factors that have influenced the language in the past. Linguistics is usually the analysis of human language by observing the connection between sound and meaning.

The work of Herder also included some material on interpretation and the theory of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the theory used behind interpretation, in particular in religious texts and works of philosophy. He tried to answer the question, when interpreting someone who is speaking a completely different language and therefore has a different way of thinking, how can we achieve an accurate interpretation?

Herder set out three principles that we must follow when interpreting:

The first principle when interpreting religious texts, is that one must use a principle of secularism. This means that no religious assumptions should be made no matter how sacred the text may be. The second principle is a principle of generic interpretation which

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means that the interpretation should be of the nature of the genre that is being interpreted. Thirdly a principle of methodological empiricism is necessary when interpreting. This means that when interpreting a text, one must keep to sensory experience as our knowledge cannot extend beyond experience.

This work on hermeneutics influenced Friedrich Schleiermacher to expand on the work of Herder.

This essay has demonstrated the influence that Herder has had on not only philosophy but also linguistics, politics and he also potentially playing an inadvertent role in World War II by virtue of his influence on Hitler. The real question stemming from this is: why don’t more people know about Herder? One explanation could lie in the fact that because so many other philosophers used his work as the basis for further writing. It is possible that he has been left in the shadows of Hegel, Schleiermacher, and Nietzsche.

Despite not receiving the recognition that others have received, Herder changed the way that translators approach their work. This has been important for translation works of theology and philosophy which have been written in the past so that we can understand them now. As one of the great thinkers of the 18th century, Herder laid the foundations for others.

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