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  RATIONALISM

  Now for something completely different—a school of metaphysics that has produced literally volumes of satire without any help from us. There’s only one problem: The jokes all miss the point.

  When the seventeenth-century rationalist philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz famously said, “This is the best of all possible worlds,” he opened himself to unmerciful ridicule. It all began in the following century with Candide, Voltaire’s very funny novel of a good-natured young man (Candide) and his philosophical mentor, Dr. Pangloss (Voltaire’s rendition of Leibniz). In his journeys, young Candide encounters floggings, unjust executions, epidemics, and an earthquake patterned after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which had leveled the city. Nothing, however, can shake Dr. Pangloss’s insistence that “Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” When Candide sets out to save Jacques, a Dutch Anabaptist, from drowning, Pangloss stops him by proving that the Bay of Lisbon had been “formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in.”

  Two centuries later, Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 musical, Candide, added to the joke. The show’s best-known song, “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” has Pangloss and the cast sing Richard Wilbur’s lyrics praising war as a blessing in disguise, because it unites us all—as victims.

  Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg joined the fun with their ribald version, Candy, about a naïve young girl, who, despite being taken advantage of by all the men she meets, remains innocent and optimistic. It was made into a 1964 movie with an all-star cast that included philosopher Ringo Starr.

  Funny stuff—but, unfortunately, it all misconstrues Leibniz’s thesis. Leibniz was a rationalist, a philosophical term-of-trade for someone who thinks that reason takes precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge (as opposed, for example, to an empiricist, who maintains that the senses are the primary path to knowledge.) Leibniz got to his idea that this is the best of all possible worlds by arguing by reason alone that:

  1. There would be no world at all if God had not chosen to create a world.

  2. The “principle of sufficient reason” says that when there is more than one alternative, there must be an explanation for why one is the case rather than another.

  3. In the case of God’s choosing a particular world to create, the explanation must necessarily be found in the attributes of God himself, since there was nothing else around at the time.

  4. Because God is both all-powerful and morally perfect, he must have created the best possible world. If you think about it, under the circumstances it was the only possible world. Being all-powerful and morally perfect, God could not have created a world that wasn’t the best.

  Voltaire, Bernstein et al, and Southern and Hoffenberg all satirize what they take to be Leibniz’s meaning: “Everything is hunky-dory.” But Leibniz didn’t think there was no evil in the world. He merely thought that for God to have created the world in any other way would have resulted in even more evil.

  Fortunately, we have a couple of jokes that actually do shed light on Leibniz’s philosophy.

  An optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears that this is so.

  The joke implies that the optimist approves of the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds, while the pessimist does not. From Leibniz’s rationalist perspective, the world simply is what it is; the joke clarifies the obvious truth that optimism and pessimism are personal attitudes that have nothing to do with Leibniz’s neutral, rational description of the world.

  The optimist says, “The glass is half full.”

  The pessimist says, “The glass is half empty.”

  The rationalist says, “This glass is twice as big as it needs to be.”

  That makes it clear as glass.

  INFINITY AND ETERNITY

  It turns out that, however wonderful this world is or isn’t, we’re only here for a short visit. But short compared to what? An unlimited number of years?

  Leibniz goes to the opposite extreme from the God shown at left (not to be confused with God above). Being a rationalist, Leibniz wasn’t content to say that anything “just happened,” as though something else might just as easily have happened instead. He felt that there must be some reason that made every situation necessary. Why does it rain more in Seattle than in Albuquerque? Because conditions A, B, and C make it impossible for it to be the other way around. Given conditions A, B, and C, it couldn’t be any other way. So far most of us would agree with him, especially those of us who live in Seattle. But Liebniz goes on to argue that even those antecedent conditions (A, B, and C) could not have been otherwise. And the ones before them, and before them, and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo. This is what he called the “Principle of Sufficient Reason,” meaning that the reason any actual state of affairs is actual is that it would be impossible for it to be otherwise. A universe that did not have a disproportionate amount of rain in Seattle and all the conditions that lead to that rain just wouldn’t cut it as a universe. It would be chaos; the universe would have no “uni.”

  The notion of infinity has been confounding metaphysicians for, well, an eternity. Non-metaphysicians, however, have been less impressed.

  Two cows are standing in the pasture. One turns to the other and says, “Although pi is usually abbreviated to five numbers, it actually goes on into infinity.”

  The second cow turns to the first and says, “Moo.”

  The following joke combines the idea of eternity with another howler of a philosophical concept, relativity:

  A woman is told by her doctor that she has six months to live. “Is there anything I can do?” she asks.

  “Yes, there is,” the doctor replies. “You could marry a tax accountant.”

  “How will that help my illness?” the woman asks.

  “Oh, it won’t help your illness,” says the doctor, “but it will make that six months seem like an eternity!”

  This joke raises the philosophical question, “How could something finite, like six months, possibly be analogous to something infinite, like eternity?” Those who ask this question have never lived with a tax accountant.

  DETERMINISM VERSUS FREE WILL

  While we are in the here and now, do we have any control over our destiny?

  Down through the centuries, much philosophical ink has been spilled over the question of whether human beings are free to decide and act or whether our decisions and actions are determined by external forces: heredity, environment, history, fate, Microsoft.

  The Greek tragedians stressed the influence of character and its inevitable flaws in determining the course of events.

  When asked whether he believed in free will, twentieth-century novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer replied, tongue-in-cheek, “I have no choice.” (This is actually a position that some philosophers have taken with empty cheeks: that we are compelled to believe in our own free will because otherwise there is no basis for our belief in moral responsibility. Our moral choices would be out of our hands.)

  Recently, the notion that psychological forces outside our control determine our behavior has eroded the idea of moral responsibility to the point that we now have the “Twinkie defense,” in which a defendant claimed that the sugar in his snack compelled him to commit murder. It’s “the devil made me do it” dressed up in psychological garb.

  Then again, there are some determinists who say, “God made me do it. In fact, God has determined everything in the universe down to the last detail.” Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century Dutch/Jewish philosopher, and Jonathan Edwards, the eighteenth-century American theologian, were proponents of this sort of theological determinism. The eagle, the frog, and the truck driver in the following story all probably thought they chose and executed their actions freely.

  Moses, Jesus, and a bearded old man are playing golf. Moses drives a long one, which lands on the fairway but rolls directly toward the pond. Moses raises his club, parts the water, and the ball rolls safely
to the other side.

  Jesus also hits a long one toward the same pond, but just as it’s about to land in the center, it hovers above the surface. Jesus casually walks out on the pond and chips it onto the green.

  The bearded man’s drive hits a fence and bounces out onto the street, where it caroms off an oncoming truck and back onto the fairway. It’s headed directly for the pond, but it lands on a lily pad, where a frog sees it and snatches it into his mouth. An eagle swoops down, grabs the frog, and flies away. As the eagle and frog pass over the green, the frog drops the ball, and it lands in the cup for a hole-in-one.

  Moses turns to Jesus and says, “I hate playing with your dad.”

  PROCESS PHILOSOPHY

  It had to happen—a philosopher came along who took exception to this notion of a compulsive God who has his finger in everything. Twentieth-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead argued that not only is God incapable of deter mining the future—the future will determine him. According to Whitehead’s process philosophy, God is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, but is changed by events as they unfold. Or, as the New Agers might say, “God is, like, so evolved.”

  Alvin is working in his store when he hears a booming voice from above that says, “Alvin, sell your business!” He ignores it. The voice goes on for days saying, “Alvin, sell your business for three million dollars!” After weeks of this, he relents and sells his store.

  The voice says, “Alvin, go to Las Vegas!”

  Alvin asks why.

  “Alvin, just take the three million dollars and go to Las Vegas.”

  Alvin obeys, goes to Las Vegas, and visits a casino.

  The voice says, “Alvin, go to the blackjack table and put it all down on one hand!”

  Alvin hesitates but gives in. He’s dealt an eighteen. The dealer has a six showing.

  “Alvin, take a card!”

  “What? The dealer has . . .”

  “Take a card!”

  Alvin tells the dealer to hit him, and gets an ace. Nineteen. He breathes easy.

  “Alvin, take another card.”

  “What?”

  “TAKE ANOTHER CARD!”

  Alvin asks for another card. It’s another ace. He has twenty.

  “Alvin, take another card!” the voice commands.

  “I have twenty!” Alvin shouts.

  “TAKE ANOTHER CARD!” booms the voice.

  “Hit me!” Alvin says. He gets another ace. Twenty-one!

  And the booming voice says, “Un-fucking-believable!”

  Hey, there is something appealing about a God who can surprise himself.

  THE PRINCIPLE OF PARSIMONY

  There has always been an antimetaphysical strain in philosophy, culminating in the triumph of the scientific worldview in the last two centuries. Rudolf Carnap and the Vienna Circle (not a seventies disco group, contrary to popular opinion) went so far as to outlaw metaphysics as nonrational speculation that has been superseded by science.

  Rudy and the V.C. took their cue from the fourteenth-century theologian William Occam, who came up with the principle of parsimony, aka “Occam’s razor.” This principle declares that, “Theories should not be any more complex than necessary.” Or, as Occam put it metaphysically, theories should not “multiply entities unnecessarily.”

  Suppose Isaac Newton had watched the apple fall and exclaimed, “I’ve got it! Apples are being caught in a tug-of-war between gremlins pulling them up and trolls pulling them down, and trolls are stronger!”

  Occam would have retorted, “Okay, Isaac, so your theory does account for all the observable facts, but get with the program—keep it simple!”

  Carnap would agree.

  One evening after dinner, a five-year-old boy asked his father, “Where did Mommy go?”

  His father told him, “Mommy is at a Tupperware party.”

  This explanation satisfied the boy only for a moment, but then he asked, “What’s a Tupperware party, Dad?”

  His father figured a simple explanation would be the best approach. “Well, son,” he said, “at a Tupperware party, a bunch of ladies sit around and sell plastic bowls to each other.”

  The boy burst out laughing. “Come on, Dad! What is it really?”

  The simple truth is that a Tupperware party really is a bunch of ladies sitting around and selling plastic bowls to each other. But the marketing folks at the Tupperware Corporation, metaphysicians that they are, would have us believe it’s more complex than that.

  DIMITRI: I ask you one simple question, and you give me ten different answers. It’s not exactly helpful.

  TASSO: If it’s help you want, go see a social worker. I hear they’ve got loads of them in Sparta.

  DIMITRI: No, what I want to know is which answer is true?

  TASSO: Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere.

  {II}

  Logic

  Without logic, reason is useless. With it, you can win

  arguments and alienate multitudes.

  DIMITRI: There are so many competing philosophies. How can I be sure anything’s true?

  TASSO: Who says anything is true?

  DIMITRI: There you go again. Why do you always answer a question with another question?

  TASSO: You got a problem with that?

  DIMITRI: I don’t even know why I asked, because some things just are true. Like two plus two equals four. That’s true, end of story.

  TASSO: But how can you be sure?

  DIMITRI: Because I am one smart Athenian.

  TASSO: That’s another question. But the reason you can be sure two plus two equals four is because it follows the irrefutable laws of logic.

  THE LAW OF NONCONTRADICTION

  Tasso’s right.

  Let’s start off with a classic joke that draws on Aristotelian logic.

  A rabbi is holding court in his village. Schmuel stands up and pleads his case, saying, “Rabbi, Itzak runs his sheep across my land every day and it is ruining my crops. It’s my land. It’s not fair.”

  The rabbi says, “You’re right!”

  But then Itzak stands up and says, “But Rabbi, going across his land is the only way my sheep can drink water from the pond. Without it, they’ll die. For centuries, every shepherd has had the right of way on the land surrounding the pond, so I should too.”

  And the rabbi says, “You’re right!”

  The cleaning lady, who has overheard all this, says to the rabbi, “But, Rabbi, they can’t both be right!”

  And the rabbi replies, “You’re right!”

  The cleaning lady has informed the rabbi that he has violated Aristotle’s Law of Noncontradiction, which for a rabbi isn’t quite as bad as violating the law against coveting your neighbor’s maidservant, but it’s close. The Law of Noncontradiction says that nothing can both be so and not be so at the same time.

  ILLOGICAL REASONING

  Illogical reasoning is the bane of philosophers, but heaven knows, it can be useful. That’s probably why it’s so prevalent.

  An Irishman walks into a Dublin bar, orders three pints of Guinness, and drinks them down, taking a sip from one, then a sip from the next, until they’re gone. He then orders three more. The bartender says, “You know, they’d be less likely to go flat if you bought them one at a time.”

  The man says, “Yeah, I know, but I have two brothers, one in the States, one in Australia. When we all went our separate ways, we promised each other that we’d all drink this way in memory of the days when we drank together. Each of these is for one of my brothers and the third is for me.”

  The bartender is touched, and says, “What a great custom!”

  The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar and always orders the same way.

  One day he comes in and orders two pints. The other regulars notice, and a silence falls over the bar. When he comes to the bar for his second round, the bartender says, “Please accept my condolences, pal.”

  The Irishman says, “Oh, no, everyone’s fine. I just joined the Morm
on Church, and I had to quit drinking.”

  In other words, self-serving logic can get you served.

  INDUCTIVE LOGIC

  Inductive logic reasons from particular instances to general theories and is the method used to confirm scientific theories. If you observe enough apples falling from trees, you will conclude that apples always fall down, instead of up or sideways. You might then form a more general hypothesis that includes other falling bodies, like pears. Thus is the progress of science.

  In the annals of literature, no character is as renowned for his powers of “deduction” as the intrepid Sherlock Holmes, but the way Holmes operates is not generally by using deductive logic at all. He really uses inductive logic. First, he carefully observes the situation, then he generalizes from his prior experience, using analogy and probability, as he does in the following story:

  Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge. “Watson,” he says, “look up in the sky and tell me what you see.”

  “I see millions of stars, Holmes,” says Watson.

  “And what do you conclude from that, Watson?”

  Watson thinks for a moment. “Well,” he says, “astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignificant. Uh, what does it tell you, Holmes?”