A crash course in contemporary thinking...

...with no name-dropping and as free of technical vocabulary as possible.

(If any professional philosophers read this, I apologize sincerely. Then, on the other hand, why are you, a professional philosopher, reading this blog?)

Philosophy books can be very intimidating for some of us. The vocabulary can be so specialized, and just when you think you have understood a sentence, the next sentence proves you wrong. So here is a quick crash course in contemporary thinking, without any pretentious dropping of French-sounding names, no assumptions about how updated you should be on philosophical debates or terms such as ‘Immanence’, and no implication that you have be a scholar do some good thinking. That does not mean that it will be easy to understand the implications of everything here, this is a crash course after all. There will also be no real answers here, only a way of asking questions, of posing problems, of thinking. That’s kind of the point.

THE big question is 'What is Reality?'

Imagine Reality as a circle, outside of which is nothing. Everything that is, is inside this circle. That seems simple enough, but remember that even lies, misunderstandings, and false ideas cannot be outside the circle. In Reality, there must be a place for the false as well, or we would have to draw two circles. But false ideas do not exist in a parallel reality, but in this one. Therefore, everything that is, is included in Reality, even if its nature is ‘false’.

Enter you, the philosopher.

(Model 1)

Here you are, looking at Reality, tasting it, smelling, feeling, hearing it, thinking of it. What is Reality like? How can you describe it? For many philosophers these are the important questions. How can we know anything about Reality, what are the limits to our understanding, and so on.

But for others another question becomes important: Isn’t it true that you can’t describe Reality as it is anyway, that you only see it from your particular perspective? It’s like you are wearing glasses that are coloured, and so Reality seems to have that colour. Reality seems to be a particular way, but really this is only because of your perspective. And no perspective is perfect. So how then can you see further than your own perspective?

(Model 2)

Some philosophers like the first model of the philosopher looking at Reality, whereas others really get into model two, and the critique of perspectives. The latter have sometimes called the former “modern” and themselves “postmodern”, since they see themselves as coming ‘after’ (post) the ‘moderns’, somehow being aware of (and maybe avoiding) the mistakes of their forerunners. The ‘moderns’ would sometimes respond by calling the ‘postmoderns’ irrational (that they weren’t really all that clever) or relativists (that a result of their thinking would be that anything is equally OK) or inconsistent (that their actual lives could never match up to their theories, since the phrase ‘everything is relative’ could not itself be relative).

I think it is fair to say that neither side represented the other in a very generous way.

But there is another question that arises from both model 1 and 2, that has become more important to some contemporary thinkers.


The model shows the philosopher standing outside of Reality looking in. If so, then why don’t we draw 6 billion little people looking ‘into’ Reality? But the problem here is, of course, that for the philosopher – or for you, for that matter – all other people are part of the Reality she/you is trying to explain. All other people belong inside the big circle, and you look ‘in’ on them. But if they are included in the circle, then the philosopher herself should also be included. If nothing that is, is outside of Reality, then the philosopher and all her thoughts must also be included within it.

(Model 3)

 
This is where much contemporary philosophy takes its starting point (I just call it contemporary, because it isn’t really ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern’ – it doesn’t call itself anything). The thinker, her thoughts, and Reality are parts or aspects of the same ‘thing’ – so what is this thing? How do differences between the thinker and the rest of Reality emerge? How ‘solid’ are the boundaries between different things in Reality? How ‘solid’ are the boundaries of Reality itself? How do new things come into being? What is change? What is that thing we call ‘thought’, and what is its relation to the rest of Reality?

This can make some contemporary philosophy books seem quite strange. While trying to answer the question of what Reality is, the philosopher’s is at the same time trying to fit her own thinking itself (not only her ‘finished’ thoughts, but the process of thinking where more or less fully formed thoughts emerge) into the picture – the book she is writing must be included in the Reality it describes. It is like stories that have stories within them – imagine that the bigger story was to be fitted into the smaller story that is within the bigger story…that’s right, it gets complex and strange.

A few notes on the 'God question':

For those particularly interested (and not turned off by the above simplifications), I want to suggest how the ‘God question’ fits into the three models outlined above.

In the first model, God often figures in two places at once: On the one hand, God is a kind of external assurance that the philosopher will be able to understand Reality as it is, or approximately so. As she is looking at Reality, God hovers above her as the Designer of Reality, who makes sure its laws and principles remain stable and universal. On the other hand, God is a ‘still voice within’, nearer the self than rationality, emotions or any conscious idea. God is either 'out there' to be proved, or 'within' to be experienced. Behind all ‘postmodern’ perspectives, the God of the ‘moderns’ always guarantees the unity and essential stability of Reality, whether from far ‘outside’ or from deep ‘inside’.

In the second model, God often figures as the Other perspective, the Voice that interrupts your story of what Reality is. There is no access to any Reality outside of perspectives, no shortcuts through the known purposes of a grand Designer. Here, God is that nudging sense that all is not complete, the whispering Voice of the voice-less outcasts of any seemingly flawless description. In the face of all ‘modern’ claims of underlying structures and stabilities, the God of the ‘postmoderns’ always interrupts the flow of anything that seemed complete and ‘closed’.

In the third model, the ‘God question’ becomes paradoxical and loses much of its sting altogether. Asking whether God exists or not is very much like asking whether God (whatever is meant by the term) is included in Reality. Now, for Christian theology (since it is here the ‘God question’ is most often debated) this is not really a question that makes sense. On the one hand, God is seen as Creator of the world, and so not a simple part of that world, so it seems the answer should be ‘no’. But, if one answers ‘no, God should not be included in Reality’, this amounts to saying that God does not exist, even while affirming that God is Creator. On the other hand, if one answers ‘yes, God should be included in Reality’, this seems to align God with creation, reducing God to merely one of many things that are ‘out there’ in the world.

In this third model the question whether God exists or not, is a question that makes no sense. What some do, then, is to show that Christian theology has a long history of distinguishing between the ‘existence’ of creation and the ‘Being’ of God. Created things ‘exist’ only by participating in the ‘Being’ of God, they say. Therefore, to affirm that God ‘exists’, is actually technically wrong from a theological point of view. The answer to the ‘God question’ in the third model, is neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’, but something entirely different than the available alternatives. In a sense it is the question itself that is wrong, since it only makes sense if it first ignores theology – and then demands a theological answer. On this perspective, both model 1 and 2 ask the wrong question. In the third model, then, the question of God is thrown wide open, even though many ‘moderns’ and ‘postmoderns’ do not like it, and so are trying to shut it down again.