The Three Fundamental Epistemological Choices - Some Personal Thoughts on the Necessity of Faith

The Fundamental Epistemological Choice
By Stephen Alexander Beach
(1500 Words) 

The Three Fundamental Choices
When comparing Cartesian metaphysics with traditional Greek or Medieval metaphysics, a certain fundamental difference manifests itself. This difference I am speaking of is in reference to the epistemological situation of all of us in this human experience. Everything we know of the world is through our subjectivity as knowers, through the apparatus, so to speak, of us a sensing and thinking being in the world. And so where does the certainty of truth enter into the human experience? This is the fundamental epistemological problem  which requires a response (and yet as I will point out, it seems absurd to even talk about it because if I didn't know the world I could not speak about my doubt of it). Beginning from one's own subjectivity, there is the path of faith, the path of skepticism, and a path seeking for absolute certainty. Depending on which response one chooses, one will proceed to different ends. One path leads to an objective world and to God, one to nothingness, and the third to solipsism. 

The Way of Faith 

The first epistemological choice of faith is to recognize that as an embodied subjectivity there is an element of faith which one must put in the intelligibility and trustworthiness of being, and in one's experience of the world. I must recognize that I do not know the world in its totality, like God would. Rather, my knowledge of the world and myself is mediated, first, through the senses, and then through the concepts of the mind. And so this intermediate phase between my subjectivity and the world exists, but if one makes an act of trust in what is presented, a door opens up into the vast expanse of the universe outside of my consciousness. Indeed, every time one acts in the world they demonstrate spontaneously the validity of making this act of faith. When I leave the room through the door I am spontaneously demonstrating that I trust that the door is the right way to leave, and not through the wall or the light bulb. Likewise, the act of trust in the intelligibility of being is so fundamental that even in the act of trying to refute or deny it, one actually affirms it to be correct. Once one has made the act of faith in the intelligibility of being, right away comes reason, logic, truth, and ultimately God. 

The Way of Skepticism
The way of skepticism is to posit a distrust in the intelligibility of being, or to claim that the mode through which our subjectivity reaches the world renders it meaningless. There are several problems with this though. Implicit in this formulation is the notion that subjectivity is truth and certainty, and faith is uncertainty. But even this has to be taken as a given, as there has been no grounding for establishing any truth yet. Indeed, to trust one's subjectivity enough to make this judgment is to affirm that one's subjectivity is intelligible and trustworthy, and thus to put faith in being. To reject this faith would be even to reject one's own subjectivity and conscious understanding of the problem at hand. Thus, the end of this path leads to nothingness, as even error can only be recognized in a relationship to truth. If there is no truth, there is neither error. And it leads not only intellectual nothingness, but to complete inaction, as Aristotle talks about in his Metaphysics, you should just behave like a vegetable, as whenever you act, you put faith in the intelligibility of reality and your action. 

The Way of Attempted Certainty

The third way is that of the philosophical Rationalist, like Descartes. His main focus was to find a certainty which begins in one's subjectivity and continues out from there, seemingly removing all faith involved. Descartes thought subjectivity could be a new way forward without any uncertainty. But without the leap of faith from the subjectivity of the mind to the objectivity of the world, all knowledge of reality falls into the unknown. Thus the end of Cartesian philosophy, while it may not be the death of subjectivity, is the death of reason. And yet the same paradox still exists for this path as well. Descartes has to resolve all doubt into a definite certainty of subjectivity in "I think", but this too is to make a leap of faith regarding the intelligibility of one's subjectivity. So faith is still involved. If one makes an act of trust in subjectivity, one could argue that it's less faith that what is required in making an act of truth is objective being outside the mind. But faith is still required none the less. Taking this path ultimately may produce some truths in the mind, but it resolves itself into solipsism. There is never a way to transcend the subjectivity of the self to and reach the outside world. 

And yet this view has another flaw, as subjectivity is a funny thing. Drawing sharp boundaries between the two realities of subjectivity and the objective world is dangerous because it splits reality into two parts. Rather, sharing the common identity of existence, it is more accurate to conceive of the two as a part of the whole, like the inside and outside of a box. Subjectivity cannot exist except with some objective structure of being which allows it to exist. Likewise we could not know this objective structure without the experience of subjectivity. Being interpenetrated with one another helps solve the false dichotomy that is often set up between them. Subjectivity is a type of objective being within a larger framework of objective being. Subjectivity is the aspect of being which allows it to know itself, or it is nothing at all. 

Faith is Always Necessary

To recognize, as was mentioned at the beginning, that subjective methods are limited in their scope because of the nature of our mode of knowing is fine. This does not invalidate nor justify the destruction of the whole human experience. The problem is that today we often define "truth" only in terms of the scientific method, and its establishment of physical theories, and we do not think about the meta-questions and realities that lie hidden beneath. Once we are awakened to these meta-realities, we see that an attitude of trust in the intelligibility of the human experience is the only fruitful path, indeed, the only path.