Defining a Border

All thought ultimately rests on evidence, another way of saying that it rests on truth. The root of truth is experience—for the simple reason that you have to start somewhere safe, and experience, at least in the raw, thus separated from any interpretation of it, is beyond questioning. Descartes’ cogito is simply one example of an experience that suited one kind of mind. What distinguishes philosophy from metaphysics is that philosophy is closer to evidence than metaphysics. Or that, at least, is a thesis worth examining.

I arrive here because I thoroughly enjoy well-argued philosophical propositions. I always feel the urge to apply a similar approach to the matters that interest me. But then I discover that my questions invariably concern the why of things, the purpose or the explanation of X. And here philosophy becomes deficient. It is good at explaining how things relate—and by thing I don’t mean material phenomena necessarily. It can analyze a concept and accurately find its limits, appropriate use, illegitimate application, etc., but it cannot deal with meaning unless the meaning is an intermediate term in a series: why does the rider use as saddle? No problem there. It can’t deal with ultimate meaning. Why is the rider there?

An example is the two-fold nature of the human: body and soul. What purpose does a body serve if, as we can reasonably demonstrate, using philosophical approaches, souls are in their very essence different in kind, thus radically different, from bodies. To answer this question rationally calls for explanations of the soul and of its purpose, of the material realm in the same respects, why they both exist, how they relate, and the nature and purpose of the realm in which they are each a manifestation.

Here we effectively cross a border. We can’t resolve the question without speculation, using that last word to mean an activity which cannot yield hard answers for lack of evidence—at least while we’re inside vile bodies. No system of thought, however elegant or probable, can compel agreement—as philosophy can indeed compel while it remains on the firm ground of experience. I put this out by way of saying that I’m fully aware, in all that’s said in these pages, of the limitations under which I labor. And the tone of certainty I sometimes produce must not be mistaken for authority of any kind.