The Desire to Understand: Aristotle and Embedded Knowledge
Modern philosophes insisted on characterizing knowledge as a matter of impersonal, transferable technique. This was one step in the gradual triumph of technology over being.
[The following text is excerpted from a book currently in progress.]
The Enlightenment preference for process and method over being was felt especially in the field of knowledge. Indeed, it is well recognized that the Enlightenment had as great an impact on epistemology as on any other field. In this respect, modern philosophes insisted on characterizing knowledge as a matter of impersonal, transferable technique. This was one step in the gradual overcoming of being by technology that is the greatest legacy of the Enlightenment. If we are to escape the reign of technique and reconnect with real being, it is necessary to recapture a version of knowledge of that embeds knowledge in the dynamic flourishing of the human person and human community. To this end, I recommend the Aristotelian-Thomist vision of knowledge and science.
The Desire to Understand
According to Aristotle, all men by nature desire to understand. Aristotle was not naive; he was not blind to the fact of human folly, laziness, and willful ignorance. Nevertheless, he recognized that the unfolding of human culture is the product of the intrinsic human need to understand — an inclination of human nature. Now modern men tend to identify “nature” with a man’s inner character or psychological individuality. Classical philosophy views the matter in the reverse.
For Thomas Aquinas “nature” is derived from the Latin term “natus,” which literally means “born.” Contrary to modern sensibilities, we are not born with an individual character and personality. Instead, animals (including human beings) are born with an original and defining species. This original constitution serves as the foundation and source of all subsequent development and activity (including the development of individuality); nature is a dynamic, internal energy that both defines and empowers, and for this reason, Aristotle describes nature as an internal principle of motion and development.
When Aristotle claims that men naturally desire to understand, he is referring to man’s original constitution. Of course it is evident from experience that nature is not always efficacious. In order for nature to flourish effectively it needs the right environment and soil (so to speak). For this reason some men fail to actualize the desire to understand whereas others flourish. Sometimes the inclination to understand is cultivated by good reading and sound teachers; but sometimes it is corrupted by intellectual and moral vice.
The reality of this inclination is evinced by experience. To be sure, one can find much ignorance, stupidity, and error, but these are parasitic corruptions of the underlying instinct for understanding. Indeed, the development of the arts, sciences, and technology all amply demonstrate the human capacity for understanding — our shared inclination to categorize, define, judge, and argue. Any claim to the contrary will evince a concern for truth and a tendency to judge. Likewise, any demonstration will be itself an expression of understanding.
The twentieth-century theologian and philosopher Bernard Lonergan depicted the desire to understand as a dynamic pattern of enquiry, in which experience gives rise to an ascending and enriching series of questions. One does not begin to study and learn from the perspective of inner consciousness. Man does not awaken to himself as an isolated ego. Rather, he finds himself enmeshed in an ever expanding network of actions, passions, and relationships. Man finds himself spontaneously attracted and repulsed, active and passive, developing new powers for action and encountering limitations. Out of this matrix of experience, man begins to discover himself as a knower.
From direct experience, the man who wishes to be informed shifts to questions of fact and by doing so extends the range of his experience. He asks what has happened, where, and when. These are important questions. They are empirical in nature. They are necessary, but they do not yield understanding. They yield an accumulation of data. But this does not create intelligence or understanding on its own. The desire to understand naturally pivots from experience to questions of intelligence: why did this happen? And what is it? Again Lonergan — inspired by Aristotle and Thomas — recognized the inner connection of these two questions. The desire to understand gives rise to the question why something occurred, but often the question why reduces (leads back) to the question “what is it?” The question of definition. What unites these questions is that they produce understanding.
Further on, the desire to understand gives rise to questions of critical judgement — for we do not just want any understanding, we want a true understanding — and questions of responsibility — questions about putting our understanding into action (what does my new understanding indicate about what is to be done?). This dynamic process is at work in every field of enquiry and creativity. It is a dynamism that by its very nature searches further and further — delves ever more deeply. When the desire to understand becomes fully comprehensive, when this desire is actualized in an integrated and rigorous vision of the whole, wisdom has been achieved. Wisdom is the full actualization of the desire to understand. This is the path of philosophy.
Ordinary Experience
However august the final outcome, the beginning of the desire to understand is both humble and common. To be sure, some are more gifted than others, but naturally speaking we all begin with the same materials — ordinary experience. This is not to imply that genuine understanding is always pedestrian, and it does not imply that common opinion is necessarily common sense. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Aristotelian-Thomism, is the claim that in ordinary experience we find the seeds of the extraordinary and that wisdom sometimes must correct the opinion of the many. Nevertheless, any speculation that contradicts ordinary experience should be eyed with suspicion.
Without going into too much detail, it is important to realize that ordinary experience is not reducible to isolated flashes of sensation. To be sure, sensation plays an essential role in ordinary experience. The experiences of color, texture, temperature, sound, et cetera are irreducible building blocks. At a higher level, the perception of surface, continuity, discontinuity, and motion are equally important. Because of the robust complexity of man’s internal and external senses, basic experiences are contextualized and enriched by memory, time, generalizations, estimations (innate and acquired), and passion. All of this together makes up the rich bedrock of ordinary experience and it is in fact a genuine form of knowledge.
Commitment to ordinary experience distinguishes Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy from both rationalism and intuitive mysticism. Neither reason alone, nor interior illumination are the basis for the development of natural acquired knowledge (although this in no way precludes the possibility of supernatural knowledge as such). This opens an important space for the role of community, authority, and tradition in the knowing process. Aristotelian-Thomism does not see the philosopher as an isolated genius, sitting alone in his study; rather, learning takes place in community, a great deal of learning is a result of teaching, genuine authority is instructive, and tradition expresses collective experience.
Science
Experience is necessary, but it does not bequeath the mastery or acumen of science. Aristotle distinguishes the man of science from the man of experience. The man of experience is one who bases his judgments on his observations and the things he has done. For example, he has administered a medical treatment repeatedly in response to certain symptoms and witnessed favorable results. On this basis he formulates the considered judgment that administering a given drug will relieve a specific set of symptoms. This experienced-based judgement is well-earned knowledge. When a man says, I know this is how to catch fish in a given lake because I have done it many times, he is appealing to his own experience as evidence, and this is right and proper up to a point.
What distinguishes science from experience is the ability to answer the question “why” with rigor. The man of science not only knows that so and so is the case, but also why it is so; even more, he knows why it must be so. Science not only observes and asserts, it also explains. And science is able to do so because science consists principally and foundationally in habitually understanding the cause — that which makes something to be actually. To put it another way, science comprehends the sources of actuality.
Comprehending the cause enables the scientific man to explain the underlying subject matter. The medical doctor not only knows that a given medicine heals and revels, but also knows why the medicine makes the healing occur. Thus when he prescribes a certain medicine he can explain why it must be so. Knowing the facts of the matter is important, but understanding why the facts must be so is an even fuller actualization of the desire to understand. Logically, the desire to understand moves from an acquaintance with the facts, to the desire to explain the facts and this in turn requires comprehension of the cause. We move from questions of fact — whether something occurs (or occurred) — to questions of explanation — why does this occur? We pivot from the former to the latter because answering the question why more fully actualizes our ability to understand and we answer the question “why” by discovering the cause.
When the ability to answer the question why in a given domain becomes habitual in a man, then we have the beginnings of the habit of science. To put it plainly, science is the habitual grasp of why something is so in a given domain. The man of science begins with a broad comprehension of the relevant experience. He observes the data (what is given in experience) and formulates a hypothesis that explains it. He methodically seeks a sufficient explanation of the phenomena. Does the hypothesis really identify what is making the phenomena occur? By asking this question, looking before and after, over time he uncovers the cause — the source or origin that makes the possible to be actual. It is comprehension of the cause that makes habitual explanation possible. Having acquired knowledge of the cause, the man of science is empowered to answer the question “why is it so” with demonstrative force, that is, he is capable of demonstrating why something must be so.
What is science really? Science is a perfective intellectual habit developed within a concrete historical epoch and community; it is the embodiment of understanding within the time, place, and history. In this perspective knowledge is not merely a technique, but perfective reality embedded within nature, personal experience, and community history. If we have any hope of recovering being, we must first embrace an embodied way of knowing that transcends the tyranny of technology.
[This article is similar to a previous post but goes into more detail on the nature of Aristotelian science and its connection to the modern milieu.]