premodern approaches to truth
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Premodern Approaches to Truth
Misinformation vs. Disinformation The terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” presume that truth and falsity can be identified. Can we know what is true, and if so, how?
Three approaches to truth, and when they emerged in the West: premodern, modern, postmodern (premodern: 380- , modern: 1600s- , postmodern: 1960s-)
*380 during the Roman empire/when Christianity was declared as the predominant religion
Premodern: faith, revelation, authority, custom, difference, tradition, obedience
Modern: reason, evidence, science, data, freedom, progress, universal
Postmodern: power, cynicism, Understandings of truth within each approach:
Premodern: truth comes from God and is confirmed and communicated by authorities
Modern: truth is that which can be established through reason and evidence
Postmodern: there are no universal truths, for truth is always local and relative (truth is bounded by perspective– it doesn’t exist)
All three approaches coexist in the West today, across individuals and sometimes in the head of a
single person
Premodern Approach to Truth:
Augustine (345-430):
there is a book of nature (“general revelation”) and a book of scripture (“special revelation”). all truth comes from God, so the two books must agree
*if you thought that the two books didn’t agree and God’s truth was not real… it’s a you problem
Until the Reformation, special revelation (God’s direct communication with human beings) was understood to come through Church tradition and the Bible. Protestants rejected the first of those and relied on the Bible alone. The need for certainty in knowing God’s special revelation eventually led to the doctrines of papal infallibility (for Catholics) and the biblical inerrancy (for conservative Protestants)
Scholasticism:
●
Start with intellectual authorities. They must agree with each other by assumption
●
A matter arises where the answer isn’t obvious, or where there seems to be conflict among these authorities. ❖
The scholastic method resolves any apparent contradiction among authorities
❖
Scholasticism involved rigorous elaborations of concepts, questions, responses, counter arguments, and conclusions
Note that the premodern approach to truth did not (does not) reject the use of reason. Instead, it sees faith and reason intertwined, with faith as the starting point and reason helping to elaborate various doctrines and ideas. *the premodern approach does not lack reason but rather is more bound. faith is the senior partner
Nevertheless, faith is the starting point, with strong limits on the conclusion people can reach. To
implement the premodern approach to truth throughout society, you thus need strong restrictions (from both political and religious authorities) on the freedom of speech and religion… … Accordingly, blasphemy and heresy were considered both sins and crimes in the West until the last few centuries. (See Aquinas on blasphemy)
Was there any room for dissenters? Up to the 1600s, Christian theologians distinguished between
the freedom of conscience, which political authorities must allow, and freedom of speech and religion
, which they must not. 1)
Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and other pre modern theologians; error has no rights (i.e. you have no right to go into a public space and proclaim falsehoods)
The premodern approach to truth also relied historically on agreement about political authority, lodged in a king or other hereditary monarch. *these people are there because God picked them
-
Richard I of England, 1193: “I am born in a rank which recognizes no superior but God, to whom alone I am responsible for my actions” (divine right of kings)
Grounding for the divine installment of rulers (kings, pharaohs, emperors, etc.) appears throughout the ancient world (i.e. the code of hammurabi) and in the Bible, most explicitly in Romans 13:1-2: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”
What changed in the 1600s to bring the modern era and the modern approach to truth?
●
The Reformation (protestantism vs. catholicism) divided Christendom politically and religiously. A premodern approach to truth cannot survive a fragmented group of authorities. ●
Also, the European Wars of Religion (1522-1712) prompted new thinking about how to keep the peace
One result was downplaying religious appeals within intellectual life. Hugo Grotius (1625)
south to identify the principles of international law that would hold even if “there is no God” or “the affairs of men are of no concern to him”
*NOT rejecting the existence of God but giving principles that withstand whether God exists or not
Rene Descartes (1641):
not all people have faith, but all people can use reason. use reason as the
foundation of knowledge. “i think, therefore i am”
John Locke (1695):
“reason must be our last guide and judge in everything”
The Shift Continued
Note that Grotius, Descartes, and Locke were all Christians of varying stripes. However, they
helped shift
the culture away from the premodern approach to truth and toward the modern
approach. A precursor of the modern approach had already developed during the Middle Ages for science
(then called “natural philosophy”).
Nicole Oresme (1320-1382):
“there is no reason to take recourse to the heavens, the last refuge of the weak, or demons, or to our glorious God as if He would produce these effects directly, more so than those effects whose causes we believe are well known by us.”
→ translate to english: the seasons change, the stars occur, disease, etc. is not because of supernatural revelation BUT because of the natural world (science/research)
*God is not doing these actions directly to people, but God created a system that is set up in a certain way
Jean Buridan (1300-1358):
“in natural philosophy, we ought to accept actions and dependencies as if they always proceed in a natural way”
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Question: What happens if you extend the basic thrust of methodological naturalism into areas besides science?
Answer: You get the modern approach to truth.
Vocabulary:
Mis- prefix meaning bad, mistaken or simply negating
Dis- prefix meaning apart, away, or opposite of
Scholasticism- a method of intellectual inquiry in medieval European universities. it illustrates the premodern mindset
Cathers- a christian offshoot (12th-14th centuries) whose beliefs included dualism and gnosticism. slaughtered and executed as heretics
Methodological Naturalism- explain natural phenomena solely with natural causes (nothing supernatural). all scientists today, regardless of of their religious beliefs, follow this principle for their scientific work (
modern approach to truth)