THE DILEMMAS OF DOGMATISM
Every man, probably, is by instinct a dogmatist. He feels perfectly sure
that he knows some things, and is right about them against the world.
Whatever he believes in he does not doubt, but holds to be
self-evidently or indisputably true. His naive dogmatism, moreover,
spontaneously assumes that his truth is universal and shared by all
others.
If now he could live like a fakir, wholly wrapped in a cloud of his own
imaginings, and nothing ever happened to disappoint his expectations, to
jar upon his prejudices, and to convict him of error; if he never held
converse with anyone who took a different view and controverted him, his
dogmatism would be lifelong and incurable. But as he lives socially, he
has in practice to outgrow it, and this lands him in a serious
theoretical dilemma. He has to learn to live with others who differ from
him in their dogmatizing. Social life plainly would become impossible
if all rigidly insisted on the absolute rightness of their own beliefs
and the absolute wrongness of all others.
So compromises have to be made to get at a common 'truth.' It must be
recognized that not everything which is believed to be 'knowledge' is
knowledge. In fact, it is safer to assume that none have knowledge,
though all think they have; to say fact, men only have 'opinions,' which
may be nearer to or farther from 'the truth,' but are not of necessity
as unquestionable as they seem to be. Out of this concession to the
social life arise three problems. How are 'opinions' to be compared with
each other, and how is the extent of their 'truth' or 'error' to be
determined? How is the belief in absolute truth to be interpreted and
discounted? How is the penitent dogmatist, once he has allowed doubt to
corrupt his self-confidence, to be stopped from doubting all things and
turning sceptic?
As regards the first problem, the first question is whether we shall try
to _test_ opinions and to arrive at a standard of value by which to
measure them by comparing the opinions themselves with one another, or
shall presume that there must be some absolute standard which alone is
truly true, whether we are aware of it or not. The former view is
_relativism_, the latter is _absolutism_, in the matter of truth.
Now, there can be no doubt that absolutism is more congenial to our
natural prejudices. Accordingly it is the method tried first; but it
soon conducts dogmatism to an awkward series of dilemmas.
1. If there is absolute truth, who has it? and who can use the absolute
criterion of opinions it is supposed to form? Not, surely, everyone who
_thinks_ he has. It will never do to let every dogmatist vote for
himself and condemn all others. That way war and madness lie. Until
there is absolute agreement, there cannot be absolute truth.
2. But absolute truth may still be reverenced as an ideal, to save us
from the scepticism to which a complete relativity of truth would lead.
But would it save us? If it is admitted that no one can arrogate to
himself its possession, what use is it to believe that it is an ideal?
For if no one can assume that he has it, all _human_ truth is, in fact,
such as the relativist asserted, and scepticism is just as inevitable as
before. It makes no difference to the sceptical inference whether there
is no absolute truth, or whether it is unattained by man, and human
unattainable.
3. It was a mistake, therefore, to admit that opinions cannot be
compared together. Some are much more certain than others, and, indeed,
'self-evident' and 'intuitive.' Let us therefore take these to be
'truer.' If so, the thinker who feels most certain he is right is most
likely to be right.
4. This suggestion will be welcomed by all dogmatists--until they
discover that it does not help them to agree together, because they are
all as certain as can be. But a critically-minded man will urge against
it that _'certainty' is a subjective and psychological criterion_, and
that no one has been able to devise a method for distinguishing the
alleged logical from the undeniable psychological certainty. He will
hesitate to say, therefore, that because a belief seems certain it is
true, and to trust the formal claim to infallibility which is made in
every judgment. And when 'intuitions' are appealed to, he will ask how
'true' intuitions are to be discriminated from 'false,' sound from
insane, and inquire to what he is committing himself in admitting the
truth of intuitions. He will demand, therefore, the publication of a
list of the intuitions which are absolutely true. But he will not get
it, and if he did, it may be predicted that he would not find a single
one which has not been disputed by some eminent philosopher.
5. Intuitions, therefore, are an embarrassment, rather than a help to
Intellectualism. It has to maintain both that intuitions are the
foundations of all truth and certitude, and also that not all are true.
But our natural curiosity as to how these sorts are to be known apart is
left unsatisfied. We must not ask which are true, and which not. No one
can say in advance about what matters intuitive certainty is possible;
what is, or is not, an intuition is revealed only to reflection after
the event. Only if an intuition _has_ played us false, we may be sure it
_was_ not infallible; it must either have been one of the fallible sort,
or else no intuition at all.
6. At this point universal scepticism begins to raise its hydra head,
and to grin at the dogmatist's discomfiture. For in point of fact the
history of thought reveals, not a steady accumulation of indubitable
truth, but a continuous strife of opinions, in which the most widely
accepted beliefs daily succumb to fresh criticism and fall into
disrepute as the 'errors of the past.' Nothing, it seems, can guarantee
a 'truth,' however firmly it may be believed for a time, from the
corrosive force of new speculation and changed opinion; to survey the
field of philosophic dispute, strewn with the remains of 'infallible'
systems and 'absolute' certainties, is to be led irresistibly to a
sceptical doubt as to the competence of human thought. If 'absolute
truth' is our ideal and acquaintance with 'absolute reality' our aim,
then, in view of the persistent illusions on both these points to which
the human mind is liable, it seems necessary to recognize the
hopelessness of our search. Thus the last dilemma of dogmatism is
reached. In view of the diversity of human beliefs and the discredit
which has historically fallen on the most axiomatic articles of faith,
we must either admit scepticism to be the issue of the debate, or else,
condemning our absolute view of truth, find some means of utilizing the
relative truths which are all that humanity seems able to grasp. But to
come to terms with relativism is to renounce the dogmatic attitude
entirely, and to approach the problems of philosophy in a totally
different spirit.