A funny thing happened in the midst of the greatest explosion of technological advancement the world has ever seen, namely, we got stupid. The Enlightenment period’s commitment to scientific and rational inquiry has definitely brought about some good things. As someone who suffers from seasonal allergies I am thankful for both modern medicine and home air filtration systems. All of us benefit (or at least enjoy) certain modern conveniences of transportation and access to information that would not be possible had the Enlightenment thinkers not insisted on focusing their methods of investigation toward strict observation, analysis, and application of information. Really, insofar as that goes, it is all very good.
The harm came not in the realization that by following the scientific method we can make great technological advances, rather, it came by the non sequitur that all we had gained before, or might still gain, by other means of pursuing knowledge is a waste of time. Hume, the Scottish rationalist of great renown, famously finished his magnum opus, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by stating,
“When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”1
Here some clarification is in order. “Abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number” = Mathematics. “Experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence” = Laboratory experimentation through the empirical method (using our five senses to confirm material causes). Hume argues these alone can lead to knowledge.
One might ask what Hume knew of the “sophistry” he charges others with apart from reading the Greek philosophers. For, by his own statement, such works should be “committed to the flames” because they do not conform strictly to mathematical reasoning, or inquiry about the natural and material world. But obviously Hume is sitting on the branch he is sawing off when he is using language from the works he thinks we ought to destroy.
Enlightenment thinkers like Hume want to narrow down the term “knowledge” to refer only to that which can be gained by scientific method. What this view of knowledge negates is that we can have any degree of certainty about things which are metaphysical (the Greek word μετα means “after” or “above” so metaphysical refers to anything beyond the physical realm) such as God or gods, spiritual beings, souls, abstract objects, etc. This view which we may call “scientism” further wipes away our knowledge of history beyond that which is known by artifact (e.g. “Here is a pyramid that was evidently built in the past” or “This is a Roman coin with Trajan’s name on it”). Anything beyond the brute material fact of artifacts could not be known according to Hume. We might surmise that there is enough statuary and coinage that has survived to this day to hold with reasonable certainty that Trajan was a real person and emperor but we cannot know anything about him because anything written about him would not be testable by mathematics or empiricism. Or, again, you can say that there are books in existence which claim that George Washington was the first president of the United States of America (the books themselves are artifacts) but you cannot know that he was actually the first president. No mathematical theorem nor laboratory experiment will ever conclude that he was.
Consider for just a moment all that you would say that you know right now. How many of those things would you still be able to say you know if you accept Hume’s definition of knowledge?
Take your own mother for instance… do you really know she is your mother? Prove it! Have you had DNA testing done and had it compared with your mother’s and confirmed by an unbiased independent laboratory or did you just take her word for it? Of course almost everyone simply accepts their mother’s claim to really be their mother. You took it on her authority. She was there when she birthed you and she knows to whom you belong. You also have (hopefully) a long track record of your mother telling you the truth about a great many things and this trends in her favor as to her reliability. She told you not to touch the stove because it would burn you, you didn’t listen, and it burned you. She promised you ice cream after supper and you got it. Mom is a trustworthy sort of person and you are justified in believing her about a great many things she tells you even if you don’t verify them for yourself.
In fact, most things you know you have not confirmed for yourself by pure mathematical reason or by testing the material evidence. Most of what you know, and rightfully say you know, you have received on authority. C. S. Lewis addresses the validity of authority as a way of knowing in his book Mere Christianity. He writes,
“Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent. of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority—because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.”2
That mathematics and empirical science are not the only means of apprehending truth and gaining knowledge is really self evident. Hume himself has to have known better. I can’t imagine he really believed his own claim (as grand as it sounded to say) because, as it turns out, his crescendo ends in absurdity. The claim that only mathematical reasoning and empirical verification can lead to knowledge is itself not verifiable by either of those means. It is a philosophical claim and an obviously false one at that. Implicit in the attempt to make such a claim, however, is the fact that Hume really does believe in the ability to speak about truth in a philosophic manner.
It turns out that authority is a perfectly acceptable way to gain knowledge (Hume wants to be treated as an authority) and it is responsible for the greater part of all we claim to know. Certainly we can and should, to some extent, test what is handed to us by authority. Not all authorities are equally trustworthy and/or reliable, but neither are they necessarily illegitimate. Further, when an authority is found to be trustworthy on every point it can be tested then it is not unreasonable to accept it on points that cannot be tested.
Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) That claim is definitely not testable by mathematical reasoning nor laboratory science. It is not really even testable philosophically. It is virtually the definition of a claim made by authority. Yet the collection of writings that contain the teachings of Jesus have been analyzed on numerous other fronts and found trustworthy. Both the Gospel of John in particular and the Bible as a whole talk about real people, places, and events which can be confirmed by numerous outside sources. Indeed the central event of the Bible, the death and resurrection of Jesus, has an incredibly strong evidential case in its favor. If then it is demonstrated that the Bible reliably records history wherein it may be confirmed and that it reliably communicates the words of this great teacher, and if Jesus rose from the dead as he said he would, then I am perfectly at my ease accepting on authority whatever else he tells me which is beyond normal means of inquiry.
But it is not just religion that this applies to, remember, it is all of history, all claims of morality and beauty, and virtually everything you learned in school which came from a textbook or teacher (authority). A bit of light reflection will show how many things this Enlightenment “scientism” affects. It is exceedingly arrogant and not only makes mankind the measure of all things but it makes each individual man the measure of all things. But who has time to measure everything (even if one could find a way to measure non measurable things)? Then comes the arrogance of claiming that we can always measure them rightly on our own. Not only does scientism reduce us to knowing next to nothing but, I would wager, we would go mad if we tried to live by it consistently. We would stutter around like blithering idiots trying not to say anything we don’t “know.” The people would tolerate us only so long before they put us away into asylums. But, then, no one really ever believed this to begin with. It was just an attempt to dodge inconvenient things like religion and morality.
Hume, D. (1990). An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. In M. J. Adler & P. W. Goetz (Eds.) (Second Edition, Vol. 33, p. 509).
Lewis, C. S., Mere Christianity, 1952.