Over the weekend I was thinking more about my plans for my writing. Since I began pursuing a more long-term direction a few days ago, I’ve discovered a whole ocean of interesting topics to explore, and that I could potentially write about at length.
Still, I want to ensure that I connect what I write about to some of the more fundamental ideas that I’m interested in.
There is a clear path to achieving this, given the time period I’ve decided to focus on: the Renaissance was all about the rediscovery of certain fundamental ideas from the classical world — the value of the natural world we inhabit over the supernatural, the central role of man in the cosmos, the pursuit of excellence and disciplined mastery in all things, and so on.
One theme that I want to explore is the interconnections between the different fields of human activity — how the cultural effects the social, the social effects the political, the political effects the economic and technological, and so on — and one particular aspect that I’d like to look at is the influence of Renaissance cultural ideas on the complex political dramas of the period.
Understanding this will likely require some deep reading, which will be one goal for next week.
Another theme that I want to explore — really more of a fundamental guiding principle or north star than simply a theme — is the central concept of objectivity.
What is objectivity?
The simple definition of objectivity is that it involves seeing reality as it really is, that is, without the influence of any subjective cultural prejudices or personal distortions. To give a simple illustration: if two thinkers are both objective, then they should both eventually hit upon the same answer.
To give a more refined definition, it helps to ask a second question: why is objectivity important?
Objectivity is important because knowledge is important, and because truth is important; understanding the world is the first step to gaining mastery over the world. In tangible terms, knowledge-driven mastery of the world includes technology — building bridges, machines, and so on — economics — building businesses that do genuinely useful things, and the financial infrastructure like banking that supports this — and even politics — developing political theories that enable more effective action at the social level.
(All of these innovations were key to the changes that occurred in the Renaissance world and afterwards.)
The central importance of knowledge is undeniable to anyone who understands human history in depth — and is especially obvious if one considers the many differences between the modern and pre-modern worlds.
And what is knowledge? I hold that knowledge is simply any mental grasp of any fact of reality. (The traditional view — since Plato — holds that knowledge is justified true belief, but this definition has flaws.) Reality consists of an enormously complex array of things acting and interacting; knowledge, in short, is the human mind gaining definite awareness of the nature of these things — their properties, actions, and interrelationships.
A careful study of intellectual history reveals that all of the ‘great-leaps-forward’ in human knowledge involved advances in epistemology. Epistemology is simply the systematic study of knowledge — it asks questions like: what is knowledge? What is knowledge founded on? How can knowledge be differentiated from non-knowledge in a systematic way?
The discovery of the scientific method, for example, is an instance of an advance in epistemology leading to more general advances. Another example is the earlier discovery of classical logic, which was a necessary precursor to the development of the scientific method. (Modern science did not emerge in Europe until logic was rediscovered in the West by medieval scholars, which occurred following the transmission of classical Greek texts from the Islamic world to the Latin Christians.)
How can one get a handle on epistemology? This is a tricky question. As epistemology is essentially meta-knowledge — knowledge about knowledge — seeking knowledge of epistemology can lead to an endless rabbit-hole of meta-questions, along with a whole vortex of other confusing questions on the nature of mind, consciousness, and reality.
How can one break free of this?
I do not know the complete answer, but I have encountered a whole set of intermediate answers. These answers address specific sub-questions within epistemology, and seem very promising.
One key step is to grasp clearly the concept of objectivity — and to do this one first needs to understand that the search for objectivity is essentially a search for valid methods of thinking. (Logic and the scientific method being examples of these methods, as I mentioned above.) If we have a set of well-defined procedures to follow to establish truth in a given domain, we can then systematically apply these procedures to gain objective knowledge of the world.
How can the search for these methods proceed? The answer I have heard is that objective methods must be based on two things — the basic or inherent attributes of reality, and the basic or inherent attributes of the human mind. We live in a certain kind of universe, that follows certain kinds of laws (such as the law of gravity, or the other laws of physics) — and our minds, too, are a certain kind of thing, that work in a particular way (such as operating in a certain way to retrieve memories, or to gain information from sensory inputs).
This answer has not solved the original problem, but it has expanded it. If this approach is correct, we now have some idea of which sub-problems can be solved to give us a better handle on the overall problem and on this tricky concept of objectivity. For example, the more we understand the basic laws of physics, the better we can determine what valid physical theories should look like in general. Similarly, the more we understand our own psychologies, the better we can deal with things like cognitive biases, and seek to reduce their distorting influence on our thinking.
Still, attentive readers will have noticed a major problem that is inherent in this approach — gaining a clearer understanding of objectivity depends on gaining valid knowledge from particular sciences, but this scientific knowledge itself depends on a working understanding of objectivity — the problem is circular!
Fortunately, this problem is at least partly solvable. Recognising the circular nature of the problem is a necessary step to figuring out a working solution, as it implies that neither problem — understanding objectivity, nor gaining knowledge within particular scientific fields — can be solved without the other. Therefore, the solution has to involve gaining a partial understanding of objectivity, followed by a partial knowledge of particular sciences, using this knowledge to develop a slightly-improved understanding of objectivity, and so on.
This process can, in fact, be seen in scientific history. Early scientists developed rudimentary scientific theories — based on everyday observations, and so on — used those theories to help develop improved methods, used those methods to develop better theories, and so on, in a continual process.
Early physicists developed a rudimentary (and often badly flawed) understanding of how objects moved around on earth or how the planets moved around in space — Copernicus, and others of this time, then figured out a better theory to explain the movement of the planets — Kepler then built on this theory, and an enormous library of observational data, to define a more mathematically rigorous theory — Galileo developed his own theories of the motion of both terrestrial objects on earth and celestial objects in the heavens, aided by the newly invented telescope — Newton then combined the ideas of Galileo, Kepler and others in his own grand synthesis, proving clearly, once and for all, that terrestrial and celestial objects followed the same laws of motion, and that these laws could be defined by simple mathematical equations.
Along the way, all of these early scientists made their own contributions to the set of methods that physicists could use to understand the physical universe. Galileo designed and built improved telescopes to aid with his research, Newton developed a radically better mathematical approach to understanding continuous motion, and so on.
All of these advances, though they may appear to have progressed smoothly, in fact occurred as part of a torturous, uncertain journey. Mapping out this journey can help greatly in explaining how our current understanding of the scientific method came to be.
To tie this back to my own situation — why am I writing about the history of the Renaissance, rather than simply writing about objectivity in general?
Firstly, just because a topic is important does not mean it is the best thing to write about. The technical questions of epistemology are enormously abstract and confusing, which suggests that it is not worth tackling them directly without advanced knowledge of modern philosophy.
Furthermore, if I find a topic boring that is usually a clear sign that there is some fundamental disconnect between the topic and my personal values — my sense of what is important and worthwhile. I do not find epistemology itself boring, but purely abstract discussions of epistemology can end up feeling rather pointless. Speaking for myself, I find applications much more engaging, and I also believe that writing about how epistemological methods can be applied to tangible situations is probably a much better way to communicate the abstract ideas involved.
Most importantly — something about studying history sings to my soul in a way that purely abstract, technical writing does not. Perhaps this is just a reflection of my personal interests; perhaps it is because I suspect that mapping out historical narratives can be uniquely beneficial. (For example, explaining how various flaws in the scientific method were improved over time can give unique insights into improving our current understanding of the scientific method.) Very likely it is a combination of both of these factors.
The most important question: why don’t I then focus on writing about the history of the scientific method? Why focus on Renaissance history in general, and cultural and political history in particular?
My interests are not focused solely on the sciences, but on the intersections between the sciences, arts, humanities, and engineering. Admittedly, this is a very broad range of interests! However, casting my net so wide makes it essential to focus on the interconnections and interfaces between fields.
Understanding the scientific method, and the closely-related concept of objectivity, is important, but so is understanding the cultural precursors that led to the development of those two intellectual advances.
The ideas developed by Renaissance thinkers — which radically reexamined almost every field of human activity — shook the foundations of the religious worldview that had dominated Europe for over one thousand years. One consequence of this cultural upheaval was the development of the scientific method, and the related concept of objectivity that I have discussed above — and this development has continued in some form or other up until the present day.
And yet — there were other aspects of the Renaissance worldview that did not persist, and instead began to fade less than a century after they emerged. Why was this? And why did some aspects of the Renaissance survive until the modern world, while others were discarded?
Next week my provisional goal is to deepen my understanding of the culture and politics of Renaissance Italy, and to begin understanding the fundamental shifts — philosophical and practical — that occurred at that time.