Hi DMB, Matt, Bruce, all,
Steve said: > > I'm wonderring whether you have any thoughts on how a belief might be > > thought of as true if not historically or scientifically true, and what > the > > criteria for such truth may be like. For example, would Joseph Campbell > > assert in some way that a myth is true? > > > dmb says: > I take it you're not really changing the subject so much as moving the > topic onto something more concrete. > Steve: Sort of. It is a related topic, but I wasn't trying to continue our other debate from a different angle. I just know that you have an interest in mythology, and was wondering if you had any thoughts on a distinction between mythical truth, and scientific-historical truth. I started a new thread because threads never seem to stay on target. (If we switched to a web 2.0 sort of forum, we could work on that problem more easily.) DMB: > As I understand it, the basic empirical standards of truth do not change. > In religion as well as science and history, truth (or falsity) is what > happens to an idea in the course of experience. Steve: That makes sense. Truth in all contexts must mean some sort of agreement with experience. DMB: > This is why I can take Campbell's side on the issue. He says that theists > and atheists are both wrong. They both suffer from the same misconception, > the only difference being that one affirms it and the other denies it. By > taking symbolic language as literal they both have a mistaken idea about the > sense in which myths are true. As far as his own religious experience goes, > Campbell says he doesn't need faith because he has experience. And his > stance on how myths should be read and understood is arrived at by through a > survey and analysis of the relevant empirical data, namely the mythical art > forms of the world as well as their relations to dreams, to religions and to > the wider culture. > > If you take things literally in such a way that you believe the world was > created, as so many do, then you have to find a way to dismiss the empirical > evidence for the theory of evolution. In the abstract there seems to be no > way to convince a believer in creationism but if that belief were really > acted upon in practical reality it could literally kill them. See, > creationists don't realize that common things like a flu shot are the one of > the practical results of the theory of evolution. Now we're not talking > about what happened billions of years ago (or 6,000 years ago). Now we're > talking about whether or not your kid is going to die or at least get sick. > Of course there are also lots of religious that can't be tested in > experience at all because they have no apparent consequence one way or the > other, no practical bearing on anything. > > Ironically, myths refer to inner experience, to psychological events and > processes or to spiritual growth patterns if you like. They're derived from > experience and that is where their truth is tested. That is to say, if you > read them as a guide to such a thing it works out and if you read them as > science it is a disaster. > Steve: That's all good stuff. The key seems to be that the truth of myth (and perhaps religious faith as we'd probably both like to see it) is the truth of symbolism and the truth of metaphor. I dug a bit for some quotes that might help to characterize truth of myth or truth of faith as we'd like to see it from scientific-historical truth. Author Tim O'Brien: "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth." If you agree, can you unpack O'Brien's claim for me? Joseph Campbell: "Mythology is not a lie. Mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth — penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words, beyond images. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told." More Joe (did he ever go by that?): "Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble." "God is a metaphor for that which trancends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." * * I also tried another route in finding descriptions for truth that is other than scientific-historical truth. I started Reading Paul Tillich's The Dynamics of Faith. There's some non-St Paul: "...scientific truth and the truth of faith do not belong in the same dimension of meaning." I'd like to think so too. "Neither scientific truth nor historical truth can affirm nor negate the truth of faith. The truth of faith can neither affirm nor negate scientific or historical truth." and "Philosophical truth consists in true concepts concerning the ultimate; the truth of faith consists in true symbols concerning the ultimate." and "The philosophical implications of the symbols of faith can be developed in many ways, but the truth of faith and the truth of philosophy have no authority over each other." That stuff is all gold to me. Recall that my current project is to carve out a space where religious beliefs need not submit to demands for evidence. A concept of faith as Tillich describes it needs not necessarily frustrate the needs of others, so it need not submit to demands of evidence. As for criteria for what could be meant by truth with regard to myth, Tillich actually does offer 2 criteria (I skipped ahead in the book that I'm just getting started on) for the truth of assertions of faith which seem to match up well with Campbell's notion of the truth of myth. First I should say that Tillich's whole deal in this book is to unpack his description of faith as having an "ultimate concern." That's important. As a hint to what this can mean, for the Communists, the ultimate concern is the state. (Note how such faith fails criterion 2.) Criterion 1 "Faith has truth in so far as it adequately expresses am ultimate concern." ... "But the life of symbols is limited" ... "Symbols which for a certain period, or in a certain place, expressed truth of faith for a certain group now only remind of the faith of the past. They have lost their truth, and it is an open question whether dead symbols can be revived. Probably not for those to whom they have died!"..."...the criterion of the truth of faith is whether or not it is alive." Criterion 2: "The other criterion of the truth of a symbol of faith is that it expresses the ultimate which is really ultimate. In other words, that it is not idolatrous."..."The criterion of the truth of faith, therefore, is that it implies an element of self-negation. That symbol is most adequate which expresses not only the ultimate but also its own lack of ultimacy." (This is why he favors Protestantism over Catholicism. It's the whole infallibility thing.) This sounds like some pretty cool shit to me. (It seems like we are allowed to swear on the MD these days. I'll clean up my act on request.) If I were going to be religious, this is how I would like to think of faith. But I suspect there is no hope for me in that regard. It's a criterion 1 problem. The symbols are dead to me. Okay, now I'd like to offer a concrete example of an assertion that we might think of as being true, but not true in the scientific historical sense: Tillich: "Faith can say that the reality which is manifest in the New Testament picture of Jesus as the Christ has saving power for those who are grasped by it, no matter how much or how little can be traced to the historical figure who is called Jesus of Nazareth." Again, this sort of shit is dead to me. But is it true in some way nevertheless? Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
