Metaphysical Illusions and the Limits of Reason (Book Notes: Walking the Tightrope of Reason)

We all want to understand what is going on in the world around us. We want sensible explanations that make the world intelligible and help us find our place in it. Unfortunately, our powers of reason are limited such that an explanation isn't always possible - but that doesn't stop us from trying.

In Walking the Tightrope of Reason: The Precarious Life of a Rational Animal, Robert Fogelin writes:

According to Kant, it is built into our rational faculties to demand ... a purely rational account of the universe, yet at the same time our faculties are such that we will never be able to satisfy our demand. For Kant, the only way to extricate ourselves from this bind is to understand and acknowledge the inherent limits of our rational faculties and, having fixed their limits, restrict our intellectual efforts to tasks within our power.

But, as Kant saw, the demands of reason are not easily subdued, and if they cannot be satisfied legitimately, reason will bring forth illegitimate offspring and find its satisfaction in them. In this way the human mind generates what Kant calls metaphysical or dialectical illusions...

Religion is one example of such a metaphysical illusion, but another that might not be recognized as such is the conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory purports to offer a rational explanation for things going on around us — usually bad things which impact us negatively. We demand an answer to our problems and someone to blame for our ills.

Conspiracy theories seem to offer us the answers we seek, but they are simply illusory answers which describe non-existent patterns and construct non-existent story lines in which we are heroes battling cosmic forces of evil. Conspiracy theories give us the illusion of understanding, preventing us from apprehending reality as it genuinely is.

 

Read More Book Notes from the