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THE FIRST PRINCIPLES:
Self-Evident Truths
by Patrick S.J. Carmack
Hercules: Being and non-being are considered
different things.
Admetus: That is your opinion, Hercules. It is not mine.
[from Alcestis (528-29) by Euripides]
Thus has the debate raged over the centuries: common sense vs. absolute skepticism,
which aims to reduce everything to mere opinion. How can Admetus state his opinion with certainty, if he cannot distinguish what is from what is not, and if what he takes for
his opinion may not be his opinion after all? If Admetus cannot be sure whether anything either is or is not, is true or is false, how can he be sure he is even
addressing Hercules, or even whether he, Admetus, exists, much less whether his statement about his opinion is true or false? Thus absolute skepticism is inherently
contradictory. Were the absolute skeptic consistent, he would be paralyzed into inaction and silenced by fear and uncertainty. Alas.
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Aristotle
384-322 B.C.
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Aristotle makes this same point in his Metaphysics (Bk. IV, Chap. 2-5), which is
reproduced in pertinent part in the article by John Senior in this issue entitled "What Really Is the Question." Likewise George Orwell in 1984, also quoted by Senior in the
same article. We will not repeat those discussions here. What are the self-evident truths? They are certain fundamental truths that need no proof, cannot have proof, for
they are their own proof. What makes self-evident truths self-evident? Mortimer J. Adler answers: "They are self-evident because the opposite is unthinkable."
"Try an experiment: say 'I do not exist.' Then what right have you to say 'I'? What you
say amounts to this, 'I'm here to say I'm not here.' Your words mean, 'I am certain that I am here and that I am entertaining a doubt about my being here.' Thus any attempt at doubt or denial of
a self-evident truth results in an affirmation of the truth. Such a truth is inescapable. It is not only a truth
which contains proof; it is its own proof which you cannot evade. Hence the statement of the skeptics that
every truth requires a proof other than itself is a fallacy, and upon that fallacy the whole case for skepticism is wrecked and forever shattered."
As
Glenn continues in his Introduction to Philosophy:
"These are lightsome truths as the sun is lightsome;
and one needs no lantern or searchlight to go in search of
the noonday sun or to identify it when it is discovered. These
self-evident truths are the basis of all certitude; they give
us the ultimate ground for evidence which skepticism mistakenly
says we cannot find. In recognizing these truths the mind
by one and the same indivisible act sees the truth and the
evidence or proof of the truth."
For
as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason
in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident
of all. -Aristotle
We must first exist before we can know anything else. However, strictly speaking, our own existence is
not the first being we know, except reflexively. The first being we know is external sensible being. We
know this by abstracting the concept of being. Reflexively we have an immediate knowledge of ourselves as sensing agents, which we do not abstract from sensible being. In sensing the other being we
immediately grasp the fact we are the agent doing the sensing.
Rising immediately from our sensible apprehension of being, from our first
intellectual and sensible grasp of some thing, is the simply first principle, the principle of being: "Being is." Coinciding with our sensible and
intellectual awareness and judgment that being is, is the simultaneous judgment that being is not non-being. Aristotle comments like Adler,
above: "It is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be...this is naturally the starting point for all the other axioms." Again,
"One and the same thing, remaining such, cannot simultaneously both be and not be." Put positively we call this the principle of identity: "If a thing
is, it is: if it is not, it is not." Aristotle is harsh with anyone who rejects this principle: "For such a man, as such [i.e. having abandoned common
sense and reason], is no better than a vegetable."
In the Great Conversation of Western thought, from the time of Plato and
Aristotle, the understanding has prevailed that, independent of human minds, exists a reality about which the human mind thinks and the human
mind tries to know. This reality does not exist because we think about it. It does not exist only in our minds.
While some cultures are highly developed, if we define civilization as the most advanced state of social
development, strictly speaking, the inherent contradictions in cultures that claim to reject the principle of
contradiction make civilization on the classical Western order beyond their reach. This is evident when we
consider philosophy alone, much more we think about its radiating effects in other areas. The West no
longer has any grounds for smugness on this score, for skepticism has reigned so long in our universities
that, as Drs. Adler, Redpath and Hancock have noted herein, the West too, is losing its grip on truth. That
grip starts with our sensible grasp of being, with our sense of the wonder of being, then being's opposition to non-being, and then the other self-evident truths.
How many such self-evident truths exist? One role of metaphysics, or wisdom, is to discuss first
principles, necessary laws of being, objective laws of all reality, and to number and order them. While,
considered widely, these principles are evident to us all, to state them precisely we use technical "terms
of art," philosophical language. At times, this language may make them partially or wholly incomprehensible to many readers. Still, we list some of them below to give our readers a taste (sapere -
to taste, hence sapientia - wisdom) to whet the appetite to learn more about them. Here is the short list from which everyone draws first principles:
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The Principle of Being - "Being is."
The Principle of Contradiction - "One and the same thing, remaining such, cannot simultaneously
both be and not be."
The Principle of Identity - "If a thing is, it is: if it is not, it is not."
The Principle of Causality - "Every contingent being, even if it exists without beginning, needs an efficient cause and, in the last analysis, an uncreated cause." Briefly, every created being requires a Creator.
Similarly, The First Moral Principle (i.e. of practical reason) - "Do good and avoid evil," is based on
the self-evident metaphysical principle - "The good is that at which all things aim." |
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All these principles are evident to our natural intelligence, first manifested to what
we call our common sense, before reasoning about them, but still based on an intellectual grasp of sense objects. The first idea the intellect conceives is that of
being. The immediate consequences that we judge about that idea are the first principles of reality, above.
Simply put: reality is independent of our minds, real; we can experience it
through our senses; that what is, is; what is not, is not. If you don't believe that, then you cannot believe anything, and perhaps you should quit wasting your time
reading this. If you do believe it, welcome to the Great Conversation!
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