Living Through the Phenomenon
“We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality”
– Iris Murdoch, “Life, Reality, Tasks” The Times, 1983.
The epistemological problem of understanding the objective reality is hard to solve. Can we experience and understand reality as it is? This is the main question that I will try to answer in this essay. This topic has been very explored by many philosophers since ancient ages, for instance, Heraclitus: for him, human cannot understand nor experience objective reality,since everything is changing (panta rei), permanence is appearance; or Parmenides: for him, human can understand and experience objective reality, because we can know about reality since nothing is changing. If everything of objective reality was changing, we would not be able to know, which would contradict the central idea: we can know because the Being cannot change, because it is totally actualized, and if the Being changes to something that it is not, cannot exist, because it is all that there is: a thing cannot be and not be simultaneously.If something seems to change, it is appearance. – it is, in fact, a question that has to be answered before starting a philosophic system, because epistemology connects with metaphysics, and this is the prime philosophy. Every philosopher is responding to a metaphysical problem because of its fundamental nature.
Iris Murdoch stated that “we live in a fantasy world […], that the great task in life is to find reality”. This Murdoch’s statement is the delimitation of the essay, the analysis and critique I will do about Murdoch will be argued, and some authors will be used in order to put the ideas in a dialogue that helps to find an answer to the main question.
Iris Murdoch was not totally wrong, she forgot to consider the human’s boundaries that cannot be eliminated – whilst we are alive, we have to live with it –. Now, Kant’s phenomenon and noumenon are convenient to explain this idea, he stated that we cannot experience objective reality, because of the veil of our senses. The phenomenon lets us understand reality with its natural boundaries; our perception is the representation of reality – phenomenon –, and it is not enough to achieve the objective reality – the noumenon –. As rational animals, skip the phenomenon is not rigorous if we want to respond the main question.
However, Aristotle could answer to these ideas by saying that since we can know things, we can understand the objective reality. However, there is a premise that has to be analyzed. Which is very convenient, because in his book The organon, he states his logic system. A premise can be true, or false, but valid at the same time in relation to the conclusion. This is one of those cases where the premise is false, but is a valid argument, because the premise is followed by the conclusion, however, this false premise, is followed by a false conclusion. That is the part of logic that relates to reality, there could be valid a lot of logic demonstrations, but false in real life. For instance: (I) All crows are mammals, (II) All mammals can live in the space without oxygen; and the conclusion: therefore, crows can live in the space without oxygen. This argument is valid, but not true, crows need oxygen and are not mammals. Aristotle’s argument has one premise: we can experiment objective reality, and its conclusion: hence, we can know things. The premise is not true. Our senses impossibility the contact with the noumenon.
Murdoch was almost right in saying that “the great task in life is to find reality”, but thinking that it is achievable is idealistic. Understanding that we can get closer, is important, but accepting that it is impossible, is fundamental in order to do realistic philosophy. The attempt of understanding reality is the labor of philosophy, this is why everybody can do philosophy – in potence –, even without being aware of it. Dedicate one’s life to find the best answer one could give, is one of the best purposes one could ever have, because philosophy is the basis of one’s experience.
Now that is clear that we cannot achieve a fully comprehension of the objective reality, should one give up our will of knowing the reality? A metaphor is convenient in order to answer this question. Albert Camus was the philosopher from Argelia – contemporary to Iris Murdoch, actually, Murdoch was a student of Jean-Paul Sartre, his “contrary”, because “existentialism is a philosophical suicide” (Camus, the myth of Sisyphus, 1951) – that stated the absurd as a current. In his essay, he stated that life has no intrinsic meaning – just as Sartre –, and trying to find one is futile – this is the difference with Sartre, he stated in his book Existentialism is a humanism, that the we are condemned to be free, hence, with that freedom is our responsibility to pursue and find a subjective life’s meaning –. However, he states that the absurd individual should accept it and live without the necessity of having one (ibid.). This part of his argumentation isthe metaphor. Even though it is impossible to achieve the experimentation of objective reality, society must pursue it, there is still an epistemically chance to know between one’s boundaries; of course, not the objective reality.By using the terminology of ‘boundaries’ I do not mean that there is a very limited threshold, actually, humanity’s threshold of limited knowledge is enormous, it even seems to be eternal; humanity does not know the limits of their knowledge, so every time are increasing, since humanity is adding more and more. Pursuing an impossible reality indeed is the great task that Murdoch proposed.
However, (I) what if one should give up this pursue of the comprehension of the represented reality? (II) What if it is useless regarded application to life? (III) And what if ignorance – the term I will use to the lack of knowledge – makes one’s life better and the great task is to live according to hedonism? These three questions are useful to bring perspective to the argumentation.
(I)Represented reality is everything humanity have, if one gives up the will of pursuing its comprehension, one loses all possessions, because in order to do whatever one does, one has to understand it first – such as professions –, hence, if one gives up this will of comprehension of represented reality, one is condemned to have a poor experience in that represented reality.
(II) What is a useful aspect regarding application to life? It is one that helps the individual to live better, based on virtue and the scape of all the unnecessary wicked actions – if they are necessary, they are not wicked. Wickedness is based on the intention and the context, not the action itself –. If one analyzes the nature of the comprehension of represented reality, one can do an abstraction of it and conclude that it possesses all of the characteristics that have a useful aspect in life, hence, by definition: it is useful.
(III) Hedonism has a lot of problems, mostly because every concept that manifests in this tangible world, has to have a contrary that manifests in this tangible world as well. If the great task was to live according to hedonism and avoid pain whatsoever, there would be a devaluation of life. It is true that comprehension of represented reality brings you pain, but embracing the pain of understanding what we can understand is the whole point of the real great task. It is not possible that eliminating a requirement of the intellect of the human being is the great task, because the great task has to bring great consequences; losing the love to wisdom and the hunger of knowledge – between one’s boundaries – are not great consequences, ignorance lets happen even genocides without a reaction that stops it, as it is happening at this moment that I am writing this essay. Ignorance brings consequences that are wicked, and as it is said, something of this nature is useless.
In conclusion, humanity cannot experience objective reality, however, understanding between it’s limits is indeed the “great task”. Iris Murdoch brought an incomplete idea; however, the whole point of criticizing ideas is to try to make them better, more rigorous and useful. The most one knows, the most one feels, individual’s perception can understand great things, however, understanding the wicked part of reality as humans is fundamental. This is why one suffers more when the knowledge increases, because it makes the individual feel everything amplificated, this is the relation between reason and emotions. The day that ignorance rulesthe world, would be the end of humanity’s days. Actually, if one tries to analyze the contemporary situation regards the pursue of the comprehension of the represented reality, society is moving toward a hedonist path, effort is almost disappearing, that is why to pursue it and to keep thinking is actually the great task in life.
