Philosophers' talk about rationality is apt to soar into the stratosphere of abstractions so it must be stated that Bartley's approach has immediate and practical applications. Following his teacher, Karl Popper, the operating principle of Bartley's rationalism is the formula 'I may he wrong and you may be right, and by means of critical discussion we may get nearer to the truth of the matter'.
This simple principle of rationality requires philosophical defence in depth, backed up by a wide range of improved traditions and institutions to sustain the flow of ideas and critical discussion. These vehicles already exist of course, if only in rudimentary forms, among them talk-back radio, the range of serious 'little magazines' and programs on TV which allow opposing points of view to he explored and debated. These forums are vitally important despite all their imperfections and lapses into the trivial and the banal; the important thing is that they exist, not that they should be scrupulously fair and unbiased at all times nor that they confine themselves to matters of great moral and intellectual moment.
Bartley has provided philosophical air support for the footsoldiers of rationality. He offers a solution to the basic logical problem of rationality, namely how can we justify the basic premise of rationality, that is, the principle of rationality itself, the principle that we should engage in critical discussion to seek for rationally defensible beliefs? Critics have demonstrated that there is no way to justify positively (certainly) the basic premise of rationality itself (or indeed the basic premises of any argument) because any attempt to provide a reason to support the basic assumption of the argument simply begs the question to provide a justification for the supporting statement, and so on, ad infinitum. This has been a continual source of irritation to rationalists whenever an opponent bothers to make an issue out of it. For Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest rationalists of all time, frustration alternated with deep despair of reason.
It must he admitted that Bartley has not produced the kind of solution that is usually demanded. He concedes that the critics of rationalism are correct in pointing out the logical flaw in the premises of those theories which demand that only rationally justified beliefs should be accepted. His solution may be regarded as defeatist or totally sceptical, on a par with the person who claims that the 'rightness' of arguments is entirely a matter of custom or convenience or political expediency. However, these objections cannot be sustained because Bartley's theory is based on the discovery and criticism of a previously undetected assumption, undetected because it is shared by rationalists and irrationalists alike; being shared it is part of the invisible framework of debate.
This previously undetected or at least uncriticised assumption was identified and criticised by Popper round about 1960 (as described below) when he delivered some insight into the authoritarian structure of Western thought. Bartley developed this insight with his critique of the unstated and uncriticised theory of 'justificationism'. This is the theory that we should attempt to justify positively our beliefs (beyond doubt). It is summed up in the formula:
Beliefs must be justified by an appeal to an authority of some kind (generally the source of the belief in question) and this makes the belief either rational, or if not rational, at least valid for the person who holds it.
But what is the appropriate authority to provide justification? Popper addressed this question in his lecture 'On the sources of knowledge and ignorance', delivered to the Royal Society in 1960 and reprinted in Conjectures and Refutations.
Popper suggested that the question (about the authorities of knowledge) was wrongly put and, moreover, a similarly wrong form of posing the question had polluted the theory of politics as well as the theory of knowledge.
Among the contenders for authoritative status are 'hard facts', 'the light of reason', and the informed heart, logic, intuition, sacred traditions and innumerable religious authorities. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Empiricism the authority of sense experience was adopted. 'Seeing is believing' and science provides the epitome of rational knowledge. In the Continental Rationalist tradition following Descartes, the locus of authority resides with the intellectual intuition.
On Popper's account, both Empiricism and Rationalism evolved in conflict with ancient intellectual and religious authorities and were recruited in the cause of individualism and emancipation by the Post-Reformation political movements seeking liberty, equality and fraternity. But despite their recruitment to the cause of liberation and the revolt against traditional authorities they did not challenge the deep-seated theory of justificationism which remained in place as a common framework of thought in which all the rival schools waged their battles for intellectual, moral and political authority. By the same token, science inherited the same framework of thought and so the Western tradition has not only 'true belief' religions and ideologies but 'true belief' science as well.
Having discovered the hidden premise of justificationism, Popper and Bartley proceeded to criticise it, showing that we can dispense with the aim of positive justification without giving up anything that really matters, that is to say, without giving up respect for facts, for arguments, for the systematic use of reason to weigh and test the validity of beliefs and assumptions. This new theory of rationality is not a theory of justified belief, it is a theory of critical preference between options. We can form a preference for one option rather than another (whether for a car, a scientific theory or a political allegiance) in the light of evidence and arguments produced to that time. This preference may (or may not) he revised in the light of new evidence and arguments. It may be protested that this is not a great novelty, it is just commonsense. But historically, commonsense has proved no match for learned justificationist arguments.
The strength of the justificationist tradition is revealed by the tendency for commonsense rationalists to turn into justificationists in the heat of debate. A mere 'critical preference' seems to be rather weak and unconvincing in contrast with strength and unwavering resolution of people who are utterly convinced about their beliefs. So under pressure from irrationalists or true believers we too often try to meet their demand for justification (and fall to do so). Something about the context of debate seems to generate dogmatism and entrenchment, as in parliamentary debate. This arises in part from the pervasive tendency to be moralistic about being right, which Popper described as one of the disastrous consequences of the 'manifest' truth theory of knowledge.
What are the roots of justificationism? Perhaps there is some biological basis, or it may arise from the fact that we all grow up surrounded by larger people who know more than we do and constantly remind us of this. It may arise from the nature of conventional education, which promotes dogmatic modes of thought. But in addition to all these factors there is the tradition of justificationism itself, which states that we should strive to obtain justified beliefs, a theory endorsed by almost all Western philosophers from Plato to the present day. In the words of Ayer 'For what would be the point of our testing our hypotheses at all if they earned no greater credibility by passing the tests? We seek justification for our beliefs, and the whole process of testing would be futile if it were not thought capable of providing it'. The problem with this view articulated by Ayer is that so far none of its exponents have been able to provide any measure or indicator (such as the numerical probability of the theory) that actually works. In contrast, the commonsense notion of 'critical preference' does account for the growth of knowledge and for the survival of those theories that have stood up to tests (so far).
The problem for rationalists is that the traditional dogmatic framework of thought guarantees that the irrationalists can always win, any time that they force the issue and demand that the rationalist produce truly justified beliefs. That is to say, any time that Ayer (or Stove) is asked to nominate a theory along with its warrant of verification (or its numerical probability). In this way the dogmatic framework provides the seedbed for the weeds of irrationalism and this yields the shocking discovery that dogmatic (justificationist) theories of rationality actually nurture and maintain that seedbed. Hence there is nothing very surprising about the survival of irrationalism despite the onward march of science and the generally high regard for rationality in Western civilisation (Romantic reactions not withstanding). It seems that rationalists in the mould of Bertrand Russell nurture the seeds of their own destruction by persisting in the quest for justified beliefs (in Russell's case, by encouraging others to press on in search of a satisfactory form of scientific induction), thus helping to maintain the justificationist framework of thought. In other words, the great rationalist Bertrand Russell fought irrationalism at one level but sustained it at a deeper level. This may be a partial explanation of the reason why rationalists have not been able to usher in an 'age of reason' by persuading people to throw off their allegiances to traditional 'irrational' authorities.
Many problems are illuminated by the discovery of the dogmatic structure. Justificationism, in the form of entrenched and dogmatic thinking can be seen at work in all fanatics, ranging from terrorists to single-minded supporters of a particular sporting team. It is also exhibited by people who express their moralistic and humanitarian sentiments in the desire to smash things (communism, apartheid, and capitalism) instead of building a non-justificationist climate of debate in which wrongs can be righted by means of negotiation and reform.
Justificationism in the form of suspicion or even hatred of novelty has always created problems for innovators, and has required creative people in the past to be as tough as old boots in order to succeed. This has contributed to the mythology of 'genius and insanity' due to the strain placed on people who explore new territory and challenge entrenched modes of thought. At a less exalted level, Mark McCormack in What They Don't Teach At Harvard Business School noted that the "\'not-invented-here' complex, the trashing of an idea by someone because he or she did not invent it, is one of the biggest problems in his corporation.
Education at all levels, but especially in the universities, is impeded by authoritarian procedures which immobilise the disciplined play of imaginative criticism. For more on this topic see Bartley's posthumous book Unfathomed Knowledge.
Popper's ideas have failed to convince the majority of professional philosophers because his theory of conjectural knowledge does not even pretend to provide positively justified foundations of belief. Nobody else does better, but they keep trying, like chemists still in search of the Philosopher's Stone or physicists trying to build perpetual motion machines.
Self-improvement methods from 'How to win friends and influence people' down to the modern consciousness-raising movement have not helped people as much as they could because their positive and valuable elements are cancelled out by rigid and dogmatic adherence to the had habits of a lifetime ('I know that's silly but that's just me').
Inspired by Popper's 1960 lecture, 'On the sources of knowledge and of ignorance', Bartley hit on his solution in 1960 while working on his doctorate. He presented his theory in The Retreat to Commitment (Knopf, 1962) and in a major paper "Rationality versus the theory of rationality" in The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy (Ed. Mario Bunge, Free Press of Glencoe, 1964). Several factors conspired to obscure his achievement. First, he spelled out his solution in the context of the evolution of Protestant theology and neither the theologians nor the philosophers took much notice. Colleagues such as Ernest Gellner at the LSE regarded Bartley as an eccentric theologian with tendencies to atheism. Second, Popper at first accepted the new theory and wrote an addendum to The Open Society and its Enemies explaining the nonjustificationist approach to criticism. But the innovation appeared to fall out of favor in the Popper school after the 1965 clash between Popper and Bartley. Third, as a revolutionary innovation it runs deeply counter to received ideas about rationality and belief. It renders trivial and irrelevant that part of academic philosophy which is still locked into the 'justified belief' mode of thought. Fourth, the problem of rationality is generally posed in non-logical terms and so Bartley's logical approach is likely to be regarded as unimportant or irrelevant. Threats to rationality are often depleted as psychological (Freud and Jung), or sociological (Marx) or due to relativity (Einstein) or uncertainty, indeterminism and incompleteness (Heisenberg, Godel).
The Retreat to Commitment has been reprinted in an enlarged and revised edition (Open Court, 1984). Addenda to the new edition indicate the salient points of Bartley's current thinking on metacontexts but the story began in a somewhat esoteric study of rationality in Protestant theology.
This essay is a study of problems of self-identity and integrity in the Protestant and rationalist traditions. Probably the two most influential spiritual traditions of Western culture, both have helped provide involvement and purposive living in the past: and both offer their services to help overcome present-day alienation. However, these two traditions not only are internally confused but also are breeding confusion and alienation quite out of proportion to the internal confusion of either.
He sketched the evolution of liberal Protestant theology in the 19th and 20th centuries as non-fundamentalist Christians tried to retain both Christianity and rationality in the face of the rising tides of science and secularisation. At the same time, progressive people rejected the morbid and conservative Calvinist ideas of human depravity and predestination. Social reform was a dominant motif, inspired by the example of the historical Jesus. The twin enemies were Calvinist orthodoxy and social injustice, the weapon to destroy the Calvinist doctrines was research into the historical Jesus, to demonstrate that the true Christian would follow the morality of Jesus to transform one's own life and to contribute to the ultimate transformation of cultural existence. This approach would mean rejecting the traditional metaphysics and doctrine of the established Church with its authoritarian temper; its compromises with the political and social status quo and it might be compared with Catholic liberation theology.
The Protestant liberals inaugurated the historical criticism of the New Testament and the quest for the historical Jesus in the hope that the Nazarene might rise up as their ally against Calvinists who, they believed, had twisted his spiritual message into the call to obedience before 'mystery, miracle and authority'. The early results of this criticism nourished this hope, increased the plausibility of their program and encouraged them to continue.
A spectacular unintended consequence of this research was the destruction of the credibility of the historical Jesus as a paragon of humanitarian virtues and goodwill. Albert Schweitzer and Johannes Weiss were prominent in this work, with Schweitzer's influential book The Quest For the Historical Jesus first appearing in English in 1910. It seemed that the historical Jesus taught a forbidding, world-denying message, a message of judgment upon the world, not a message of social reform and salvation by earthly good works. The discovery that the historical Jesus was quite likely both illiberal and irrational posed a major threat for liberal, rational Protestants whose faith had been sustained by the vision of Jesus. Christians had to make a choice between a form of liberal Christianity without assent to the newly revealed non-liberal historical Jesus or a new form of Christianity, however irrational (and non-liberal) this may be.
Karl Barth started the new trend in Protestant theology by following the lead of the brilliant and lonely Dane Soren Kierkegaard, who anticipated the dilemma of liberal Christians. Kierkegaard reacted against the early liberal Protestantism that attempted to marry religion and rationalism, blending the idea of the historical Jesus as a humanitarian social reformer with the rationalist ethics of Kant.
Kierkegaard attacked rational, ethics-centered Christianity with a defence of the 'absurd'. His ideal Christian was not the liberal vision of the historical Jesus but Abraham who was prepared to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac at God's command. To be a man of faith was to obey, blindly uncritically, without reason, absurdly. It is readily apparent that this position was unaffected by the collapse of the liberal version of the historical Jesus and Kierkegaard was revealed as a man long in advance of his time, in fact an existentialist, before the term was even invented.
Barth followed the same path of irrational, even absurd, faith. At first he cited Kierkegaard with approval, though later when Kierkegaard was taken up by the existentialists Barth's favorable citations ceased. From Barth's point of view all the arguments in favor of Christian commitment, and against it, are fundamentally irrelevant. There are any number of arguments advanced for Christianity but: 'Although they are billed as arguments in support of the Christian position they are not treated as such: when some of these arguments are toppled, the theological edifice they are supposedly buttressing does not even lean.' People using these arguments clearly do not depend on them for their belief, which stands independent of arguments, though debate may be employed to convert people, to irritate rationalists or to still doubts. In Bartley's words '.such arguments are the neon lights, not the foundations, of the theological edifice'.
Following the directions charted by Kirkegaard and Bath the new theologians accept that the Christian faith is based on an irrational commitment but they are secure in the knowledge that their critics, whether humanists or Marxists or Hindus cannot demonstrate a fully-justified rational basis for their criticism. They can always respond with the 'boomerang' argument, the tu tuque 'You too!' rejoinder. 'Maybe I cannot justify my position, but you cannot justify yours either'. This has been a great stand-by for people wishing to evade fundamental issues and of course it is based on the assumption of justificationism, which traditionally provides the invisible framework of debate. So the answer is to widen the scope of the argument to encompass the traditional framework, and to criticise the assumption of justificationism itself.
Bartley has elaborated some of his early insights in a recent series of articles, including a contribution to the Israeli journal Philosophia (1982). He wrote about .the ecology of rationality which means looking at the context of arguments to see how dialogues may be polluted by justificationism and various of its consequences. In talking about the ecology of arguments he makes a distinction between positions, contexts and metacontexts.
A position indicates a theory or belief about something. Positions are adopted or postulated in contexts. Different positions are possible in any context and this raises the question of the attitude that we adopt to handle a dispute over positions, how we go about choosing and revising our positions. These attitudes are what Bartley calls metacontexts and he has focused on three of them:
- The Western tradition of justificationism.
- The eastern tradition of non-attachment.
- A tradition of non-dogmatic critical preference, which he calls comprehensively critical rationalism or pancritical rationalism.
Starting with the first of the three, Bartley argues that the justificationist tradition (or metacontext) sponsors attachment, entrenchment, and the rigid adherence to positions. In the Western tradition there is also a quest for progress and the growth of knowledge which is interesting because the two things are incompatible; entrenchment is not consistent with the desire for growth. This means that the Western tradition of epistemology is in a sense schizophrenic.
The Eastern way of non-attachment, in contrast to the first way, sponsors a lack of commitment and entrenchment. This tradition pays no particular attention to science or the growth of knowledge and is liable to promote apathy and indifference about life and the affairs of the world.
The third metacontext sponsors the growth of knowledge (of a tentative kind) aided an abetted by relentless creative and imaginative criticism. This metacontext promotes a healthy environment for the generation of new ideas and the elimination of error. In this metacontext there is appreciation for the unfettered play of imagination at the stage of thinking laterally about a problem (as in Feyerabend's dictum 'anything goes'). Then at the stage of critical appraisal and error elimination there are no holds barred in friendly but careful scrutiny of the various solutions that are generated in response to the problem.
In the light of these ideas we can discern a number of possible attitudes towards positions, notably those espoused by relativists (usually dogmatists of various kinds), fideists (dogmatists of the 'here I stand!' kind) and pancritical rationalists (regular guys!). Relativists tend to be disappointed justificationists who realise that positive, justification cannot be achieved. They conclude that all positions are pretty much the same and none can really claim to be better than any other is. They claim that there is no such thing as the truth and no such thing as getting nearer to the truth. Hence they consider that there is no such thing as a rational position. Fideists, better called true believers, embrace justificationism. They assert that some positions are better than others, though they may also accept that there is no way to rationally justify their choice. They believe that ultimately we make our choice regardless of reason: 'Here I stand!' Most forms of rationalism up to date have, at rock bottom, shared this attitude with the Irrationalists in the same way that they share the basic assumption of justificationism.
According to the pancritical rationalists no position can be positively justified but it is quite likely that some will turn out to he better than others in the light of critical discussion and tests. Or at least it is possible to specify what would count as a better idea. This form of rationality holds all its positions and propositions open to criticism and a standard objection to this stance is that it is empty; just holding our positions open to criticism provides no guidance as to what position we should adopt in any particular situation. This criticism misses its mark for two reasons. First, pancritical rationalism is not a position and it does not aim to have specific content. It is not supposed to solve the kind of problems that are solved by adopting a position on some issue or other, it is concerned with the way that such positions are adopted, criticised, defended and relinquished. The second reason why the criticism of emptiness misses the mark is that Bartley does provide guidance on adopting positions. We may adopt the position that to this moment has stood up to criticism most effectively. Of course this is no help for the justificationist who seeks stronger reasons for belief, but that is a problem for the justificationist, not for others who are prepared to operate on the basis of critical preferences.
It appears that Bartley has provided a weighty crowbar to apply to the wall of irrationalism. Where best to apply the point of this instrument? One approach is to challenge irrationalists at every opportunity but this may not work due to the capacity of people to ignore rational arguments when it suits them. A complementary approach is to focus on rationalists, with the aim of ensuring that we get rid of their own justificationism. Irrationalism is parasitic on rationalism, which up to date has been carried in the rationalist tradition. If rationalists cease to sustain the framework of justificationism then irrationalism will have to sustain itself without the unwitting assistance of its enemies. Irrationalism can be regarded as a kind of disease, a form of intellectual AIDS carried by rationalism, waiting only for the right conditions (social or political crises of some kind, or even simply personal stress). Then new forms of irrationalism and superstition come to the surface, much to the surprise and disgust of rationalists. The rationalist tradition has done remarkably well considering the logical problems In Its foundations and one can only be optimistic about its future prospects, as Bartley's work becomes better known.
Melbourne Age Monthly Review October 1985
Agreeing to Disagree: Bartley's Critique of Reason
A review essay of Bartley's The Retreat to Commitment
