What is life? Is it a series of free experiences that gauges the future from the past? Or is it a heavily structured process based on social and scientific laws? The question is persistent: is life a clean canvas, an unwritten story open for thought and soul to flow onto by the imaginative pigments and penmanship of the empiricist? Or is it the construction of a tower, the creation of a design—a process based instead on equations, logical methods, and research-proven techniques of the rationalist? It appears to be a two-pronged fork: as an example, students choosing their major veer towards the right-brained intuitiveness and subjectivity of art, or the left-brained analytic processes and objectivity of math and science. Empiricism versus rationalism is a battle between two giants of philosophy. In the polarization of ideas, however, it is overlooked that there is a possibility of a third route. That route is an unbeaten path between the paved roads of romanticism and reason, one unexplorable by the oversized tanks by right and wrong, but only by the lone motorcycle of truth. That truth is that experience and reason may coexist with equal importance in life.
“To be is to do,” are the words of Immanuel Kant. Experience is important in life because it is life—it would be nonexistent without experience. The simplest days spent on the couch, at school and at the dinner table with family are filled with as much experience as are the greatest days of our lives spent on tropical beaches and mountaintops with spectacular views. Empiricists use these experiences to build themselves and their ideas. To fully immerse oneself in life is to fill that capacity for experience, and to experience is to learn. It is using this method that Pirsig was able to conceive so many philosophical questions—the simple yet immersive experience of his cross-country trip with his son contained the spark needed to ignite the gunpowder of imagination. Anyone may become a philosopher with their experiences as material. Past successes and failures, along with the power of the human imagination, can create a future that only exists in dreams in the present. “It is beyond a doubt,” Kant said, “that all our knowledge begins with experience.”
But there is a catch. Kant continued, “…although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.” Therefore, experience is important, but not the sole principle upon which our lives are built. While the romanticists open their arms to the influence of experience and the flow of the holistic approach, the rationalists beg to differ. It is generally agreed upon that life is a series of experiences, but those who follow this romantic philosophy too freely are dangerous. Romanticism is too irrational, too unpredictable and devious. Die-hard romanticists are dreamers, detached from reality and any seriousness in life. Those who have no structure or constraints can easily fall to vices and be overcome with self-interest, become the criminals, the greedy, and the pathetic.
Quite to the contrary, the rationalists shun the frolicsome, mystical indecisiveness of the empiricists and instead revert to established universal laws. Many of the principles upon which modern science, mathematics, medicine, and engineering are based have been proven effective. Reason is the concrete component that contributes to the creation of concrete things, and is therefore more beneficial to humanity than something that is abstract. According to rationalists, it is better to use the established methods to pinpoint a solid future, rather than firing blindly and hoping to hit something, whatever that something may be. Motorcycle maintenance would certainly not be possible without the logic of reverse engineering and the very tangible knowledge presented in instruction manuals. Humans need structure not only to advance but also to survive—with no social structure the world would be absolute chaos. It seems that humanity would exist as a less turbulent and more perfected race with reason as its exclusive principle.
As with experience, however, there are arguments against reason as that single principle. To empiricists, reason is too concrete—too gray and colorless, too predictable. Rational thinking to them does not leave room for creativity or emotion, only what is controlled and predefined. Rationalism is a machine. Also, even reason, as concrete and correct as it seems, may itself be a false floor. Pirsig suggested that even the most widely used and apparently solid laws of reason are “ghosts.” Because scientific laws have been thoroughly researched and consequently taught, they are believed to be the absolute truth, when in fact the possibility that they may be wrong is still very real. People were once inseparable from the scientific “laws” that the Earth is the center of the universe, or that it is flat, but in time those laws were proven to be incorrect. In fact, it took somewhat empirical thought processes to break the attachment to those ideas, and to establish new ones in accordance with modern reasoning. In that sense, reason is as much of a product of the human imagination as free experience. The true “reason,” assuming it exists, may be something just out of reach—the asymptote of an equation that we build upon while we learn, a goal that we unconsciously strive for. The building blocks of that equation are our experiences, and the entire rational philosophy is reduced itself to empiricism.
With both philosophies being validated and simultaneously nullified, one pondering this debate is left in a state of ambivalence. When in this philosophical limbo, one would feel pressured to agree with one side or the other, when that may not in fact be necessary at all. As Pirsig stated, “Persons tend to think and feel exclusively in one mode or the other… and as far as I know, no one now living has any real reconciliation of these truths or modes.” The reconciliation is the third path, the necessary key to a philosophical compromise. It is possible that the empiricists and rationalists will remain on opposite sides of the 38th parallel of thought. They will remain in their nuclear bunkers, as did the Capitalists and Communists, respectively—as enemies, engrossed in their own ideals. In the world of philosophy, though, black and white should not exist but as various shades of grey. The truth of the matter is that experience and reason both exist in life. Though it may be overlooked, artists utilize some sort of process in their work, as engineers integrate creativity into theirs. Left-brain and right-brain are irrelevant in the big picture—they are still part of the greater function of one brain. It is necessary for them to coexist, and with equal importance. Without reason, experience is unguided and precarious, but without experience, reason is nothing more than a dead, rigid structure. The debate is simply a turbulent surface to a vast ocean below that is calm and homogeneous.
Perhaps experience changes us. Perhaps it is the awl that constantly chips away at the marble, refining the details of our being from the day we are born until the very last minutes of our lives. Like fragments of rock, the small bits of ineptitude that are removed each day by our experiences will never be a part of us again. We cannot glue shavings of marble back on, should they be mistakenly removed. Likewise, once we have experienced something, it is permanently part of our past. When we are born, we are a simple block. Now, no two blocks are the same—each has unique swirls, chips, and rough spots—predispositions, if you will, to what we may become. They will always remain with us, but it is experience that truly defines us. By the time we die, our experiences have sculpted from that block a distinct figure, a statue of our lives. Perhaps that statue is the very face of reason, that reason is not the basis on which our lives are lived like its proponents suggest, but rather the goal that is approached through experience. As Kant said: “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” But maybe that’s all wrong—it could be that reason is the method through which that statue is sculpted, and experience is the artistic license. Perhaps everything is predefined, with the final figure in the blueprints, and a few mistakes as experiences in the construction. Regardless, the key conjunction between the two should not be “or,” but rather “and.” In any case, both exist. Really the epic battle between empiricism and rationalism is nothing more than a Cold War—two very different ideas, each with valid points, staring into each other’s steely eyes in a circular dispute. Both are right, both are wrong, and both just are. That is the importance of experience and reason in life. They are life.
Current Mood: Relaxed
Listening To: "How to Disappear Completely" by Radiohead
