S.N Balagangadhara
I
want to go deeper into the claim of my earlier post that Shabnum Tejani s and Neera Chandhoke s of this world do not
think but merely talk. In other words, is it possible to identify the problems
with their accounts (that explicates more clearly why I say that they do not
think) in such a way that it is susceptible to some sort of solution? If,
indeed, we can show that such people do not think and we can show that their
mistakes have some cognitive roots, then we can also provide additional
explanations. In such a case, our answer would be richer and more complex than
any other available at the market place.
1.
Here is the first charge: they talk about certain domains of human endeavor as
though they do have knowledge of these domains, whereas they do not know
anything about that domain. I will first explain this charge before talking
about the implications.
Consider
one of the most common argumentative (and cognitive) strategies that many
people in the social sciences use, when they want to criticize some position or
the other. This consists of challenging the truth of the premises in an
argument in order to show that (a) they disagree with the argument; (b) one
could legitimately challenge the truth of the conclusions thereby; (c) in doing
so, they are advancing knowledge of the subject matter. (This takes many forms
and I give you three illustrations out of indefinitely many: Shabnum Tejani
does it in the citation that Jakob used in his first post; Achin Vanaik used
this in the Rethinking Religion in India conference while he spoke of a
‘logical theory’ in the domain of International Relations; Will Sweetman uses
this in his published article in a journal to say that I am wrong because I
presuppose Protestant Christianity as the model of religion to draw the
conclusion that Hinduism is not a religion. I suggest you look at all three to
discover how wide-spread and familiar this argument is. How often have you not
heard people’s argument being dismissed on the grounds that one does not agree
with their premises or assumptions or presuppositions?) As you can see, people
use the following notions: ‘premises and conclusions'; ‘truth and derivation';
‘drawing conclusions from certain premises’. All of these are studied in Logic
and this constitutes the subject matter of formal logics.
If
you read the first chapter in a book on ‘Introduction to Logic’ or attend the
first class in the first year of a logic course, you learn about these notions.
Almost one of the first things you learn is this: there is a fundamental
asymmetry in the transmission of truth and falsity from premises to
conclusions. Truth is transmitted from premises to conclusions but falsity is
not; falsity is transmitted from the conclusion to premises but truth is not.
(In both cases, we assume that valid rules of logical inferences are used.)
That is to say, if your premises are true and you use valid rules of inference,
then your conclusion is also true; if your conclusion is false and you use
valid rules of inference then at least one of your premises is false. However,
the other way does not hold: you could have false premises and yet draw true
conclusions. The falsity of your premise does not make your conclusion false or
the truth of your conclusion does not make all your premises (or even one of
them) true. This is the nature of drawing conclusions in deductive logics.
Because this is the first thing you learn in your logic course, I have also
formulated in a simple language.
So,
when people like Shabnums of this world enter the domain of logic (they are,
after all, arguing using notions from formal logics), you expect them to know
this. If they do not, they should not argue or criticize. They are not ordinary
citizens who are arguing in a café but pretend to be intellectuals who are
producing knowledge about the world. In the former case of café discussions, we
can overlook logical mistakes; after all, it is the beer that talks. In the
latter case, we cannot. These people are public intellectuals and teachers;
they form young minds and influence public policies. So, we expect them to know
what they are talking about. It is their duty and obligation as well. But they
do not know: they think they are being ‘logical’, when they commit mistakes
that a freshman should not. How fit I am to be a teacher and an intellectual if
I talk about matters studied in Physics without knowing anything about Physics?
What would my ‘expertise’ in Physics amount to, when it transpires that I do
not know the first lesson in physics?
2.
Invariably, such tremendous but unforgivable ignorance goes hand-in-hand with
contempt for the subject matter of logic. I do not know whether Shabnum has
expressed this; but it is implicit in any case. I have heard claims like the
following from precisely these kinds of pundits: ‘I do not do logic-chopping';
‘The world does not follow your rules of logic'; ‘I totally reject Aristotelian
(or bourgeois) logic'; ‘what we need is less ‘or-or’ reasoning but more
‘and-and’ thinking’ and so on and so forth. In and of itself I do not mind such
death-defying acts; however, I do have problems with the fact that it is sheer
ignorance that talks here. Those who talk like this or embody such attitudes
are legion; social sciences are full of pompous ignoramuses like these. Here,
the problem is this: why is such a dismissive attitude ingrained among social scientists?
Answering this question gives us some handle on Chandokes and Shabnums of this
world as well.
3.
To some extent, this attitude is a part of the contempt for theories. Most
social scientists are incapable of producing theories and hypotheses of the
required kind. They think that all these domains consist of mere ‘opinions’ and
that one cannot produce knowledge about human beings, cultures and societies.
Consequently, any opinion is as good as any other opinion: after all, everyone
of us knows what ‘culture’, ‘religion’, ‘politics’ etc are all about. So, what
matters what one says? This attitude to knowledge, which characterizes post-
world war social sciences (especially under the influence of the US), is also
shared by Shabnum. To understand this wide-spread dismissal of the importance
of theory and the possibility of producing knowledge would also enable us to
understand the Chandokes and Sahbnums of this world.
4.
And then, there is also an equally abysmal ignorance about theories of meaning,
reference and language. Yet, this does not deter them talking about ‘meaning’
and ‘historical contexts’, ‘language and society’ and such like. The number of
times I have heard intellectuals saying, ‘I totally reject Aristotelian notion
of truth’ or ‘I reject the correspondence theory of language’ is indefinitely
many. Of course, these people did not know what they were talking about in each
of these cases. So, this way of ‘rejecting’ all kinds of things they know
nothing about characterizes Shabnums of this world as well. Here too, my
objections are the same. In an increasing fashion, it appears as though the
only (and supreme) qualification to become an intellectual and social scientist
seems to be ignorance and not knowledge. We need to understand this process as
well.
So,
I could go on, but I will stop here. When I say, therefore, they talk but do
not think, I am not explaining why they say what they say: I am merely
characterizing what is it that they do. Let us first find out what they do,
before we explain.
Why Indian Secularists do not think but talk?