Catholic Philosophy vs. Pinker on the Nature of Rationality
I recently started reading the work Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, by the Harvard-based cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker. Pinker has written many works on similar topics from a more general perspective. While in some of his other works, he deals with the nature of the mind and the basic mechanisms surrounding cognition, in this work Pinker deals with the nature of rationality more specifically.
While I would say that, from a Catholic perspective, there is nothing inherently theologically or philosophically problematic about Pinker’s definition of rationality, it does appear, at least for those familiar with Catholic theology and philosophy - especially as articulated in the Scholastic tradition - not so much a matter of Pinker’s definition being outright wrong, but rather a matter of him placing the emphasis in the wrong place, which leads him to develop too narrow of a definition of rationality.
Pinker defines the term “rationality” in the following manner: rationality is “the ability to use knowledge to attain goals.” At the beginning of his book, he shows that reason has been able to help make progress in a variety of different fields of human life, ranging from increasing life expectancy to decreasing poverty. He also uses the example of the San tribe of southern Africa, who are known for using a series of diverse problem solving skills to pick up on relatively subtle clues in their environment in order to more efficiently find animals while on the hunt. From this, Pinker can conclude, “…[R]ationality is not a power that an agent either has or doesn’t have…It is a kit of cognitive tools that can attain particular goals in particular worlds.”
It makes sense why Pinker would accept this vision of the nature of rationality: as a cognitive psychologist, he - like other types of psychologists, or those who study different fields, such as neurologists - is not concerned with the broader philosophical (and even theological) questions that arise from analyzing or reflecting upon the nature of the mind or consciousness, but rather with the particular processes or mechanisms by which the mind functions. In different situations, different cognitive tools under the umbrella of “reason” are being used to perform different tasks.
The problem lies primarily in this: since there are many distinct cognitive tools connected with reason, is reason/rationality merely the title we slap on to this collection of cognitive faculties, or is it something more than simply the sum total of all these specific or individual cognitive tools, something deeper which makes their existence possible?
Pinker, in a word, misses the forest for the trees. In the traditional Scholastic definition, reason is another term for the intellect. The intellect is that whereby we engage in an act of abstraction, deriving from our knowledge of sensible things an understanding of the basic metaphysical and logical principles that govern it. It is that by which, at least for beings with bodies, we see past the sensible and comprehend the purely intelligible that governs, orders, or arranges it.
Fr. Bernard J. Wuellner, S.J., in his Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy, defines reason as “the intellect in its reasoning function.” Reasoning is an operation of the intellect; nonetheless, it is such an essential operation of the intellect, that Wuellner goes on to define reason as “a name for the intellect.” The term “reason” can be used to refer to the intellect, or, more specifically, to the intellect when in the act of reasoning. This definition, to some extent, is still a roundabout description. On some level, it makes sense: Scholastics, when defining a word, are known for beginning with broad, vague, or generic descriptions or definitions, which they then nuance and narrow. These broader definitions are meant to create the framework for further investigation.
In the Scholastic view, reason or rationality is not merely a group of cognitive tools; rather, it is a faculty rooted in the intellect. The intellect, Wuellner writes, is “the power of knowing in an immaterial way.” The intellect, he specifies, is that which allows for a form of knowing that goes beyond the senses and those cognitive powers immediately connected with them, including the imagination; it allows us to understand the essence of a thing, to comprehend meaning and the first principles of logical thought or demonstration. None of these things are immediately perceived in comprehending physical things, though physical things may instantiate them. Thus, the intellect, in comprehending these things, must abstract them from matter. When we see a material thing, we ask, “Why is it the way it is?”, and the father down the rabbit hole we go, the more we see ourselves going through this process of deducing from our knowledge of material things a knowledge of purely intelligible and universal truths.
This understanding of the intellect is important in the writings of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., one of the best-known Neo-Scholastic theologians of the Francophone world. In volume 1 of one of work God, His Existence, and His Nature (one of his more significant works in religious epistemology), he criticizes the Empiricists for collapsing the intellect into the senses. What we know of a thing through the intellect is not a sensible perception of some physical quality, nor a composite image derived from seeing a series of distinct versions of a thing; rather, it is an understanding of the basic metaphysical or ontological principles that govern a thing.
With this understanding in mind (no pun intended) of what constitutes the epistemic foundation of reason, we have to ask, “What exactly is the intellect doing when it reasons?” Going back to Wuellner, he notes how the Latin word from which we derive the word “rational” - rationis - refers to the essence or nature of a thing, the ground or ultimate explanation of a thing, its formal principle. It is, in a word, that which gives a thing intelligibility. Thus, when the intellect comes to understand a thing, it makes judgments about it. Reason, in a word, is that whereby the intellect draws conclusions about a thing, or, more broadly, it refers to the ground on which we affirm something as reasonable, true, or probable. It is the epistemic and logical ground of evidence and arguments, that which makes possible discursive reasoning.
The major difference between Pinker’s definition and the general definition accepted by most Scholastics is that Pinker sees reason as a means of facilitating action, whereas for the Scholastics it is primarily a means of knowing. This is not to imply that we can create an overly-sharp contrast between action and knowledge: we can only act if we are drawn to a specific goal, but we can only feel drawn to that goal if we are aware of it, and if we are aware of the various means by which to attain it; therefore, since we can only strive towards those ends that we are aware of, what we are capable of knowing, and how we are capable of knowing, determines the sorts of actions we are capable of. (It is for this reason that a lot of Scholastics maintain a close relationship between reason and free will, and even, to some degree, see free will as an operation of the rational faculty.) Nonetheless, while each type of knowledge includes or makes possible a certain type of action, the various types of knowledge are not merely ways of calculating how to obtain an end; rather, action is something that results from having a specific type of knowledge.
Thus, St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, notes that “the object of the intellect is the very idea of appetible good” (Summa Theologiæ I, Q. 82, A. 3, respondeo). That is to say, the appetitive faculty is that whereby man desires some good, and the intellect is that whereby we develop the idea of the object of our appetite. As Aquinas further specifies in De Veritate Question 3, Article 3, respondeo,
As Augustine says if we consider the proper meaning of the word itself, an idea is a form; but if we consider what the thing itself is, then an idea is an intelligible character or likeness of a thing. We find, moreover, in certain forms, a double relation: one relation to that which is informed by these forms, and this is the kind of relation that knowledge has to the knower; another to that which is outside, and this is the kind of a relation that knowledge has to what is known. This latter relationship, however, is not common to all forms, as the first is. Therefore, the word form implies only the first relation. This is why a form always has the nature of a cause, for a form is, in a sense, the cause of that which it informs—whether this informing takes place by inherence, as it does in the case of intrinsic forms, or by imitation, as it does in the case of exemplary forms. But an intelligible character and a likeness also have the second relationship, which does not give them the nature of a cause. If we speak, therefore, of an idea, considering only the notion that is properly conveyed by that word, then an idea includes only that kind of knowledge according to which a thing can be made. This is knowledge that is actually practical, or merely virtually practical, which, in some way, is speculative. On the other hand, if we call an idea an intelligible character or likeness in a wide sense, then an idea can also pertain to purely speculative knowledge. Or, if we wish to speak more formally, we should say that an idea belongs to knowledge that is practical, either actually or virtually; but an intelligible character or likeness belongs to both practical and speculative knowledge.
Aquinas, building on the thought of St. Augustine, asserts that the term “idea” has two levels of meaning: firstly, the idea of a thing is its form, that is, the order, structure or general shape of a thing (its ontological form); yet, another, more fundamental meaning is that it refers to that which gives a thing intelligibility, or, more specifically, an apprehension of that which gives a thing intelligibility, a knowledge of what gives a thing orderliness or allows a thing to exist as a unified, coherent whole. The form of “x” is the cause of “x” being what it is. When the mind has an idea of some thing, something in the mind begins to imitate the ontological form of its object, and therefore has an understanding of why a thing is the way it is. Thus, as Garrigou-Lagrange states, rationality is ultimately identifiable with knowledge of a metaphysical nature, that knowledge of things according to its ultimate causes, that is, those things that serve as the most foundational or ultimate explanatory principles in light of which we understand why a thing is the way it is. It is an understanding of a things raison d’etre. In his work The Sense of Mystery: Clarity and Obscurity in the Intellectual Life, Garrigou-Lagrange writes, “Human knowledge does not reach only to sensible beings insofar as they are sensible. It is not limited to phenomena. Instead, it reaches that which is intelligible in sensible things. That is to say, human reason does not seize only fact. It seizes also the raisons d’être of facts - it seizes the why, τὸ διότι.” As he continues, “…[T]he intellect…has intelligible being for its object.” By “intelligible being,” he means the fundamental qualities that define its nature, something in turn determined by its proper end. Garrigou-Lagrange contrasts this with the form of knowledge knowable through the senses and the imagination (that composite image of a thing existing in the subconscious created from a synthesis of all of the particular versions of that thing that we have perceived).
From our knowledge of the intelligible aspects of a thing, we come to see that not only are these things more fundamental than the purely physical or sensible elements of a thing, but are themselves particular expressions of an even more fundamental reality, namely being considered as such. Reason thus has as its proper object not this or that specific being, but that which gives the existence of individual beings their intelligibility, and ultimately being considered as such.
Reason is thus that by which humans abstract from what is immediately perceptible, and continue to do so until they consider the being of thing within its most universal framework. We see this, at least implicitly, in Pinker’s view of rationality: Pinker sees rationality as that whereby we fight against things like superstition, bigotry, false beliefs, and errors in reasoning. This is something that we accomplish through such things as the basic principles of probability, the laws of logic, and the basic principles of critical thinking. But one is led to ask: where is the law of noncontradiction? What do the basic principles of probability look like? These are not specific, material things, but things that can only be seen through a process of abstraction. Individual cognitive processes allow us to grasp things like the laws of probability or the laws of logic because they reflect something broader concerning the nature of reason, namely the fact that reason sees beyond the immediate or the particular and allows us to understand the intelligible and the universal that lies behind it, that which gives material things their coherence or intelligible unity, and thus, by extension, the standard by which we judge statements are true or reasonable.
Thus, while the core of Pinker’s definition of “reason” and that of most Catholic theologians and philosophers don’t contradict, the problem with Pinker’s approach is his explicit refusal to frame reason in terms of a faculty or a power. Is reason merely a collection of cognitive processes? Or is it, as most Catholic theologians have stated, the highest form of knowledge, that which has as its proper object the source of intelligibility and meaning behind a thing, and ultimately that which is the ground of all intelligibility, namely being (and thus, by extension, God, the Source of all being Who is, as the Catholic tradition has historically defined, Being in its most fully actualized form)?
Sources:
Steven Pinker, Rationality: Why It Matters, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (New York: Viking, 2021)
Fr. Bernard J. Wuellner, S.J., Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1956)
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., God, His Existence, and His Nature: A Thomistic Solution of Certain Agnostic Antinomies, vol. 1, translated by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B., D.D. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1939)
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Sense of Mystery: Clarity and Obscurity in the Intellectual Life, translated by Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville: Erasmus Academic, 2017)
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ I, Q. 82, A. 3, respondeo, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, accessed on: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1082.htm#article3
St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate Question 3, Article 3, respondeo, translated by Fr. Robert W. Mulligan, S.J., accessed on: https://web.archive.org/web/20180119190505/http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/QDdeVer3.htm
The Principle of Subsidiary: Baptized Libertarianism, or Sometime More?
One of the cornerstones of discussions on political philosophy are debates on the exact extent or limit of the government’s authority. Most systems of political thought (besides, of course, the various forms of anarchism) agree that the government does, in fact, play a role in maintaining stability and unity in society and promoting the common good. Yet, where does the power of the government to promote the common good end, and personal responsibility begin? Or - to put it in terms that tended to dominate most of the early modern political discourse - where does government authority end and the freedom of citizens begin?
This is, of course, a pivotal question. Firstly, for practical reasons: the government lacks the resources or manpower to do it all. If the government has limited resources or manpower, what should it be focusing its attention most on? What should or must it be using its sources for? What should its main priorities be? Or should the government be collecting as many resources as it should and become the primary mechanism by which all social, legal and economic issues are resolved?
Secondly, this question is of the utmost importance for more general moral reasons: How much authority is one comfortable delegating to the government? Any authority, no matter how limited or vast, can be abused. How do we reduce the possibility of abuse as much as possible? There are a few different approaches. A society could, hypothetically, set strict and well-defined parameters for the governments authority (if politicians and bureaucrats know their place in society, and cannot go beyond a certain limit, there is less of a possibility of the government using its authority to do or regulate something it ought not). Another approach may be to not so much limit the governments authority as much as recognize the reality that the more authority the government has, the more possibilities for the abuse of power; hence, if one has a broader vision of the extent of the governments authority, they could hypothetically suggest some sort of mechanisms to prevent abuses of power. Or, one could do a certain amount of both, as was the case in most democratic societies, particularly those of a more federalist bent: not only could one organize society around a political philosophy that emphasize personal freedom over government authority, and therefore favor a more limited or decentralized government, but one could establish a specific set of legal and political mechanisms built into the structure of government, such as the division of the government into multiple branches or a balance between federal and local authority, which kick in or can be invoked as a way to counterbalance any potential abuses or government overreach.
These questions have been a part of discourse on political philosophy for as long as scholars and politicians have been debating topics surrounding the nature of the government. Yet, since the start of the modern era, there has been an ever growing strain within Western political thought, as exemplified by Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism, which systematically placed the importance of personal freedom above government authority, and which sought to create a balance between government authority with the rights of the citizen, which it did by conceptualizing government authority as being at the service of personal freedom: according to the mythos of Classical Liberalism, government was established as means enforcing a commonly agreed upon set of rules whereby individuals are prevented from infringing upon each other’s rights, something that was a constant threat in a state of nature; yet, there are also certain strict limits on the government’s authority which are meant to prevent the government from itself becoming a source of oppression and the violation of rights. The reason why one would accept such a vision of society is because supporters of such socio-political theories sees the government as deriving its authority from the consent of the governed. In a word, the government was established only because the citizens of a particular society chose to establish it in the first place, and continues to exist only insofar as the citizens continue to acknowledge its authority. As a result of this, supporters of Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism have pushed, many times successfully, for governments organized along democratic lines.
Such an ethos has been an extremely potent force in American politics, to no small degree because the American government, from its inception, was based upon Enlightenment political values (and since no large-scale political change takes place in a vacuum, it can be easily argued that American culture was, almost from the ground up, built upon certain narratives, ideologies, and ways of life that made colonial American society conducive to such political values). The general train of logic that “We need small government in order to preserve the rights of the people” is one of the unquestionable, axiomatic elements of American culture. This, combined with the historicist undertones of American political philosophy (by “historicist” I mean the notion that many Americans see history having a certain specific flow to it, one which inevitably unfolds in the creation of freer societies and more just governments) leads to the almost dogmatic adherence of many Americans to the basic tenants of 17th and 18th century Liberalism, seeing the prevailing elements of American political thought as self-evidently true (something clearly seen in the thought of the Founding Fathers themselves). Americans, like the more naive adherents of religion, are thus always on the look for any piece of evidence that could be used to validate their political opinions, even if it means, as is usually the case, examining or reinterpreting all political opinions through the lens of their own ideology.
This can be seen with the concept of subsidiary. An important part of Catholic theology ever since the great Popes and theologians of our era began systematize certain basic principles of Catholic social and moral thought in light of the political, social and economic challenges of the contemporary era, the concept of “subsidiary” means, in essence, that anything that can be done by either a higher authority or a lower authority should be done by the lower authority. If one were to stop there, one could easily see subsidiary as being a variant or precursor to one of the foundational tenants of American political thought - the notion of limited government - and thus as simply creating a barrier against government overreach.
The tendency to interpret the doctrine of subsidiary in such a way was only solidified by two realities: firstly, certain trends in 20th century American conservative thought, and secondly, the alliance in American culture between the political right and the religious right. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the term “conservative” began to take on a very specific meaning: many of the thinkers within more conservative schools began to create an alliance between social conservatives and political libertarians, which has thus led the popular American imagination to see a strong adherence to capitalist thought and a desire for a much more limited federal government and, on the other hand, a support for more traditional social and moral views, as going hand-in-hand. Some of the thinkers who forged this interpretation of conservatism - for example, William Buckley - were Catholic.
Another factor to consider is that both those with more traditional religious views and those of a more conservative political persuasion were equally outraged at the changes associated with the cultural revolution, thus leading to an alliance between political conservatives and theological conservatives. This thus created the view that to be theologically conservative is to inevitably vote for conservative politicians. Yet, the form of conservatism that conservative Christians have signed up for tends to be the very specific version of conservatism that dominates the political and intellectual circles of American society, in this case those that have developed since the middle of the 20th century.
Thus, the concept of subsidiary is often interpreted along the lines of a generic conservative belief in “limited government.” Yet, there is much more to this doctrine than that. The Compendium of Catholic Social Thought (hereafter referred to as CCST), paragraph 186, says the following in defining the principle of subsidiary: “…[A]ll societies of a superior order must adopt attitudes of help (subsidium) - therefore of support, with respect to lower-order societies. … Subsidiary…[is] understood…as economic, institutional, or juridical assistance offered to lesser entities…that require[s] the State to refrain from anything that would de facto restrict the existential space of the smaller essential cells of society. Their initiative, freedom and responsibility must not be supplanted.”
That is to say, the structures that govern society, when considered on the highest levels - particularly the State - must support the existence, functioning and preservation of lower-level or more local social structures. This doesn’t meant that the Catholic Church is opposed to the existence of these higher-level social structures, even when they exist in a highly centralized form (as can be seen in the Church’s support of monarchy for most of its history, and the existence of supporters of monarchial restoration even among the ranks of the traditionalist movement). Rather, what the Church is saying is that the State’s authority should not become so vast so as to supplant or leave no room for the existence or functioning of lower-level social institutions, and in fact should give them the freedom to take responsibility for and make decisions for those immediately under their care.
Part of why the principle of subsidiary is so strongly emphasized in the Catholic tradition is due to the fact that intermediary social institutions prevent the over-accumulation of power, and therefore abuse, on the part of higher-level social or political structures (cf. CCST #187). Yet, there is another reason for the Church’s commitment to the principle of subsidiary, beyond merely a fear of government overreach, and it is this reason that separates Catholic social thought from generic conservatism. The moral principle at stake in defending the principle of subsidiary is the realization of a profound anthropological fact, namely that the development of the human person, and thus the maintaining of human dignity, takes place within the context of - and is therefore best preserved by making use of - institutions such as the family, local community organizations, local cultural customs: in a word, what the CCST refers to as “that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sports-oriented, recreational, professional and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth” (#185). The preservation of local communal entities is thus meant to preserve that which is most uniquely human.
One critique of pop conservatism is that it has evolved into a more sophisticated, political expression of the “get off my lawn” attitude, and thereby essentially promotes an atomized vision of society (one which, in my opinion, creates the framework for the rise of the errors of liberalism, making contemporary conservatism a, albeit unwitting, sustainer of those negative social and ideological trends it seeks to destroy). Yet, humans are by nature social animals oriented towards relationship, and thus a large part of how the individual person harnesses their full range of capacities, realizes their full potential, is within the framework of, and partly under the influence, of the family, culture, and local social structures. Thus, some of the most potent measures to be taken in pursuing or maintaining justice in society takes place on a local level.
This makes sense, considering several factors. Firstly, humans are most impacted by, as well as most deeply in, and have the greatest capacity to influence, things in their immediate surroundings. Together with this is the reality that the thing that most drastically influences the manner or extent to which large-scale social reform unfolds is the state of the local community, particularly how these reforms are received, interpreted and implemented by the local community.
The health of a society is best exemplified in things such as the health of the family, the closeness of the local community, and the state of the culture. The importance of local community can be seen by looking at it in the negative: some of the factors that have served as the most potent means of perpetuating certain negative social trends include the falling apart of the family and local community entities, and the loss of a sense of cultural identity (in particular the replacement of authentic culture with the plasticization of culture). The widespread acceptance of moral relativism, a sense of isolation and the mental health crisis that results from this, widespread sexual immortality, consumerism, are all trends that, in many instances, are either caused or made worse by things like poor family or community relations, lack of participation in institutions or traditions that give life meaning (especially religion), and the lack of any authentic sense of culture.
When put in the positive, while people may (and often do) be able to comprehend and feel strongly about large-scale social issues, people feel the most amount of responsibility for those things that they have the most influence over, or that exist in their immediate orbit, since it is these things that one feels most emotionally invested in. Thus, far from atomizing society, the principle of subsidiary inspires people to do more to push for social justice or political reform, by making changes in their own lives and in their local, or mobilizing people on a local level, to bring about change.
This is something that I noticed when writing an article early last year for my diocesan newspaper in which I analyzed how local Catholic schools responded to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most schools, both public and private, both religious and secular, saw some level of decline in enrollment in during the Covid-19 pandemic; yet, those schools that saw the highest rise in enrollment in the immediately after Covid were not those that thought in terms of overly-broad institutional policies, but rather those that were most attentive to the needs of their local community. Catholic schools, more generally, experienced a much smoother transition back to some sense of normalcy in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, especially when compared to public schools. Many experts have asserted that the reason for this is the student-oriented nature of Catholic schools. Because of the strong sense of mission within, and the tight-knight communities surrounding, Catholic schools, many desired the safety of their students. Catholic schools were thus amongst the fist to close during the pandemic; yet, once the initial impact of the pandemic came to pass, they were also amongst the first to reopen and to set up plans to reestablish the pre-Covid norms as much as possible given the circumstances.
The story of Catholic schools in the immediate aftermath of Covid is but one expression of the principle of subsidiary in practice. As a local institution, those who run Catholic schools have a direct relationship with their students and their families. Those who have close relations with those they serve tend to have a greater motivation to help than those who are disconnected from the general populace, something that can easily occur on higher levels of society. Further, local institutions tend to be closer to the ground: they can much more easily discern the set of issues faced by those they serve, and adapt or cater any plans to confront the issue to the actual, concrete circumstances the people find themselves in.
Subsidiary is therefore not simply being left alone by the government to be left alone in your own little sociological bubble (though the principle of subsidiary does in fact help to protect against government overreach); rather, it reinforced those social relations that are the most immediate and most consequential, giving them room to grow and prosper. It serves as a counterbalance not to big government in general, but to a specific view of government (one that defines the modern world in a particularly intense manner) wherein that causes the central government authorities, as some far away and unrelated bureaucracy, to take the place of family, church, and local community and juridical organizations. The principle of subsidiary moves people to be more involved in their community, rather than simply delegating everything to some higher authority with no sense of rootedness in the community. It, if anything, helps to reinforce an authentic sense of community.