Deference vs Autonomy: The Eternal Struggle
and it will continue
The Wisdom of the Ancients
Imagine you want to learn about biology. Your library has two books about the topic of interest. The first is written by the one of the most prestigious scholars of your era. It came out just last yet. It also response to the latest developments in scholarship. The other book is a also by an important scholar of his time, but it is very old, so it doesn’t reflect the intellectual development of the last few generations of scientists. So which do you use?
If you chose the former, you probably live in modernity. Any western medieval scholar would not reach for anything written some insignificant contemporary mortal. They would reach for the for the wisdom ancients. And one particular ancient in particular:
… But most influential philosopher of all time? At least in the Western tradition, there’s a clear victor in the race for this title: Aristotle. Although his works did not dominate the philosophical scene in the centuries immediately following his death, once they caught on, they caught on in a big way. For well over a thousand years Aristotle was not just the most widely read and significant philosopher. He was philosophy, in the sense that the study of philosophy was often simply the study of Aristotle’s works. In medieval times it was possible simply to say “the Philosopher,” and everyone would know who you meant. Only after the Renaissance would Aristotle’s total dominance of philosophy and science be questioned.1
Keep in mind that “philosophy” subsumed a lot more than it does today. such as physics, biology, and any topics we today might study through science. .That brand new book just now? If you are a medieval scholar that might just be commentary to Aristotle. Not all intellectual developments were commentaries on Aristotle of course, people commentated ancient text as well. Such as the Bible. But original thought is unheard of.
Taqlīd and ijtihād
The section above might be a bit too Eurocentric. Not all medieval philosophy is Catholic scholasticism after all. I agree that for example the Islamic world had its own independent philosophical tradition, by which I mean an independent tradition of interpreting Aristotle! Islamic scholars even came up with a concept of believing things without evidence, which the also applied to theology and legal precedent (But relying on the Qur’an instead of Aristotle. They called it taqlīd. It’s hard to find a neutral translation for this term. But I will go with “deference”
This is to be contrasted to independent thought ijtihād. This term is even less translatable than taqlīd, I will go with “autonomy”. Ijtihād had its defenders too,such as the Ash’arites. Counterintuitively, it has often been fundamentalists that support it the most . But even hardcore ijtihādist think authority had some role to play. They agreed that ordinary people should only do the minimum amount of reasoning needed to be able to accept reliability of other authorities. Both sides had powerful arguments on their side.
In favor of taqlīd:
A much-discussed example was the case of arriving in a city and wanting to know which direction to pray, so as to face Mecca. Would it really make sense to work this out for oneself rather than just adopting the local practice followed by thousands of people? As one jurist put it, “It is extremely unlikely . . . that they could have made a mistake that could be rectified by the reasoning of a single person.”2
In favor of ijtihād:
As al-Dawwānī observed, had [a] ordinary Muslim [that follows taqlīd] been born a Christian or Jew, he or she would have had false beliefs instead.3
The Deference of the Scholastics
But at least there was a rivalry between deference and autonomy in the Islamic world. In Christendom there was a clear winner. The Church has its doctrine, which every Christian had to assert. If you did not, you were simply a heretic. A Scholastic like Thomas Aquinas didn’t mind finding proofs for his beliefs. But when he does not find them—as with the Trinity—he does not mind either. He did not as much as reconsider whether he could just accept that on faith. In Christian Europe they didn’t even have a word for taqlīd (as far as I can tell), but yet they followed it. Even the study of Hebrew was sometimes considered suspicious, as it might indicate a lack of deference to the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible that was considered authoritative by the Church.
Why might this be, when today Islam is precisely not know for its celebration of free inquiry, and (formerly) Christian lands are? Two factors stand out to me. Firstly, taqlīd and ijtihād developed originally out of Islamic jurisprudence. It could simply be that scholars of all types were more attentive to the issues involved in choosing one over the other. Christians had no religious law to follow and therefore no need to develop these concepts. But there is a second, stronger reason. Christianity has since time immemorial had one, overarching Church organization capable of elevating certain believes as doctrine. And since the economical councils of the Roman Empire had the ability to enforce unity on those doctrines. Sunni Islamic intellectual development was always more decentralized. No one authority after the Rightly Guided Caliphs had the ability unilaterally define doctrine. This leaves a lot more space to question commonly held believes, as long as you don’t directly contradict the Qur’an.
Epistemological contamination
But that’s on religious matters. Why should philosophy be impacted? My view is when a certain epistemology prevails in most subjects, or the most prestigious subject, that it inevitably influences how we approach other subjects. Especially philosophy, where it is hard to figure out how to find answers. Why does Sam Harris believe that ethics can bee solved by the scientific method? Because in his experience, the scientific method is the only method that accurately resolves questions of any sort. Even more respected thinkers bring scientific intuitions to their philosophy in more subtle ways. Jeremy Bentham was certainly not the first to argue for universal care, the Chinese philospher Mozi was two millennia ahead on that. But he was unique in that utility may be a quantity that can be calculated by multiplying intensity and duration of pleasure. In this he was no doubt influenced by Newtonian physics, which relied heavily on abstract quantities. It is no miracle that deference in theological matters might results in deference all matters. Speaking of miracles, those used to be a common thing to believe in.
But deference would not last. In 1660 the English Royal Society would adopt the motto “Nullius in verba” (“Trust no word”). And as we saw before: “Only after the Renaissance would Aristotle’s total dominance of philosophy and science be questioned.” What happened in the Renaissance?
Luther Happened
The moment most associated with the start of the reformation is October 31st 1517, when Luther send a letter containing the 95 theses to the archbishop of Mainz. In these theses he systematically attacks the practice of indulgences. In reality though, posting these theses would be considered a normal aspect of intellectual life. Less than two months prior Luther had posted 97 theses that dealt more squarely with the subject of grace, the issue that would become the divisive theological disagreement between Catholics and Protestants. See for example thesis 68:
The will is always averse to, and the hands inclined toward, the law of the Lord without the grace of God.
And yet, the original publication of these theses went by with little fanfare. The reason why is that neither stereology nor indulgences were what fundamentally differentiates Catholicism from Protestantism. It is completely plausible that the Catholic Church might have eventually adopted Luther’s position on salvation by grace. If it did, it would still fundamentally be the Catholic Church. Indulgences are even less important. The Church itself would later roll back a lot of the indulgences trade in cum postquam. When is a last time you saw a priest going to town singing “As soon as the gold in the casket rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs”? The If it is not indulgences, what than is the defining issue of the reformation? When did the reformation really start?
It was the summer of 1519 in Leipzig. Luther was invited to debate Johann Eck on the topic of indulgences. Eck chose not to address Luther’s arguments on the merits. Rather, he fell back on the authorities of the pope. The pope had approved the sale of indulgences, and with him so did the Church. Deference to the Church requires that you concur. Denial makes you a heretic, a Hussite. Supposedly Luther responded with the line that irreparably set the reformation in motion: “Ja, ich bin ein Hussite.”
Whether Luther said those literal words or not, cannot be determined for certain, but they certainly capture his core attitude. In a radical break with the zeitgeist, Luther rejected deference absolutely, and endorsed intellectual autonomy. In the wake of this events, all sorts of protestant movement sprung up. They disagreed about almost every theological issues. But all of them agreed on the first of Luther’s solas “sola scriptura”. Only the Bible owes deference. This renewal of autonomy also seeped in other academic disciplines. The scientific revolution was short on the heels. Aristotle’s status as “the” philosopher was moribund. Foreshadowed by one of Luther’s aforementioned 97 theses4. Later on even the traditional authorship of scripture itself would be second guessed, on the initiative of German Lutherans.
Protestantism is sometimes blamed, or praised, for kickstarting progressivism. But Luther himself had little interest in taking “progressive” stances on political causes. He denounced the Peasants’ War, had pretty conventional views on women for his time, and his position on religious toleration is … Let’s just call it “less than progressive”. But here lies the sense in which they are right: By rejecting deference, Luther introduced creative destruction to intellectual thought. Without this new ideas—which progressive ideas always are—stand no chance. By my reckoning this is a good thing. It is only through the rejection of deference that the scientific revolution is possible. I started of this post by noting you would choose a recent biology book over an old one. You are not irrational in doing so. In modern times new ideas are usually better than older ones, which is both the result and the justification of creative destruction.
Before you call this an example of Great Man Theory, consider Luther’s infamous line again: “Ja, ich bin ein Hussite.” The Bohemian Jan Hus made the same move a century prior to Luther. Yet no reformation followed him. I am far from the first to observe the critical role of the printing press in this history. No earlier Hussite would have been able to spread his ideas so widely without the advantage of widely distributabable tracts. And write Luther did, enough to fill 22 volumes.
From “Trust no Word” to “Trust the Science”
Deference might by an enate human tendency. I noted that early Protestants were united in their rejection of rejection of Church authorities. But over time it seems like some protestant movements have reinvented Catholicism in a way. Mormons, Johova’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists each have their own extrabibilical authorities that they pay deference to. Others have granted the King James Version of the bible the same inspired status that Catholics awarded the Vulgate. In my own country the most conservative Christians around are called “Orthodox Reformed”, a two word paradox.
Even that most illustrious of Protestant movements—science—has partially returned to these deferent ways. It is accepted for experts to doubt each other, but for a mere layperson to do as much is not permitted. Like Popery, this has caused problems. Epidemology has lost a lot of credibility when the field insisted that opposition to lockdowns is anti-science … except when the Black Lives Matter protests started. Then suddenly, epidemologists discovered tradoffs. It’s not that there is no case to be made that protests should be excepted from lockdown rules. They are an important part of political engagement in any democratic country. Rather, this exception stands out because it is these kinds of trade-offs that were never considered beforehand.
What went wrong here? It’s epistemological contamination again. The problem was already reconised by Friedrich Hayek as “scientism”. What the science is able to do is tell us how things are. It can’t tell us what to do, that includes lockdowns. Unfortunately, like Hus, his mesage was not effective. Only technology like the printing press can allow a reformation.
But now that technology has come, it is the internet. It has become the primary way in which people relate with reality, displacing mass media. Autonomy has resurged. There is no lack of characters encouraging you to “do your own research”. But the good new ends there. Because the new advocates of autonomy are often much worse than the institutions they seek to replace, which gives me another opportunity to quote the book I used for the Islamic section just now:
Epistemically speaking, [itjihad] is the equivalent of political movements in the United States or Europe that encourage their followers to abandon traditional news sources, academic opinion, and the like. The more sweeping the rejection of taqlīd, the worse the results: it’s what Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones have in common with Salafi Islamists.
[Looking for my “take”? Sorry, this is post is like science, it tells you how things are, not what to do. Another post, another post]
"The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps.” by P. Adamson et al. Available as podcast or as book. — from the introduction to Aristotle.
"Don't think for yourself : authority and belief in medieval philosophy” P. Adamson
idem
Virtually the entire Ethics of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace. This in opposition to the scholastic