The Observer

Perspectivalism has me looking for thirds to every old dichotomy. There is a perceiving subject for every fact/value distinction, and a moral actor who decides between deontology and teleology. Frame and Poythress articulate this triad as "subject, object, norm."

Who is this "subject"? Does the "subject" really make any difference to what we know and do? Is the "subject" important enough to sit side-by-side with physical reality and natural law?

Rene Descartes brought the "subject" into the center of this philosophy when he said, "I think, therefore I am." The observing self provided the first fact for Reason (the norm), which used it to deduce Reality (the object).

Descartes left the "subject" behind once he got his feet on the familiar ground of philosophy, but his younger contemporary Blaise Pascal had more interest in the "subject." Pascal, who said, "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing," is often claimed as a forefather of existentialism.

I'm not ready to write about existentialism yet--although I delight in the great "Christian existentialists" (Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky), I could never force myself to take existentialism itself seriously before Frame and Poythress showed me how. So let me jump to something that I actually believe in--quantum physics.

In the weird world of quantum physics, what we think of as "reality" is arguably less real than the observing self. Twenty-first century scientists believe the laws of physics govern time, space, matter, and energy, but this does not result in a single predictable world. Instead, physical realisty and natural law produce a "wavefunction of the universe" which includes all possible worlds. The "actual world" that you and I observe is a collapsed subset of that wavefunction. Most quantum physicists say the act of observation causes the wavefunction of possibility to collapse into any one actuality.


Who is this Observer? Does the subject matter? And should I master existentialism or quantum physics to find out?

I feel like Odysseus, sailing between Scylla on one side and Charybdis on the other.

But if Truth lies on the other side, I must sail on...

Is, Ought, Am

I went to worship yesterday morning pondering three perspectives. It was a mind-expanding experience! The hymns and sermon exploded with "is" and "ought" and "am." My brain raced to keep up with all the implications of each verb.

I caught one transcendent glimpse of something I never beheld before. Our text was Ephesians 4:22-24, which tells us to

put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Here's what I saw as I considered this from three perspectives.

• Is: my old self belongs to my old life, but there is a new self created after the likeness of God.
  
• Ought: that old way of life is corrupt and those desires are deceitful, but there is a new way of life that is righteous and holy.
• Am: I am new-made, I am recreated, I am my Father's child, my Savior's love, the Spirit's home!

It was the third thought that took me off my guard and swept me off my feet. My mind is so trained to think about what is and what ought to be that the good news of who I am in Christ startled and delighted me.

Am, Is, Be

Perspectivalism provides a live alternative to the three dead ends of modern ethics. John M. Frame explains how perspectivalism can operate as a "metaethics" that unites teleology, deontology, and existential ethics.

I first grasped the concept of perspectivalism as it applied to ethics, which seems to be a natural starting point for people who have struggled with the frustrating state of that discipline these days. Frame says:

Although I published my epistemology before my ethics, I developed the threefold scheme in ethics before applying it to epistemology. Ethics is its natural home, and I think the ethical applications of it are more easily understood than the applications to epistemological theory.

Here's Frame on the three schools of modern secular ethical theory:

1. Existential Ethics: Existential ethics is the view that ethics is essentially a matter of human inwardness, a matter of character and motive....

2. Teleological Ethics: ...The teleologist sets forth one relatively simple, objective goal for ethics which, he thinks, no human being can legitimately question. That goal is usually called “happiness” or “pleasure”...

3. Deontological Ethics: The third tendency is toward “deontological ethics,” or an ethic of duty.

Frame calls these different "perspectives," and labels them "self, world, and law." It seems to me that each of these perspectives has its own grammar--"I am," "it is," "you be!" To stretch the grammatical observation just a bit, one might even argue that each has its own grammatical mood: interrogative, indicative, and imperative.

It is easy to draw the analogy between the indicative mood, physical reality, and teleological ethics. Each is about "facts, "about what "is." It isn't hard to see the correlation between the imperative mood, the "logos," and deontological ethics. Each is about "values," what "ought to be."

Having got this far, symmetry begs us to explore the possible relationship between the interrogative mood, subjectivity, and existential ethics. In the interrogative mood, I ask "Am I?" instead of asserting "I am" (in the indicative) or commanding "Be!" (in the imperative).

There's something about that question--"Am I?"--that hints at depths to come.

What is Perspectivalism?

What Is Perspectivalism?

"Perspectivalism" is a post-modern way of thinking about thinking that has been articulated by Vern Poythress and John M. Frame. Frame's brief Primer on Perspectivalism outlines the method.

Frame starts by observing that every (human) act of knowing takes place from some limited perspective. Recognizing this makes us more humble about the extent our own knowledge and more eager to increase it.

One way to increase our knowledge and our level of certainty is by supplementing our own perspectives with those of others. When our own resources fail us, we can consult friends, authorities, books, etc. We can travel to other places, visit people of other cultures. Even to get a good understanding of a tree, we need to walk around it, look at it from many angles.

It often happens that someone’s idea will seem ridiculous when we first encounter it; but when we try to understand where that person is coming from, what considerations have led him to his idea, then our evaluation of it changes. In such a case, we are trying to see the issue from his perspective, and that perspective enriches our own.

Perspectivalism Is Not Relativism

Perspectivalism seems safer than absolutism and wiser than relativism. Friedrich Nietzsche captured the core of relativism in The Will to Power:

There are many sorts of eyes. The sphinx too has eyes; consequently, there are many sorts of "truths," and consequently there is no truth. (Will to Power, section 540)

Perspectivalism does not confuse the blind stone eyes of the sphinx with the many sorts of eyes that really see.

Perspectivalism Is Not Absolutism

Perspectivalism is not absolutism because it does not confuse any (finite) individual's ideas with "Truth." This is not to say that Frame and Poythress deny the existence of absolute truth--they are both theology professors (Poythress is at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Frame is at Reformed Theological Seminary near Orlando). Perspectivalism distinguishes between the finite perspective of any created being with space and time, and the ultimate perspective of the Creator of space and time.

The Power of Perspectivalism

This humble but hopeful theory of knowledge could be a breakthrough in epistemology (which seems to have fallen on hard times recently). It could also provide a "grand unified theory" of ethics, by fusing deontology, teleology, and existential ethcs.