Here's What I Mean
We use the word "normal" in a very diverse way and we qualify things to make clear what we haven't made clear. Take the word "normatively," we use it to mean, "as we normally experience something," which implies the idea that there are things that are not experienced normally. If we don't experience things normally, how do we experience them? We use adjectives to qualify the terms we think will be better understood with some modification. This is what an adjective does, Google tells us that, "an adjective is a 'describing word,' the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified." The most useful part of this definition is, "giving more information about," but we have to wonder why more information is needed if we said what we intended to say.
Is this all confusing? Probably, but this is the nature of communication. Whether English, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Japanese or whatever language we speak. Knowing the words we wish to use to express ourselves seem easy until we find that someone hasn't understood us the way we wanted to be understood. We then employ adjectives, participles, phrases, clauses and sometimes we enter into another whole discussion of what we intended to say but didn't say clearly. It is difficult to be clear about everything we say. I had a friend who liked to play with the English language. If I asked him a question he didn't know the answer to, he would say something that was obviously nonsense (e.g. turnip greens), I would ask him if he was sure and he would say, "Well almost pretty much but not quite hardly," to which I would say, "What?" This whole scenario played on the difficulty of being clear expressed in an ambiguous yet humorous way. Most of us understand how difficult it can be to communicate our thoughts in a way that they can be easily understood.
There are, however, those who would insist that if we have something to say, we should always speak precisely or in language that is clear and readily understood or say nothing at all. It is argued that this is the only way truth can be insured; otherwise, confusion reigns and our world becomes incoherent. The illusion of "absolute speak" is something that no one really practices or expects. We don't intend to be incorrect in what we say but we often speak without thinking, or without knowing what we are talking about. This is why it is good to weigh what we are told and if there is good reason to believe it and no good reason to doubt, then believe it. And if there is good reason to doubt it, then don't believe it, but have some idea of why we think it unbelievable. This should be true for all communication, whether presenting a propositional truth or a telling a joke. If it is a joke, its intent is usually obvious; however, if it is presented as a propositional truth, then that's another matter.
Propositional truths are subject to logical analysis, by this I don't mean empirical proof in keeping with the scientific method on the order of the seventeenth century Enlightenment, but simple discursive reasoning which sets out a case. We all have perceptions of the way we think things are and we live out of these perceptions, whether we are right or wrong. We regularly qualify our certitude of mind with reference to our perceptions with such words as: possible, impossible, probable, improbable, sure and unsure, certain and uncertain. What this suggests by these terms is that we all have ideas as to how things are and we express clarity of mind by degrees or levels of certitude.
There are two spheres of thought, however, wherein absolute truth is considered a "matter of faith," these are religion and science. In the discipline of religion we see dogma in the excess. From the concept of the trinity, the historical Jesus vs the deity of Christ, the identity and nature of the church, the diversity of the hierarchies within the various denominations, the work of the Holy Spirit, eschatology or End times, or more specifically life after death and/or the resurrection, to mention a few. Some of these theological disciplines are open to discussion within different churches but not where the hierarchy of the church made the issue a matter of faith or dogma.
With science, especially physical science (classical physics), there is as much diversity as relates to the certainty of "scientific facts" as there is with religion. In fact, what was known in the last century as Classical Physics or Newtonian Physics has given way in the greater scientific community as "theoretical physics." Here the greater body of scientific knowledge is admittedly determined by theoretical methods. In this scientists are uncomfortable with the dogmatic status of a scientific theory or belief, and the classification of the phenomenon as theory rather that fact is more realistic; e.g. E=MC2 is one of the most recognized equations of physical science; it is, however, a reality that has never been proven by the standards of the scientific method of the Enlightenment protocol, it is happily recognized by the greater scientific world as Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
The critical problem in both disciplines, religion and science, is the human attitude of dogma, defined by Merriam and Webster as: " a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted;" dogmatism is defined as: "positiveness in assertion of opinion especially when unwarranted or arrogant . . . a viewpoint or system of ideas based on insufficiently examined premises." Dogma is what is stated to be the absolute truth via acknowledgment by the authoritative voices of a given discipline, the members of that discipline being forbidden to think differently if they wish the acceptance of the recognized spokesmen of the discipline under consideration.
In reality, whether we are right or wrong in our perceptions makes little difference to the way we live our lives: the way we perceive of what is or what is not, or make the expected choices verses thinking freely, and the way we behave with reference to ourselves or others. The illusion of absolute knowledge accomplishes little in determining the norms of our culture, no matter how many spokesmen we have telling us what we need to think on a given matter.
What matters to most of us is what we believe and how our beliefs affect our behavior, toward ourselves and others. Ill will toward others and mistreatment of others is unacceptable behavior by anyone's definition. Happiness is the ultimate desire of all of us and a good definition of happiness is, "having a sense of well-being" with reference to ourselves and others. What we think we know is more realistically what we believe. Here I use a word that is very important to our whole discussion. We use the word belief (or faith) much more that we realize. Belief is a very powerful word or concept, and even more, it is a very transforming word or concept. It can transform our lives and even our world, but this is a discussion for another time and posting.
