By: David Talcott

Nov 2002 Realism in Philosophy and History.

Realism means many different things and has an impact on many different disciplines including history and philosophy.

As we continue to learn about an interact with different views of reality in the different disciplines, our understanding of the different aspects of realism will grow.

Some thoughts from David regarding the relationship between philosophical Realism and Birzer's view of "myth".

As a philosophy major, the idea of myth as world-view making strikes me immediately as a construction of continental philosophy. Continental philosophy cannot be the origin of the idea of "myth", however, because Birzer has a proliferation of quotes and references which are either before the period of Continental Philosophy or just plain not from that tradition. It's actually quite surprising that he doesn't offer any connection with that tradition.

Both views take a very high view of the importance of humans telling stories. Both view telling stories as the most ultimate way to understand reality. Doing hard philosophy like metaphysics and epistemology is viewed as not able to address human concerns like "the one, the true, the good, and the beautiful." When a philosopher asks the question "what is the way the world really is?" a continental philosopher will respond with a story.

Birzer gives further acknowledgment to this kind of position when he says that "myth is powerful." Stories are powerful. Stories help us live our lives and cast vision for our lives.

But at this point both the philosophical realist and the scientific historian ask the same question: "Does the actual nature of reality matter?" If the world actually is a certain way, does that make a difference to the story we tell ourselves? Both the realist and the scientific historian say "yes!" For an example from the historian, what really happened at the battle of Bighorn makes a difference to the kinds of myths we can make about Custer. If Custer was a bungling moron who hated Native Americans, then we should not make a myth about him as a patriot martyr. We should accept the reality of his shortcomings. This historical realism helps us to understand where we came from in order to avoid the shortcoming of those who have gone before us.

This scientific historical view allows for both the importance of myth and the creation of myth. After looking at how things really were we can now say "we don't want to be bungling racist morons, we want to be different." And at that point we can create a new myth for what we want to become. It's a forward-looking myth. Further, there's room for myths about the past as long as it does justice to the fact. If there are truly heroic figures (say, the Founding Fathers), then we can hold them us as "the kind of people we were and want to be" without doing any violence to the history.

The relationship between philosophy and myth is somewhat interesting. When mythmaking is viewed as being philosophy, mythmaking reduces into continental philosophy. This generally entails a denial of philosophical realism. A philosophical realist says that there is one and only one way the world really is and that we either know part of that or are getting closer to it through philosophy. The continental philosopher rejects that there is "one way" the world is, and instead believes that man creates (or partially creates) his own reality through what he believes. This kind of mythmaker tells a story with the intention of making the world that way. He tells himself a story about how the world is in order to make the world that way. In this way, myth gives us higher truths than science or philosophy.

Another way to view the relationship between myth and philosophy is to view myth as a religious belief which provides the philosophical presuppositions for philosophy. In this view, a myth which says that "atoms in the void" are all that there are and that life is "mean, nasty, brutish, and short" will provide presuppositions for philosophical inquiry. If the story that one tells oneself is that all things are the product of matter, chance, and time, then one will automatically discount all teleological explanations. The idea of "purpose" has not content for someone with this myth.

Birzer doesn't seem to be interacting with these kinds of possibilities. He doesn't ask the question about whether or not Realism is true. But he does believe that myth does somehow tell us about the way "things really are." He writes that "truth...belongs to God, whether codified in scripture or nature or even within elements of pagan myth and culture" and that "God placed a part of His Truth in each culture" (From a paper presented to The Philadelphia Society which can be found at www.townhall.com/phillysoc/birzer.htm) So the kicker is that every myth in every culture is partially true. But, are they true because they partially correspond to reality or are they true for some other reason. To put some of Birzers ideas into other words, pagan myths can be true because humans made in the image of God cannot fully escape that fact. And thus whatever they create will somehow be a shadow of the truth.

That I can agree with. However this writing has already become far to long and I will draw it to a close with two more questions for future speculation. What should be our response when we run into a myth which is mostly wrong? What about the possibility that Christianity is the only true myth and that when it meets all others it should cast them out rather than assimilate into it?