David Hume 1711 - 1776

22 Feb 2004.

Dear Jud and Richard,

One of the reasons why I like Doctor Hannibal Lecter so much is that he marks an extreme of being anti-metaphysical. Escaping metaphysics is not easy at all. The primary problem is that, historically, language is inherently metaphysical when it becomes self-conscious at the very least. The basic problem resolves, I think, around considering in practical, everyday life that abstractions are real. Basic model of the problem:

A) Mathematical formulas, either simple or as in Relativity, 'work' very well. You identify "2+2=4" or "e=mc squared" that is the form of mental work and as an entity in itself. It seems to have reality as an abstraction. Every word is this way to some extent. But if an abstraction has any 'reality' in itself whatsoever then it is an "Idea" as Plato conceived it, and with Plato the ground reality of an Idea is mathematical. If Ideas are real, then they seem to need a God to either support their reality or to think them as supposedly a deity thinks, i. e., eternal, immutable, omniscient, etc. But here is the kicker.

B) If mathematical formulas work so well and seem to reflect a 'real' situation of affairs as reflected in themselves as some sort of entity, them how can an adding machine add? It does not think. It does not conceive the formula as 'real'. It does not need to. It just works. The absoluteness versus probability issue of causality to an adding machine is -- nothing. There is no "it' to 'it' either. You can take it apart. It doesn't add. It doesn't work. Language, then, without the haunting ghosts of abstractions seems to fall apart like a disassembled adding machine. We seem to be utterly unable to do without them. We therefore still think theologically, i. e., metaphysically, and we can think vast libraries and fill computers with the shit just as I am doing now. We do it very well. It seems, unless we stop and self-consciously study our self-consciousness of the matter -- which seems something very much like an act of insanity to me -- but then neither I nor Doctor Lecter have any fear of insanity -- insanity is fun and profitable -- and one must then, to be logically self-consistent, take this self-consciousness of the fallaciousness of abstractions self-consciously down and down and down and down . . . . It is fascinating. And since all men die, and everything they have done then becomes nothing but the memories of other people even if that much, then it is as practical as anything else is practical, which means the word "practical" is utterly meaningless. It is a dissolution of elements, and the abstraction of "elements" is invalid.

Doctor Lecter solves the problem of theological thinking we cannot possibly ever escape from by making a crucifixion watch. He has Jesus, in his final agony, performing 'practical' work by showing you the correct or incorrect time with his impaled and broken arms. As he sacrifices himself for your salvation, he orders your life around your practical and mechanical death. As he washes your sins away, he tells you how much time you have left and acts like an actuarial table as it does for Doctor Lecter in RED DRAGON. "What do you have there," Dr. Chilton asks as he is having Lecter's books and toilet seat taken away from him. Lecter replies "Time." The watch tells time. And the crucifixion watch tells time with a real vengeance. "God' gets us all in the end. But the point is, as David Hume so brilliantly defines it in THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION and the DIALOGUES, not whether God exists but whether God is trivial. Hume would have loved the crucifixion watch.

And, relating to the unquoted portion of 1 Corinthians 15 Harris uses as a motto to SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, "Eat, drink, and be merry with my metaphysics, for tomorrow I die and that no big deal at all." It is interesting to note, if I understand the context right, that Saint Paul is NOT rejecting Menander's (?) apothegm as invalid but simply setting up exactly the same situation as I have just done. "If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die. Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners." I love it. "If, after your greatest efforts and achievements, you do not get immortality, then screw it. What then you you have left that is worthwhile? Good communications with good manners."

To quote from the introduction of THOMAS AQUINAS: SELECTED WRITINGS, translated and edited by Ralph McInerny,

"The twentieth-century professional philosopher is apt to think of his discipline as not only as different from theology but as immune to any of the assumptions of that benighted discipline. The theologian is in thrall to religious beliefs, whereas the philosopher starts with an unadorned mind [GCM: tabula rasa, without presuppositions, i. e., empty], at square one, and follows the argument whither it goeth, obedient only to the exigencies of reason-- that is, of pure reason [GCM: virginal? hymen intact?]. This charming myth has captured the imagination of many philosophers, despite the fact that it cannot account for why they raise the questions they do, in the order they do, and with the quite palpable professional passion that they do." page xiv NT ‘Sincerely’

Gary C. Moore