Reality is a phenomenon, which great thinkers have pondered about for years. In the past century philosophers have come to appreciate in many ways in which the language can be a clue to reality. It is really a doorway into how we think.
From sociological point of view we are looking whether there is a link between reality and culture; in other words, is reality culturally determined? This question is similar to what is good? What does good consist in? How does it fit into life? It is particularly an entrance into how we believe. It is necessary to define reality and culture before discussing on their links.
The meaning and content of reality vary widely from past to the present and from one society to another. This is something man has thought to explain. There are some leading theories of reality. None of the theories provides a comprehensive explanation of reality and a reasonable understanding of its major aspects. Reality is defined as “real existence; what is real; the aggregate of real things or existences; that which underlies and is the truth of appearance or phenomena”. (Oxford Eng. Dictionary, 1970). At present human knowledge is at its infancy stage concerning reality, therefore, the above definition is subject to modification by the progress of human understanding.
Culture concerns the way of life of the members of a given society-their habits and customs, with the material goods they produce. Society refers to the system of relationships, which connects together the individuals who share a common culture. No culture would exist without a society. But, equally, no society would exist without culture. Without culture we would not be human at all, in the sense in which we usually understand the term. We would have no language in which to express ourselves, no sense of self-consciousness, and our ability to think or reason would be severely limited. Culture consists of the values the members of a given group hold, the norms they follow, and the material goods they create. Values are abstract ideals, while norms are definite principles or rules which people are expected to observe. Norms represent the do’s and don’ts of social life (Giddens, 1992. PP31-32). How reality and culture would be linked and determined is a fascinating and complex topic, which would be looked in this article to the extent possible.
From very early ages human beings were curious about some ultimate reality or the problem of being. The technical term for it is ontology, from two Greek words meaning the science of being. It represents the search for the “first principle”. We love everything to some final unity or elementary “stuff” and we believe that we have found such a final unity. We call our theory of reality a monism view, or just monism, from a Greek word signifying alone or single. If now we believe that there is only one ultimate reality and that this reality is matter, we call this view materialistic monism, or just materialistic. So how can the world not look like one stuff, you ask? The answer is simple. There is a difference between appearance and reality. The world appears to be made up of only one kind of stuff or fundamental reality (believe it or not, stuff is an accepted technical term in metaphysics). Idealism is another kind of monism. On the other hand if we believe that the one ultimate reality is not matter, but mind and spirit, we may call, monism, spiritualism, or idealism. (Thomas 1961. P63). A theory widely believed in eastern culture (Herman, 1999. P36).
We look at things, but in reality, it is not what it appears to be. For example, the universe is composed of sub-atomic particles, then the watermelons, rock stars, and Caribbean islands that populate the world is that it appears to us may be mere appearances of underlying reality in the subatomic particles of which they are made. As Janis Joplin said, “It is said all same dame thing, man.” (Herman, 1999. P35)
But perhaps we shall not succeed in resolving the whole world into one elementary substance and shall find that in the very least analysis there are two ultimate forms of being, such as mind and matter. Maybe if so, we ought to call this theory dualism from Latin word for two. Or, finally, it is just possible that reality cannot be reduced even to two ultimate forms, but that there are more than two, possibly more. Then our theory of reality will be called pluralism.
Materialism is one type of monism. Thomas Hobbes, one of its chief defender, was a down to earth sort who just could not get into the spirit. Or, may be it was the other way round: the spirit couldn’t get into him. Anyway, although he was not entirely consistent, he was credited with advancing the view that the one and only reality is matter. Everything mattered to him except nothing, which is nothing, because it does not matter.” (Herman, 1999. P35).
The question arises whether the reality is objective in nature or subjective in the human mind? It has been common in the history of philosophy and science to distinguish between appearance and reality. The stick in water appears to be bent but it is really straight. This man appears to be honest but in reality he is a rascal. This floor appears to be flat but, according to physicist, in reality it is a cloud of dancing electrons. Thus are we ever distinguishing the apparent from the real? (Thomas, 1961. P181).
The question of reality, the ontological problem, is then the one, which has as its objective, the ultimate nature of the real. Is the course of nature in space and time but the appearance of or cloak of a more ultimate reality? Is the world as it appears to me real or is it but the manifestation of a hidden reality, which in it is quite different from its appearance?
It was this problem of reality that engaged the attention of the earliest philosophers. Thales Miles, who lived in the sixth century before Christ and who is called the father of philosophy, said that things come from water. Anaximenes, another member of the Lonion School thought that they come from air or vapour. Heraclitus considered that all things are made up of fire. Empedocles took a real step forward when he proposed the view that physical objects are mixtures or compounds of certain numbers of primary elements, in this case our-fire, water, earth, and air (Thomas, 1961. P188). The early Greeks arrived at the theory that the world is made of atoms, from two Greek words meaning that, which can’t be cut. Since then many theories as to the ultimate nature of reality have been advanced. The theory of the atom has been constantly modified from the study of the progress of science, microphysics.
The philosophical ideas mentioned above were encompassing people’s mind and soul at various eras in human history. Those ideas had primarily been acceptable in society as a cultural value and any deviation from that culture would have been punished ruthlessly. For example, Galileo’s view supporting Copernicus on his suggestion that the earth orbits around the sun was strongly condemned as heretic notion by the church inquisition. “He consequently was prosecuted and devastated by the punishment of life imprisonment” (Parker, 1992. P20).
The dominant philosophy shapes the culture of a society as its way of life of its members. The collection of ideas and habits, which they learn, share and transmit from generation to generation, establish their culture. Since humans have no instincts to direct their actions, their behaviour must be based on the guidelines, which are learned. In order for a society to operate effectively, its members must share these guidelines. (Haralambos, 1990. P2). Considering this sociological fact, the dominant philosophy of the time was learned and overwhelmingly accepted by the members of society.
Indubitably, there is a close connection between reality and culture. Religion is a part of culture; and reality is intimately associated with religious belief with respect to the absolute reality/God. Therefore, reality is culturally determined. How followers of various religions define and interpret the reality would be a different issue and out of scope of this paper. “According to Peter Berger and Thomas Lukeman religion is produced by members of society subjectively interpreting and giving meaning to the world around them. Religion is one of the most important devices used by humans to categorize and give meaning to the physical and social world. They see the sociology of knowledge- which is concerned with the meanings and definitions of reality held by members of society”.
Every society has its own body of knowledge and philosophy of reality. For instance, traditional Eskimos society has a shared knowledge of life and the world which differs from other societies. This “universe of meaning” as Berger and Lukeman term it, is socially derived; it is a product of society and in turn feedback and helps produce society. A universe of meaning requires constant ‘legitimization’: It needs repeated reinforcement and justification. Members of society must be told and retold that their universe of meaning is real, true, correct, and legitimate’. Without this a universe of meaning would tend to crumble, life would become meaningless, and the stability of society would be threatened.
Religion helps to build, maintain and legitimate universe of meaning. In this way humanity constructs knowledge and meaning about the whole universe and its place within it. Berger continues, religion legitimates so effectively because it relates the precarious reality of empirical societies with ultimate reality. That is knowledge learned from observational experience is supported and ‘made real’. Each universe of meaning is grounded in a social base. This social base-the sociological structure of society-is called its “plausibility structure”. If this plausibility structure is destroyed, so is the universe of meaning. Neither can exist without the other. Things may not be real because people believe they are real. Life is meaningful because of the meaning people give to it. Things make sense because they are defined in terms of common sense. However, this reality, these meanings, this sense are arbitrary. There is no universal standard of yardstick against which they can be measured and shown to be true. The universe of meaning is the social construction of reality. One’s society’s reality is another’s presence; things defined as meaningful in one society are nonsense in another. Because of the arbitrary nature of the universe of meaning, it is precarious, insecure and easily shattered. It therefore requires constant legitimization. Berger and Hockman argue that religion is the most effective mechanism for the universe of meaning. Unlike other sources only religion links meaning with ultimate reality. According to Hegel, what is real is phenomenal reality. Mind and nature developed according to a fixed process of dialectic. Every belief is a representation, a thesis, of how things are. Hegel continues that each belief has an opposite, an antithesis, a synthesis s formulated that incorporates both thesis and antithesis in a more adequate understanding of reality. In turn this synthesis become a new thesis, which gives rise to get another antithesis, and so on until all knowledge is unified in a comprehensive picture of reality, which for Hegel was the absolute, or God. (Herman, 1999. P113).
When different school of thought are philosophizing reality we face to many difficulties to solve our doubts. But if we just contemplate for a few seconds we shall begin to wonder whether the human mind is capable of real knowledge and whether the best venues of knowledge are through the sense organ or through some “faculty” of reason. We may assume tentatively that the human mind does not have the power of real knowledge, and that such real knowledge is offered us in the special sciences. (Thomas, 1961. P69).
Incidentally here we might notice that materialism would seem to have no farther meaning for philosophy; for the ultimate reality, if there be any such thing, is nothing to which we could give the name “matter” at least with the ordinary meaning. If it had turned, or should turn out, that energy is the ultimate “stuff” of which the atom is made, then the dynamism would seem to be the better name. But such term bring us little satisfaction for ultimate reality. (Thomas, 1961. P194). You learned about atomic theory in school, and you probably believe that atoms and subatomic particles make up the material world you inhibit. Is it every thing made up of matter? What about human being? What is the status of mind or soul? Do they belong to the same order of reality as physical objects, or do they belong to a different order of reality? What about your experience? According to atomic theory, atoms are colorless and tasteless particles swirling about in space. Yet the orange you buy in the supermarket are orange and smell and taste sweet. Is your experience of orange mistaken? Is there a difference between the ways the world is and the way it appears to you. (Herman, 1999. P7).
Rays of many kinds bombard us. The light rays are the best known of these. Through certain nerve centers and certainly highly specialized nerve endings of the eye we became sensitive to these as light. (Thomas, 1961. P194). We will perhaps be disappointed by the lack of finality in the scientific researches into constitution of the matter-and possibly confused. You will be impressed by the fact that the energy, rather than the word matter, appears now to be the more appropriate name for that which manifests itself to our human sense. (Thomas, 1961. P198). It would seem that our search for reality would lead us not into the depth explored by physical science. The reality in every life could be culturally determined depending on the definition of what we mean by reality, but for the understanding of the absolute reality we have no way but to believe in God. Even the child from birth holds certain perception, which cannot be obtained without a devine revelation. There no cultural determination would be involved. Our capacity of mind and sensory organ are so incapacitated that we are not able yet to comprehend about the nature of millions of mysteries in the field of science. It would even be impossible to resolve them in future as well. Without a divine revelation and faith, we cannot comprehend the absolute reality. To base our understanding about reality on the theory of philosopher’s imagination and so-called hypothesis would be nonsense. Some philosophers are drowned in the ocean of uncertainties and skepticism. What Rene Descartes believed to be an indubitable truth: “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito ergo sum in Latin). On the bases of this truth, he mounted proofs of the existence of the individual mind as a thinking substance, of the essence of reality, God’s existence, and if the existence of the physical world.
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