An Epistemological Failure Of Sam Harris

The scope of human sociality extends into every broad aspect of life: spirituality, sexuality, morality, and anything having to do with civilization as a whole are all impacted by the capacity or desire for social interaction.  Exposure to others sometimes entails exposure to foreign or important ideas, all of which are by necessity either true or false.  In some cases, certain ideas would likely never be discovered by a given person unless it was prompted or initially explained by someone else--and this does not mean the person whose discoveries were promoted lacks initiative, autonomy, or intelligence!  However, this is not a necessity in many instances where one could reason out knowable philosophical truths, and yet Sam Harris has declared otherwise.

Harris recently posted the following statement to his Facebook page: "Conversation--whether with other people or with ourselves--remains our only means of making intellectual and moral progress."  In doing so, he has stated that something other than reason (and science, which he sometimes seems to falsely conflate with reason elsewhere) has the ultimate role of establishing worldviews.  Not only is the majority submerged in fallacious beliefs and inconsistencies, as philosophical conversations can easily expose, but rationality is not primarily about conversing with other people, nor is that even necessary to obtain knowledge of many things.  Beyond this, the very wording Harris used is vague and potentially misleading.

Calling introspection a "conversation" with oneself is a very loose usage of the word, but self-examination and personal reflection on the laws of logic and various philosophical concepts are utter necessities for understanding reality.  All of reality stands on the logical axioms that cannot be false without being true, and--although everyone is at least indirectly aware of them, or else no one could have thoughts or experiences they can consciously grasp--one must reason out the truths about reality that follow from them for oneself.  This much is true.  One cannot understand the parts of reality can be known without sincerely looking to reason.

There are also social aspects of human existence that might not even be thought of apart from direct experience.  Would a conscious person with no exposure to other people or even animals think about social matters?  Perhaps, and perhaps not.  It is certainly possible that they would contemplate if other minds exist or what it would be like to partake of friendship with other people if they had never seen anyone else.  However, it is also very possible that they would not ever go beyond wondering if others like them exist.  The very nature of sociality invites analysis of ourselves, moral concepts, and specific issues of epistemology and metaphysics that would otherwise not necessarily be explored.

Conversing with others can provide significant psychological benefits, and it can even help bring certain ideas to mind or prompt new personal discoveries of an explicitly philosophical kind.  The fact still remains that conversations are not necessary for the discovery of many logical truths about reason itself, one's own mind and experiences, the nature of epistemology, and general metaphysics.  Sam Harris is blatantly mistaken in saying that conversations are the primary or only means of intellectual progress.  That status can only be held by an intentional, thorough alignment with reason.