[This piece was originally posted in response to a series of discussions on the Leo Strauss discussion group.]

Has anybody else noticed an interesting similarity between two of the threads we have been pursuing lately?

On the one hand we have been discussing nihilism, which (if I've understood the postings) has been presented as the permanent, irrefutable alternative to philosophy (or at any rate, to political/moral philosophy).  On the other hand, we have been discussing revelation, which has also been presented as the permanent, irrefutable alternative to philosophy.

Not only have these alternatives been presented as irrefutable; but from the vantage point of either, philosophy looks to be laboring under serious disadvantages:

• From the vantage point of nihilism, the choice of philosophy as an alternative appears to be the consequence of a failure of nerve, of a kind of cowardice that refuses to face the truth of nothing.  (Since philosophers pride themselves on following after the truth, this is a serious indictment.)
• From the vantage point of revelation, the choice of philosophy as an alternative appears to rely on a non-rational commitment or faith of the kind which, as Strauss puts it, must "prove fatal to any philosophy."  (Since philosophers pride themselves on following reason, this too is a serious indictment.)

For its part, philosophy has no choice but to concede that each of these alternatives is indeed irrefutable.  Given this, and in light of the apparently solid criticisms which each of these irrefutable alternatives has of mere phiilosophy, philosophy look to be in a pretty sorry way.

But there are a couple of interesting things about this predicament.  In the first place, it is worth noting that if nihilism and revelation each claims to be the alternative to philosophy, then neither one can really be the alternative.  At best, each is an alternative to philosophy.  Following this thought, if there are at least two alternatives to philosophy, then it is reasonable to suppose that there may be more:  why not three?  or four?  or a dozen?  or hundreds?

In the second place, it is interesting to realize that each of these alternatives is, in the strictest sense, irrefutable.  If there were only one serious alternative to philosophy, then for that alternative to be irrefutable would look pretty serious; it would look like we had some kind of permanent tension in the human condition between philosophy and this (hypothetical) solitary alternative.

But when we realize that there are (at least) two alternatives to philosophy, that each of these alternatives is irrefutable, and that they are incompatible with each other (for nearly anyone), then we can reasonably ask just how big a deal irrefutability really is.  And this question, once asked, makes the whole soggy melodrama of permanent tension dissolve.

Because of course irrefutability is nothing much.  There are any number of lunatic opinions that are irrefutable.  That doesn't make them true, nor even worth taking seriously.  If I claimed that all my sensations were delusory because really my brain is suspended in a jar on Mars, and Martian scientists are stimulating the nerve centers in such a way as to make me think I am seeing and hearing and feeling the things I see and hear and feel, there is no possible way of proving me wrong.  But the claim is preposterous anyway.  Nihilism and revelation are neither of them so preposterous as the "jars on Mars" thesis, but their irrefutability is not the source of their gravity.  Mere irrefutability is no reason to take a doctrine seriously.

But by the same token, irrefutability may be a reason to refuse to take a doctrine seriously.  If a teaching is irrefutable, then it is totally insulated from all criticism.  This in turn means that there is no way to reason through to it; adherents might as well be parrots instead of human beings, for all the good that talking to them will do.  The fact that so many lunatics hold irrefutable (but crazy) opinions actually suggests that irrefutability puts a teaching in bad company; it may not be enough to discredit a doctrine, but it is enough to make it unsavory.  Nihilism and revelation may neither of them be lunacy, but insofar as they are irrefutable, to that extent their adherents keep company with lunatics; and at that point it is fair for non-adherents to size them up carefully before keeping much company with them, much as one would size up a stranger on the street before entering into conversation.

In all this, what distinguishes philosophy are its apparent weaknesses:  philosophy is too weak simply to declare that nothing is the only reality; it is too weak to justify its own foundations rationally; it is too weak to compete with any of hundreds of fashionable dogmatisms or inspired madnesses.  But this is because philosophy, however weakly and humbly, must account for the appearances and must operate by means of reason.  But the appearances are just our common data; and reason is just a disciplined form of common sense.  Philosophy, that is, operates as a lingua franca to translate between all our personal, irrefutable and ultimately incommunicable manias; it is the mode of speech and explanation that is suitable to common understanding and common attainments; its weaknesses and limitations are the very things that make it the voice of sanity and sobriety.