Reason and the Authority of Tradition

It is common for post-Enlightenment modern Westerners to portray reason and tradition as two opposing forces, with the essence of reason being a repudiation of tradition in favor of thinking for oneself.  If someone believes something on the basis of the teaching of tradition, then, they are being unreasonable.  But is this really the correct way to understand the relationship between reason and tradition?  Here I will argue that acknowledging the authority of tradition, far from being contrary to reason, is actually inevitable, necessary, and reasonable.  

Tradition and Belief

None of us comes into this world as an independent, autonomous, rational mind, a blank slate prepared to neutrally and objectively observe the world, think for ourselves, and form our own set of beliefs.  Rather, each of us comes into this world as a child, who absorbs the beliefs they are taught by their parents, community, and society. The most reasonable thing for a child to do is to accept what they are taught by adult authority figures, who have more knowledge and experience than they do.  A child’s beliefs are thus fully based on tradition, on the ideas that have been passed on to them by others.  

As our minds and brains develop and we get older, we gradually develop the ability to think for ourselves, discovering new truths and questioning some of the beliefs we have been taught. As adults, our minds become, relatively speaking, independent and autonomous. But even if we decide to skeptically question our inherited beliefs and subject them to critical examination, it is not possible to do so by withdrawing into a position of neutral objectivity and building our network of beliefs from scratch.  Rather, each of us is already always operating with a set of beliefs which begins as a network of beliefs we have accepted on the basis of authority.  When we change our minds about something or adopt new beliefs, we modify that pre-existing network of beliefs, rather than forming a brand new network of beliefs. So, it is simply not reasonable to tell people to never believe anything based on the authority of tradition, since this is impossible. What we can do, though, is gradually to take particular beliefs we have accepted on faith in authority and subject them to critical scrutiny in order to assess whether it is reasonable to continue believing these things or not.  

Reason and Authority

Believing things based on the authority of tradition is necessary and inevitable for children, but does the authority of tradition have any importance for adult minds?  I would argue that it certainly does.  It is certainly true that human traditions can be wrong and that new discoveries or insights that contradict traditional wisdom and teaching may get us closer to the truth. Sometimes, the reasonable thing to do is to go against tradition.  But often, the opposite is the case; often, the most reasonable thing for an individual to do is to bow to the authority of tradition.  

Since the Enlightenment, the idea of it being reasonable to base our beliefs on what an authority tells us has been alien to many Western minds.  One important modern philosopher who has attempted to rehabilitate the significance of authority and tradition is Hans-Georg Gadamer, and it is worth quoting him on this point at length:

“The essence of authority is ultimately based not on the subjection or abdication of reason but on an act of acknowledgment and knowledge–the knowledge, namely, that the other is superior to oneself in judgment and insight and that for this reason his judgment takes precedence–i.e., it has priority over one’s own. . . It rests on acknowledgment and hence on an act of reason itself which, aware of its own limitations, trusts to the better insight of others.  Authority in this sense, properly understood, has nothing to do with blind obedience to commands.  Indeed, authority has not to do with obedience but with knowledge. . . Its true basis is an act of freedom and reason that grants the authority of a superior fundamentally because he has a wider view of things or is better informed–i.e., once again, because he knows more.”^[1]Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, revised edition (London: Continuum Publishing Group, 1989), Page 281.

Thus, reason and authority are not antithetical; they are complementary.  The accumulated wisdom of past generations that is passed on to us is authoritative because it contains a wider view of things by people who, overall, are better informed than we are, and it is reasonable to acknowledge the authority of this tradition.

If we want to be reasonable people, if we want to seek the truth, it is important that each of us have a healthy dose of intellectual humility.  Each of us is limited in knowledge and prone to making errors in our reasoning. Each of us also exists in a very particular historical context, with very particular, historically contingent influences that have shaped us.  Furthermore, each of us has our own personal idiosyncrasies and habits of thought, and it is not possible to sharply separate our reason from our personal emotions, intuitions, aesthetic sense, and other nonrational faculties.  For all of these reasons, each of us should recognize that, even if something seems reasonable to me, I could very well be mistaken. 

So, if we want to seek the truth, we should consult the wisdom of tradition. If I come up with an idea that contradicts the consensus of what most other thoughtful people have said, it is unlikely that I am correct and tradition is wrong.  Now, it is certainly possible that tradition is wrong and that the new or relatively idiosyncratic idea I have come up with is actually true, and there can be value and importance in being willing to call traditional ideas into question.  But the burden of proof should be on me to say why tradition is wrong and I am right, not the other way around. If I come up with an idea that contradicts what tradition says, if I want to be reasonable, I should be cautious about departing from tradition and should make sure to carefully investigate the reasons for my idea and the reasons others have held to the traditional view before advocating my idea with any confidence.

Tradition and Traditions

Now, so far I have been speaking of tradition in a rather abstract sense.  The more complicated truth is that each of us is part of (or at least influenced by) multiple traditions of varying size and significance that intersect and overlap in a variety of ways.  There are family traditions, community traditions, societal traditions, religious traditions, traditions of particular subcultures, as well as traditions of particular trades or intellectual disciplines, and so forth.  Not all of these traditions are of equal importance or weight, and some may only affect relatively narrow aspects of our life or thought.  Sometimes, we may have to weigh the authority of different traditions against each other and determine which carries greater weight.  

Some traditions, such as religious or philosophical traditions, are based in some fundamental assumption or belief.  If we come to reject a tradition’s fundamental beliefs, we may leave that tradition altogether.  And if we come to embrace the fundamental beliefs of a different tradition, we may then become part of that tradition.  If we do so, we should then acknowledge the authority of that tradition.  Whatever traditions we are a part of, acknowledging the authority of tradition is an important and necessary part of being a wise and reasonable human being.