by Frank Gordon, USA
In the mid-twentieth century, a relatively new kind of philosophy was developed by L. Ron Hubbard, 1913-1986. This was a philosophy which had a direct and immedidate application to everyday life.
This is clear from the standards Hubbard laid down for his philosophy: "Wisdom is meant for anyone who wishes to reach for it, it must be capable of being applied, and any philosophic knowledge is only valuable if it is true or if it works."(2)
Hubbard's contributions obscured
Although Hubbard made important contributions to the main stream of philosophy, these were obscured in the smoke of attacks that arose in response to these immediate applications, especially in the field of mental health. These attacks were largely in response to his first book; Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health, published by Hermitage House, NY in 1950.
A typical attack
A typical attack appeared in a book review of Dianetics:MSMH in the December 1950 Journal of the American Psychiatric Association, p.477:
The reviewer, a Dr. Peck, begins with: "Hubbard released his book simultaneously with a long article about it in the May issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine," implying that it was simply more science-fiction. "Hubbard's psychology and technique of therapy would naturally be popular. He exploits the current impotence of psychiatry..." A surprising admission!
Dr. Peck continues, "As might be expected Hubbard quickly found a following, first in the readers of Astounding Science Fiction, then in Southern California where any cult will thrive...The whole project was irresponsible by accepted scientific standards...The obvious dangers(3) of widespread use of this system could only have been minimized by an irresponsible adventurer such as the author...As for Hubbard himself he may be explained as a misguided and frustrated genius whose previous efforts in the realm of science fiction writing have subtly prepared him for that nice ignorance of reality without which he could not have developed this epic."
It is to be expected that Dr. Peck, as an establishment psychiatrist, must conclude his review with some kind of pompous psychiatric evaluation, and so he does: "Certain bits of internal evidence...may indicate the author's own systematized paranoid delusions."
Were Hubbard's contributions to philosophy recognized?
After this blast from the entrenched medical pharmaceutical complex with its vested financial interests, we may turn our attention to the philosophers. Did we hear anything from them? No. Yet Hubbard had made some important contributions to epistemology and other areas of classical philosophy.
Even though Hubbard stated in 1953, "I am not, and will never pretend to be, a philosopher" it was apparent that he was speaking only of an impractical type of academic philosophy.
"My entrance into this field of better minds was a forced one: I had a feeling that man ought to progress...man, for all his prate of science, psychotherapy; all his yap of mysticism and philosophy in general, did not even vaguely know how to improve himself. Those systems of improvement which were in existence were actually control operations..."
"We have something now which well exceeds the definitions and activities of psychotherapies, for we are dealing solidly in the field of knowledge." He now introduced the term Scientology. "Scientology attempts to achieve the highest level of knowingness and beingness possible, whether the person remains a man or becomes something else. Scientology is a popularized word which means exactly the same thing as epistemology - which word, I think you will agree, is not acceptable to the general public."(4)
What is epistemology?
Epistemology(1) is usually defined as that branch of philosophy which deals with the study, theory or science of the nature, method and grounds of knowledge, especially with reference to its limits and validity. But Hubbard characteristically gives epistemology a more active and practical meaning by defining his version of it as the science of knowing how to know.
Epistemology is such a wide-ranging, complex and diffuse academic subject that I had difficulty finding an understandable book about it. I finally found one, Conditions of Knowledge,(5) listing some of the questions epistemology tries to answer. Perhaps when reading about answers, it's best to know the questions. Let's look at these:
1. What is knowledge?
2. What knowledge is most reliable or important?
3. How does knowledge arise?
4. How ought the search for knowledge to be conducted?
5. How is knowledge best taught?
Now let's look at Hubbard's answers to these questions.
What is (reliable) knowledge?
In A New Slant on Life Hubbard devotes a chapter, What is Knowledge?, to answering the first two questions.
"Knowledge is certainty; knowledge is not data. Knowingness itself is certainty...To obtain a certainty one must be able to observe. But what is the level of certainty required?
"If a man can stand before a tree and by sight, touch or other perception and know that he is confronting a tree..and be quite sure he is confronting a tree...we have the level of certainty required." So Hubbard views certainty as primary and data as secondary.(6)
How does knowledge arise?
Hubbard provides an answer to this in The Fundamentals of Thought. In Chapter Eight:Causation of Knowledge he gives the first ten Scientology axioms,and in Axiom 1. Life is basically a static...which has the ability to postulate and perceive, we have a description of how knowledge arises. It is postulated by the life static, which then perceives it.
"The reason why knowledge has been misunderstood in philosophy is that it is only half the answer. There is no allness to knowledge...Opposed to knowledge we have the neglected half of existence which is the creation of knowledge, the creation of data, the creation of thought, the causative consideration, and self-evolved ideas as opposed to ideas otherwise evolved."
How ought the search for knowleddge to be conducted?
Hubbard answers this by giving a description of the steps he took in his own search for knowledge about the mind in Dianetics:The Evolution of a Science.
How is knowledge best taught?
Hubbard answers this in his Study Technology in which, among many other things, he points out the barriers to successful study presented by: 1. the absence of the mass involved, 2. too steep a gradient, and 3. by-passed definitions and misunderstood words.(7)
Hubbard as an epistemologist
From the standpoint of classical philosophy, Hubbard was an applied epistemologist, and quite a good one.
*Footnotes*
1 epistemology. (Gr. episteme knowledge fr. epistanai to understand, know, fr. epi- + histanai to cause to stand or set in place or remain valid (i.e., to select as a stable datum) + -logy doctrine, theory or science). This may be summarized as the science of how to select and arrange stable data. Web. Coll, 1961 and Web 9th, 1985.
2 Tech Vol VI p.1
3 Incidentally, in the same issue is an article on electroshock! As for the "obvious dangers" of people listening to one another's difficulties, compare this with Dr. Peter Breggin's comments in Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, p.147: "First and foremost, the major psychiatric treatments (drugs, electroshock, and psychosurgery) share a common mode of action - the disruption of normal brain function." He continues with a note about the therapeutic index, i.e., the ratio of the therapeutic effect of a drug to its toxic effect, and that with psychiatric drugs this ratio is 1:1, that is, what is called the therapeutic effect is actually the toxic or brain-disabling effect.
4 Tech Vol I, p. 316
5 Taken from Conditions of Knowledge, p.5, by Israel Scheffler, Scott, Foresman 1965.
6 See also Tech Vol I, p.349.
7 Tech Vol VII, p.293.
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