Rational Secular State -- Introduction Continued

Any theory that sets aside any possibility of the utopian, the end to end all ends once and for all, sets aside as well any possibility of 'progression.'   Progress must be progress toward something, and the 'more perfect union' must be progress toward an idea of the 'perfect union.'  The notion of social progress found its natural ally in scientific progress, which was at once a notion of historical progress, but in its epistemology a self-consuming historicity.   We know more today than yesterday, in part because one labors to extend and to correct the knowledge of our predecessors, but its epistemology was predicated first and foremost on a reality that is, so to speak, 'out there' -- a Kantian 'ding an sich' that can be apprehended, but can be apprehended only imperfectly by a single subjectivity.  If science fails to fully comprehend the truth, the failure lies not in science, per se, but in the singularity of the single subjectivity, its imperfect comprehension of reality, an imperfection that is corrected (if never quite entirely) by the social nature of science.  It is not simply the observed truth, which leaves room for the singular revelation, but a truth verified by in its observation by others.  A single individual might be mistaken, might see a ghost in the shadows, but the confirming question, 'did you see that?' sets aside (if never quite entirely) the possibility of the ephemeral.  Scientific progress, of course, is not entirely without its tenants of faith, one being that the reality 'out there' is orderly, that it obeys certain 'laws,' and those 'laws' in turn can be accurately and objectively represented in a way free from any subjective bias, an accuracy and objectivity achieved, as it were, through peer review.  Although there is ground to question these tenants of faith, they nevertheless allowed science to model progressive thought, and those same tenants of faith -- that there is as well a human reality, that it is orderly and obeys certain laws, and those laws can be refined and improved through a collective process of verification -- informed the opening words of the American constitution -- "in order to form a more perfect union, we the people ... "

As one might have gathered, although the tenants of faith have been broadly challenged on a number of fronts, I nevertheless feel compelled to offer some defense of 18th century scientific rationalism, and its progressive optimism for a couple of reasons.  First, of course, it provides at least a point of departure for what concerns me most.  The challenges to scientific rationalism are fundamental, and if not fundamental, then at the very least significant challenges as well to an American way of being in the world.  My concern stems perhaps from the sheer pressure of contingency.  I am American, and the American way of being in the world is my way of being in the world.  Though I have spent time on both ends of the globe, in Europe and in Asia, I cannot say what it means to be either European or Asian, but I can say what it means for me to be an American.  I can only speak from my contingency, and that contingency provides both my insight and, without doubt, my blindness.  Nevertheless, second, I believe the 18th century thinkers got it mostly right -- mostly.   Although something of an over-simplification, the bone in the craw of the modernist and post-modernist thinkers comes down to the matter of 'truth' and what constitutes 'truth.'  It seems each human attempt to apprehend 'truth' and articulate it within a comprehensive doctrine has failed.  The most pointed failure has been religion.  While the western tradition that gave rise to the likes of Locke and Jefferson could perhaps get some consensus around the notion of Christianity as the one true religion, there was clearly insufficient consensus among the Christians to form the basis of a state, and if a state were to be had, it must seek its legitimacy elsewhere.  The turn from the theo-centric state had many salutary effects, but it was a rather significant break from a long preceding history where the sovereign received legitimacy either as a god or from god.  It vested legitimacy in the people, and reified what had hitherto been a philosophical abstraction, the social contract, within the American constitution, creating a wholly secular state.   It left unanswered, however, the question 'to what end?'  If John Winthrop could cite Matthew 5:14, and characterize the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a 'city on a hill,' with every expectation that the purpose of the colony transcended the merely commercial as instrument in the fulfillment of God's will and God's plan for them, the Constitution left open the question of purpose as a matter of public governance and relegated it to the private sphere.  The state itself existed for no grander purpose than to insure that people were free to pursue their private purposes, to include their religious purposes, with only those restrictions imposed by general civility and safety.