Yann Martel Convocation Address

                Yann Martel brought a very interesting perspective with him at the convocation, characterizing reason in a manner not often heard. Rather than describing reason as a goal unto itself, he instead described it as a tool. Regarding his book, Life of Pi, Martel described it as a departure from reason. While that may sound like a descent into madness at first blush, Martel explicitly wanted to avoid madness while at the same time abandoning reason. Instead, the book focuses on faith.

                Growing up, Martel was raised in an environment without strong religious faith, his family instead placing emphasis on the arts. This is a fairly mainstream approach in Canada, Martel’s home, where religion plays a much diminished public role as compared to within the United States. Traveling to India to seek inspiration for a novel, Martel encountered a society grounded far more in faith than he had been previously exposed to (I found particularly striking the idea of pious Hindus leaving offerings at Christian sites of worship). It was this immersion in faith that helped inspire Life of Pi.

                He explained how, throughout the book, he aimed to stretch the reader’s suspension of disbelief to the limit, with such improbable, but not impossible, happenings such bumping into another life boat set adrift and an island in the Pacific Ocean populated by meerkats. At the end of the book, the protagonist relates his story to a pair of investigators attempting to determine how his boat ultimately sunk. When they do not believe him, Pi tells a second, more believable story. The investigators choose to believe the second story, but ultimately there is no way of determining through reason which is true or false. The only thing to do is take Pi on faith.

                This is an interesting take on the ideas of faith and reason, especially on a college campus, where reason is generally held as one of the highest ideals and faith tends to be held in lesser regard. Before hearing his address, I had always thought of reason as an end unto itself rather than a means to an end. While an interesting way of viewing reason, I am not sure that I would put reason and faith in the same toolbox, so to speak. There are certainly issues that reason alone cannot answer, namely anything that falls in the metaphysical realm. While elements of reason can be used to approach metaphysics and perhaps discern probable truths or at least weed out certain fallacies, ultimately, one cannot come to any solid conclusion. Martel stated as much in criticizing the work of Descartes, who argued for the existence of God and the self through rational means. While I do not agree with Martel’s characterization of Descartes’s arguments, I must concede that Descartes is mistaken in attempting to draw a hard, rational conclusion from his Meditations. Ultimately, issues such as those must be left to faith.