The word ‘inadequate’ can be defined as “lacking the quality or quantity required” or when something is “insufficient for a purpose”. There is a scene in the HBO T.V. show, Shameless, where Lipp Gallagher, a student at MIT in Chicago, is given a wonderful bit of advice from his college professor: “Remember this—we have only two jobs on this earth. The first, to learn. The second, to cope. We all find ways to soften the edges. Some edges need more softening than others.” In the case of French philosopher Montaigne, as he explains in his work The Senses are Inadequate, he learns that the human realm of senses is insufficient for producing within us some sense of knowledge and justification for it (Montaigne). What is there for Montaigne to cope with? The sole reason why Montaigne comes to believe that the senses are inadequate is due to the idea that there are perfect essences, and for some reason, the envelope of living creatures do not have access to them. However, there is nothing I can see or have been shown that leads me to believe that, for example, in the realm of sight, there is one, great thing to bear witness to; this does not mean there are things out there that are yet to be seen. In other words, just because all creatures experience what their senses relay to them in a mosaic of different ways, does not lead to the fact that there is one true form of things we experience. Perhaps, in order to evolve as a unified whole, but in a stratified manner, the senses need to be inadequate. For if we did have access to these perfect senses, as Montaigne posits, what would humans have left to do, but to cope?

First, let’s posit a being that does have access to these perfect senses—anything they see, smell, touch, taste, or hear comes to them in its perfect form, absolutely. And we can go further to say that this being of perfect sense would have senses that reach beyond our current capability of experience. At this point, I believe existence would be forced into its most futile state for our perfect being and the imperfect beings with it (from this point on “the being of perfect sense” or “perfect being” will be defined as “The Perfect”).

What could be experienced by The Perfect? Essentially, everything. A shortsighted comedian might say, “Perfection!” The Perfect would have access to every bit of knowledge in the universe from the point they stand. Not only could they experience entirely the world and solar system they inhabit, but they would have access to worlds beyond their own. However, this is only paying homage to experience objects that are larger than ourselves and does not account for viewing objects of atomic proportions. In terms of the olfactory sense, The Perfect would have access to every smell, every combination of scent, and would, at will, could choose which scent or combinations of scent to experience. This would follow for every other sense, currently known or unknown. What then would be the point of The Perfects existence? The Perfect would have nothing to learn, and having access to all knowledge, would have to decide if whether they wanted to experience everything separately or all at once. Would this be a measure of perfection? Is it perfect that The Perfect can, at will, access these senses as they see fit? It would not seem to be the case. The Perfect would have to have access to all universal stimuli and could experience it all simultaneously, but still, could make judgments of variance. The Perfect would have to be perfect insofar that they would know what they do not know. This, however, is a flagrant contradiction. If one can know what they do not know, and they know with perfect sense that they know what they do know, then The Perfect could not possibly be imperfect. This proves that The Perfect would have nothing to learn. But could The Perfect have the duty of creating or teaching considering its omniscience? Pupils spend many years learning their craft, then take on the task of teaching or producing something from the knowledge they have acquired. However, if The Perfect has nothing to learn, how can it come to teach or create? We know creating or teaching requires a prerequisite of learning. In this case, The Perfect would have never learned anything, therefore, could not have knowledge of anything which would be a contradiction of The Perfect’s nature. I believe this to be purely a matter of existentialism. I do not think that these great thinkers like Montaigne took enough time to entertain the idea of a being having perfect senses. Their learning would have stopped, and coping would have superseded their efforts only because they were tempted with perfection. What seems to be the case is that imperfection is essential to the realm of experience, because once everything is represented to ourselves as perfect, there will be no need for further inquiry—existence will be at a stand-still.

In the last paragraph, I explained how The Perfect would have to experience everything universal, simultaneously, and be able to cope with the knowledge they contain. Would The Perfect have free will? Would it be autonomous? And is autonomy a measure of perfection? This I am not so sure about. Would having access to all-encompassing experience be similar to a prisoner in their cell? In much the same way the prisoner is confined to their cell, in this experiment, The Perfect is confined to the universe. Both are beholden to their environment and know certain truths about it. Unless you subscribe to multiverse theory, I could see how you could think contrarily to this premise. For sake of argument, however, let's posit that there is only one, ever-expanding universe. Following this, there only need to be one universe if it is ever expanding. In our case, The Perfect would and could know everything—past, present, or future. But is knowing everything, absolutely, a matter of choice or ordainment? If it is a matter of choice, then knowledge must be willfully learned. If it is a matter of ordainment, then knowledge is simply bestowed upon its subject. We generally posit that The Perfect already has this knowledge, therefore, it must be ordained. We know that knowledge is a causal element of learning, but we cannot conceive that knowledge is not a causal element of learning. Therefore, The Perfect would not have the capability of learning, only knowing. And since humans, and every other living creature, acquires knowledge by learning, it would be impossible for us to reach the heights defined by The Perfect because to get there, we would have to learn, but as has been shown, perfect knowledge cannot be attained by learning.

As humans, we tend to give our idols qualities of perfection however passionately blind we may be. In this sense, I agree with Montaigne when he says, “Our senses are not only altered, but stupefied in the passion of the soul” (Montaigne). Those confused may say something like “Jimi Hendrix is the perfect guitar player” or “Nikola Tesla was the perfect scientist”. However, these observations are only focused on their redeeming qualities, and since being blinded by their passions, would never have known that Jimi did in fact make mistakes while playing guitar as he does in his acoustic live performance of “Hear My Train A’ Comin” during the filming of the documentary See My Music Talking in 1973 (AcousticNation.com). When I say ‘idols’, I do not only mean the people we look up to or venerate, but also the many things we deem perfect. When a mother finds the “the perfect recipe” for making a potato soup, she hardly would be able to say so if it weren’t for her toils—her imperfect sense of what would lead her to believe what is good. In fact, if she were to stumble upon this “perfect recipe” by chance, she would not be able to deem it as perfect without having experienced other imperfect versions of the potato soup.

In this sense, I can only be lead to the thought that the idea of perfection or essence is not attainable and that the inadequacy of our senses is essential to a growing and ever-expanding universe, and its species included. Let me be clear in that I am not arguing for anti-intellectualism or anti-progressivism. We should attempt to progress in our thoughts and actions, and we should attempt to understand what we can. However, even our ability to reason is inadequate. We have unreasonable thoughts that warrant unreasonable actions. Montaigne comes to this conclusion about our futility in allowing the sense to make up the bulk of our knowledge: “Since the senses cannot stop our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, it must be up to reason; no reason can be established without another reason: here we are regressing to infinity.” Montaigne was correct to say that our senses take a backseat to reason because reason has allowed us to understand that our senses are imperfect. However, he doesn’t seem to realize that reason is inherently inadequate as well. I say this because his reason has lead him to believe that there is some form of perfect sensation out there, as held by our example that we call The Perfect. Yet, there is no clear reason as to why he thinks perfection is extant since he has no basis for it other than imperfection. The perfect-imperfect relationship is the only harmony that I cannot posit a true dichotomy to—such as light and dark, or love and hate. I cannot posit such a dichotomy because I have no evidence and cannot philosophically conceive of something being perfect as represented by my prior arguments. In conclusion, and as is present, there is no such thing as a perfect anything, existentially. However, the idea of perfection may be essential to growth even if it is a futile journey. As the professor says to Lipp in his closing statements, he raises his flask as says, “To find something worth learning, and to coping with it.”

Sources

• Michael de Montaigne. Apology for Raymond Sebond. The Senses are Inadequate. 1580-88. p. 4-13. Book. 07 Feb. 2017.
• "Jimi Hendrix Plays 12-String Acoustic Blues — Video Finds." Guitar World. N.p., 04 Nov. 2015. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.