1
20
10
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1c0346148cb49eb3f4e4b16e6662dfb2.mp4
20c3977bd20226690a1dbf2ee47418f1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
SJC Films
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
16 mm film
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:34:13
Producer
Name (or names) of the person who produced the video
Fordel Films, Inc.
Director
Name (or names) of the person who produced the video
Barnes, John
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College
Description
An account of the resource
Film entitled "St. John's College" produced by Fordel Films in 1962. Originally distributed as marketing material, and describes the program and campus.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Barnes, John (Director)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Fordel Films, Inc.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1962
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this film.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp4
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Livesey, Michael (Photographed by)
Johnson, Robert (Edited by)
Gunst, Dennis (Recorded by)
Fisher, Sandy (Music Recorded by)
Allanbrook, Douglas (Composer)
Gilbert, David (Flutist)
Barnes, John (Written and Directed by)
Brann, Eva T. H.
Zuckerkandl, Victor
Bart, Robert
Darkey, William A.
Klein, Jacob
Weigle, Richard Daniel, 1912-
Relation
A related resource
<a title="Original Uncompressed File" href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/VTS_01_1.VOB">Original Uncompressed File</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
'St. John's College' film, 1962 Compressed
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). History.
Alumni
Deans
Presidents
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e31e1173624ad369bac8df384341b4ff.mp4
4aae7cb306e61fe6c78a30432ba636e4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
SJC Films
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
16 mm film
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:25:29
Director
Name (or names) of the person who produced the video
Hessler, Gordon, 1925-2014
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's Story
Description
An account of the resource
St. John's College film produced in 1954 describing the college and its program. Directed by Gordon Hessler, narrated by Mark Van Doren.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1954
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this film.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp4
Language
A language of the resource
English
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Van Doren, Mark, 1894-1972
McGrath, Hugh P., 1914-1995
Zuckerkandl, Victor
Klein, Jacob
Weigle, Richard Daniel, 1912-
Scofield, Richard
Brown, Ford K. (Ford Keeler)
Strange, Miriam
Kiefer, John
Wilburn, Raymond H.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/VTS_01_1.VOB" title="Original Uncompressed File">Original Uncompressed File</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
St. John's Story, 1954 Compressed
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). History.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Fordel Films
Alumni
Deans
Presidents
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e9723a83b6c01a61556f5396c78413d7.pdf
65bb45d784bf4a5eff1496049b9304fd
PDF Text
Text
/970
/171
J+ J;,t,,.,') {_,J/~'!L' A""~/,..1'.1
a.
A!/,_.
,, (f~t,,O.JJj)V!V
' I
I
~1,,,-/c
I
I
1)1
L .«.J.-!.) ,,
/
J 1 /v-,v -";>""') , M j)
Ah,,.....A."' f3,,,_Ld-
Uc/- -ZD
!fa><.\- Ge.v'::J &,,d,,w-.'--1/
/-/e,~k/~1
Jc,,:;;J
1!~,~/Jh,'J &.,...~)'
t.~,J, 1/,, W\
_Jf .:r;,f.t"~
,Du- li
U,
pr.'Y"""'-'
C,/J. An"-A(,.f,:,
!Z"d~,~,f /14,/C-e<-
YAle.. U.
I
;!/0A/I-i~<vw.
cr
Leo., lwJ_i.
J'f- J,t-.~·, Cell~'(.'
/1"""/'"j,_,
/11 {,d'L\ 1n
he\ 1
J!,wvwci
Feb. S
;tf ''
?(.,
Ww. bv,,!J"
;:r,1.w.
L,"~'"
V
Jutvy
I
MA
Q +r~r~~ NY
...
Zovv;.. .JfnJ Q,~,...vi-L.f-
Chaor/o J,2;f-~Jm
J"""'s.
1-J,,r(L'"J ~~~ g,)h~-wv« 4/:1
IAJ1 /f,M-Y~ lJ.wL'(
.Jf JOI;"'' Lalleyc, .JM-<.Jn Fe.
1
/1 Cov.t'-'.+ ,, f
CPv."'J
p, <-+'!'
vVi M ~•• .,~~h
II
�\>
~'f/-1' ~_[" ~1'7'9 ?-ff·
C,f''l"""-::.l
l/7 ,_,.,,,_,~ ~..,I' "":"''1-Vh ~p::J '1 ''"~•..[' ')-.' ~"'11
'1(! ;/
J-f'"~([
f'""l''!l"?'fl 1"/'7''7/
-1-1 (, """"!I I M
·I
I
''t••/,,"""17
I
,r,;I!"J
7fVi
-:>jMt
II
'
3/,1
."f''V<V/ -/v' Q "1~'"'-'.L
!
.
t·,"''1Q('
h """' ('
..n: ~"'rv
'1 ('
'PI '1 Oc>"£
"f"'·fVL'.l_ j
"'10"f<iJ
'v'Y
Q
.Y7
II v
1•"' "'?""'IW '"'IC;.,' (] _,. """"'1''"''9 "''1 "£
~>'?
a (; '()
"'T
1
" ' ' " •'-'/
T"J }
11
v
17 \4,.__,:::1
('An>rc&vty
/.,,..,v .p:;; :z ·--;:;
JIJ
''-f-"V17
'A'f"j :."11
f""""7 '"'f"~"Z(f
/'f"'7'~r ~'11' .'11
"f'J.0...<1"""11i! '~JC'"""a -r- ·~·?·reb., '/ 0 7
7a
~''1 r1M
t!W
F"I ""'"'/"' n "ti
I
""'1 "''[/ VJ '"4'V"Wfi'N'
I
~, w>? J"+r I'"'A'J"-9
''I,J'"""" l>" 11"7 '· "'JT ·f I
IA\A'?,1f/
''I"';:,"""V
'?c,;roJ
:1
'1/1
r; "'"'"r :.;r
fTMVAfj 0~7
~~~rcA,Ht7
·II•J ,·,'"1"£"fr
JL(,r
1
5
.,...,,w
�Lecture Schedule 1970, 1971
Sept 25, 1970 Robert A. Goldwin
St. John’s College, Annapolis
Oct 2
Allen R. Clark
Silver Spring, MD
Oct 23
Alexander Bicket
Center For Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences, Stanford CA
Oct 30
Martin Diamond
Claremont Men’s Coll., Claremont
CA
Nov 6
Noel Lee
Paris, France
Nov 18
Hans-Georg Gadamev
Heidelberg U, Heidelberg Germany
Nov 20
King William Players
St. John’s Coll. Annapolis
Dec 11
Richard McKee
Yale U., New Haven CT
Jan 8, 1971
Leon Kass
National Research Council,
Washington DC
Jan 15
Douglas Allanbrook
St. John’s College, Annapolis
Jan 22
Muhsin Mahdi
Harvard U., Cambridge MA
Feb 5
John Logan
SUNY, Buffalo NY
Feb 12
Iowa String Quartet
Feb 19
Charles Singleton
Johns Hopkins U, Baltimore MD
Feb 26
William Darkey
St. John’s College, Santa Fe
Mar 5, 1971
Gisela Berns
St. John’s Coll. Annapolis
Mar 12
Leo Strauss
St. John’s College, Annapolis
Apr 2
Eva Brann
St. John’s Coll. Annapolis
Aprt 16
Gabriel Stolzenberg
Northeast U, Boston MA
Apr 23
Eastern Chamber Ensemble
New York, NY
Deans Opening Lecture
“Philosophy of Law”
“The New Supreme CourtProspects & Problems”
On the U.S. Constitution
Piano Concert
“Plato As A Hermeneutic
Problem”
Henry IV, Part I
Concert
Biomedical Advance and
Ethical Problems
Harpsicord Concert
“Religion and Politics in
Arabian Nights”
“A Concert of Poetry, With
Comments”
Concert
“The Structure of The Divine
Comedy”
“Books and Experience”
“On Hippolytus”
On Machiavelli
On Thomas Mann’s Death in
Venice
On Mathematics
Woodwind Quintet Concert
�Lecture Schedule 1970, 1971
Apr 30
Peter Brown
The Urban Inst., Washington DC
May 1
May 7
Leslie Epstein & Douglas Allanbrook
Curtis Wilson
U. of California, San Diego CA
John Graham & Douglas Allanbrook
Allan Bloom
U of Toronto, Toronto Ont Canada
Jacob Kline
St. John’s College, Annapolis
William Pitt
Rabbi Bernard Ducoff
Bureau of Jewish Education, San
Francisco CA
May 8
May 14
May 20
May 28
June 4
“Some Moral Issues in
Metropolis Finance: Can I get
Away From It All in the
Suburbs”
Harpsicord & Recorder Concert
“Kepler, Newton and Planetary
Motion”
Harpsicord & Viola Concert
“Emile”
“About Plato’s Philebus”
“Logic- Beyond Modality”
“On Translating the Bible-Then
& Now”
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture Schedule 1970, 1971 (handwritten & transcribed)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1970-1971
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 1970-1971 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 1970-1971
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Relation
A related resource
March 03, 1971. Berns, Gisela. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1093" title="Nomos and physis">Nomos and physis: an interpretation of Euripides' Hippolytus</a>
May 07, 1971. Wilson, Curtis. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3647" title="On the origins of celestial dynamics">On the origins of celestial dynamics: Kepler and Newton</a>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Goldwin, Robert A., 1922-2010
Clark, Allen R.
Bicket, Alexander
Diamond, Martin
Lee, Noël, 1924-2013
Gadamev, Hans-Georg
McKee, Richard
Kass, Leon
Allanbrook, Douglas
Mahdi, Muhsin
Logan, John
Singleton, Charles
Darkey, William
Berns, Gisela N.
Strauss, Leo
Brann, Eva T. H.
Stolzenberg, Gabriel
Brown, Peter
Wilson, Curtis
Bloom, Allan
Klein, Jacob
Pitt, William
Ducoff, Rabbi Bernard
King William Players
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/269004295dbe7f27049d70b983ac342e.pdf
19563fc4c6600b43002737c8218f4421
PDF Text
Text
Annapolis, Maryland
St. John's College
LECTURE AND CONCERT SCHEDULE
1971-72
Friday, Oct. 1
Jacob Klein
"P'lato's Ion"
Friday, Oct. 8
Burton Blistein
"The Quest for the Grail: Structure and Symbolism in
Prufrock, lb.!! Waste .!Ji!!!!!, and fE.!d!: Quartets"
Tuesday, Oct. 12
Juilliard String Quartet
/'J 'J L
Friday, Oct. 15
friday, Oct. 22
Samuel Kutler ...H . Jok'J Loll~~
"I Think, Therefore I Am"
friday, Oct. 29
Erwin Straus
"Body Schema"
Friday, Nov. 5
-AM'
A"'lf\At'()l.~
~~~l.,.wt l:h\c.:.\w.·""'
"The Mixed Kind of life and the Combining Kind of Mind"
friday, Nov. 12
Harford Opera Society
concert
Friday, Nov. 19
Mortimer Adler
"Language, Meaning, and Thought,"
�St. John's College
Annapolis , Maryland
1
5
iJ'i.-0 .;
'f Uda¥, Mer. 49
Friday, Apr. 7
Lecture and Concert Schedule, 1971- 72
Page 3
Charles Bell s:::rc. _a.~k F(__
"Blake: The Dance of Eternal Death"
Roland Frye U~o·ll v .{ Pevlltuy Jv ....V\.,;._ 1 tJJ.,.I~oo,l~fp~ f"A
"The D
evil in Milton and the Visual Arts: An Approach
to Understanding Milton's Attractive Satan"
I
~
Friday, Apr. 14
. oV'
I
I
J
I
(The Anti-Federalis~and the
Bill of Rights)
Herbert Storing
v/ ....j. ~i, U1;u,jO
(.."·~j .. !L-
J-~, Afv· / (,
C..,.vl/lyv-. I ioF~"'>
Friday, Apr. 21
Bernard Kruysen
baritone
NY'-
Friday, Apr. 28
Friday, May 5
Eva Brann J ,J L 11"'~/'o},_i
Friday, May 12
Eugene Thaw
(Visual Arts and Liberal Arts)
"The Problem of the Fine Arts a nd the Liberal A
rts"
{!"'ore's Utopia)
Friday, May 19
u~ .. , \
aLJ·
Friday, May 26
Winfree Smi th
(Aristotle's Ethics)
Erwin Straus
{on Hamlet)
a'
J ,,'-{
,
}
�St. John's College
Annapolis,Maryland
lecture and Concert Schedule, 1971-72
Page 2
Friday, Dec. 3
Robart Hazo
f. ft;\1,,v5k, I"A
"Political Decentralization"
Friday, Dec. 10
King William Players
Friday, Jan. 7
Marcus Berquist
(Euclid)
/J
·'"iv.M<'/"'1'~
Friday, Jan. 14
Douglas Allanbrook J
concert - harpsichord
Friday, Jan. 21
Bernard M. w. Knox (.,"),., J;,, 11<1/,.~,;~ Sh,J"~·. iAJ, )"'":)'f." D
"Medea, Hero, Goddess, Woman" (Euripides' Medea)
(Friday, Jan. 28)
(Great Hall)
friday, Feb. 4
C
(Starabin - Elizabethan Trio)
l~al ter Barns
0'""' ''i, lw""-1-t /wMI. o"+ c,,",l,_
"The Constitution and Threats to liberty"
Friday, feb. 11
Woodwind Quintet
concert
Friday, Feb. 18
Beata Ruhm von Oppen
_\J?~ A,·•·•"p;,),;
"Student Rebellion and the Nazis: I. The
Rise and Rule of Hitler"
),, ..
)
J\ '
i
friday, Feb. 25
Seats Ruhm von Oppan
)
L AvtktAfl~i,j
the Nazis: II. The
"Student Rebellion and
Case of the White Rose"
friday, Mar. 3
Matitiahu Braun
/1/ '/(
violin concert
''
�Annapolis, Maryland
St. John's College
NOTICE
The lecture schedule for the remainder of the year is as follows:
friday, April 21
Bernard Kruysen
friday, April 28
no lecture
friday, May 5
Eva Brann 5 S'L A~'!" I'~ on More 1 s Utopia
friday, May 12
Eugene Thaw
-*Wednesday, May 17- friday, May 26
concert
"The Problem of the fine
Arts and the Visual Arts"
Hi-la±-1-G-±ldin - - -en- ~ousseau's political philosophy
Winfree Smith J rc... A~111·bn Aristotle 1 s Ethics
- fr~day, June 2 -----c: :...~at:t-----~oiifln'l--£l:i!!:a!!!]ml~at..~
~
* Note-that
Prof~~r Gildin~s
lecture will be held Wednesday evening, not friday.
The Dean's Office
April 19, 1972
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture and Concert Schedule 1971-72 (with written notes)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1971-1972
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 1971-1972 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 1971-1972
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Relation
A related resource
February 18, 1972. Ruhm von Oppen, Beate. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3598" title="Student rebellion and the Nazis">Student rebellion and the Nazis (part one)</a> (audio)
February 25, 1972. Ruhm von Oppen, Beate. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3590" title="Student rebellion and the Nazis">Student rebellion and the Nazis (part two)</a> (audio)
February 18, 1972. Ruhm von Oppen, Beate. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3589" title="Student rebellion and the Nazis">Student rebellion and the Nazis (part one and two)</a> (text)
May 05, 1972. Brann, Eva. <a title="Utopia" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/260">On Thomas More's Utopia</a> (audio)
May 05, 1972. Brann, Eva. <a title="Utopia" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1236">On Thomas More's Utopia</a> (text)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Klein, Jacob
Blistein, Burton
Kutler, Samuel
Straus, Erwin
Goldwin, Robert A., 1922-2010
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001
Bell, Charles
Frye, Roland Mushat
Storing, Herbert
Kruysen, Bernard
Brann, Eva T. H.
Thaw, Eugene Victor
Smith, J. Winfree
Hazo, Robert G.
Berquist, Marcus
Allanbrook, Douglas
Knox, Bernard M. W.
Berns, Walter, 1919-2015
Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Braun, Matitiahu, 1940-
Kruysen, Bernard
Gildin, Hilail
King William Players
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/7d8bf181257e4904fd4e06249eb6e2b3.pdf
d4d11dd202bab68cb9f018f19a1c7820
PDF Text
Text
/21~'""'j J:::.~LJAv.'~"J-Io"'
"])
I
I euvrel
'Tf..t Pc~+- of
Dd- /J
Jfu. Ocl/jJ<-y
N ;,,-fwJ Tf.. uJv<. A<-J /l.
''n..,_ .Lib.J""h~ !r- ·J4
Od
2o
J>oc3l0 A!/,,,._ bmL
'' k&ybo•wJ
()c)- 27
u.,,;,"'J'f.-/ P·-vl,PA
1
'
IV
L
++'- £ I . . <U<<MC.q/
:-"':]£,..-,L
I
Aw><
1
f'""'Vl. Jf,_·fe_ U,.,.,·v.
J,,..:'JJ,; ,
. .J:TCA/,..,/,j
111~"'~ ~,{ .111.. Ad· vfIll tor~~
!3uJ<- /CuhvM "''"" Of'p"-VV
"
.J.Jc 4~/,j
~
n.J
F'krwn- tJ-zj ~1. J, '-'"'-"' "
"hi
Tiu_
v,;j"- AI/,." 0n,.oL
d[)AY!Lt,
.Nov
c;-e..-J.-f..w-t..- £-._..,j T& Ho.tV'r/'~-~~
10
Nov
S.JC A~"""!"")d
d
i1
!VYL
§
!Zyft.w.V\ I~
U<eS..Ii ~ !VfvtJ/{_ II
;11 wf1•->CW A~
"Jh,_
00J<-d'J
j?h ,;,'""l'k "~f!. (?.u.JJw~dJ.. , C~<--y IL-
ol) J),;c.Uotv.V/.. 1'
E•-w,-..., S+vcu. t_S,
,, Ov.
I;,, f. J...
f-1,_,, !;,_-{-''
i.e;Ov<jJ.v-. /::.j
�L u-il1H- _;~u
F'l..
~-
/'172.-7!,
J~C. -"1/'-'"""V\1. , 13"/h~ 1'-1 D
G-e-ovj <.. W<!<'lc{
'' c~,_J<..V M .. ~~v<"""'d'd ''
Clw,_vfo;~ wh;f,_
//~DUv-e...v
Dv'"'"H..s.SVtcw,
ets. t..
J:-,':J w.t J,Q·..,_
"!.twt':;l
d£v..
If
of
Cu..,.,._Jw AJ?,f,,,....J. l-"!lwy, w,.Jh'J/., JX
11
PI''/'-V'l
+tv- J!,.w<Ow ''
f._.j;,,t,,.jJ-"" b c
t;'(JW<'- ;Lf '-C'-"'../ty
/.
l :>0 e_Try
f" /'r}J(...__l ''
L ·
-0
I
?.-1/\
M"' h '1-i~<h!A. f3··a~, V1
''lito/,.., ~(t/-/-J«<-v (;; /(.f <.IJ~
S ::JC. A"""''/"'/, 1
'~if'"-<-h, lh Jfv'-'JJ.t.
w,;;IMV> o · G·v·"''J
c..-J. .1..'1~
We.,.J..w.JJ<J"
JJc ~'/";,:~
4..--/, '1 ~xr' &it'c
1
' /"
""'A
.ft_,
J:uv~
r,.,
AW\"?(f!."'s --Sfv-1':3 OwwU
~u.J-
1
'
CI-Ko It'-
(A,A;V
1
A
!/""'· 2 ~ !
7
1
Al'v. ]. 7 · ' /1-1
II
fll,y.Jt of
7tu_ (-j,fovy ~
Yo
"-nI"-'--
J...,.-y.O..VtMS K...y
I
1
/;..y-e.vJ
I
PG..-.tA.
L/u_ Il "
(A
f)
(
!_~IV< J
-r
"
LV (f"'IA~-
Th.._ Do If C>
(-1oct u
11
/ZJ'),:,.__,
GJAo/,(__ u..,,v,
'I
!ll c-Ju,h 7hu-.fr-<. Gn""f'
11
(?(,; lo;"f~''-
w,sh"'J~ l~(
�Lecture Schedule 1972-1973
Sept 15, 1972 Hugh McGrath
SJC Annapolis
Sept 22
Nancy Wilson Ross
Old Westbury, NY
Sept 29
Richard Kennington
Penn. State Univ., University Park, PA
Oct 6
Eva Brann
SJC Annapolis
Oct 13
Harford Theatre Assn.
Oct 20
Oct 27
Nov 3
Nov 10
Nov 17
Dec 1
Dec 8
Dec 15
Jan 12, 1973
Jan 19
Jan 26-27
Feb 2
Feb 16
Feb 23
Mar 2
March 9
April 6
April 13
Douglas Allanbrook
SJC Annapolis
Beate Ruhm von Oppen
SJC Annapolis
Wye Allanbrook
SJC Annapolis
Virgil Thornson
NYC
Leonard G Ratner
Stanford Univ., Stanford CA
Mortimer Adler
Inst. for Philosophical Research, Chicago
IL
Erwin Straus
Lexington KY
Edward Sparrow
SJC Annapolis
George Wend
SJC Alumnus, Baltimore MD
Christopher White
Curator National Gallery, Washington DC
King William Players
Sen. Eugene McCarthy
Washington DC
Matitiahu Braun
Jacob Klein
SJC Annapolis
William O’Grady
SJC Annapolis
Herman Kahn
The Hudson Inst., Crodon on Hudson NY
Amadeus String Quartet
San Francisco CA
Muhsi Mahdi
Harvard Univ. Cambridge MA
“The Circle and the Square”
“Asian Wisdom and the
Modern World”
“Decartes and the
Enlightenment”
“The Poet of the Odyssey”
“The Abduction from the
Seraglio”
“Keyboard Music and the
Art of Illusion”
“The Rhetoric of J.S. Bach”
“Dance, Gesture, and The
Marrage of Figaro”
“Words and Music”
“Rythmn in Classical
Music”
“The Objects of Discourse”
“On Hamlet”
“Jesus of Nazareth, Lamb
of God”
“Computer Mathematics”
“Dürer as a Draftsman”
“Taming of the Shrew”
“Poetry and Politics”
Violin Concert
“Speech, Its Strength and
Its Weaknesses”
“Plato’s Republic and the
Search For”
“The Prospects for
Mankind”
Concert
“The History and Myth of
Philosophic Religion”
�April 27&28
May 4
May 18
Catholic Univ Players
Catholic Univ, Washington DC
Nicolas Nabokov
Paris France
Modern Theatre Group
Apr. 27: “As You Like It”
Apr. 28: “The Birds”
“Stravinsky and Irony”
“The Dolls House”
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture Schedule 1972-1973 (handwritten & transcribed)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1972-1973
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 1972-1973 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 1972-1973
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Relation
A related resource
October 06, 1972. Brann, Eva T. H. <a title="The poet of the Odyssey" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/261">The poet of the Odyssey</a> (audio)
October 27, 1972. Ruhm von Oppen, Beate. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3605" title="Bach's rhetoric">Bach's rhetoric</a> (audio)
October 27, 1972. Ruhm von Oppen, Beate. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3585" title="Bach's rhetoric">Bach's rhetoric</a> (text)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
McGrath, Hugh
Ross, Nancy Wilson, 1901-1986
Kennington, Richard, 1921-
Brann, Eva T. H.
Allanbrook, Douglas
Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Allanbrook, Wye Jamison
Thornson, Virgil
Ratner, Leonard G.
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001
Straus, Erwin
Sparrow, Edward
Wend, George
White, Christopher
McCarthy, Eugene
Braun, Matitiahu, 1940-
Klein, Jacob
O'Grady, William
Kahn, Herman
Mahdi, Muhsi
Nabokov, Nicolas
King William Players
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/5c4f47134187fef58a3caf5d6a2020da.pdf
d9795587b4f291b11fe4b77ea2ec06f4
PDF Text
Text
i
JJ.eduk
e_.:._fLAN_
/'1/3- 1'17'+
/'OM
Jfk ]),.o,cawvy o--b j)ul~dw<- J<e«MU:
11
W,.)l-._'j~_oc
/,,,f,""'J P/'/""3.
)k:J::~{f_s_
Ocw/eJ. f?.eJI
J.
.J/,T"""I L
/)C
AA
J,_.,+"' Fe.
JI(
'
/·H
I"IA+h
''t
" Tiv.. II ,_t,. <"''-"'J
;1/ 0 d L.e_e..
J+,/fw.u..~ 1).-,,.l:... L,
1
'
&,J, /r..o 0) Phu._
Fv.
j
~Ley
,j "'
''Jh.,_ i/l)t,,+'{.
!Vov
tt
Nov
I&
Jt?..:,._
f+JJI.v)' ;~ J(n~'-'L"
evtV\UL'.J-
L, '
!11
r
'-b {()"- 110"'/- J ''7: Jo~. Lt~vd '"'
1
14 1..,;kv6w lf.t/!"""''-_Jh,,~, tu.du:: +...., DC
~/h<A<-y{J,J< S ,'
p.,WoOV, E"';/''K, lk'WV{)<'V•C7
.J.:rc..
,,
Or;'>Wt
J.~; f
6<v
J/'-'- J f/Ac.b, ;\/ YC
ob
~
J O"'.J/), vw l + I"'-L""'"
!34,[<-
'';'/.,.,J,e.o . ",\ ·fvoY<o·w.-y
14
7
A~rl:s
10-v<
/~ W.J I';.__ J.1v1
.De.c
C,J,\!M4;J':Jl
r.,~/ ./1..~ Phd,,.~,_,,l fle>-<MJJ,, 0"")' 'tL
!2~ +- /4<J Yet! e_ '
t2u.h""
Trrvw..fo, Tcrv,"'-.J-., Q,-vt ~,_,L
r2.,1;;;1,,,.<J J).,.,.-k_w.\..1
&.vv.c..vcliuwx
t
Nov. l.a
/M
Hw-/,"0.4/ AA.&v
'/t1;jw; fy
t"b
Uvo1v.
Ow.""" Cn~)""';'--h
f.,.,)o Iol"
J""'~.~.,~ .I""-1-. AJJv-o;t;•wJl. 0"''"""''+.'7• c_,L...,Jy, M/1
'7t... [,/""'"''~ 1~/!,_.+,.,v-,, A 16 Jd, ~A"'"'Y 1/,<WV "
�1'2.
!Zv l.w-f- J"-) +vow
11
-rht
IV YL
[o....,,J •1 Jfu..
Goid~tA ljc ''
Co"v'''/ .JchJVvLo."-<..v
/IJe..;Ywk IVy
cv;vy·
~~X,~ N<-o C,.,{"'u~'~'"', Ti~C"~-kA·._,A. Ctmh:xf l'l6o~tz..n)
EJ/ev.
''TN_
NY
V<y>iAvo Cvp>
G-e.o~u
1
'7/u._ ·"f,
7/v,_
Qu~J. {,1/::J<-, Fluoh'"j
.D<'<V11
£cl,J e¥t
Jv<c\1<..1;'"~ lle-<>kav ~ ~ L-ew)
'.ctt!S;;
·:b EL<-Ie~~YJ!"
& <Wh '>
ClfYiuv+
'7;;./<NW }" ft ~
'll
;::>, "'+vy - TALtrv!
J.Jn.w_,.~c\ Jcid<-~_)
NYC
c~AW>W- W<~,c
·'t g,,u_ Ttck ,,
ILfwv-h:, Lev1n
If
,<.,_.«(
B,,.,.lh~ 1'1 Cl
''74 Fi~
1
lz:yo·.lw h~iJ"
G11-t.l.;, be.vM-'
..J;rc. A~w~'f'/i;
~ F;.,/~,
...JJuuJiy>fcw-"
'·;>Afll U
~( /11A.J£',s.w't!,f;(.j:
At/'-0 [!,/""""'
u,\IV
/A<AIV·
t3~fft~ IY/D
A F/;,,h,{WIY /110..-v 1';J'-
'b fWMJ.,'
11
Tw.vJol o.. f. c~ML,_
;L1,1_h,, J. 0 J.l '-:) ,· h
''I~ .LM.f-vovtv..u~J Po),.~,;> /u J
If.,_ {}?U.j!Jv;j
)~,,O><iA."W
11
�J"'--' 0 LIM
1
'
~
I
/-fA TO
Ev"'
'
1
I
_;,
,-,
)'nee~
!!"'''"'"
_JJC /{,,W;'<;IIJ.
J0 If
S J- C. AI1M<'/.,J,'o
whA ')" &Jy
1-kvvy Go/J,'J
II
'j u t-1-\...l II
r
IV\
/c:.-v\+'.1 Jy1+~"
JSL A~'f"l'"
�Lecture Schedule 1973-1974
Sept 14, 1973 Curtis Wilson
“On the Discovery of Deductive
Dean SJC Annapolis
Science”
Sept 21
National Players
Tartuffe
Washington DC
Sept 28
Charles Bell
“Satanic Math”
SJC Santa Fe
Oct 5
Edward Rosen
“The Achievement of
Grad School of CUNY, New York NY Copernicus”
Oct 12
Noel Lee
Concert
Oct 26
Stillman Drake
“Galileo’s Place in the History
Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont
of Science”
Canada
Nov 2
Fr. Stanley Jaki
“The White Ribboned Darkness
Princeton NJ
of the Night Sky: Some Lessons
in Cosmology”
Nov 9
Mortimer Adler
“Majority Rule & Misrule”
Inst. for Philosophical Research,
Chicago IL
Nov 16
Bernard Knox
“Thucydides: Power, Empire,
The Center for Hellenic Studies,
Democracy”
Washington DC
Nov 30
Beate Ruhm Von Oppen
“A Trial in Berlin”
SJC Annapolis
Dec 7
Ray Williamson
“Archeo-astronomy of the
Inst for Space Studies, NYC
Southwest Indian Pueblos”
Dec 14
Owen Gingerich
“The Copernican Revolution, A
Smithsonian Inst. Astrophysical
16th Century View”
Observatory, Cambridge MA
Jan 11, 1974 Robert Jastrow
“The Coming of the Golden
NYC
Age”
Jan 18
Conrad Schirokaner
“Sung Neo Confucianism, It’s
CUNY New York NY
Content and Context (960-1279)
Jan 25
Ellen Davis
“The Vapheio Cups”
Queens College, Flushing NY
Feb 1
Georges Edelen
“The Judicious Hooker and the
Vinalhaven, ME
Laws of the Ecclesiastical
Polity”
Feb 15
The Gerles
Concert
Feb 22
Jonathan Griffin
“Translation of Poetry- Theory
London England
and Practice”
March 1
Howard Schless
“Chaucer- Wife of Bath Tale”
NYC
March 3
Martin Levin
“The Five Regular Solids”
Baltimore MD
Mar 8
Gisela Berns
“Lucretius”
�April 5
Apr 12
Apr 19
Apr. 26
May 3, 1974
May 8
May 17
SJC Annapolis
John Graham
Thomas Fulton
Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore MD
Allan Bloom
Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.
Canada
Michael Ossorgih
Jacob Klein
SJC Annapolis
Eva Brann
SJC Annapolis
Harry Golding
SJC Annapolis
Concert
“Physics and Mathematics: A
Foundering Marriage”
“Rousseau”
“In Introducing Dostoevski’s
The Brothers Karamazov”
“Plato’s Phaedo”
“What is a Body in Kant’s
System”
“Hume”
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
5 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture Schedule 1973-1974 (handwritten & transcribed)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1973-1974
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 1973-1974 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 1973-1974
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Wilson, Curtis
Bell, Charles
Rosen, Edward
Lee, Noel
Drake, Stillman
Jaki, Fr. Stanley
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001
Knox, Bernard, 1914-2010
Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Williamson, Ray
Gingerich, Owen
Jastrow, Robert
Schirokaner, Conrad
Davis, Ellen
Edelen, Georges
Griffin, Jonathan
Schless, Howard H., 1924-
Levin, Martin
Berns, Gisela N.
Graham, John
Fulton, Thomas
Bloom, Allan
Ossorgih, Michael
Klein, Jacob
Brann, Eva T. H.
Golding, Harry
King William Players
Relation
A related resource
September 14, 1973. Wilson, Curtis. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3669" title="On the discovery of deductive science">On the discovery of deductive science</a> (audio)
September 14, 1973. Wilson, Curtis. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3651" title="On the discovery of deductive science">On the discovery of deductive science</a> (typescript)
November 28, 1973. Ruhm von Oppen, Beate. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3599" title="Trial in Berlin">Trial in Berlin</a> (audio)
November 28, 1973. Ruhm von Oppen, Beate. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3588" title="Trial in Berlin">Trial in Berlin</a> (typescript)
March 8, 1974. Berns, Gisela. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1082" title="Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura">Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura</a> (audio)
March 8, 1974. Berns, Gisela. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1088" title="Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura">Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura</a> (typescript)
May 8, 1974. Brann, Eva. T. H. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1237" title="What is a body in Kant's system?">What is a body in Kant's system?</a> (typescript)
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fbc279a1d18ffb6499fde9726c393eee.pdf
90b15ad1354d943490cbb061e2f31afc
PDF Text
Text
The St. John’s Review
Volume XLVII, number two (2003)
Editor
Pamela Kraus
Editorial Board
Eva T. H. Brann
Frank Hunt
Beate Ruhm von Oppen
Joe Sachs
John Van Doren
Robert B. Williamson
Elliott Zuckerman
Subscriptions and Editorial Assistant
Shanna Coleman
The St. John’s Review is published by the Office of the Dean,
St. John’s College, Annapolis: Christopher B. Nelson,
President; Harvey Flaumenhaft, Dean. For those not on the
distribution list, subscriptions are $10.00 for one year.
Unsolicited essays, reviews, and reasoned letters are welcome.
Address correspondence to the Review, St. John’s College,
P Box 2800, Annapolis, MD 21404-2800. Back issues are
.O.
available, at $5.00 per issue, from the St. John’s College
Bookstore.
©2003 St. John’s College. All rights reserved; reproduction
in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
ISSN 0277-4720
Desktop Publishing and Printing
The St. John’s Public Relations Office and the St. John’s College Print Shop
�2
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
3
Contents
Essays and Lectures
The Wisdom of Jacob Klein..........................................5
Olivier Sedeyn, Translated by Brother Robert Smith
History and the Liberal Arts........................................11
Jacob Klein
Prudence and Wisdom in Aristotle’s Ethics..................25
Eric Salem
Jacob Klein and the Phenomenological Project of
Desedimenting the Formalization of
Meaning......................................................................51
Burt Hopkins
Opening Questions......................................................69
Ronald Mawby
�4
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
5
The Wisdom of Jacob Klein
Olivier Sedeyn
Translated by Brother Robert Smith
In the Apology Plato tells us what led Socrates to the practice
of philosophy, a practice that finally landed him before the
Athenian court of law to defend himself against the charges
of not believing in the gods of the city and of corrupting the
youth. It happened, Socrates said, because his friend
Chaerophon had asked the Oracle at Delphi if any man existed who was wiser than Socrates, and had been given the
answer that there was none. Socrates reacted characteristically in refusing to believe the oracle and, upon noting “a god
cannot lie,” in wanting to verify the answer. The best way to
do this was to find people who everyone agreed were wise
and to examine them in order to “show the gods” that there
were many men wiser than Socrates. Everyone knows the
outcome: Socrates examined these men and realized that,
although they were reputedly wise and thought themselves
genuinely wise, they were not. Insofar as Socrates himself did
not claim to be wise but was aware of his ignorance, he could
in a sense be said to be wiser than they. Perhaps human wisdom consists in knowing that one doesn’t know, in being
aware of one’s ignorance, rather than in the “divine” wisdom
that those who think they penetrate the secrets of nature or
who think they know the secrets of education, like the
Sophists, supposedly possess.
Olivier Sedeyn, graduate of L’École Normale Supérieure, is professor of
philosophy in a lycée in Caen. He has completed a translation into French
of Lectures and Essays of Jacob Klein and is translator of works of Leo
Strauss in twelve volumes. The above essay originally appeared in
Commentaire, number 88 (1999-2000), pages 831-33, to introduce the
French translation of “History and the Liberal Arts,” and is reprinted with
their kind permission. Klein’s essay is reprinted below. Brother Robert Smith
is tutor emeritus at St. John’s College on the Annapolis Campus.
�6
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
But are there wise men among our contemporaries? The
very posing of this question shows how strange it is. Even so,
is not philosophy the “love of wisdom”? It is said that
Alexandre Kojève thought Jacob Klein was a wise man. What
can such a claim mean when made by the famous Hegelian
who inspired the idea of the “end of history”? Surely we are
not being shown an example of Hegelian wisdom, which rests
on the idea of the cyclical completion of the Concept, and is
founded on the history of Reason. He can mean none other
than ancient wisdom—that of Socrates, the seeker who
knows that he does not know, who never ceased to fascinate
Kojève, as his dialogue with Leo Strauss on tyranny shows.
Jacob Klein was a life-long friend of Leo Strauss, whom
he knew from the time the two were students at Marburg in
the early 20’s. And Leo Strauss felt it possible to say: “In my
opinion, we are closer to one another than to anyone else of
our generation.” It can be said that Strauss and Klein tried,
each in his own way, to reopen the quarrel of the ancients and
the moderns, and that each was determined to show that the
ancient point of view can be legitimately held today.
Obviously this stance did not win them widespread admiration—Klein is even less well known than Strauss. My purpose
in writing this introduction to the seemingly simple lecture
that follows is to encourage readers to consider it thoughtfully.
Klein was born in Russia in 1899. He was educated in
Germany between 1912 and 1922. He studied philosophy,
physics, and mathematics. He then continued his study of
mathematics and ancient philosophy. In 1923, he was influenced decisively by Heidegger’s way of reading the ancients:
to read them without presupposing the superiority of the
modern view; to read them for what they are, according to
their own criteria. From that point on Klein tried to deepen
his understanding of Plato and Aristotle. To acknowledge
Heidegger’s influence—and this is important—does not mean
an acceptance of Heidegger’s own philosophy. Neither Klein
SEDEYN
7
nor Strauss was ever in that sense a Heideggerian. They were
drawn exclusively to his way of reading the ancients. We see
this in the fact that Strauss and Klein, who throughout their
lives were intent on understanding and judging the differences between the ancients and the moderns, rejected
Heidegger’s judgment that subjectivity and modern metaphysics had their origin in Plato. The break, according to
them, occurred at the birth of modernity. Klein’s most important book, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of
Algebra,1 locates the difference between the ancients and
moderns in the distinctive way they conceptualize number. To
give a brief and insufficient account of this matter, we can say
that the ancients considered number to be “a definite quantity of definite things”; or, in other words, number always
refers to some thing beyond itself. On the contrary, for the
moderns, beginning with Vieta and Descartes, number does
not refer to things, but to a general concept, namely body or
extension. Modern abstraction is “symbol-generating.” It cuts
number off from a world it is supposed to reveal. This
explains the connection between this concept of number and
“universal method,” itself inspired by a mathesis universalis,
a method valuable in every domain. This is quite different
from the Greek notion of method as always particular, that is
to say, related to the objects under consideration. Klein’s
reflections thus bear directly on what seem to be the most
powerful pillars of the modern conception, the origins of
mathematical physics.
Klein tried to point out this striking ontological shift,
linked to the new way of conceptualizing number, which
allowed modern science to be concerned no longer with
ontological problems, to “leave them aside.” We hope that it
will soon be possible to read Klein’s book in French. It is
strange that a work whose importance is considerable is not
better known: it opens up an understanding of the origin of
mathematical physics, a discipline that holds a unique position of authority in the modern world.
�8
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Be that as it may, circumstances forced Strauss to emigrate
during 1932-33, first to France, then to England; and forced
Klein, after having taught in Prague, to immigrate to America
in 1938. He came to know Scott Buchanan, who was then
trying to renew an old college in Annapolis. In that Maryland
town, Klein was to find a new direction for his activities. The
program of learning that he along with Scott Buchanan established aimed to provide “over four years an education in the
liberal arts in which one reads great books from Homer and
Euclid to Freud and Russell.”
Klein’s main work from 1938-1976, at least up to his partial retirement in 1969, was consequently to teach the liberal
arts. The liberal arts, as is generally known, are composed of
the quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—and the trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric.2 It is
surprising that in an era in which it seems that education and
instruction ought to have as their aim social utility, a university should choose as its model a type of study drawn up in
the Middle Ages and rooted in Greek antiquity. Yet maybe the
utilitarian purposes of today find their true meaning, if they
are to have one, in the higher purpose of making us free.
Jacob Klein consecrated his life to transmitting his knowledge of the fundamental texts of the Western tradition. In
particular, he placed emphasis on the arts helpful for interpreting texts. In his own way, Klein, like Strauss, insisted on
“the problem of the art of writing,” and a great part of the
program at St. John’s College consists in the reading of “great
books.” Klein pressed us especially to read Platonic Dialogues
paying particular attention to the dramatic structure of the
conversation. It even appears that he was the first to recognize the necessity of doing so. Every claim of a Platonic character, even Socrates, has to be interpreted in the particular
context of the dialogue in which it appears. It cannot be said,
as is perhaps common in contemporary works, that one finds
the theology of Plato, for example, at the end of the 10th
book of the Republic, because this “theology” derives its
SEDEYN
9
meaning from its place in the construction of the just city in
books 2-4. Klein was right to raise again and again the question of how to read a Platonic dialogue.
Klein wrote only three other books: A Commentary on
Plato’s Meno,3 which he pondered for several decades and
was published only in 1965; Plato’s Trilogy,4 comprising the
Theatetus, Sophist and Statesman, which is clearly imbued
with his knowledge of Greek mathematics; and a volume
entitled Lectures and Essays,5 assembled by his students and
friends after his death, that treats Greek mathematics and
mathematical physics, speech, and precision, and thinkers
such as Virgil, Dante, Plato, and Aristotle. This collection
constitutes a remarkable introduction to liberal education.
The following lecture is from this collection. Klein
attempts to show what specifically constitutes history and
what distinguishes it from what we call an “historical sense.”
History understood in the modern sense is in fact one of the
great gods of our era. Understanding history amounts to
preparing to better understand what is at stake in the quarrel
of the ancients and the moderns, since the ancient, Socratic
notion of wisdom has perhaps not disappeared. It may yet be
valid, despite the claims of universality of the “historical
sense.”
Notes
1
Die Griechiche Logistik und die Enstehung der Algebra, Quellen
und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie und
Physik, Abteilung B: Studien, vol. 3, fasc. 1 (Berlin, 1934): 18-105
(first part); fasc. 2 (1936): 122-235 (2nd part). Published in English
as Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, trans.
Eva Brann, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968.
2
Thirty years ago, the corridors of the National Pedagogical
Institute were decorated with windows representing these liberal
arts. I suppose that these ancient references have disappeared.
3
A Commentary on Plato’s Meno, Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1965.
�10
4
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Plato’s Trilogy, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977.
11
History and the Liberal Arts
5
Lectures and Essays, Annapolis: The Saint John’s College Press,
1985.
Jacob Klein
Friends and enemies of the St. John’s Program, visitors to the
college and many of its alumni often raise the question: Why
is History neglected in the St. John’s curriculum? They point
to the obvious contrast between the chronological order in
which the “Great Books” are read and the remarkable lack of
historical awareness displayed by the students. The time has
come, I think, to deal with this question extensively. I propose to do that in this lecture. Let us reflect on the role and
significance of History in a liberal arts curriculum.
The first, rather simple, statement that can be made is
this: Man, having the ability to understand and being inquisitive by nature, wants to explore everything that he sees
about him—the various plants and animals, the stars and the
clouds and the winds, the surface of the earth, the rivers and
the forests and the stones and the deserts. Whether this preoccupation stems from his immediate and urgent need,
whether his inquisitive attitude is merely an extension of his
concern to provide the necessities of life for himself, whether
it is the manifestation of his very nature or simply idle curiosity, need not be discussed at this point. Whatever the origins
of this desire, man wants to find out, to figure out, to know.
In this sense, then, man may be said to be inquisitive not only
about what surrounds him, at the present time, but also about
the future: he wants to know what is going to happen to him
as well as to everything else around him. And finally he wants
to know what happened in the past. Out of this latter desire,
we may somewhat naively say, grows History, i.e., the exploration of the past, the finding of the past, the description of
what has happened in the recent as well as in the most remote
Jacob Klein (1899-1978) was a tutor at St. John’s College, Annapolis, serving
as dean from 1949-1958.
�12
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
past. Curiously enough, as you know, the Greek word historia means originally exploration of any kind. Gradually, it
came to mean, even to the Greeks, the exploration of the past
and the description or narration of past events.
Thus we have History, i.e., historical books: Herodotus,
Thucydides, chronicles of all kinds, histories of Europe,
America, India, of Guatemala, of the city of Annapolis, of the
Universal Postal Union, of St. John’s College, of the Imperial
Palace in Peking. Such histories may be more or less correct.
Descriptions of events must be checked as to their accuracy
with the help of all the evidence available: books, old records,
letters, inscriptions, etc. Special skills in exploring and checking the evidence must be developed. Historical science and
the methodology of historical science become a branch of
knowledge; history can be taught and learned. Departments
of History and archives are established. Historical journals
come into being, dedicated to the improvement and enlargement of historical knowledge. All this circumscribes what
may be called the domain of History. Is this, then, what
History is?
You sense immediately: this is not quite it, this is not a sufficient description of History and what History means.
First of all, there is a special emphasis in the pursuit of
History which is lacking in other branches of learning. Take
the science of geology, for example. However important and
interesting its investigations and findings might be, this science does not make universal claims, it restricts itself to a definite domain. There is no such thing as a “geological
approach” to any given problem. And yet there always seems
to be an “historical approach” to almost any kind of problem
in almost any field.
Secondly, it is not quite correct to state that history is the
description and narration of past events. Not everything that
is past is “historic.” That one of us here went to Washington
or to San Francisco last week or some time ago does not
necessarily belong to any history. It might, though. From a
KLEIN
13
certain point of view, with regard to an event we judge a
significant one, we can—retrospectively—recognize the
importance of events which led to that significant one.
Nobody, indeed, ever assumed that all events and happenings
are equally important and significant and could become
recorded in history books. Even Tolstoi, who formulated the
idea of such an all-comprehensive history, based on integration procedures in the face of infinite series of minute events,
of historical infinitesimals, as it were, did that merely to
reduce history thus understood to absurdity. All written and
traditional history is based on a principle of selection. This
means that we must have—and in fact do have—some yardstick to measure the significance and importance of events,
whatever history we may be writing.
It is not too difficult to discern these yardsticks in
Herodotus or Tacitus or Gibbon, for example; more difficult
perhaps, but not impossible, to discover them in Thucydides.
We can even venture to say that in general the yardstick is
provided either (a) by the consideration of the present state
of affairs, the salient features of which want to be traced back
to their origins, in a sort of genealogical procedure, or (b) by
the desire to derive a lesson for the future either from mistakes and failures or from exemplary actions in the past,
which desire leads to what has been called, since Polybius,
pragmatic history. Sometimes both kinds of yardstick are
combined.
I say that both—the universality of the tendency to subject any theme to an historical investigation and the selecting
of events or facts to be dealt with historically—help us to win
a better understanding of this human enterprise called
History. This enterprise does not seem to be grounded in an
inherent property of events or facts that permits us to arrange
them in a sequence, an historical sequence, but seems rather
to depend on a certain way of looking at things which stamps
them into an historical pattern. One might be tempted to
apply Kantian terminology to this phenomenon—and people
�14
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
have actually done so—: there might be something of an historical a priori, a form of our thinking that inescapably leads
us to see things in an historical perspective. Let us consider
this for a moment. Let us beware though lest we indulge in an
empty, if easy, construction.
As far as pragmatic history is concerned, the selection is
based on our sense of moral virtues or our understanding of
practical maxims of conduct. Hybris versus Moderation,
Tyranny versus Freedom, false hopes and foolish fears versus
prudence—these are presented and pointed out to us in the
unfolding drama of historical successes or catastrophes. Here,
then, the historical scene is merely the enlargement of our
daily life, providing us with great examples in large script.
History in this sense is founded on completely “unhistorical”
points of view. That is why this kind of history writing does
not constitute a specific domain like Physics or even Poetry.
Note that Aristotle, the great systematizer of human knowledge, in the face of such history—the only one he knew—did
not treat it as a pragmateia, a discipline in its own right. The
same Aristotle who investigated, defined, elaborated on every
conceivable art and science—grammar, logic, physics, botany,
zoology, astronomy, theology, psychology, politics, ethics,
rhetoric, poetry—did not elaborate on history, although he so
often prefaces his investigations with a review of positions
and opinions held in the past. I conclude: there is no historical a priori in pragmatic history.
The same holds true of the genealogical type of history,
though not in the same way. The very notion of genealogy
comprises notions of origin, source, development, more generally, the notion of a temporal order. But these notions are
not strictly historical ones. They also determine our understanding of biological phenomena, or more generally, of phenomena of change. They are not constitutive categories of
historical experience. They are operative in any myth, they
help to picture the growth and decay of institutions, the
expansion of dominion and power; but the emphasis is on the
KLEIN
15
nature of those institutions and the overwhelming character
of that power. The bases of this type of history, exemplified
in Polybius and the Roman historians, are still unhistorical,
mostly legal and political.
But when we turn to that universal tendency to view
things historically, to use the historical approach in almost
any field, the picture changes. It seems, indeed, as if here the
form of History shapes the material under consideration so as
to make anything we look at assume historical clothing, as if
the very basis of our looking at things were—we hear it so
often—History itself. When, a moment ago, I denied that this
was the case in pragmatic and genealogical history, I implicitly assumed, by way of contrast, the possibility of such a view.
The question, then, is whether this historical way of looking
at things is itself a necessary form of our understanding.
One way of answering this question would be to apply the
following test: Can we approach and solve this problem
historically?
The pragmatic and genealogical types of history are the
only ones known in antiquity and the understanding of the
nature of history corresponds to them. But a new understanding of history begins with the advent of Christianity. Let
us consider briefly in what it consists. I shall use two outstanding examples: Augustine and Dante.
Augustine, in the City of God (15-18), gives a World
History based on a fundamental distinction. Mankind consists of two parts: there are those who live according to Man,
i.e., in sin, and those who live according to God; there are
two communities, the city of men and the city of God. The
latter is in the making and after the Second Advent will
become the everlasting Kingdom of God. The earthly city will
then be destroyed and its inhabitants will join Satan. As long
as this world exists, both cities are intertwined. Augustine distinguishes six ages: 1) from Adam to the Deluge; 2) from
Noah to Abraham; 3) from Abraham to David (the “prophetic age”); 4) from David to the Babylonian captivity; 5) from
�16
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
the Babylonian captivity to Jesus Christ; 6) from Jesus Christ
to the end of this world. This universal history is conceived
mainly in terms of the Biblical account; but the great oriental
kingdoms, as well as Greece and the Roman Empire, have
their place allocated in the general flow. This is not a
“Philosophy of History”; it is rather History itself, i.e., the
description of succeeding ages according to God’s providential ordering of all events. The important thing for us to note
is that historical succession itself, the fact of History, the fact
that men’s lives weave the history of the World, is not an accidental property of those lives but their very essence. Our and
our fathers’ years have flowed through God’s eternal Today,
says Augustine in the Confessions: “from this everpresent
divine ‘To-day’ the past generations of men received the
measure and the mould of such being as they had; and still
others shall flow away, and so receive the mould of their
degree of being.” History, then, reflects the essential temporality of man, but reflects no less the eternal timeless pattern
of his being. In following up the chain of historical events we
do not select significant links. We follow God’s providential
plan. Our historical perspective is our view of an eternal
order, just as the flow is our way of incomplete existence. For
us “to exist” is identical with “to exist historically.” But that,
again, means that our existence spreads out in time the timeless pattern of God’s wisdom. This is neither pragmatic nor
genealogical history. It is, one might say, symbolic history.
History presents the symbols that unfold in succession the
eternal relations between creation, fall, redemption, and salvation.
Let us turn to Dante. Here, again we see a World History
conceived in terms of God’s timeless providential pattern.
History is the sinister chronicle of man’s fall pursued through
all generations of men. The Greek and Roman worlds occupy a far more important place in this chronicle than in that of
Augustine. The horrors of Thebes more than those of
Babylon indicate the complete abnegation of God’s grace. It
KLEIN
17
is not the contrast between the City of Men and the City of
God which determines Dante’s general view of historical
events, but rather the contrast and intertwining of God’s spiritual and God’s secular order, of Church and Empire. The
secular order, stemming from God, reflects but is not identical with the spiritual order. Troy and its destruction are symbols of man’s pride and man’s fall. “And it happened at one
period of time,” Dante writes in the Convivio, “that when
David was born, Rome was born, that is to say, Aeneas then
came from Troy to Italy. . . . Evident enough, therefore, is the
divine election of the Roman Empire by the birth of the Holy
City (i.e., Rome), which was contemporaneous with the root
of the race from which Mary sprang.” The history of the
world is here a kind of symbolic duplication of the spiritual
history of man. It is by this very nature, as in Augustine, twodimensional. Or, to put it in different words, the horizon of
this kind of history, or better, of this kind of historian, is not
historical. In this respect this kind of history is akin to the
pragmatic and genealogical kinds. Here, again, it is worth
noting: the primary liberal disciplines listed by Dante in the
Convivio and linked to the ten heavens of the world (the
spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, the sphere of the fixed stars, the primum mobile and
the Empyrean Heaven) are Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric,
Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy, Physics and
Metaphysics, Ethics, Theology. History is not one of them.
When Machiavelli and Hobbes dethrone classical philosophy and revert to pragmatic history as the best teacher man
can have in planning and conducting his life, they still cling
to a two-dimensional history to build their own political philosophy.
But now the scene changes: Vico’s New Science marks a
new beginning. Like Machiavelli and Hobbes he defies all
preceding philosophy. He bases his work on the fundamental
(Leibnizian) distinction: the true and the certain. What is true
is common and therefore abstract. What is certain is the
�18
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
particular, the individual, the concrete. “Certum and commune are opposed to each other.” The philosophers pursue
what is common. They lack certainty. Only history (which
includes philology) deals with the certain. The most certain
for us is that which we ourselves have made, the facta, the
facts. “The world of civil society has certainly been made by
man; its principles are therefore to be found within the modifications of our own human mind. Whoever reflects on this
cannot but marvel that the philosophers should have bent all
their energies to the study of the world of nature, which,
since God made it, He alone knows; and that they should
have neglected the study of the world of nations or civil
world, which, since man had made it, men could hope to
know.”
Vico sets out to fulfill this hope. This is the scope of his
New Science. It is historical by definition. The historian looking at man-made worlds can understand their innermost core.
He will thus attain a more certain truth than the philosophers
ever could; he will discover “the common nature of nations”
or the “ideal eternal history” of nations established by divine
providence. The New Science will thus be “a rational civil
theology of divine providence.” “Since divine providence has
omnipotence as minister, it develops its orders by means as
easy as the natural customs of men.” This also means that this
science is a “history of human ideas” (not a philosophical
reflection on ideas). There are recurrent cycles in the history
of nations that always comprise three stages: the divine, the
heroic, and the human. The proper field of the historian is the
customs of men, their institutions, their laws, their writings,
their poetry. In understanding them he understands truth that
is certain—truthful certainty—precisely what the philosophers are unable to accomplish.
At first sight it seems as if history in Vico’s understanding
preserved its two-dimensionality, since the objects of his findings are the “universal and eternal orders established by providence.” But these orders do not exist outside of time. Divine
KLEIN
19
providence is not the providential plan of salvation anymore.
Vico’s history is bent on finding the laws governing the
human world in contradistinction to the laws governing the
world of nature. Historical reality with its recurrent stretches
is one-dimensional. On the other hand, the historian alone is
now the true philosopher. The methods of interpretation and
of philology he has to use constitute a new organon comprising axioms, definitions and specific rules of inference. In
other words: Vico’s work competes with the work of Natural
History, with the work of Mathematical Physics.
We have here a rather amazing historical fact before us.
Let us remember. Towards the end of the sixteenth century a
reinterpretation and reconsideration of the traditional, “classical,” mathematical sciences lead to the establishment of
Algebra, a hitherto obscure and “vulgar” discipline neglected
by all recognized institutions of learning, as the eighth Liberal
Art. Its progress coincides with the development of a new
symbolic discipline, understood as Universal Mathematics, a
new and most powerful instrument of human knowledge
which is meant to replace the traditional Aristotelian
Organon. The science of nature becomes mathematical
physics, begins to dominate all human understanding and
gradually transforms the conditions of human life on this
earth. The only force opposing this development is History
with its claim to universality, first attributed to it by Vico and
maintained with increased vigor up to this moment. It is significant, I think, that Vico’s idea of an “ideal eternal history”
is a derivative of the idea of a Universal Mathematics, a shadow, as it were, that the latter casts. As Universal Mathematics
is to all specific mathematical disciplines so is the “ideal
eternal history” to all specific histories of nations. But this
parallelism between Universal Mathematics and Universal
History is to be understood in the light of the distinction
between that which is “abstractly true” and that which is
“concretely certain.” The new science of Mathematical
Physics leaves the natural experience of nature far behind: all
�20
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
that is concrete vanishes behind a screen of mathematical
symbols. Any teleology loses its meaning. The new science of
History tries to restore the dignity of the concrete, fills the
gap between the abstract symbolic understanding of nature
and the immediate human experience of the world around us.
It cannot dispense with the notions of means and ends. It is
the distinction between the true and the certain which underlies the familiar and superficial distinction between Science
and the Humanities. The latter are conceived as inseparable
from History, can only be approached in historical perspective, come actually to life only in the medium of History.
Since Vico, the idea of an eternal pattern of history, a vestige
of the original Christian understanding, although occasionally forcefully advanced, has been generally abandoned. The
emphasis is on the development of what has been called the
historical sense.
Three consequences follow.
First, the fascination with the “otherness” of the past: the
discovery or reconstruction of cultures and civilizations “different” from ours, each with a different “sense of values”
ascertainable in customs, institutions, works of art, architecture, literature, philosophy, religion. This very notion of an
autonomous “culture,” underlying the various manifestations
of human activity can arise only within an historical horizon.
Truth itself becomes a function of “culture,” the existence of
which appears a certain fact; “relativity of values” becomes
inevitably the concomitant of the historical perspective.
Secondly, the sense of participating in the relentless
historical flow makes observable trends the guide of our
actions. The acceptance of events and doctrines that are supposed to follow the “historical trend” is one of the most
potent causes for the predicament in which European nations
have found themselves in recent decades. The impact of
Marxism which goes under the name of historical materialism and the reaction to it derive their strength from the
historical sense projected into the future. The Gallup Poll is
KLEIN
21
one of the most recent and most ridiculous examples of this
preoccupation with trends.
Thirdly, a man understands himself completely as an historical being. “Historicity” becomes his very nature, but not
in the sense that it reflects some timeless pattern. His Self disintegrates into a series of socially, and that means historically,
conditioned reflexes. Historicity does not mean Tradition. To
see ourselves as historical beings means to break the invisible
traditional ties in which we live. At best, tradition then
becomes a romantic notion, at worst, an academic phantom.
If we consider the disciplines taught in our schools, it is
easy to see that all natural sciences are patterned on the
model of mathematical physics. The idea of a universal mathematics as the new organon of all science, however, dies away.
On the other hand, all the disciplines within the realm of the
humanities have become historical to the very core. The study
of literature, philosophy, religion, music and the fine arts, for
example, is almost exclusively the study of the history of literature, the history of philosophy, the history of religions, the
history of music, the history of art. Fields of study of a more
practical applicability as, for example, languages, political
science and economics, retain a certain autonomy. The theoretical dignity they may have, however, is safeguarded only by
historical considerations or, for that matter, by methods
borrowed from mathematical physics.
It seems, then, that Mathematical Physics and History
divide between themselves, in a fairly exhaustive way, the rule
over the entire domain of human knowledge. Does this
permit us to consider them as the two necessary ways and
forms of our understanding? If this be so, Mathematical
Physics and History would come close to being the two
Liberal Arts of the modern age. Any liberal arts curriculum
ought then to concentrate on these two great bodies of learning in keeping with the trend of events and in preparing
students to follow it further.
�22
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
At this point, we can pause and reflect on the results we
have reached.
As to Mathematical Physics, the task before us is clearly
not the tracing of its historic development. We have rather to
understand the methods and the nature of the concepts that
have made this development possible. We have to understand
the specific use made of mathematical symbols, the relation of
a mathematical deduction to a verifying experiment, the relations between observations, hypothesis, theory and truth.
That is indeed what we are trying to do in our Mathematics
Tutorials and in the Laboratory. And if we do not do that fully
and in the most satisfactory manner, we have to improve our
ways. The danger we are running in this case is the very same
that has threatened the integrity of scientific understanding
since the seventeenth century and which has barely begun to
be warded off in recent developments: the danger to confuse
the symbolic means of our understanding with reality itself.
If we turn to History, we have first to remember the question which gave rise to the preceding historical account. The
question was: Is the historical way of looking at things a necessary form of our understanding? The answer—in the perspective of History—is in the negative: The universal historical approach is itself a product of, and presumably nothing
but a phase in, an historical development, which cannot claim
any absolute validity, no matter how “natural” and familiar it
seems to us at the present moment. We have to recognize,
moreover, the possibility of a dangerous confusion similar to
the one I just mentioned with regard to Mathematical
Physics. The results of historical investigations based on specific historical concepts and methods of interpretation ought
not to be confused with the real picture of a real past. Not to
see that, means to surround us with a pseudo-historical horizon of almost mythical quality so as to make us talk glibly of
“Greek culture,” “medieval times,” “Renaissance,” the
“Seventeenth Century,” the “Age of Enlightenment,” etc.
Such pseudo-mythical notions are usually in the minds of
KLEIN
23
people who recommend that we take into account the proper “historical background” whenever we read and discuss a
book. The assumption behind this recommendation is a
rather naive one, to wit, that in the effort we make to understand a book or a series of books we could fall back on an
objective and certain datum, the general culture in which the
ideas expressed or propounded in those books are rooted and
from which they derive their strength and intelligibility. We
ought to see instead that the commonly accepted picture of
an historical period is largely due to an interpretation of the
content of books and other documents which presupposes in
the first place the ability to deal with grammatical patterns, to
discern rhetorical devices, to grasp ideas in all their implications. In point of fact, the main task of any historian is of
necessity the interpretation of whatever data he may collect.
The art of interpretation and all the other arts which minister to it depend on the understanding of the function of signs,
of the complexity of symbolic expressions, and of the
cogency of logical relations.
To understand a text is not a simple matter. To arouse and
to cultivate this understanding is one of the primary tasks of
our Language Tutorials. More than anything else, more, certainly, than the historical sense fed so often on sheer ignorance, an improvement of our interpretative skills could help
foster genuine historical research and writing. We may ultimately get to see that the problem of History is itself not an
historical problem.
It follows, then, that in pursuing these goals we should
ignore history’s claim to universality, ignore History itself, if
you please, in order to devote our full attention to the development of all the arts of understanding and all imaginative
devices man can call his own. It takes courage to pursue a
rather narrow and steep path hardly visible from the highways of contemporary learning. But let us remember the
inscription on the old seal of the College: No path is impassable to courage. The reward may be high.
�24
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
25
Prudence and Wisdom in
Aristotle’s Ethics
Eric Salem
In Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines happiness or the human good as an “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue,” then adds immediately, “and if the virtues
are many, in accordance with the best and most complete” of
them (1098a 16-18).1 Aristotle spends the next five books filling in this “sketch” or “outline” of happiness. He distinguishes intellectual and ethical virtue (1103a4-18).2 He
defines ethical virtue and its centerpiece, choice (1105b291107a2; 1111b4-1113a14). And he discusses at great length
a total of thirteen virtues, eleven ethical, and two intellectual. But nowhere in these first six books does he tell us which
of these virtues is “best and most complete.”
Could it be courage, the first of the virtues taken up by
Aristotle? Does happiness consist in doing beautiful deeds on
the field of battle, in withstanding one’s fear of death and
tempering one’s eagerness for the fight (1115a4-b24)? Or is
it perhaps justice, the only virtue to which he devotes an
entire book of the Ethics? Does the human good show itself,
above all, in the setting right of wrongs and the distributing
of good things according to merit (1130b30-1131a1)? Again,
is wisdom, the last of the virtues defined by Aristotle, a likely
candidate? Can we be fully ourselves, fully achieve human
happiness, only in looking away from the shifting tangle of
human affairs and looking to the unchanging sources of all
things (1141a16-1141b2)? Or is the sought-for virtue perhaps that curious disposition tucked away at the end of Book
4 which inclines us to listen and speak to one another in a fitting way in our moments of leisure? Is happiness to be found
Eric Salem is a tutor on the Annapolis campus of St. John’s College. This
essay is a revision of a paper originally prepared for delivery at the 1986
meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association.
�26
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
in the witty play of intelligent conversation, in telling the
right joke at the right time to the right sort of people
(1127b28-1128a33)?
We are not told. We are not even told—or at any rate, not
told explicitly—how we might go about deciding the question, how, that is, we are to decide whether one virtue is better and more complete than another. And yet we are dealing
with a matter of the greatest practical import, and Aristotle
knows it. It is not just that our own good, our personal happiness, is at stake. From the outset Aristotle characterizes his
investigation of the human good as “a sort of political
inquiry” and he reminds us repeatedly, especially in the early
books of the Ethics, that the primary task of the statesman or
lawgiver is to make his citizens good, i.e., to educate them in
virtue by means of the laws (1094b10-11; 1102a7-10;
1103b2-6). But to set down laws with a view to happiness
would clearly require both that one know the order of the
virtues—and hence which one of them is best and most complete—and also that one know whether that highest virtue is
the sort of virtue that can be brought about by means of the
law.3
I think Aristotle has his reasons for almost leaving us in
the dark about these questions. Were he to dot every “i” and
cross every “t” in his argument, he would do us, his readers,
an injustice. We would not be disposed, or not as disposed, to
read his account of the virtues with discernment, to make that
argument our own by asking ourselves at every moment,
“Could this be the virtue that will bring me or my fellow citizens happiness?” Like Plato, the teacher and fellow lover of
wisdom to whom he refers with affection in Book 1, Aristotle
invites his readers to participate in, and not merely to
observe, his own inquiries. Aristotle the inquirer writes his
books for inquiring minds.
I said a moment ago that Aristotle almost leaves us in the
dark. I do not mean by this that he provides us with clear-cut,
final answers to the questions I’ve just raised at some later
SALEM
27
point in the Ethics, say, in Book 10. For I think—and I’ll say
more about this later—that what Aristotle says there about
happiness and the virtues is fraught with difficulties and full
of questions. I rather mean that in various passages throughout the Ethics Aristotle leaves hints which help us to think
through, if not to answer once and for all, the question,
“Which of the many virtues lies at the core of human happiness?” The famous discussion in Book 10 is certainly one such
passage. Another, and one of the most helpful, forms the conclusion of Aristotle’s inquiry into the virtues. In what follows
I want to focus on the latter passage, to see what progress one
can make by working through what Aristotle says and implies
at this critical juncture of his inquiry.4
*
Aristotle begins the final section of Book 6 by raising two
questions about the intellectual virtues. The first question
concerns the usefulness of prudence and wisdom; the second
treats the relation between them.5 Aristotle spins out the first
question roughly as follows. Men do not seem to become
happy through wisdom, for wisdom, as knowledge of the
eternal, knows nothing of becoming, “contemplates none of
those things through which a human being will be happy”
(1143b19-22). Nor are men better off for having knowledge
of the human good, i.e., prudence. For what prudence knows,
namely, “the just and beautiful and good things for man,” the
good man does (prattei) and does without needing to know
them (1143b22-28). What’s more, even if prudence were
knowledge, not only of the human good, but also of the
means whereby men become good, an already good man
would not need it. And a man who wished to become good
would not need to have it himself. After all, men do not
become doctors in order to become healthy—they simply
visit and obey them (1143b28-33). Or as Aristotle himself
had suggested as early as Book 2, men become virtuous, not
by reflecting on virtue, but by doing virtuous things, that is,
by doing the things prescribed by the law and the lawgiver
�28
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
(1103a31-1103b7; 1103b14-23; 1105b9-17). Why, then,
should a man who desires to become good or virtuous and
hence happy seek to acquire either wisdom or prudence?
Before we look at Aristotle’s answer, or rather answers, to
this question, we would do well to reflect for a time on the
particular understanding of both happiness and virtue that
gives rise to it. In the first place, Aristotle’s question seems to
rest on the assumption that the activity or being at work
(energeia) which constitutes happiness lies in deeds (en ergois), in performing good and beautiful works (erga): happy
men are men who act courageously, justly and so on. Because
happiness is this sort of activity (and not, say, the activity of
thinking), Aristotle can further assume that the virtues it
accords with are, in the first instance, the ethical virtues: if
happiness consists in doing courageous and just deeds, then it
makes sense to say that the virtues are courage and justice.
Some form of thinking might be an element of happiness, but
it could be only if it somehow made possible and were for the
sake of the doing of such deeds. Finally, Aristotle’s question
assumes that in fact the ethical virtues can both arise and
flourish within the human soul without the aid of thinking.
The sphere of ethical virtue and action is, as it were, a selfsufficient whole. Men acquire the ethical virtues, become
men of good character, by doing virtuous deeds, and once
they have acquired them, they need only exercise them, i.e.,
act in accordance with them, to be happy.
In sum, Aristotle’s question concerning the usefulness of
prudence and wisdom hints at a first answer to our initial
question; in fact, it presupposes an answer to it: the virtue we
are looking for is simply ethical virtue. For if happiness is a
matter of doing the right deeds, then ethical virtue, the stable
readiness to do such deeds, has to form at least part of that
virtue. But if ethical virtue is in itself sufficient to produce
those deeds, if ethical virtue can do without the help of reason, then it seems to possess the character of completeness
which Aristotle’s definition demands. Ethical virtue, by itself,
SALEM
29
seems to be the “best and most complete virtue,” best because
it issues in the highest human good, and most complete
because it accomplishes this without help from elsewhere.
Of course, someone might note at this point that we are
looking for one virtue and might raise the objection that ethical virtue is not a single virtue, but a name for eleven distinct
virtues. This objection seems to have been anticipated, however, by Aristotle’s own presentation of the ethical virtues,
where it is intimated, at least twice, that the ethical virtues
may be one in more than name (or even kind). First, in his
account of the magnanimous or great-souled man, whose perfect goodness and self-sufficiency he repeatedly emphasizes,
Aristotle calls magnanimity “all-complete” and describes it as
“a sort of kosmos of the virtues; for it makes them greater and
does not come to be without them” (1024a2-10).6 Here we
seem to be invited to imagine that the various ethical virtues
become fully themselves only as they occupy their proper
places within the spacious soul of the magnanimous man—to
imagine, that is, that ethical virtue becomes one complete
whole in the person of the magnanimous man. Again, several
times in the course of his account of justice in the broadest
sense, Aristotle identifies such justice with “complete” or
“whole” virtue (1129b26-27; 1130a14-16; 1130b6-8). The
notion here seems to be that the laws, at least the laws in the
best regime, enjoin men to be good in every sense of the
term—to be zealous in defense of the city, to be generous and
gentle and fair toward fellow citizens and so on—so that, in
principle, to be just, to be steadfast in one’s obedience to the
law, is to be virtuous simply (1129b11-26). Once more we
seem to be invited to regard the ethical virtues, not as a heap
of disparate dispositions, but as a unified whole, in this case a
whole that has its origin in law and its end in the good of the
political community.7
Someone might also wonder why, after spending a whole
book discussing the intellectual virtues, Aristotle would
choose to raise a question which so pointedly calls into ques-
�30
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
tion the goodness or usefulness of prudence and wisdom. The
first thing that must be said here is that Aristotle’s question,
and the assumptions upon which it rests, are in keeping with
much of what he says in the earlier books of the Ethics.
Activity and action, ethical virtue and virtue are treated as
near synonyms throughout the first five books. Only occasionally does Aristotle suggest that the life of action might
depend, ultimately, on the activity of reason, much less on a
virtue of reason; he never even broaches the possibility that
thinking might be choiceworthy for its own sake. Generally
speaking, the life of action and ethical virtue remain at center
stage in that discussion: reason and thought lurk in the wings,
barely visible at rare moments.8
Perhaps Aristotle wrote the first half of the Ethics in the
awareness that even the most serious of his readers would
tend to identify ethical virtue with virtue and happiness with
right action, and would have to be persuaded—and could be
persuaded only gradually—that excellence in reasoning must
play a central role in the good life. Or what may amount to
the same thing, Aristotle’s curious way of proceeding may
arise out of the determination, exhibited everywhere in his
works, to think his way to the truth of a matter by way of
everyday experience and common opinion—in this case the
common opinion that courage, moderation, liberality and the
like are the virtues and that happiness is a matter of eu prattein, acting or faring well.9
Whatever the reasons for Aristotle’s way of proceeding in
Books 1 through 5, the first question elaborated by him at the
end of Book 6 seems to sum up the general view of happiness
found in those books: ethical virtue, perhaps in the form of
magnanimity or justice, is the “best and most complete
virtue” whose issue is happiness. In Book 6 prudence and wisdom come in from the wings and occupy center stage for a
time, but the body of that book still leaves us wondering
whether those virtues are to be more than minor characters
in the drama of the Ethics.
SALEM
31
*
How, then, does Aristotle answer the question he has raised
about the usefulness of prudence and wisdom? His first
answer can be summarized as follows. Even if prudence and
wisdom produced nothing, each would be worthy of being
chosen for its own sake, for each of them is a virtue of the
part of the soul that thinks (1144a1-3). Moreover, wisdom
and prudence do produce something. Wisdom, in particular,
produces happiness, not in the way that medicine produces
health, but in the way that health itself produces healthiness
or healthy activity (1144a3-5). “For being part of whole
virtue, it makes a man happy through its possession and its
activity” (1144a5-6).
Perhaps the first thing we should notice here is the
use Aristotle makes of medicine and health. Earlier, in the
course of framing his question, he used that analogy to suggest that reason is of no use to the virtuous man: ethical
virtue was likened to health, and reason likened to the art of
medicine for which a healthy man has no need. Now reason,
especially in the form of wisdom, is itself likened to health,
and the art of medicine, for the moment at any rate, drops
out of the picture entirely. If wisdom does not replace ethical
virtue as the health of the soul, it is at least set on an equal
footing with it.
Two elements seem to be involved in this shift in analogy
or argument. The first is a certain deepening of our understanding of causality or responsibility. Aristotle’s question
assumed that wisdom and prudence could be regarded as useful or productive only if they brought forth virtue and virtuous activity in the manner of so-called efficient causes. But
wisdom, at any rate, cannot—and need not—be regarded as
a cause in this sense. Like the other virtues—and the vices as
well—wisdom is a hexis, an enduring condition, and, as such,
it both forms the soul and shapes the soul’s activity (1106a1012; 1139a15-17).10 But for just this reason it can be regarded as a cause, and in the measure that the part of the soul it
�32
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
conditions and the corresponding activity it shapes are central to our being human, wisdom can be regarded as responsible for human happiness. Wisdom, in other words, is, or
may be, a formal cause of human happiness.11
The second and, to my mind, more fundamental element
involved in the shift—without it the question about what sort
of cause wisdom might be could never arise—is Aristotle’s
abrupt setting aside, without the slightest comment, of the
assumption that happiness consists simply in right action.
That is, the ethical virtues could earlier be assumed to constitute the health of the soul, and wisdom could be dismissed in
a sentence as useless, only so long as happiness was assumed
to be a matter of acting well. And conversely, wisdom can
now be placed on an at least equal footing with the ethical
virtues only if the reigning assumption of Books 1 through 5
is no longer allowed to be the measure of the usefulness or
goodness of the virtues. Clearly, then, Aristotle’s first answer
is a radical one; it goes to the root of his question concerning
the usefulness of prudence and wisdom by denying the very
premise upon which that question rests, by denying, that is,
that happiness consists simply in right action.12
Indeed Aristotle’s answer might leave us wondering
whether happiness has anything at all to do with right action.
After all, he does not say that wisdom and the ethical virtues
together constitute the health of the soul and together produce happiness; he simply likens wisdom to health and says
that wisdom produces happiness. Aristotle does say that wisdom produces happiness in the measure that it is part of
“whole virtue,” and we might be inclined to think that by
“whole virtue” he means wisdom plus the ethical virtues plus
prudence, but he is in fact silent about the meaning of the
words “whole virtue.” Perhaps the ethical virtues have no
part in the whole of which wisdom is a part.
It may be useful at this point to spell out in some detail
the various possible consequences of Aristotle’s answer. In the
first place, if we accept Aristotle’s claims about wisdom, we
SALEM
33
can of course no longer regard ethical virtue, taken as a
whole, as the “best and most complete virtue,” and can no
longer assume that the activity of soul that is happiness is
exhausted in the performance of good and beautiful deeds.
Good works are not good enough. The activity that makes up
happiness must somehow include the being at work of thinking, and not just any thinking, but the knowing of objects
which are at once “most honorable” and “incapable of being
otherwise” (1139b18-22; 1141a18-20, b2-3). And the disposition of soul that makes this activity possible, namely, wisdom must form at least part of the “best and most complete
virtue.”
This is not to say that the ethical virtues cannot also be
part of the “best and most complete virtue.” It could be the
case that by “whole virtue” Aristotle means “the sum of the
virtues,” that wisdom, prudence and ethical virtue together
constitute the “best and most complete virtue.” If this were
true, the happy man would be the man whose soul’s parts
each possessed its proper virtue, and his happiness would
show itself in the beauty of his deeds, in his understanding of
human affairs, and in his knowing of the first and highest of
things. Again, if this were true, we might be compelled to
deepen and broaden our understanding of magnanimity, to
see it as the kosmos or constellation of all the virtues, including prudence and wisdom. And finally, if this were true, we
would surely be obliged to read the “if ” clause in “if the
virtues are many, in accordance with the best and most complete of them” as a genuine question: “if the virtues are
many” would have to mean “if the virtues are many and not
facets or parts of one whole virtue.”
On the other hand, it could well be the case that the ethical virtues are to be excluded from the notion of whole
virtue. Wisdom and prudence might be the two parts of
whole virtue. Or wisdom might be part of a whole whose
other parts are as yet unnamed. Finally, it seems at least possible that the words “whole virtue” are simply the first line of
�34
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
defense in Aristotle’s freeing of wisdom from the charge of
uselessness. By locating wisdom within the whole of virtue,
he suggests that wisdom deserves at least equal consideration
with the ethical virtues. But Aristotle’s final position might be
that wisdom, in isolation from the rest of the virtues, is the
sole cause of human happiness.
*
Aristotle’s second answer, to which I now want to turn, seems
to me to be a far less radical defense of reason than his first.
It answers the charge of uselessness, not by posing an alternative to the life of action based in ethical virtue, but by
showing that reason in the form of prudence is an integral
part of that life.
In effect, Aristotle shows here that the analogy drawn
from medicine and health does not adequately represent the
relation of prudence to ethical virtue. That analogy suggests
that the ethical virtues, and the actions commonly associated
with them, are in themselves independent of prudence, and
only incidentally in need of it. But in fact, Aristotle argues,
the ethical virtues cannot themselves produce the equivalent
of healthy activity, as health presumably can in the case of a
healthy body. The character of a man’s actions depends on
the quality of his thinking as well as the goodness of his character. We aim to do justice or to act generously, we are moved
to do what is just or what is generous, because we are just or
generous; the ethical virtues are responsible for the rightness
of desire and the rightness of our ends. But it is up to prudence to see all that bears on or contributes to those ends (ta
pros ta telê), and hence to discover just what the right things
are, right here and right now: we must think, and be able to
think well, if we are to see the particular shape that generosity or justice must take on in a particular situation. In short,
prudence and the ethical virtues are co-causes of those
motions or activities of the soul which make for happiness on
the level of deeds—assuming, that is, that such deeds have
SALEM
35
anything to do with happiness (1144a6-9, 20-22; 1145a26).13
But Aristotle’s answer goes further than this. Not only the
actions we associate with the ethical virtues, but also the ethical virtues themselves depend on the presence of prudence
within the soul. To be sure, Aristotle argues, there seem to be
certain natural bases for the ethical virtues. Certain men seem
to be by nature disposed to be just or moderate or courageous, and these “natural virtues” can exist in separation
from prudence (1144b4-9). But ethical virtue in the strict
sense cannot be or come into being without prudence
(1144b14-17). And the reverse is also true. Again, there
appears to be a natural power or faculty within the soul that
enables us to discover the means necessary to accomplish a
given end (1144a23-26). But this power of the soul, which
Aristotle calls shrewdness or cleverness, is open-ended; it can
be used for good or for ill (1144a26-27). Once developed
and perfected, it becomes prudence, but it cannot be developed and perfected unless the ethical virtues are there to
make the ends that we aim at the right ends (1144a271144b1). Ethical virtue and prudence, then, are not only cocauses of right action, but also co-causes of one another. They
form a two that does not admit of division: neither can be or
be at work without the other; neither of the parts of the soul
of which they are virtues can be fully itself in the absence of
the virtue of the other (1144b30-32).
The consequences of Aristotle’s second answer seem clear
enough. If by the words “best and most complete virtue”
Aristotle means to refer to only one of the many virtues he
has discussed, and if by “complete” he means, even if only in
part, “able to be and be at work without help from elsewhere,” then clearly neither prudence nor any of the ethical
virtues can even qualify for the position of “best and most
complete virtue.” This would leave wisdom as the only possible candidate. And the account of wisdom that Aristotle provides in the body of Book 6 suggests that wisdom does indeed
�36
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
possess the completeness which prudence and the ethical
virtues lack. For there wisdom is distinguished from knowledge precisely on the grounds that knowledge as knowledge
lacks insight into its starting-points, and is therefore incomplete, while in wisdom insight into starting points and knowledge of what follows from those starting points are inextricably linked (1139b25-35; 1140b31-35; 1141a17-20).14
And yet the very way in which Aristotle articulates the
relation between prudence and ethical virtue in his second
answer suggests that those virtues, taken together, possess
something like completeness. Although each by itself is
incomplete, prudence and ethical virtue together seem to
form a sort of self-sufficient whole, independent of wisdom
and, indeed, analogous in structure to wisdom, with ethical
virtue supplying prudence with the starting points from
which it deliberates, and prudence supplying ethical virtue
with that discernment and judgement of particulars upon
which any right action depends.
*
We seem to have reached an impasse. Although it has become
clear that the ethical virtues cannot themselves constitute the
“best and most complete virtue,” clear that reason in some
form must play a part in the good life, it still remains unclear
which form of reason is most likely to lead to happiness. Of
all the virtues, wisdom best fits Aristotle’s definition of happiness. Wisdom must not only form part of complete virtue,
as we gathered from Aristotle’s first answer; it may well be
that virtue. But it seems that prudence, in company with the
ethical virtues, could also lay claim to the title of complete
virtue. In fact, Aristotle goes out of his way here to single out
prudence, as if it, rather than magnanimity or perfect justice,
were the true unifying ground of the virtues related to action
(1144b32-1145a2). Should his bare assertion that wisdom
plays a major part in happiness be allowed to obscure what
can be said for prudence? Finally, we have not yet seen any
evidence to contradict the hypothesis, again drawn from
SALEM
37
Aristotle’s first answer, that by complete virtue Aristotle
means “whole virtue” and by whole virtue he means all the
virtues. Why should happiness not consist in the being at
work of all the parts of the soul, each in accordance with its
proper virtue?
As it turns out, the second of the two questions Aristotle
raises in the final section of Book 6 bears directly on the issue
before us, i.e., the relation between prudence and wisdom. If
that question and its answers do not provide us with final
solutions to the difficulties I have just articulated, I think they
may at least help us to understand them more clearly.
Aristotle asks: can prudence, whose work it is to rule and
give orders concerning each thing, also be said to rule and
give orders to wisdom (1143b33-36)? Like his first question,
Aristotle’s second question has two answers. And like those
earlier answers, these answers point us in different directions.
In this case, each answer hints at a different understanding of
the relation between prudence and wisdom.
Let me begin with Aristotle’s second answer. To say that
prudence rules wisdom, Aristotle claims, would be like saying
that politics rules the gods because it gives orders concerning
all things in the city (1145a10-12). Just as the gods dwell outside the city, out of the reach of politics, so too, we infer, wisdom lies outside—indeed, above—the domain in which prudence properly exercises its authority.
Aristotle’s answer seems at first glance to be a straightforward denial of the power and right of prudence to rule wisdom. But the very brevity of his answer—and if brevity is the
soul of wit, it should probably count as the wittiest response
ever made to a fundamental question—seems to invite further
reflection. We might wonder, for instance, whether politics
can and must give orders concerning all things in the city precisely because the gods take no interest and no part in the life
of the city. And we might wonder, too, whether political life
takes on a kind of wholeness and self-sufficiency precisely
because the gods leave men to their own devices. In short, we
�38
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
might wonder whether the supremacy and self-sufficiency of
the gods not only limits the extent of political authority, but
also constitutes that authority and the very domain in which
it is exercised: perhaps politics and the city are only in the
wake of divine withdrawal. But what may hold for the city
and its gods may hold for prudence and wisdom as well.
Perhaps the particular character that wisdom takes on over
the course of Book 6—its self-sufficient contemplation of the
unchanging sources of all things, its consequent separation
from human affairs and human doings—requires Aristotle to
grant the life of action a certain wholeness and requires
Aristotle to find a central place for prudence within it
(1141b2-8). The two apparently contradictory views articulated a moment ago, the view that wisdom alone possesses
completeness and the view that prudence in company with
the ethical virtues possesses a sort of completeness, may not
be incompatible after all: the second view may follow from
the first. The assumption about happiness which characterizes
such a large part of the Ethics, the assumption that human
happiness lies in acting well, may be the result, curiously
enough, of Aristotle’s gradually unfolded claim that wisdom
and true happiness exist in utter separation from ordinary
life.
Of course, to return to Aristotle’s image, it does not quite
seem true to say that politics and political life exist in complete separation from the gods. Surely one of the tasks of politics, one part of its educative work, is to teach citizens to
honor the gods.15 If so, might prudence not have an analogous task: to make the superiority of wisdom visible on occasion, to remind the ethical virtues, or those who possess
them, that wisdom is after all the most honorable of activities? Granted that for the most part prudence must keep its
ear to the ground, its nose to the grindstone and its eye on the
particular; granted that in general it must take its bearings by
what the ethical virtues disclose as the human good; still, it
seems difficult to believe that prudence would not in some
SALEM
39
form and on some occasions look beyond and point beyond
the horizon established by the ethical virtues.16
Indeed, isn’t this just what we find Aristotle himself doing
in Book 10? There he makes his most explicit claim for the
absolute superiority and self-sufficiency of wisdom, and he
does so in the strongest language imaginable (1177a18-b4;
1177b17-27; 1178b22-24). In light of that claim, the claims
of prudence and the ethical virtues pale: in Book 10 Aristotle
insists that the life based on prudence can be called happy
only in a secondary way, that the wise man will take up that
life, a merely human life, only with a certain reluctance
(1178a9-23; 1178b3-8). And yet, almost in the same breath
Aristotle begins to speak of educating men in what seems to
be ethical virtue, and begins to introduce his study of politics
as if nothing had happened (1179a30-b4; 1179b23-28). One
minute he is telling his readers not to settle for the human-alltoo-human but “to be immortal” instead, the next he is
exhorting them to attend to families and friends and to
engage in his “philosophy concerning human” i.e., mortal,
affairs (1177b32-35; 1180a29-33; 1181b12-16). He gives his
readers a glimpse of the highest life, shows them enough of it
to make them honor its claims, but then leaves them and their
lives more or less intact.
*
Aristotle’s first answer to his question concerning the relation
of prudence to wisdom tells a somewhat different story, and
leads to a somewhat different way of reading the drama of
the Ethics. Once again, the superiority of wisdom to prudence is emphasized: Aristotle calls wisdom the virtue of the
“better” part of the soul. And once again, Aristotle insists that
prudence does not give orders to wisdom. Likening prudence
to the medical art and wisdom to health, he says that prudence does not “use” wisdom, but sees to it that it comes into
being: prudence gives orders for the sake of wisdom, not to
wisdom (1145a7-10).
�40
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Still, Aristotle’s very use of this medical analogy—yet
again—points to a different way of understanding the relation between prudence and wisdom than we find in his other
answer. Much earlier, in his initial question, Aristotle had
used the analogy to suggest that the ethical virtues are sufficient unto themselves: prudence might be needed to bring
those virtues into being, but those virtues, once in place within the human soul, can do without the help of prudence.
Now, having rejected this analogy in the case of the ethical
virtues, Aristotle resurrects it in the case of wisdom. He thus
suggests that wisdom in fact enjoys the self-sufficiency earlier
attributed to the ethical virtues. But he also suggests, as he
had not in his other answer, that wisdom in some sense
depends on prudence. Indeed his use of the words “sees to it
that it comes into being” seems intended to underscore this
dependence.17 Wisdom is not a god after all; it may possess a
divine self-sufficiency once it has come into being, but it must
come into being and prudence is somehow responsible for
bringing it forth.
What follows from Aristotle’s suggestion that wisdom is
not quite self-sufficient? If wisdom depends, for its very
being, on the activity of prudence, it cannot be regarded as
the sole cause, among the virtues, of human happiness. If by
the “best and most complete virtue,” we mean all those
human excellences through which happiness comes into
being, then that virtue would have to include prudence as
well as wisdom. But if prudence, in turn, depends on the ethical virtues, would it not follow that happiness depends on
the presence within a soul of all the virtues—at least in the
measure that wisdom is not fully present and at work within
that soul? Does Aristotle, then, intend us to identify complete
virtue with the sum of the virtues? Are we to understand,
after all, that happiness somehow consists in the being at
work of all the virtues, including the ethical virtues?18
Perhaps. But Aristotle’s words “prudence gives orders for
the sake of wisdom” oblige us, I think, to reconsider the rela-
SALEM
41
tion of prudence to the ethical virtues. According to
Aristotle’s earlier argument, prudence depends on the ethical
virtues because the ethical virtues, in directing desire aright,
illuminate or disclose the ends by which prudence takes its
bearings. But if the proper ends for the sake of which prudence makes its deliberations are not, or are not primarily,
courageous, moderate or just actions, if the proper end of
prudence is wisdom or the activity of wisdom, the ethical
virtues would seem to fall short in their work of forming right
desire. What seems to be needed instead is a new hexis, a new
ordering of the soul, that corresponds to the desire for and
delight in wisdom above all things. In short, what seems to be
needed is an inner condition or virtue we might call philosophia, love of wisdom.19
This is not to say that in the new order of things ethical
virtue would be rendered useless. What seems to be required
instead is a sort of transformation of the ethical virtues, a reformation of them that would leave wisdom at the core of
right desire. The man who underwent such a reformation
might, to all appearances, be scarcely distinguishable from the
man for whom right action was everything. The ethical life
would not have to be a matter of reluctance to him, as it
seems to be to the wise man alluded to in Aristotle’s other
answer. But his would be a greatness of soul, a “kosmos of the
virtues,” big enough to house a longing to take in the very
sources of all things; an ever-present appetite for wisdom,
which would somehow shape his every deliberation, would
distinguish him from the man who honors wisdom without
pursuing it. In short, the complete or whole virtue of such a
man, in whom prudence gives orders for the sake of wisdom,
would include the ethical virtues without being defined by
them.
Now nowhere in the Ethics does Aristotle explicitly discuss the constellation of virtues I have just described. He
does, however, point to it from time to time. For instance, I
think it is difficult to read Aristotle’s account of the curious
�42
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
disposition mentioned at the beginning of this essay without
being reminded of the philosophical life, especially when it is
read in conjunction with the discussion of its two companion
virtues, also unnamed: “friendliness” (displayed toward those
with whom one is not fully friends) and “truthfulness” or
“love of truth” (in which Socrates and Socratic irony or selfdepreciation loom large) (1126b19-31; 1127a33-1127b9;
1127b22-32). Indeed, by placing his account of the readiness
to engage in playful, leisurely, tactful conversation in the
midst of his account of the ethical virtues, Aristotle suggests
that philosophy can occur in the midst of the ethical life.20
But perhaps the clearest of Aristotle’s allusions to this conjunction of the virtues is to be found in his account of friendship, which by its position provides a delicate contrast to the
account of the apparent disjunction between wisdom and the
other virtues in Book 10.21
There, when at the end of Book 9 he returns to the theme
of complete friendship or the friendship between good men,
Aristotle makes it clear that the virtue or goodness of such
men lies in thought and action. In the course of a single chapter he at once describes the unalloyed delight which good
men take in contemplating one another’s deeds, and yet
insists that their living together comes to completion in philosophic conversation, in their “sharing of words and thought
in common” (1169b30-1170a4; 1170b10-12). Aristotle even
suggests that something like the completeness or self-sufficiency that belongs to wisdom characterizes the life of reflection and action enjoyed by good men who are friends. Using
language which seems intended to remind us of his account
of the divine life in Book 12 of the Metaphysics—the life in
which wisdom at work presumably shares—Aristotle
describes the “living together” of good friends as a sort of
“thinking of thinking” (Meta. 1074b15-35). Since friends are
other selves, friends see themselves “at work” in seeing their
friends “at work,” and this seeing or “theorizing,” being itself
a form of being at work, brings completeness and joy to their
SALEM
43
common life (1169b30-1170b19). While men who are lovers
of wisdom rather than wise may not themselves possess the
divine self-sufficiency which comes with wisdom, their lives
acquire a kind of wholeness and divinity in the presence of
their friends.22
*
Why does Aristotle leave us with these two, rather different
accounts of happiness? Some time ago I suggested that
Aristotle, exercising his own prudence, makes the superiority
of wisdom visible in order to instill in his readers a kind of
distant respect for wisdom, but then leaves them and their
lives more or less intact. I think that this suggestion, while
true, has its limits. Some of his readers might retain their
focus on the life of action; they might come away from the
Ethics with a deepened understanding of the foundations of
the ethical life along with a well-founded, if distant, admiration for wisdom and its pursuit. But for others, for those most
engaged by Aristotle’s inquiry into the highest good and most
eager to make his inquiry their own, the experience of reading the Ethics, especially Books 6 and 10, would surely be different. They would see, with Aristotle, the insufficiency of the
everyday, customary understanding of virtue and happiness,
would see that the life of action must in truth be suffused and
completed by deliberative thought. But they would also see,
with Aristotle, the ultimate insufficiency of thought aimed at
action, would see that thought as thought reaches completion
only in the thinking for it own sake of what is simply thinkable. They would thus see, with Aristotle, that there is a space
in the human soul—the soul of the animal defined by thinking—that only wisdom can fill, would see that being complete
as a human being ultimately means passing beyond what is
human. For such readers a simple separation of spheres—“my
life of action here, the sphere of being wise somewhere over
and up there”—is simply not a possibility. For to have taken
in the thought that wisdom is the highest good, to have made
it truly one’s own, is already to have undergone the re-orien-
�44
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
tation of prudence described above; it is to have become
philo-sophic. And to have arrived at the thought that wisdom
is the highest good, to have taken a genuine part in Aristotle’s
philosophic deliberations, is to be already on the way to wisdom; it is to have made a beginning in the being at work of
philosophizing.23 To leave such readers with only a distant
vision of the superiority of wisdom would not be enough.
Aristotle must provide some sense of the sort of life to be
lived on the way to wisdom, if only to show how the pursuit
of wisdom might “fit” within ordinary life. Prudence and the
wish to see respect for wisdom flourish among those dedicated to a life of thoughtful action may require Aristotle to voice
the claims of wisdom, but prudence and a kind of friendship
with certain of his readers equally oblige him to show them,
in word and in deed, what a life of loving wisdom might look
like.
SALEM
45
4
1 All references to the Nicomachean Ethics are to Bywater’s edition,
the Oxford University Press (London, 1894). Citations and references are generally given in Bekker numbers. Translations are my
own.
Because the following investigation begins with the middle of
Aristotle’s own inquiry, it will have to take for granted any number
of claims, above all, the claim that happiness is an activity (rather
than, say, an occasional feeling) and the claim that it has everything
to do with virtue or excellence (rather than, say, pleasure). Aristotle
himself argues for both claims in Book 1, most explicitly in the
chapters (7 and 8) that treat his definition directly. A brief reflection
on the words he uses to define happiness may help make more
apparent what is at stake there. The word I have translated as
“activity” or “being at work,” energeia, is one of two words used by
Aristotle for the core meaning of a thing’s being; the near synonym
for it is entelecheia, which means something like remaining fully at
one’s end or being fully complete (Metaphysics 9, 1048a32-b9;
1050a3-24). Kata, “in accordance with,” clearly has its strong
causal meaning here; it means “through” or “because of ” rather
than simply “in alignment with” (Meta. 5, 1022a14-23). Finally,
“virtue,” aretê, related to the verb arariskô, “to join” or “fit together,” means “fitness,” the inner condition that allows for something
to be and work as well as possible (Ethics, 1106a15-21). To say that
happiness is an energeia, then, is to say that it is that activity in
which what we are as human beings, i.e., our human form, becomes
fully present. And to search for the virtue it accords with is to
search for the inner condition through which that complete presence arises, i.e., through which we are fully human or, as we like to
say, “are all there” (Meta. 9, 1050a34-b2).
2
5
Notes
Roughly speaking, the ethical virtues are the human excellences
that define character (êthos); they thus shape our responses to the
world, i.e., our feelings or passions (pathê), and our actions (praxeis) within it. The intellectual virtues have to do with the activities
most central to the “part” of us that thinks, that “has reason (logon
echei)” in almost every sense of those terms.
3
Aristotle’s inquiry is clearly meant, in the first instance, for men
who are serious about the pursuit of happiness both for themselves
and their cities (1095a8-11; 1102a12-26). His book is thus
addressed to hoi charientes kai praktikoi, “men of a certain cultivation or grace who are also able to act”—and this means, to men
who, if asked, would identify happiness with honor but who, if
pushed, would identify it with virtue (1095b22-30).
“Prudence” and “wisdom” are traditional translations of phronêsis and sophia. Neither is entirely adequate to the task. Sophia has
overtones of skill and precision in the arts entirely missing from the
ordinary sense of “wisdom,” while its connection to craftiness in
speech (as in “sophistry”) turns up only in degraded forms like
“wise guy” and “wisecrack.” Prudence, on the other hand, can
suggest a caution that has no correlate in phronêsis: Aristotle’s
phronimos is no fool; still, there might well be occasions and circumstances in which phronêsis would demand that a man throw
caution to the winds and hurl himself once more into the breach.
6
Kosmos has been variously translated as “ornament” (Apostle),
“crowning ornament” (Rackham) and “crown” (Ross). Though
magnanimity may be a crown, it is surely much more than an ornament. How it might serve as something like a unifying ground for
�46
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
the virtues begins to become clear as we recollect that hoi charientes
kai praktikoi are lovers of honor to begin with, that being chosen
for their own sake rather than the sake of honor is the hallmark of
virtuous actions and that magnanimity is the virtue concerned with
one’s response to another’s conferral—or failure to confer—honor
on one’s virtue (1105a26-1105b5; 1124a4-12). More generally,
magnanimity has to do with the way the good man keeps a grip on
himself and his virtue in the face of good and bad fortune
(1124a112-16). Hence its first appearance (in Book 1), where it is
said that, “the beautiful shines through whenever someone bears
many and great misfortunes with good grace, not through want of
sensibility, but because he is well-bred and great-souled” (1100b3033).
7
I have focused here on what magnanimity and whole justice share
in common. But there are also significant differences between them,
differences that point to significant difficulties with each of them.
The emphasis in the account of magnanimity is on self-sufficiency
and near stillness: the magnanimous man is said to be “lazy” or
“workless” (argos=a-ergos) in the absence of a project worthy of his
virtue and “to be unable to live for (pros) another (except for a
friend)” (1124b23-26; 1124b31-1125a1). In the description of
complete justice, by contrast, the whole emphasis is on the activity
or “using” of virtue for (pros) others; the perfect citizen is apparently completely absorbed in promoting the happiness of his city
and fellow citizens. The self-sufficiency and activity that together
characterize happiness seem to fall asunder in these first attempts to
characterize complete virtue (1097b14-21).
8
To be sure, Aristotle defines choice in Book 3 and defining it
involves him in a discussion of deliberation; he also mentions the
intellectual virtues at points and notes once that there will have to
be a discussion of “right reason” later on (1111b4-1113a14;
1103b31-34). Still, the whole emphasis is on the importance of
doing, of acquiring a good and stable character by acting in a certain way; “mere” knowing looks like a refuge for the lazy and weak,
and Aristotle no sooner gives himself opportunities to talk about
the virtues of intellect than he squanders them (1103b20-31;
1105b9-18; 1098a7-17; 1098b23-26).
9 For enunciations of the “hermeneutical” principle at work here,
see 1095a30-b4 and the beginning of the Physics, 184a16-184b14.
SALEM
47
For the centrality of the principle to the whole dialectical enterprise, see the beginning of the Topics, 100a30-b23 and 101a35-b4.
The grounds for the principle are perhaps best stated best at
Metaphysics 2, 993a30-b11. John Burnet provides a useful summary of the business and character of Aristotelian dialectic and its relation to ethical inquiry in the introduction to his excellent edition
and commentary on the Ethics. See The Ethics of Aristotle (London:
Methuen, 1900), pp. xxxiv-xliv.
10
For an illuminating discussion of the meaning of hexis and its
place within the ethical life, see J. Sachs, “Three Little Words,”
St. John’s Review 54, no.1 (1997), 1-9. Mr. Sachs underscores the
distinction between hexis and mere habit as well as the activity
implicit in hexis. Both points are well worth making. It is no accident that hexis is an action word derived from the future form of
echein, which means “have” “hold” or (used intransitively) “be in a
certain condition.” A hexis is no mere effect of an activity, as, say,
poverty is an effect of thinking; nor is it a mere condition for activity as, say, eating is a condition for thinking. It is instead a particular readiness for a particular activity; it is a being-in-shape-for, an
intending-to, a being-about-to that requires nothing but opportunity to spring into action; it is, one might say, that activity “on hold.”
11
For the senses in which wisdom and the other virtues can be
regarded as formal causes, see Burnet, op. cit., pp. 144 and 283.
12 Has anything in the intervening discussion in Book 6 prepared us
for this change in perspective? I think so. Although the bulk of
Book 6 remains focused on thought as it bears on human action, at
the beginning of the book and again in the discussion of knowledge
in the strict sense (epistêmê) we are reminded that not everything
we think about has to be marked by the changeability of human
affairs: there are some objects of thought which exist of necessity
and we have the “parts” to know them (1139a6-11; 1139b22-23).
Then, in the discussion of wisdom (sophia), we are reminded, or
told, that man is by no means the best thing in the cosmos—and
that it is precisely the “action” of sophia which puts us in contact
with the best of those unchanging things (1141a20-22, a33-b2).
13
Once Aristotle reminds us here of the part that reasoning plays
in the life of action, his question about the usefulness of the intellectual virtues may begin to seem merely odd, at least as regards
�48
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
prudence. But I think we should beware of dismissing that question
too quickly. In the first place, there seem to be any number of
moments in life when the most honest answer we can give for why
we did something is, “It just felt right” or “I had the sense there was
nothing else I could do.” In fact Aristotle himself notes in his discussion of courage that we really see whether the virtue is truly
there precisely in moments of sudden danger, when deliberation
simply is not a possibility (1117a17-22). Moreover, it seems possible to argue that the perspective of Aristotle’s initial question is simply the perspective of the law. We have already taken note of those
places where it is said that the intention of the law is to make men
good, i.e., to be a sufficient condition for (ethical) virtue in men.
But Aristotle also notes that it is the very nature of law to overlook
the particulars with which prudence works: from the point of view
of law, prudence, which frees a man to become “a sort of law unto
himself,” seems to be at best unnecessary (1128a29-33). Hence the
need for “equity,” which ad-justs for the universality of law by looking, if you will, from the particular situation, through the law to the
intention of the lawgiver (1137b11-34).
14
For example, the mathematician as mathematician uses his definitions and postulates rather than reflecting on them; he takes his
slice of being, his “field,” for granted and sets to work learning as
much as he can about it. The man engaged in first philosophy, the
man in pursuit of wisdom in the strict sense, accepts no such limit
on his thinking; even the so-called principle of non-contradiction—
the mathematician’s favorite tool—becomes for him an occasion for
reflecting on the being of beings. See Metaphysics 1003a20-28;
1005a19-b8.
15
For Aristotle’s comments on the place and necessity of “care concerning the gods” in the city, see the Politics 1322b18-29, 1328b1113; 1329a27-34.
16 At 1141b22-30 Aristotle distinguishes two aspects or modes or
kinds of prudence, an “architectonic” form that closely resembles
lawgiving and a form that corresponds to politics in the ordinary
sense, i.e., the hands-on deliberative engagement with the particulars of political life.
17
Aristotle’s words here directly echo the language he had used earlier in Book 6 to characterize art (technê): “art” or “the activity of
SALEM
49
art” (depending on what text one chooses to follow) “sees to it
(theôrein hopôs) that there comes into being some one of the things
that admit of being and not being . . . ” (1140a10-14).
18
I am assuming here that what Aristotle is referring to in the first
instance is the relation of prudence to wisdom within a single soul,
that the wisdom that prudence is working to bring forth is in the
first instance wisdom for oneself: the prudent man is like the doctor who tries to heal himself. To be sure, prudence in this sense
might also direct itself toward bringing about wisdom and the pursuit of wisdom in others; one need look no further than the Ethics
for evidence of this. Yet I think—and this should become clearer
momentarily—that prudence can direct itself outward in this way
only if it has already undergone an inner realignment, into a prudence that sees wisdom as the chief good. Only a man who had
come to see wisdom in this way, and so wanted it for himself, would
want to see others have it as well.
19
For the appropriateness of the name, consider Aristotle’s discussion of philo-words at 1099a7-21 (especially the philo-theôros, the
man who loves to behold) and the passage from the Republic it
clearly echoes, where Socrates “defines” the philosopher as a “lover
of the sight (philo-theamon) of the truth” (475b8-e4).
20 It is here that Aristotle first introduces the thought that a man
might be responsive to the demands of law or custom while remaining independent of it: “So the graceful (or gracious) and free (or
generous) man will keep himself in this condition, being a sort of
law unto himself ” (1128a31-32).
21
That friendship in some form may be a candidate for “best and
most complete virtue” is suggested by the following considerations.
Aristotle opens his account of friendship with the claim that friendship is “a virtue or involved with virtue . . . ” (1155a3-4). We later
learn that genuine friendship (philia) involves more than mere liking (philêsis); it is a hexis and involves choice, i.e., it shares certain
important structural features with ethical virtue (1157b28-31). We
also learn that justice, which at least in its broadest sense was earlier identified with whole or complete virtue, is in important respects
superseded by friendship (1155a22-28; 1163b15-18). Finally,
Aristotle’s name for friendship at its peak, “complete friendship,”
points directly back to the language of “best and most complete
�50
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
virtue,” and the friendship in question is between men who are
simply good or virtuous without qualification (1156b7-35). The
connection between friendship and philosophy begins to become
apparent in chapter four of Book 9, the beginning of the sequence
that leads to the passage discussed below. Here, for the first time in
the Ethics, man is openly identified with the intellect or thinking
part of himself, and the good man is characterized by his abiding
love and cultivation of his self in this sense (1166a13-23).
22
Cf. Amelie Rorty, “The Place of Contemplation in Aristotle’s
NE,” in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty
(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1980) esp. pp. 388-391.
23
In the Ethics itself we are witness to a peculiar coming together
of theôria and praxis; “philosophic deliberations” is meant to get at
this conjunction. From one point of view Aristotle’s inquiry is simply a sustained practical deliberation about what to do with our
lives; from another it is a sustained philosophic exploration of a
what-is question—“What is the human good?”—in which any number of basic features of human being come to light. In it we see the
thinking of what is turn practical as it turns its gaze on itself—the
being capable of thought—and the conditions for its own activity.
But more to the point, we see practical thought turn theoretical as
it turns from deliberation about the particular conditions for this or
that virtuous act to deliberation about the virtues themselves, i.e.,
the conditions for happiness itself. Once we take into account this
doubleness in Aristotle’s own inquiry we must begin to wonder seriously just how settled the distinction is between prudence and wisdom—or at any rate, between prudential and philosophic inquiry
(1112b20-24; 1142a31-b2).
51
Jacob Klein and the
Phenomenological Project of
Desedimenting the
Formalization of Meaning
Burt C. Hopkins
Scope and Limits of Husserl’s Reactivation of the Sedimented
Origins of the Modern Spirit
For Edmund Husserl, phenomenology as First Philosophy has
but one goal: intuitive knowledge of what is. On his view,
both what in the world the formalized meaning formations of
mathematical physics (e.g., f = ma) refer to and therefore
make intuitable, and how in the world this reference and corresponding intuition is possible, is obscure. He traces this
obscurity to the fact that the formalized meaning at issue in
modern mathematics is made possible by the progressive
“emptying of its meaning in relation” (Crisis, 44/44)1 to the
“real [real]” (35/37), that is, to the intuitive givenness of the
things manifest to everyday sense experience in the surrounding world. Husserl’s historical reflection on the beginnings of the development of modern, Galilean science,
reveals that it is first made possible by this progressive emptying of meaning. That is, the meaning formations of the
mathematics that make physics possible are themselves made
possible by their “becoming liberated from all intuited actuality, about numbers, numerical relations” (43/44), and, of
course, from the intuitively given shapes of actual things.
More precisely, the ideal shapes of Euclidean geometry are
Burt Hopkins is Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University. He is CoEditor of The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological
Philosophy and is currently writing a book whose working title is Edmund
Husserl and Jacob Klein on the Origination of the Logic of Symbolic
Mathematics.
�52
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
substituted for the intuited shapes of things, while algebraic
calculation with “‘symbolic’ concepts” (48/48) that express
numbers in general—as opposed to determined numbers—
excludes the “original thinking that genuinely gives meaning
to this technical process and truth to the correct results”
(46/46).
To be sure, Husserl’s investigations of this problem in the
Crisis-texts are fragmentary. Their focus is on the origin of
geometry and on what he refers to as the “sedimentation”
(52/52) involved in the Galilean impulse to treat Euclidean
geometry in a taken-for-granted, and therefore straightforward, manner. Husserl uses the term “sedimentation” to designate the “constant presuppositions . . . [of the] constructions, concepts, presuppositions, theories” that characterize
the significations of the meaning formations of a science—in
the case at hand, of Galilean natural science—insofar as they
are not “‘cashed in’ [einzulösenden],”2 (OG, 376/366), that is,
reactivated in terms of the original activities that produced
their meaning. Cashing in the meaning formations in question requires that we eventually reactivate the “historical
beginning” (367/356) that this science “must have had,”
which in the case of Galilean natural science means that we
eventually have to reactivate the origin of the Euclidean
geometry that was taken for granted when its meaning formations were first established.
Husserl’s fragmentary analyses of the “origin of the modern spirit” (Crisis, 58/57), in which he links to Galileo’s name
“all of our characterizations . . . in a certain sense simplifying
and idealizing the matter,” function therefore to “de-sediment” the meaning formations and thereby to reactivate their
historical beginnings. Specifically, Husserl’s de-sedimentation
cashes in the impulse of the Galilean spirit to mathematize
the world by tracing this accomplishment back to its origin in
“the sphere of immediately experiencing intuitions and the
possible experience of the prescientific life-world” (42/43).
Husserl encounters the obscure or unintelligible meaning for-
HOPKINS
53
mations of present-day mathematical natural science, and
moves backward to an historical reference that mediates his
access to the life-world. Thus it is not as if Husserl, sitting in
his study, is somehow able to conjure up the direct experience
of the prescientific life-world and to compare it with the
abstract view of the world presumably found in the meaning
formations that make up mathematical physics. Rather, his
experience of mathematical physics, when combined with his
expectation that its meaning formations must somehow be
ultimately founded in a reference (or, more precisely, an
intention) to the world that is capable being intuitively fulfilled at some level, leads to his discovery (or, more properly,
his re-discovery) of the prescientific life-world and its true
origins.
Rather than rehearse Husserl’s well-known analyses,
what is necessary here is to thematize their salient results and
highlight their fragmentary character. Husserl shows that the
Galilean impulse rests on both a direct mathematization of
the appearances of bodies and an indirect mathematization of
their sensuous modes of givenness as they show up in the
intuitively given surrounding-world. That is to say, Husserl’s
attempt to cash in the ideal meaning formations of the pure
shapes of Euclidean geometry, which Galileo took for granted as the “true” shapes of nature, reveals that our direct experience of nature never yields geometrical-ideal bodies but
“precisely the bodies that we actually experience” (22/25).
Directing our regard to the mere shapes of these bodies in an
abstractive way cannot yield what modern science understands as “geometrical ideal possibilities,” nor can their arbitrary transformation in fantasy. Even though the latter yields
“‘ideal’ possibilities” in a certain sense, these possibilities
remain tied to sensible shapes and thus can only manifest
their transformation into other sensible shapes.
The method of operating with the pure or ideal shapes
that characterizes Euclidean geometry thus does not point
directly back to the sensible shapes of the bodies we actually
�54
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
experience in the life-world, but rather to measuring, “the
methodology of determination by surveying and measuring in
general, practiced first primitively and then as an art in the
prescientific, intuitively given surrounding-world” (24/27). It
is therefore the praxis of perfecting such measuring, “of
freely pressing toward the horizon of conceivable perfecting
‘again and again’,” (23/26) which yields “limit shapes
[Grenzgestalten] as invariant and never attainable poles”
toward which the series of perfecting tends. Euclidean geometry is then born when “we are interested in these ideal
shapes and are consistently engaged in determining them and
in constructing new ones out of those already determined.”
This is the geometry that was pregiven to Galileo as a takenfor-granted tradition. The original activity in which the ideal
meaning formations of Euclidean geometry were accomplished remained concealed to Galileo. Thus when Galileo
mathematized the intuitive shapes of bodies directly and their
sensuous manners of appearing indirectly by substituting for
them the ‘anticipation’ of their true being in the ideal shapes
of Euclidean geometry, the original intuition of the sensible
shapes of bodies, along with their transformation into limit
shapes by the praxis of measuring, became “sedimented.”
That is to say, as a consequence of Galileo’s methodical construction of the “true nature” through the substitution of the
ideal shapes of Euclidean geometry for the experience of sensible shapes proper to bodies, the original intuition of sensible shapes was lost. Hence, Husserl’s famous characterization
of Galileo as “at once a discovering and a concealing genius”
(53/52).
Husserl’s analyses of the Galilean mathematization takes
cognizance of the fact that “one thing more is important for
our clarification.” This “one thing more” is the “‘arithmetization of geometry’” (44/44). Aided by “the algebraic terms and
ways of thinking that have been widespread in the modern
period since Vieta,” this arithmetization transforms the ideal
shapes of Galileo’s Euclidean approach to the world into
HOPKINS
55
algebraic structures whose symbolic formula-meaning displaces—“unnoticed” (44/45)—the signification of magnitudes. The geometrical shapes of Galilean science are covered
over when replaced by algebraic notations. Husserl considers
this the “decisive accomplishment” (42/43) of the natural scientific method. In accord with its “complete meaning”
(Gesamtsinn), this accomplishment makes possible the anticipation of systematically ordered, determinate predictions
about the practical life-world. Such predictions are made possible by hypothesizing underlying ideal mathematical structures expressed in general formulas with indeterminate values. By means of these, empirically verifiable regularities can
anticipate the intuitions that constitute immediate, prescientific experience. Consequently, “[t]his arithmetization of
geometry leads almost automatically, in a certain way, to the
emptying of its meaning” (44/44). Husserl points out that this
unnoticed emptying of meaning eventually “becomes a fully
conscious methodical displacement, a methodical transition
from geometry, for instance, to pure analyses, treated as a science in its own right” (44/45). Thus this process of methodical transformation leads beyond arithmetization to “a completely universal ‘formalization’.” A purely formal analysis
transcends the pure theory of numbers and magnitudes of
algebra: analysis assumes the guise of a mathesis universalis, a
universal mathematics of “manifolds.” Manifolds are thought
of in “empty, formal generality”; they are conceived of as
defined by determinate modalities of the “something-in-general.” And although Husserl does not explicitly mention it
here, the construction of the “formal-logical idea of a ‘worldin-general’” at issue in the mathesis universalis is what he
elsewhere refers to as “formal ontology.”3 In contrast to his
analyses of the Galilean geometrization of nature, however,
Husserl’s analysis of mathesis universalis or formal ontology
does not attempt to reactivate the historical beginnings of the
original accomplishment that makes it possible. He makes no
attempt to cash in the sedimentation of meaning that accom-
�56
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
panies it. This sedimentation is inseparable from the displacement of the immediate intuitive experience of the lifeworld that takes place in the arithmetization of geometry, the
displacement that originally makes possible the formalization
of meaning at issue in formal ontology.
Despite Husserl’s failure to pursue this task of de-sedimentation with respect to formalization, it is clear that he
thinks that its de-sedimentation would lead to immediate
intuitions in the life-world. This is evident from the following
passage:
If one still has a vivid awareness of this coordination [among mathematical idealities] in its original
meaning, then a mere thematic focus of attention
on this meaning is sufficient in order to grasp the
ascending orders of intuitions (now conceived as
approximations) indicated by the functionally
coordinated quantities (or, more briefly, formulae);
or rather, one can, following these indications,
bring the ascending order of intuitions vividly to
mind.
Likewise in Formal and Transcendental Logic Husserl
expressed the conviction that
the meaning-relation of all categorial meanings to
something individual, that is, on the noetic side, to
evidences of individuals, to experiences—a relation
growing out of their meaning-genesis and present
in every example that could be used by formal
analytics—surely cannot be insignificant for the
meaning and the possible evidence of the laws of
analytics, including the highest ones, the principles
of logic. Otherwise, how could those laws claim
formal-ontological validity? (217)
However, neither the Crisis-texts nor Formal and
Transcendental Logic contain, respectively, concrete analyses
HOPKINS
57
that bring vividly to mind the ascending order of intuitions at
issue in the original meaning of symbolic formulae-meaning
or that trace the meaning-genesis of formal analytics from the
immediate intuitions of individual objects. Consequently,
Husserl’s conviction that it is possible to provide such analyses remains without a demonstrable phenomenological foundation. In what follows, I shall argue with the help of Jacob
Klein’s work that the peculiar character of the abstraction
that yields the symbolic formulae that underlie formalization
precludes, in principle, the cashing in of its meaning formations in the intuition of individuals. More precisely, I shall
show that the categorial meaning formations at issue in formal ontology do not refer directly to individual objects but
only to other materially and individually empty meaning formations. I shall do so by demonstrating that the original
accomplishment of the symbolic representation of numbers
leads to an indirect understanding of numbers and ultimately
to the substitution of symbolic expressions for the ideal
numerical entities referred to by Greek arithmetic. I shall also
show that the consequence of this is that a sedimented understanding of numbers is superimposed upon the sedimented
geometrical evidences at issue in Galileo’s mathematization of
nature. Finally, I shall argue that the result of this “double”
sedimentation is the impossibility of locating in the immediate experience of the life-world a direct referent proper to
formalized categorial meaning formations.
Jacob Klein’s De-Sedimentation of Symbolic FormulaMeaning
Jacob Klein’s Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of
Algebra,4 which was published in two installments in 1934
and 1936 (on the basis of research completed in the early
1930s5 and thus before Husserl began his Crisis-texts in
1934)6 is remarkable in that it, in effect, accomplishes the
de-sedimentation of the historical genesis of the development
�58
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
of symbolic thinking in modern mathematics that remained
unclarified in Husserl’s fragmentary analyses of mathematics
in the Crisis-texts. Klein accomplishes this by reactivating
what he refers to as the process of “symbol-generating
abstraction” (GM, 129/125), a process which he contends initially makes possible the formalized meaning formations of
mathematics. Yet unlike Husserl’s attempt to reactivate the
Galilean impulse behind the development of mathematical
physics, Klein’s reactivation is based upon actual research in
the history of mathematics.
Klein’s reactivation of this development traces its basis to
an abstraction that is radically different from the ancient
aphairesis (abstraction). Klein shows how the meaning formation that results from symbol-generating abstraction does
not refer to the direct perception of the quantity or magnitude of things. Rather, the term symbolum, which originated
with Vieta, was used both for the letter signs and the connective signs that referred neither to determinate numbers nor to
the arithmetical operations performed upon them, but to
indeterminate numbers and the general rules that govern the
algebraic art of calculation. Klein reactivates the meaning that
became sedimented in Vieta’s “universal extension [universale Erweiterung]” (179/172) of the ancient concept of the
eidos (species) of an arithmos (counting number), an extension “through which the species become the objects of a ‘general’ mathematical discipline which can be identified neither
with geometry nor with arithmetic.”
Regarding the transformation of the ancient concept of
number, the first part of Klein’s study definitively establishes
that Greek mathematics shared a common understanding of
arithmos as a “determinate amount of determinate things”
(53/46). Greek arithmetic sought to establish the truth of its
object, first as it shows up in counting, then as a determinate
amount of pure units (monads), and finally with respect to its
mode of being. Notwithstanding the ancient debate over the
ontological dependence (Aristotle) or independence (Plato)
HOPKINS
59
of the latter, the “theoretical” concept of number, as an ideal
being comprised of a determinate amount of “pure” units
that are indivisible, remained constant for the ancients. With
Vieta’s innovation of calculating with species represented by
letter signs, however, the direct relation of “number” to a
determinate amount of determinate things or units is lost. As
Klein puts it:
While every arithmos intends immediately the
things or the units themselves whose number it
happens to be, his letter sign intends directly the
general character of being a number which belongs
to every possible number, that is to say, it intends
“number in general” immediately, but the things
or units which are at hand in each case only mediately. (182/174)
Klein appeals to the mediaeval distinction between first
and second intentions (intentio prima and intentio secunda)
to characterize the letter sign as designating a “second intention,” that is, as designating “a concept which itself directly
intends another concept and not a being,” i.e., not a thing or
unit. In addition, the independence accorded the general
character of number (or “general number”) signified by the
letter sign insofar as it is now the object of Vieta’s calculational operations, “thus transforms the object of the intentio
secunda, namely the ‘general number’ intended by the letter
sign, into the object of an intentio prima, of a ‘first intention’,
namely of a ‘being’ which is directly apprehended and whose
counterpart in the realm of ordinary calculation is, for
instance, ‘two monads’, ‘three monads’.” The consequence of
this is that the “being” of the species “is to be understood neither as independent in the Pythagorean and Platonic sense
nor as attained ‘by abstraction’. . . in the Aristotelian sense,
but as symbolic. The species are in themselves symbolic for-
�60
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
mations—namely formations whose possible objectivity is
understood as an actual objectivity” (183/175).
As a result of this shift in the intentionality of the concept
of number, what was originally a “concept” for the ancients,
namely the eidos, species, is now treated as an “object.” It is
impossible, however, “to see amounts of things or units in the
isolated letter signs ‘A’ or ‘B’” (183/176) used by Vieta to represent this “object.” Hence, their “numerical character” is
only “comprehensible within the language of symbolic formalism” (183/175). According to Klein, Vieta derived the
rules of this formalism from “‘calculations’ with amounts
[Anzahlen] of monads.” Thus it is only through the application of these rules to the letter signs or symbols, that they
acquire a numerical character. Indeed, “[t]hese rules therefore represent the first modern axiom system; they create the
systematic context which originally ‘defines’ the object to
which they apply.” However, because letter signs do not signify amounts of things or monads but rather the “concept” of
“number in general,” Klein observes that they can retain a
numerical character “only because the ancient ‘amounts’
(Anzahlen) of monads are themselves [eventually] interpreted
as ‘modern numbers’ (Zahlen), which means that they are
conceived from the point of view of their symbolic representation” (184/176).
For Klein, Descartes was the first—and perhaps the
only—thinker to attempt to render intelligible the new mode
of abstraction at issue in the symbolic “mode of being” of the
modern concept of number. In addition, Descartes extended
the methodical scope of the general analytic of algebra. In
Vieta’s hands, algebra was thought of as an auxiliary discipline, in the sense that he still understood it as the method for
finding the solutions to traditional arithmetical and geometrical problems. By contrast, Descartes identified the methodically “general” object of the algebraically conceived mathesis
universalis, “number in general,” “which can be represented
and conceived only symbolically—with the ‘substance’ of the
HOPKINS
61
world, with corporeality as ‘extensio’” (207/197). This identification amounts, of course, to Descartes’s symbolic interpretation of Euclidean geometry, an interpretation that for
Klein involves “a ‘sedimented’ understanding of numbers. . .
[being] superposed upon the first stratum of ‘sedimented’
geometrical ‘evidences’”7 at issue in Galileo’s direct and indirect mathematization of nature. As a consequence of this,
“the ‘general analytic’ takes over the role of the ancient fundamental ontological discipline” (GM, 175/169). With this,
“an effort is made to let it supersede the traditional logic
completely,” an effort that for Klein gave rise to the battle
between the ancients and moderns in the seventeenth century, a battle that “is still being waged today, now under the
guise of the conflict between ‘formal logic’ and ‘mathematical
logic’ or ‘logistic’, although its ontological presuppositions
have been completely obscured.”
All of this can be seen more clearly on the basis of Klein’s
analysis of Descartes’s thinking in the Regulae. In that work,
Descartes attempted to come to terms with the mode of being
of the “pure” concepts presupposed by the “formal” meaning
proper to the symbolic concepts of the new algebraic quantities. Descartes speaks there of “‘abstract beings’ (entia
abstracta)” (210/200) that are the products of the “‘pure
intellect’ (intellectus purus),” which the mind apprehends
“when it thinks” and “in a way turns itself toward itself.” In
order to be true, these abstract beings “must be altogether
divorced from the imagination” (209/199). Thus for
Descartes “‘extension is not body’” (208/198), “‘number is
not the thing enumerated,’” and “‘a unit is not a quantity’”
(209/199). The mind’s attempt to represent the pure concepts
extension, number, or unit by means of the imagination
“‘would necessarily arrive at contradictions,’” because “‘in
the imagination the “idea” of extension cannot be separated
from the “idea” of body, nor the “idea” of number from the
“idea” of the thing enumerated, nor the “idea” of unity from
the “idea” of quantity.’” However, when the “pure” intellect,
�62
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
for instance, separates “from a multitude of units ‘represented’ in the imagination (a number of units, that is), their ‘multitudinousness’ as such, i.e., the ‘mere multitude’. . . the ‘pure’
indeterminate manyness to which simply nothing ‘true’, nothing truly in ‘being’, and hence no ‘true idea’ of a being corresponds, it must employ the imagination in order to be at all
able to get hold of the thing separated.” Thus for Descartes
the imagination, which allows the mind to envisage, for
instance, “‘five units’, here enters into the service of a faculty
not ‘perceptually clear’, namely the ‘pure intellect’, which,
being bare of any reference to the world, comprehends ‘fiveness’ as ‘something separated’ from ‘five’ counted points or
other arbitrary objects—as mere ‘multiplicity in general’, as
‘pure’ multiplicity” (211/201–2). Hence, according to Klein
for Descartes “the imaginative power makes possible a symbolic representation of the indeterminate content which has
been ‘separated’ by the ‘pure intellect’” (211/202). Klein calls
the “abstraction” at issue here a “‘symbol-generating abstraction.’” On his view “[i]t alone gives rise to the possibility of
contrasting ‘intuition’ [Anschauung] and ‘conception’, and of
positing ‘intuition’ as a separate source of cognition alongside
of reason.” This is the case because for Descartes neither the
“pure” intellect nor its symbolically represented “pure” ideas
have any “relation at all to the being of world and the things
in the world.” And because the ontological issue here is not
so much the “incorporeality” of the “pure” intellect and its
ideas but their separation from the corporeal, it is a philosophical legacy of Descartes and the formalization of the
modern concept generally that “intuition” comes to fulfil the
function of “re-establishing” an ontological connection
between cognition and the world.
The result of all of this for Klein is Descartes’s view that
the intellect, when directed to the “idea” of number as a
“multitude of units” presented by the imagination, turns to its
“own knowing” (221/208) and no longer sees it directly in
“the ‘performed act’ (actus exercitus). . . but ‘indirectly’,
HOPKINS
63
‘secondarily’ (secundario), or in terms of another scholastic
expression, in the ‘signified act’ (actus signatus). . . . Its immediate ‘object’ is now its own conceiving of that ‘multitude of
units’, that is, the ‘concept’ (conceptus) of the number as
such; nevertheless this multitude itself appears as a ‘something’, namely as one and therefore as an ‘ens’, a ‘being’.”
And when this “ens rationis as a ‘second intention’ is grasped
with the aid of the imagination in such a way that the intellect can, in turn, take it up as an object in the mode of a ‘first
intention,’ we are dealing with a symbol, either with an
‘algebraic’ letter sign or with a ‘geometric’ figure as understood by Descartes.”
If we substitute Husserl’s terminology of intentionality
for the mediaeval terminology employed by Klein, we can
readily understand the symbolic meaning formation yielded
by symbol-generating abstraction as an “empty intention.”
However, it is “empty” in a sense that Husserl did not appear
fully to appreciate, and could not because his programmatically announced project in the Crisis-texts has as one of its
goals the intuitive “cashing in” of the formalized intentional
meaning formations of symbolic formulae.8 But this is precisely what Klein’s de-sedimentation of the symbol-generating abstraction that produces such meaning formations shows
is impossible in principle. It is impossible for the simple
reason that what such empty meaning intentions intend is a
concept or category (presented in a “secondary” or “categorial” intention), which is apprehended by means of a first or
straightforward intention and which therefore presents a
“formalized” meaning formation that does not directly refer
to or intend the kind of individual entities that can be
presented or fulfilled in “intuition.” Put differently, Husserl’s
“felt” need to “de-formalize” the empty intention characteristic of the mathematical formula in the intuition of individual objects in the pre-scientific life-world—in order to provide a foundation that would render such meaning formations intelligible—is itself symptomatic of the lack of direct
�64
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
reference to these objects, a lack that makes symbolic meaning formations possible in the first place. He, of course, recognized that a progressive “emptying of meaning” was inseparable from the initial constitution of symbolic meaning formations. In other words, when the standard of meaning is
conceived as the immediate intuitive contact with the things
of the world, the formalized meaning formations that make
modern science possible cannot but be experienced as
“empty” of meaning. But this conclusion only follows if the
intuitive contact with the individual things of the world is
established as the sole criterion for providing a foundation
for meaning. However, this is precisely what Husserl fails to
establish but instead simply assumes. He assumes this as a
consequence of what he supposes is the “inner intentional
unity” of the history of philosophy and, therefore, the unity
of the intention proper to the First Philosophy of the ancients
and his transcendental phenomenology. Klein’s de-sedimentation of the historical accomplishment of the symbol-generating abstraction demonstrates that this standard for meaning
cannot be established for all meaning formations and therefore demonstrates that the relationship between ancient First
Philosophy and modern metaphysics is characterized by a historical discontinuity. In Husserl’s terms, what Klein shows is
that the intentional referent proper to the “empty intention”
of formalized meaning formations is essentially different
from that of the “empty intention” proper to general meaning formations. Thus, whereas the latter—for instance, the
categorial meaning of a house that is presented to consciousness in the absence of the perception of a house—lends itself
to the direct intuitive fulfillment of its meaning when a house
is “given” in perception, the “empty intention” of the formal
meaning of y = mx + b does not lend itself to a direct intuitive fulfillment of its meaning.9 The consequence of this,
then, is not the unintelligibility per se of the formal meaning
intention of the formula, but rather its relative “unintelligibility” in comparison to the “foundedness” of the general
HOPKINS
65
(i.e., the traditional categorial meaning formation or eidos)
meaning formation in the intuition of the individual things in
life-world.
Postscript: Symbol-Generating Abstraction and the Universal
Formalization of Meaning
The universal formalization of algebraic thinking that began
with Leibniz’s concept of a mathesis universalis, which severs
Descartes’s identification of the formalized meaning formations yielded by symbol-generating abstraction with extension, eliminates once and for all the possibility of establishing
even an indirect relation between such meaning formations
and the pre-given scientific life-world. Whatever else this universalization of formal analysis accomplishes, it is clear that it
removes the basis for any reference to the life-world by the
“empty intention” of the formal category proper to “the
something-in-general.” The consequence of this is that the
possibility of—however indirect—an intuitive “cashing in” of
the formalized meaning formations of the mathesis universalis of modernity is in principle precluded. Thus, also precluded in principle is the possibility of realizing Husserl’s
dream of grounding the formal ontology presupposed by
mathematics and formal logic in the intuition of individual
objects in the life-world.
Notes
1 Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und
die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die
phänomenologische Philosophie, ed. Walter Biemel, Husserliana 6
(The Hague: Nijhoff, (1)1954; (2)1976); The Crisis of European
Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr
(Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970). Hereinafter
cited as Crisis, with German and English page references, respec-
�66
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
tively. Quotes in series will bypass the convention of repeating the
reference to their source.
2
Originally published in a heavily edited form by Eugen Fink as
“Die Frage nach dem Ursprung der Geometrie als intentional-historisches Problem,” Revue internationale de Philosophie 1 (1939),
203–25; Fink’s typescript of Husserl’s original, and significantly
different, 1936 text (which is the text translated by Carr) was published as Beilage 3 in Biemel’s edition of Hua 6; “The Origin of
Geometry,” appears in The Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology, 353-83. Hereinafter cited as “OG”
according to the convention for serial quotes stated in n. 1, above.
3 Edmund
Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans. Dorian
Cairns (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969), 190; German text: Formale
und transzendentale Logik, ed. Paul Janssen, Husserliana 17 [The
Hague: Nijhoff, 1974], 67; hereinafter cited as FTL with original
page reference, which is included in the margins of both the
German and the English additions cited.
4
Jacob Klein, “Die griechische Logistik und die Entstehung der
Algebra” in Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik,
Astronomie und Physik, Abteilung B: Studien, vol. 3, no. 1 (Berlin,
1934), 18–105 (Part 1); no. 2 (1936), 122–235 (Part 2); Greek
Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, trans. Eva Brann
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969; reprint: New York: Dover,
1992). Hereinafter cited as GM, with German and English page references respectively, following the convention for serial references
stated in n. 1, above.
5
Klein’s wife, Dodo Klein (who was Gerhart Husserl’s ex-wife),
reports that it was “probably 1932, 1933” when he wrote this text.
The quote is from p. 14 of a typed transcript of a tape recording of
memories of her second husband. The transcript (the tape recording is apparently lost) is among Klein’s papers housed in St. John’s
College Library, Annapolis, Maryland.
6 Husserl’s
work on the Crisis was begun in 1934, whereas his work
on the origin of geometry dates from 1936 (see Die Krisis der
europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie,
ed. Reinhold N. Smid, Husserliana 19 [Doredrecht: Kluwer,
HOPKINS
67
1993)], editor’s introduction, xi and lvi). The former was first published in 1936 and the latter, posthumously in 1939 in the version
edited by Fink.
7
Jacob Klein, “Phenomenology and the History of Science,” in
Marvin Farber, ed., Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund
Husserl, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940),
143–63; reprinted in Jacob Klein, Lectures and Essays, ed. Robert
B. Williamson and Elliott Zuckerman (Annapolis, MD: St. John’s
Press, 1985); the quote is from p. 84 of the latter.
8
This goal is consistent with Husserl’s articulation of the possibility of a formal judgment in FTL. Regarding the “ideal ‘existence’
[Existenz] of the judgment-content” (193) that is at issue in formal
judgments, he writes: “we are referred to the syntactical cores,
which seem to be functionless from the formal point of view. That
would imply, then, that the possibility of properly effectuating the
possibility of a judgment (as a meaning) is rooted not only in the
syntactical forms but also in the syntactical stuffs. This fact is easily
overlooked by the formal logician, with his interest directed onesidedly to the syntactical—the manifold forms of which are all that
enters into logical theory—and with his algebraizing of the cores as
theoretical irrelevancies, as empty somethings that need only be
kept identical” (194). Thus for Husserl: “Prior to all judging, there
is a universal experiential basis. It is always presupposed as a harmonious unity of possible experience.” And this means that “in
respect of its content, every original judging and every judging that
proceeds coherently, has coherence by virtue of the coherence of
the matters in the synthetic unity of the experience, which is the
basis on which the judging stands.” However, it is just this experiential basis that Klein’s analysis of the shift and transposition of the
levels of intentionality at issue in the symbol-generating abstraction
shows is no longer a factor in the “intentional genesis” of the formal judgments that are at issue in algebraic calculations.
9
Husserl, of course, recognizes that “formalization is something
essentially different from variation. It does not consist in imagining
that the determinations of the variants are changed into others;
rather, it is a disregarding, an emptying of all objective, material
determinations” (Erfahrung und Urteil [Hamburg: Meiner, 1985],
435; Experience and Judgment, trans. James S. Churchill and Karl
Ameriks [Evanston, IL: Northwestern, 1973], 359). However, it is
�68
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
precisely the lack of relevance of the variation of an intuitively
apprehended individual variant (presented in the straightforward
intention proper either to the perception or imagination that yields
the individual exemplar that is the basis of variation) that is at issue
in formalization, which eliminates the possibility of tracing the
intentional genesis of the formal meaning (yielded by the formalizing abstraction proper to the symbol-generating abstraction) to an
intentional activity directed to the experience of the life-world’s
objects. Thus, in the case of the “empty intention” of a house, the
possibility of its general categorial meaning refers to an intentional
genesis in the intelligible structures of a straightforwardly intended
house. In the case of the “empty intention” of an algebraic formula, however, its formal categorial meaning refers to an intentional
genesis in a straightforwardly intended category—in other words,
the intentional referent of its “empty intention” is not the “synthetic unity” yielded by the “harmonious unity of possible experience.” “De-formalizing” the “empty intention” of a formal meaning
formation, then, does not lead to the possible experience of
straightforwardly intended objects in the life-world, but to ideal
meanings, meanings that of necessity have only an indirect relation
to this world. Insofar as the latter must already have been mathematized in order for the ideal meanings in question to achieve a
“worldly” status, the referent proper to the “empty intention” characteristic of formal meaning formations is in principle precluded
from straightforwardly intending the pre-scientific (pre-mathematical) objects of the natural life-world.
69
Opening Questions
Ronald Mawby
Introduction
One of the delights of language is that a single string of symbols can entwine so many meanings. So it is with my title,
“Opening Questions,” which unravels five ways. This essay is
first a reflective exploration of questions, so I will be opening
questions to our examination. We look briefly at what questions are, how they arise, what they presuppose, and the like.
Second, questions often occur in speech or thought as opening moves. When we think in the sense of engaging our minds
to find out what is true, we begin and direct our inquiry with
questions. Thus every episode of thought opens with a question. Third, questions appear as openings or gaps in the fabric of knowledge. The relation of enclosure between the area
of ignorance and the area of knowledge—which encloses
which—divides, I shall argue, the taxonomy of questions at
its root. Fourth, we call a question open when its answer is
not yet settled, so opening questions means posing but not
answering them. The adage says, “a fool can ask more questions in a hour than a sage can answer in a week.” Here I play
the part of the fool. The final thread ties these reflections to
our point of departure, which is the rich and important question that opens Plato’s Meno.
Rationale
Before going further, I will say why I consider this undertaking to be worthwhile. Aristotle begins his Metaphysics with
the statement that all humans by nature desire to know. A
desire to know is expressed by a question, so Aristotle
Ronald Mawby teaches in the Honors Program at Kentucky State University.
�70
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
appears to be saying that we are by nature questioners. If so,
exploring questions is one way to obey the Delphic injunction, Know Thyself.
Aristotle goes on to say that in the Metaphysics he is seeking knowledge of the highest kind, which he calls wisdom. He
thus intimates that seeking or desiring or loving wisdom, that
is, philosophy, is inherent in human being. I am told the
Greek usually translated as “desire to know” may be rendered
as “stretched out toward knowledge,” and “stretched out”
indicates a certain tension that may be uncomfortable. A
teacher of mine thought Aristotle was wrong, that human
beings by nature desire to feel comfortable, and implied that
the tension inherent in the desire to know is something we
seek to avoid. Oscar Wilde famously remarked that one way
to avoid temptation is to give in to it. Likewise we can avoid
unfulfilled desire by fulfilling it; we eliminate the tension of
desiring to know by actually coming to know. This, I take it,
is what Hegel thought himself to have done. He finished philosophy as the quest for wisdom by actually attaining wisdom, or rational knowledge of the whole.
Others tell us that the quest for wisdom should be finished by being abandoned. Recent positivists, for instance, say
philosophy is pointless because its questions are meaningless.
They depict the speculative philosopher as a failed Houdini
who entangles himself in verbal confusions from which he is
unable to escape. On this view philosophical problems are
pseudo-problems, calling not for solution but dissolution.
Kant, though his sensitivities differ, is often taken by the positivists as a precursor. His critique of human reason purports
to establish the necessary conditions for knowledge, and to
show that our reason is unsuitable for certain of its traditional speculative employments. Both Kant and the positivists
suggest that we sublimate the desire for wisdom by turning it
into channels where knowledge is possible, such as mathematics or natural science. Still others say philosophy is futile
because philosophical issues support no genuine epistemic
MAWBY
71
distinction between knowledge and opinion. In philosophy,
they say, the distinction between truth and falsehood resembles Hobbes’s distinction between religion and superstition:
both are “fear of powers invisible,” religion “from tales publicly allowed,” superstition from tales “not allowed”(Hobbes,
56). What the community allows is truth, what it does not
allow is falsehood; the community may be either a proper
political entity or an academic group. This has been a position of rhetoricians from the ancient Sophists to the present
day.
All the foregoing, from the Sophists to Hegel, share this
opinion: the quest for wisdom is temporary. Philosophy lasts
only until we either get wisdom or give up wanting it. But
philosophy as a way of life takes the desire for wisdom as permanent. If Socrates may be said to have a position, this might
be it. Socratic wisdom is the same as Socratic ignorance; the
height of human wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.
Inquiry into which life is best reveals that very life of inquiry
to be best. But perhaps the only result of a life devoted to philosophy, the only result defensible in speech, is some coherent understanding of fundamental questions. If our most concentrated and orderly stretch toward wisdom results only in
the awareness of questions, then, at least for those of us
drawn to philosophy, it is worthwhile to ask about questions
themselves.
Meno’s Opening Question
In the dialogue that bears his name, Meno asks two large
questions, one to start the conversation, the other in an
attempt to stop it. Meno opens the dialogue by saying:
Can you tell me, Socrates, whether excellence can
be taught? Or is it not teachable but the result of
practice, or is it neither of these, but men possess
it by nature or in some other way?(70)
�72
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
What can we say about this question? First we can say
that it is important. We all have a stake in bringing about
human excellence. As parents, teachers, citizens, members of
the human community, as people trying to shape for ourselves
good and satisfying lives, the answer to Meno’s question is
important for us. How does one attain excellence? The question surely seems natural, the kind of question that might
arise for anyone who reflects on what he or she is doing. The
question is old, but fresh. It is a question that won’t go away.
Second, we can say that the answer is not obvious. Is
excellence teachable? Perhaps, but is it teachable in the way
that mathematics is teachable? Perhaps not. Do we attain
excellence by practice, as we acquire a skill or habit “by
doing”? This is plausible, though not self-evident. Does excellence arise from nature? Is it inherent in us, or at least in
those of us who have good natures? It seems reasonable that
nature at the least could help or hinder in the pursuit of
excellence. Are there other ways in which excellence could
arise? Perhaps from the grace of God? Perhaps in some way
that we cannot even name? Although Meno’s is a natural
question to ask, it is not an easy one to answer.
Third, we see very quickly that the question conceals
another question, namely, what is human excellence? If excellence is a kind of articulable knowledge, then it may be teachable. If excellence is a practical skill, then it may arise through
practice. If excellence depends on an innate capacity or disposition or insight, then it may arise from nature. If excellence is a free gift of the gods, then it comes to be neither by
teaching nor practice nor nature but in some other way. And
there is a further question, namely, is there such a thing as
human excellence? This question has both a formal and an
existential sense. Is there a single non-disjunctive characterization of human excellence, and if there is, has it or can it be
realized? We may know what we mean by excellence in mathematics, or athletics, or music, and we may be confident that
there are excellent mathematicians and athletes and musi-
MAWBY
73
cians. But do we know in like fashion what it means to be an
excellent human being, and are we fully confident that excellent human beings do or can exist?
Meno's opening question is thus important, difficult, and
it exfoliates other questions. Let us explore it, for it is a question that bears examination.
Meno begins “Can you tell me, Socrates. . . . ” What is
Meno seeking? Does he seek the source of excellence, or to
discover if Socrates knows that source? The form of words
does not tell us. Interpreted strictly the question asks about
Socrates’ abilities, and invites the response, “Yes I can tell
you” or “No I cannot.” But the question may be intended
otherwise. When I say “Can you pass the salt?” I am not really asking about your abilities. I am making a polite request for
the salt. “Can you tell me” in this sense means “Will you tell
me” and that means “Tell me, please.” Meno, rather than
demanding a response, may be asking for one.
Is Meno’s question sincere, that is, does he genuinely
want the answer? If Meno’s question is really about excellence I see no reason to doubt that it is sincere. A sincere
question expresses a desire to have in mind the requested
information. One asks in order that one may come to know.
A sincere question expresses a desire for knowledge. In the
soul a question is a cognitive desire. If we use eros as the general name for desire, questioning is an erotic act.
If Meno’s question is about what Socrates knows, it may
be sincere, or it may be put to embarrass Socrates. Meno says
“Can you tell me, Socrates. . . . ” I think we should hear this
phrase in three ways, by emphasizing in turn “you,” “tell,”
and “me.” “Can you tell me, Socrates” sounds like a challenge. We sense in the background something like this:
“Gorgias could tell me, Socrates; I could tell you; anyone
who undertakes public speaking or instruction should be able
to tell; you think you’re so smart, can you tell me?” This puts
a challenge, or at least sets a task.
�74
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
If we retain the emphasize on the word “you” but omit
the challenge, we get a question whose focus can be put this
way: “I am looking for someone who can tell me about excellence; are you that someone, Socrates?” This is an important
question for the interpretation of this dialogue, indeed for
most Platonic dialogues: just what does Socrates know? What
can he tell us? And if we generalize this part of the question,
so that it reads, “Can anyone tell me. . . ” we hear a question
addressed to us all, which may be taken as a question about
our cognitive capacities.
Next, change the emphasis and say, “Can you tell me,
Socrates.” Now the focus suggests this background:
“Socrates, there might be a number of different ways to convey to me the requested information; is telling among the
ways?” This emphasis makes us aware that telling through the
content of explicit speech is not the only way to convey an
answer. Showing by pointing, or by enacting, or through the
action of speech rather than its content, are alternatives. The
dialogue shows the importance of these alternatives. In the
slave boy section, where the question is: given a square, what
line will produce a square with twice the area?, the importance of pointing rather than telling is made manifest. For the
line sought is the diagonal of the given square, and the side
and diagonal of a square are incommensurable. Thus if we
call the length of the side one unit, there is no finite specification of the length of the diagonal in terms of the unit. The
requested length is irrational, unsayable. We could of course
call it the square root of two, but in context that is just a way
of saying “the line whose square is double the given square,”
and repeating the question is not telling the answer. The
answer can be given, but not directly in speech—we can point
to the diagonal. The intrusion of the irrational raises the issue
of whether human speech and reason are adequate to answer
questions of human excellence. I also merely mention the
suggestion that Socrates answers Meno’s question not in
word but in deed. Human excellence might come to be pre-
MAWBY
75
cisely in the quest for knowledge of human excellence, and
Socrates, by showing Meno how to inquire, displays both the
route to acquisition and the possession of excellence.
Thirdly, we can emphasize Meno’s words in a way that I
doubt Meno would approve: “Can you tell me, Socrates.”
The background now is this: “Socrates, I suppose you can
convey the answer to some people, but perhaps not to everyone; perhaps there are conditions for being told that not
everyone can meet; can I, Meno, meet those conditions, so
that you can tell me?” This raises the issue of what you must
have already in order to get what you ask for. Perhaps only
the sincere seeker can receive the answer. Perhaps only those
who already in some sense have the answer within themselves
can receive it. Perhaps we can pose questions that have
answers, but answers that we cannot grasp. These alternatives
too have importance in the dialogue. It is natural to ask, who
is Meno? Scholarship identifies a historical Meno who was
greedy, cunning, and unscrupulous. We recall Aristotle’s
statement that only a person with a good upbringing and disposition can benefit from ethical discourse. Perhaps Meno is
too vicious to be told about virtue.1 Later in the dialogue
Socrates angers Anytus by suggesting that he and his peers
lack the excellence of an older generation. Generational
decay may occur either because virtue is not teachable or
because Anytus and his peers are not teachable. Perhaps the
condition for hearing the truth is not directly moral but intellectual, if indeed we can make this distinction. Perhaps Meno
is too obtuse to be told—too shallow or too stubborn or perhaps too little aware to see that the answer to his question is
not conveyed by telling. Perhaps Socrates cannot tell Meno
the answer. Whether Socrates can tell us is a question we
must ask ourselves.
How does Socrates take Meno’s question? In part as a
challenge, in part as a sincere question. Meno may want to
test Socrates, but he gives Socrates an opportunity for real
inquiry. Socrates’ reply is certainly not a direct answer;
�76
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
rather, his reply corrects two false assumptions of the question. First, in a conversation a questioner, by the very act of
posing a question, seems to assume that the one to whom the
question is put knows its answer. Socrates denies this assumption when he denies that he knows. Second, in an inquiry the
questions should be put in rational sequence; thus by putting
this question first Meno appears to assume that it is properly
the first question. Socrates denies this assumption when he
says that he does not know what excellence is, and that no
one can tell how excellence arises without knowing what it is.
To Meno’s opening thrust Socrates makes a judo-like
response, saying in effect that Meno has put the wrong question to the wrong person. Socrates admits his ignorance of
the source and nature of excellence. When he adds that he
never met anyone who knew what excellence is, he turns the
tables on Meno, who is now challenged to tell Socrates something. Socrates has inverted their roles, and called Meno’s
assumptions into question.
Meno then tries to tell Socrates what excellence is. He
describes the excellence of a man, and a woman, and says
there are excellences for young and old, slave and free. Since
there are very many excellences, Meno is not at a loss to say
what excellence is. But of course this swarm of excellences is
not what Socrates seeks. Socrates wants the one “look” that
makes them all excellence. Meno has failed to understand
what counts as an answer. We are invited to wonder whether
Socrates’ question has an answer of the kind that he seeks;
perhaps Socrates is asking the wrong question.
Meno denies that there is a single excellence for all until
Socrates leads him to admit that all excellence involves moderation and justice. Meno agrees, saying that justice is excellence. Is justice excellence, Socrates asks, or is justice an
excellence? To get Meno to understand the question Socrates
uses the examples of shape and color. Roundness is a shape,
but not shape, for there are other shapes, and white is a color,
but not color, for there are other colors. Likewise justice is an
MAWBY
77
excellence, but not excellence, for there are other excellences.
Meno then, to better understand what Socrates is looking for,
asks for a definition of shape. Socrates gives him two: shape
is the only thing that always follows color, and shape is the
limit of solid. Meno objects that the first is useless to one who
doesn’t know what color is. Socrates agrees that in a friendly
conversation one must define with terms understood by both
parties. Later Meno asks Socrates to define color, which
Socrates does after the manner of Gorgias, saying color is an
effluvium from shapes which fits the sight and is perceived.
Do the examples of shape and color tell us something special? In reading Plato the safest assumption is that nothing is
accidental, so the choice of shape and color is likely to be significant. What might it mean? Well, one candidate for excellence is that it consists in, or is correlative with, knowledge.
If we take that seriously, we get the following proportional
analogy: as shape is what always follows color, so excellence
is what always follows knowledge. Shape stands for excellence, color for knowledge. Since shape limits the solid, we
may think that the solid stands for the soul. The soul is then
likened to a finite three-dimensional object. As such it has a
shape, and that shape is disclosed to us in self-knowledge.
Excellence, if there be such a thing, is the proper shape of
soul. The pursuit of excellence involves us with shapes.
Geometry is the science of shapes.
If the soul is a solid, it is bounded by a surface. Whatever
depths of soul we have, the inner shines forth in what appears
to others and to ourselves as we reflect. We disclose ourselves
in speech and deed, so properties of the surface should correspond to speech and deed. A surface is both visible and tangible; we yoke visibility to speech and tangibility to deed. The
tangible is perceptible by touch, and touch can operate without sight, though often sight guides touch.
We touch things usually to change them, to alter the way
things are. We look to see, to discover the way things are.
Looking eventuates in belief, touching arises from desire.2
�78
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Explicit belief and desire depend on ideas, not Platonic
Forms but Platonic images, in which content is distinct from
reality, the what-it-is divorced from the that-it-is. That the
mind can handle ideas makes belief and desire possible. Since
a question is a desire for a true belief, that the mind can handle ideas makes questions possible. No eros or no ideas means
no questions. Meno is soon to present a paradox the nerve of
which is that questions are nonsensical. One implication is
that when he puts the paradox, Meno lacks eros or ideas or
both.
Meno says that Socrates resembles a torpedo fish in both
his look and his touch; Socrates is one in speech and deed. To
grapple with Socrates, as Meno has done, is to be numbed
with perplexity. To be numbed is to be unable to speak and
act because one can feel nothing. Perplexity is to feel nothing.
When we are perplexed, the surface of the soul, the visible
and tangible limit that defines what we are, is felt to be rent
or torn. A gap is opened in the smooth fabric of our speech
and deed. To feel that emptiness is to be perplexed. Perplexity
ruptures us, it opens us, and the articulation of that opening
is a question. The desire for wholeness is the desire for closure, and that is the desire that spurs us to try to answer questions.
Meno’s Paradox and the Myth of Recollection
After Meno admits he is numb, he proposes his paradox, the
large question he puts to Socrates to stop the conversation.
When Socrates wants to seek together after excellence, Meno
says
How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do
not know at all what it is? How will you aim to
search for something you do not know at all? If
you should meet with it, how will you know that
this is the thing that you did not know? (80d)
MAWBY
79
The conclusion of the paradox is that inquiry is pointless. The
argument is formally a dilemma. We either know or don’t
know. If we do know, inquiry is pointless, for we are seeking
what we already have. If we don’t know, inquiry is pointless,
for without knowing what we are looking for we can neither
direct our search nor tell when we have succeeded.
Socrates resolves the paradox by denying that we either
know or don’t know. We inquire when we both know and
don’t know. We possess knowledge but do not have it at
hand. It is in our souls but not immediately accessible. This,
by itself, is not enough to answer the paradox, for we need
some way to direct the search for what we don’t know and
some way to tell when the search is successful. We need a way
for our present ignorance to lead to the absent knowledge.
The myth of recollection—duly elaborated—presents us with
an image of how this is possible.
The myth supposes that the soul, the organ of knowledge,
is an original whole, a single totality, for all nature is akin.
The complete whole comprises all knowledge. The whole is
now broken and fragmentary; the fragments remain in the
depths of the soul, but the surface of the soul has gaps or
holes where pieces are missing. Gaps in our knowledge keep
us from what we want to do or see. Most of these openings
are entirely surrounded by the firm surface. What we can’t do
lies within the horizon of what we can do, and what we don’t
know is framed by what we do know. Absence of knowledge
is bounded by knowledge. Ignorance thus appears like gaps in
a jigsaw puzzle. The enclosed emptiness has a specific shape.
This shape partially defines a content that can be held in mind
and used to direct the search for the missing piece. The hole
is not simply nothing. Although it is a hole because it is not
there, it is just the hole it is because where it fails to be is just
there. To articulate its shape is to formulate a question, to say
precisely what gap in knowledge one aims to fill. When we
see what is not there we both know and don’t know.
Ignorance is emptiness, shadow, a hole in the light. The desire
�80
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
for full insight is the erotic impulse that moves us to inquire.
As an emptiness with a boundary shape, the hole enables us
to search for what will fill it. Like Cinderella’s prince, when
we have the empty shoe we can seek the foot that fits it.
If the shape of a hole is to direct its own filling there must
be a prior totality in which the hole is set. A gap in the fabric
of knowledge implies a fabric of knowledge; to see a shadow
one needs light. If we were in total darkness where all is shadow or in unbounded space where all is empty, then Meno
would be correct that inquiry is pointless. Questions are
boundary phenomena. They arise from the edges of belief,
and if there were no beliefs there would be no edges. Inquiry
arises in situations where knowledge bounds ignorance,
where what we know shapes what we don’t know so that we
can know what we don’t know.
Socrates tells Meno that the immortal soul has learned all
things. All knowledge has been collected together, and needs
only to be re-collected. The jigsaw puzzle was once assembled, and all the pieces are present, floating in the depths of
the soul. If one is brave and tireless one can assemble it again.
Or, at the least, Socrates says, we will be better, braver and
less helpless if we believe this than if we believe that inquiry
is pointless.
The completed puzzle will form the surface of the soul
and thus fix the boundary shape or definition of human excellence. Later in the dialogue Socrates introduces the distinction between right opinion and knowledge. In our image
right opinion would have the right pieces in the right places,
but they would be liable to fall out again. The numbing touch
of Socrates, for example, would be liable to shatter to pieces
a whole that is not firmly tied together. Knowledge surpasses
right opinion in part because it cements the pieces into a
cohesive whole. In our picture human excellence is knowledge, but not knowledge only of human excellence. It is all
knowledge, complete knowledge, or knowledge of the whole.
The whole soul is the excellent soul, and the whole soul is
MAWBY
81
composed of knowledge of the whole. The excellent soul is
an image of the cosmos, so in the myth ultimately self-knowledge converges with metaphysical knowledge.3 Wisdom as a
moral virtue and wisdom as metaphysical understanding are
thus related. The questions regarding human excellence and
metaphysics are alike. Asking what it means to be human
resembles asking what it means to be.
Questions of Mathematics and Human Excellence
Socrates gives the myth and shows the slave boy’s recollection
of geometrical truth to overcome Meno’s reluctance to
inquire. Socrates’ argument is by analogy, and goes like this.
The slave boy was ignorant of the solution to the geometrical
problem, and once he became aware of his ignorance through
the numbing touch of Socrates, he grew eager to overcome
that ignorance, and succeeded in drawing the solution out of
himself. Likewise, Meno has been shown to be ignorant of
the nature of excellence by the numbing touch of Socrates,
and if Meno too becomes eager to overcome that ignorance
he too may succeed in drawing the solution out of himself.
My question is, should we accept the analogy?
The analogy is problematic on two counts. First, consider how the slave boy was able to succeed. Was it by teaching,
practice, nature, or in some other way? Socrates asked leading questions, and in that sense directed the boy’s inquiries as
his teacher. The boy initially beheld the solution as in a
dream, but Socrates says the solution would become fixed in
his mind by practice. The boy answered out of his own convictions; his answers, right or wrong, were his own, arising
not from learned opinion but from natural capacity. So the
boy succeeded in some other way, namely, through the combination of teaching and practice and nature. Now the teaching was performed by Socrates through questioning, and his
directing questions had this property: Socrates knew their
answers. Socrates was directing an inquiry into something of
�82
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
which the boy was ignorant, but which Socrates knew very
well. In the inquiry with Meno into excellence, however,
Socrates purports not to know the answer. It is not so clear,
then, that inquiry into the nature of excellence can be as successful as inquiry into the double square.
The second problematic feature of the analogy concerns
the properties of the respective questions. The geometrical
question is well defined. We know what counts as an answer.
We can present to ourselves in thought a series of increasing
lines and think that one of those lines is the one that is
sought. Once we see that the doubled line is too large we
eliminate an entire range of candidate answers. When we see
that the three-halves line is also too large, we eliminate
another range of candidates. We narrow our search as each
thread is picked up to knit together the hole in the fabric of
knowledge. That hole is determinate, and determinate
because wholly enclosed.
What about the general question of human excellence? Is
that question also wholly enclosed? I think not. If we ask
about the excellence of a particular station in life, such as
auto mechanic or neurosurgeon or gentleman’s personal gentleman, we get an answer insofar as the gap in our understanding is enclosed. Comprehending the station, we can say
what is needed to fulfill the station. But it is otherwise when
we ask about human excellence as such. Here we do not have
a fabric of understanding with an enclosed hole in it. We have
the entire fabric of human life held in mind, and we are looking for the place into which it fits. When we ask about particular stations we have the puzzle and are looking for the
missing piece. When we ask about human excellence as such
we have the piece and are looking for the puzzle.
Aristotle says that since the function of the eye is to see,
the excellence of the eye is to see well. We can all agree.
Aristotle goes on to say that if a human being as a whole has
a function, then human excellence is to perform that function
well. Yes, but does analysis in terms of function work the
MAWBY
83
same way when we consider parts and wholes? The proper
function of the eye is to see well. The analogous function of
the whole person would be to live well. But seeing well just
means seeing as required for living well. The parallel statement for the whole person—living as required for living
well—merely reopens the question.
Aristotle’s ethical inquiry is immensely intelligent, and is
usually kept from being radical by its massive common sense.
Aristotle proceeds, I think, by differentiating the parts of the
soul and discussing their respective excellences, and then saying that living well happens when each part of the soul functions well. Aristotle assumes a soul functioning in a certain
way, and asks how it would look if it were excellent. He
posits an adequate soul, and seeks a great soul. It is as though
he were given a square, and sought a double square.
At times, though, Aristotle reveals his uncommon sense,
as when he presses the claims of the contemplative life. There
Aristotle suggests that the best life enjoins us to change shape
as well as size. The Meno pictures what I am pointing to when
in the slave boy sequence Socrates puts three equal squares
together and asks the boy if they could fill in the space in the
corner. This is an intriguing question, for in one sense the
three squares already form a complete figure. There is no
space in the corner, just space outside the figure. Of course
what Socrates invites the boy to say is that the triple square
be completed with a fourth square. This is the common sense
response. Once the figure is seen as an incomplete square, we
know what piece is missing. If coming to know what constitutes a complete human life is like completing that figure with
another square, then inquiry into excellence is like geometrical inquiry. The ordinary soul and the great soul are similar
figures.
But we could also fill in the space in the corner with other
figures, equal in area but different in shape.4 How we complete the figure is not determined solely by our intent to make
the resulting figure four square in area. The question of how
�84
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
to fill in the space in the corner has a mathematical dimension, but not a unique mathematical solution. The question,
of which whole is the three-square figure a part, is not a
mathematical question. If knowing what constitutes a complete human life is like knowing how to fill in the space in the
corner, then inquiry into human excellence fails to resemble
geometrical inquiry. Inquiry into the double square and
inquiry into human excellence are not alike.
Topological Inversion of the Area of Ignorance
How did we get from questions as holes in the fabric of belief
to questions of what encompasses the totality of belief? What
works this inversion? Several paths force the same twist.
When we are trying to put different pieces together, that is,
when we are trying to integrate diverse domains of experience, we may be led to the question of what larger frame
encloses them. So the quest for a synoptic view of several
pieces of experience is one path to inversion.
Another way arises from any single question that is large
enough. When we are serious about answering such questions, we wish to put them precisely, so we must accurately
map the boundary of our ignorance. If the question is a large
one, that is, if the hole in our knowledge is extensive, then we
may not be able to see at a glance the entire boundary of the
hole. We must move around the boundary in an attempt to
encompass it. It is as though we were trying to map the
boundary of an inland lake, a lake too large to see across.
Inversion happens when we discover that the shore we trace
is not the edge of an inland lake but the boundary of an island
on which we stand. We encompass everything we know, and
see our island set in an ocean of ignorance. The known is
encompassed by the unknown, the familiar by the strange. We
experience wonder. What, we ask, is the significance of all
this? Where does it all fit?
MAWBY
85
We ask this sort of question when we are turned around
on the other side of the boundary. We ask it as outsiders.
Anytus takes Socrates’ questioning into human excellence as
an attack on Athens by one with no commitment to its ethos.
Socrates is a strange citizen, a citizen who questions like a
stranger. Metaphysical questions are likewise strange. All ultimate questions are strange. If our life consists of filling the
familiar holes with the familiar pieces, answering the routine
questions with the ordinary answers, then we need never face
such questions. Philosophy is evitable. But, as Whitehead
remarks, the refusal to think does not imply the nonexistence
of entities for thought. If we think far enough we will get to
the limits of land. What should we do when we get there?
Here is what Kant says in the first Critique:
We have now not merely explored the territory of
pure understanding, and carefully surveyed every
part of it, but have also measured its extent, and
assigned to everything in it its rightful place. This
domain is an island, enclosed by nature itself within unalterable limits. It is the land of truth—
enchanting name!—surrounded by a wide and
stormy ocean, the native home of illusion, where
many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting iceberg give the deceptive appearance of farther
shores, deluding the adventurous seafarer ever
anew with empty hopes, and engaging him in
enterprises which he can never abandon and yet is
unable to carry to completion. (257)
Kant’s answer is that we should map the extent of the isle,
then turn back and cultivate our garden. Though the very
gravity of our mind will pull us down to that ocean shore,
once there we must discipline our reason. Though mathematics and natural science are boundless, speculative thought
must restrain itself within strict limits.5
�86
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Hegel’s answer is that we live on a finite globe, part of
which is indeed submerged, but we are amphibian creatures,
both subject and substance, both knower and known. Every
line that limits understanding is temporary, for to be aware of
a boundary is already to have crossed it.6 The land is the sea’s
edge also; we find ourselves on each side of the boundary.
The whole globe is properly our home. Speculative thought
culminates in an equilibrium in which every question has its
answer.
Pascal’s answer is that we find ourselves marooned in the
midst of an infinite, empty, terrifying expanse that reason
cannot cross.7 Faith alone lets us pass over to the safety of the
mainland. Theology teaches that God’s power is unlimited,
and the gospel tells us that Jesus can walk on water, so the
Savior can perform the infinite task of bringing us to safety as
easily as he steps to shore from a boat on the sea of Galilee.
These three agree that the isle of knowledge is of fixed
size. Kant says that critical reason can determine the circumference once and for all, and teach us to stay on our own side
of the line.8 Hegel says reason operates in an Absolute that is
finite but unbounded—a sphere. Whatever encloses a finite
area also excludes a finite area. To grasp what is inside we
cross and look from the outside, and the dialectical sequence
of crossings and recrossings leads to a great circle of maximum circumference. Seeing both sides at once of that allencompassing circle is the absolute insight. Pascal says human
reason is finite but the world is infinite, a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. Knowledge of
beginnings and ends is forever beyond the scope of human
reason.
Others say that the boundary of knowledge can be pushed
back and the domain of the known enlarged. One such is
Whitehead, a twentieth-century advocate of the value of
speculative philosophy. He writes, “Speculative philosophy is
the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system
of general ideas in terms of which every element of our expe-
MAWBY
87
rience can be interpreted” (Whitehead, 3). Whitehead says
the method of speculative philosophy is imaginative generalization. We generalize the shape of present knowledge to
obtain our metaphysical categories, which “are tentative formulations of the ultimate generalities” (8). They are tentative
because, for Whitehead, “In philosophical discussion, the
merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is
an exhibition of folly” (xiv).
I am suggesting that ultimate questions, the questions of
speculative philosophy, are persistent because of their topological relations to what we know. They seek the whole
understanding in which our current limited understanding
has its proper place. Likewise ultimate ethical questions, such
as the nature of human excellence, persist because of their
topological relations. Thinking as the desire for the whole
truth and willing as the desire for the whole good are analogous.
Looking for the Puzzle
One thing we can learn from Plato’s practice is to take our
images seriously. Let us see what we can extract from the
image of the piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Take our current epistemic and ethical situation as a given puzzle piece. We ask for
the whole puzzle. What are some candidate answers? I offer
six.
1. When we look at a piece we may say that it is already
complete. Epistemic incompletion depends on questions, and
questions depend on ideas whose content is distinct from
their reality. Ethical incompletion depends on some distinction between is and ought, and that too depends on ideas
whose content lacks reality. To say that our current situation
is complete is to deny any importance to free ideas, either in
belief or desire. It seems to me to deny the essence of our
humanity, but that is precisely its point. Free ideas make possible belief and desire independent of perception and action,
�88
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
and thus raise epistemic and ethical questions. If we eliminate
free ideas we cut off such questions at their root. The conceptual level of awareness may define humanity, but human
being is an unstable and unsatisfying way of being. Better to
be a beast or a god, to turn and live with the animals or dissolve into the godhead. No ideas means no felt discrepancy
between mind and world; when belief and desire go the
thinking and willing self disappears. Certain mystical and
meditative techniques aim at this—their view is that thought
disrupts mindfulness. A soul reduced to perfect stillness, to
total ideational inactivity, would experience no incompletion.
On this side of the mystic dissolve, what might this way
of life be like? Think of surfing. You paddle out, feel the water
and the sun, the seventh wave approaches, you stroke hard to
get it, you’re up, in the curl, thrust along by a surging wall of
water. In the exhilaration of that locomotive rush there are
no questions, no reflections, just total immersion in the vivid
now. The wave breaks, you end the ride, but suppose that
when you leave the water you retain the awareness, the concentration, the music of each moment moving through you
and sustaining you like the wave. Your life is complete in each
passing moment—no plan for the future, no recollection of
the past, just embedded in a present presence as in a music, in
Eliot’s words, “heard so deeply it is not heard at all, but you
are the music while the music lasts”(Eliot, 136).
Of course you might need to think sometimes, to prepare
a case at law, or deliver pizza, or whatever, but thought never
displaces the immediate experience in which you find your
satisfaction. Thought is good only if it helps you, as Thoreau
says, “. . . to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past
and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe
that line” (Thoreau, 11). Perhaps the best life would be one
of simple routine, like a well-learned dance.
2. When we look at a puzzle piece we may say that the
given piece uniquely determines the entire puzzle, for the
piece is premise and the puzzle is deductive conclusion.
MAWBY
89
Reasoning can make explicit what is implicit and so complete
the whole. There are no genuine alternatives in the completion of the puzzle, for what now looks to be contingent is in
the end either necessary or impossible. The difference
between incomplete and complete is just the difference
between what we know and what follows from what we
know. This is a rationalism. One of its ethical versions teaches the virtue of complete understanding, and says that complete understanding reveals the coincidence of the is and the
ought. Unlike the doctrine that denies any distinction
between is and ought, rationalism accepts the distinction
between incomplete and complete insight, and says that we
ought to attain complete insight. Being as such is good, evil is
privation, and ignorance is privation of understanding. With
adequate insight, we see that everything is as it must be.
On the way to complete insight we seek awareness of the
permanent present, that which remains always as it is.
Pellucid apprehension provides our satisfaction. Lured by an
experience of beauty and power in one, we seek the calm certainty of fixed insight.
3. When we look at a piece we may say that what is given
may be completed in any way whatever. Whereas rationalism
says the completion is unique, this view says the completion
is arbitrary. Any puzzle can have any shape cut from it, since
carving is arbitrary—the world has no joints. Thus given a
piece there is no way to tell from what puzzle it comes.
Reason neither determines nor limits a completion. This is a
skepticism. Whereas for the rationalist we are free if we grasp
necessity, for the skeptic we are free if we see that everything
is contingent and could be other than it is. The ethical version
of this is some sort of relativism. It may be conservative, as
with Montaigne, or revolutionary, as with the utopians, or
libertine, as with the young. Ethics might be grounded in current practice, understood as relative and historical, but if we
push this doctrine we see that current practice does not deter-
�90
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
mine its own continuation. Anything can follow anything
else, and we make up everything as we go along.
Skepticism is often an interim position on a path that ends
in celebrating art and activity. Looking beyond our puzzle
piece and finding no shape at which to aim, we project there
a figure of our own making, and get our satisfaction by bringing it into being. Of course skepticism is not the only source
of this impulse to generation. We might find outside our puzzle piece a latent ideal figure calling for realization. In either
case action, either production or deeds, engenders our satisfaction. We take the emptiness surrounding the puzzle piece
as the painter’s empty canvas, or the architect’s vacant lot, or
the engineer’s drawing board, or a field for sport, or the
silence in which we make our song. Or we may take it as the
empty space where our other half should be, a vacancy we fill
when, as we say, we make friends, or make love, or when,
extending our line beyond ourselves in a way that somehow
completes us, we beget children. Be it artifacts or deeds or
relationships, our satisfaction is made through effective
action.
4. When we look at a puzzle piece we may say that what
is given is discontinuous with what would complete it. An
epistemic gap divides what we know from what would give
us adequate moral and metaphysical insight. That gap cannot
be crossed by reason. The completion is given to us from the
other side of the chasm by divine revelation. This is a doctrine of faith. God is the puzzle that tells us what being is and
who we ought to be. Faith shares with skepticism a conviction
that reason is inadequate, and with rationalism a conviction
that our proper completion is unique. Like the Muslim, we
submit to a superior. In constant intimate relation with that
superior we find our satisfaction, like a little child who, leaping into the embrace of a loving parent, feels himself at home.
5. When we look at a puzzle piece we may deny that it is
complete, for it lacks wholeness. It is not in equilibrium, since
it satisfies neither intellect nor desire. We may be dissatisfied
MAWBY
91
with the deductive completions we have seen, for they appear
to rest, despite their own intent, on premises that are neither
self-evident nor inescapable. We may deny that completion is
arbitrary, for such a conclusion itself seems arbitrary.9 If we
refuse revelation, reject the incompetence of reason, and
insist that thought and desire be satisfied rather than eliminated, we seem to be left with philosophy. We seek, as one
philosopher says, “...a means by which, reflecting on our
moral and intellectual experience conjointly, taking the world
and ourselves into account, we can put the whole thing
together” (Green, section 174).
6. Finally, we may look at our puzzle piece in some other
way. This residual category makes the list of alternatives formally complete. Notice how little insight mere formal completion gives.
Unmediated mindfulness, luminous certitude, free creativity, obedient faithfulness, persistent inquiry, or something
else—these are the ultimate ways. Philosophy, when it poses
the question about the best life, includes philosophy itself as
a candidate answer. This sort of philosophy, which I understand to be Socratic, tries to occupy a place between rhetoric
and mathematics. Like rhetoric, its fundamental questions
arise from concerns that shape and move the soul. Like mathematics, it seeks fully adequate insight. Its logic I believe to be
nonmonotonic, its inferences defeasible, which implies that it
must always be open to beginning again.
Of course when we ask for the best way of life we are
seeking not just candidate answers, but true answers.
Questions stretch us toward knowledge only if we desire the
truth. Philosophy may draw us toward excellence even
though, as Socrates found, it may not keep us out of trouble.
Finish Line
It is time to bring this essay to a close. We asked about questions. If we view asking a question as a conversational act, we
�92
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
can split asking into questionings where the asker knows the
answer and those where he does not. If we view a question as
an epistemological instrument that directs a course of inquiry,
we can split questions into those where ignorance is encompassed by knowledge and those where knowledge is encompassed by ignorance. Crossing these dichotomies breeds four
kinds of question. The search for the double square in the
Meno arose from an enclosed question asked by one who
knows. The question of human excellence, and the metaphysical questions which it resembles, are I believe of another type, namely, unenclosed questions asked by one who does
not know. The persistence of philosophical questions—the
fact that they won’t go away—stems from this. They are open
questions asked by those aware of their ignorance. Socrates in
the recollection myth implies that while our souls are broken,
imperfect and incomplete, the missing fragments drift submerged in our depths. We live the philosophic life when we
fish in the depths of the soul for what would make our knowledge and our excellence whole. Whether our nets are fine
enough, whether our lines are long enough, will remain for
us open questions.
Notes
1 It is not certain, of course, that Plato intends the Meno of the dialogue to be identical to Xenophon’s Meno. Jacob Klein in his commentary on the Meno says we are to make the identification, and so
should be astonished that a paragon of vice such as Meno would
initiate an inquiry into virtue. Klein may be right. If he is, it is
extremely unfortunate that no English translation of which I am
aware brings out the viciousness of Meno.
2
Blind children who are given a fragile object and told, “look but
don’t touch” respond by lightly running their fingers over the surface. “Looking” is seeking information through the sense of touch;
touching is manipulation, handling for one’s own purposes.
MAWBY
93
3
“We may agree, perhaps, to understand by metaphysics an attempt
to know reality as against mere appearance, or the study of first
principles or ultimate truths, or again the effort to comprehend the
universe, not simply piecemeal or by fragments, but somehow as a
whole” (Bradley, 1).
4 For example, we could fill in the space in the corner with a single
figure composed of two different kinds of parts. Place the top half
of an ellipse on the hypotenuse of a right triangle whose equal
shorter sides are the same length as the sides of the other three
squares. The hypotenuse forms the major axis of the ellipse, and we
set the semi-minor axis to (√ 2)/π . The half-ellipse together with the
right triangle then make an area equal to that of each of the other
three squares.
5
Kant asserts that we can see now that certain speculative questions
are forever unanswerable; these are immortal questions. In the land
of truth, where knowledge can be grounded, Kant affirms instead
the immortality of questions, and he says the proper use of the Ideas
of pure reason is as regulative ideals within the phenomenal
domain.
6
“To say the reality is such that our knowledge cannot reach it, is
a claim to know reality; to urge that our knowledge is of a kind
which must fail to transcend appearance, itself implies that transcendence” (Bradley, 1).
7 “When I see the blind and wretched state of man, when I survey
the whole universe in its dumbness and man left to himself with no
light, as though lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing
who put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of
him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to
terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert
island, who wakes up quite lost and with no means of escape”
(Pascal, Pensées, #198).
9
“Our reason is not like a plane indefinitely far extended, the limits of which we know in a general way only; but must rather be
compared to a sphere, the radius of which can be determined from
the curvature of the arc of its surface—that is to say, from the nature
of synthetic a priori propositions—and whereby we can likewise
specify with certainty its volume and limits. Outside this sphere (the
�94
THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
field of experience) there is nothing that can be an object for reason; nay, the very questions in regard to such supposed objects
relate only to subjective principles of a complete determination of
those relations which can come under the concepts of the understanding and which can be found within the empirical sphere”
(Kant, 607-608).
9
It is not the skepticism of the skeptic that I object to; it is the dogmatism. Until one has encountered it repeatedly, it is hard to credit the insistent and unyielding conviction behind the claim “It’s true
that there is no truth.”
References
Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality. London: Oxford University
Press, 1893.
Eliot, T. S. The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950. New York,
NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1971.
Green, Thomas Hill. Prolegomena to Ethics. New York, NY:
Thomas Crowell/Apollo,1883/1969.
Hobbes, T. Leviathan. Indianapolis, IN: Library of Liberal
Arts,1958.
Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp
Smith. London: Macmillan,1929.
Pascal, B. Pensées. Translated by A. J. Krailsheimer. London:
Penguin, 1966.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Civil Disobedience. Ed. Owen
Thomas. New York, NY: Norton, 1966.
Whitehead, A. N. Process and Reality. (1978 Corrected Edition
edited by D. R. Griffin and D. W Sherburne). New York, NY:
.
Macmillan, The Free Press, 1978.
MAWBY
95
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em>
Description
An account of the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em><span> is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College. All manuscripts are subject to blind review. Address correspondence to </span><em>The St. John's Review</em><span>, St. John's College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 or via e-mail at </span><a class="obfuscated_link" href="mailto:review@sjc.edu"><span class="obfuscated_link_text">review@sjc.edu</span></a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> exemplifies, encourages, and enhances the disciplined reflection that is nurtured by the St. John's Program. It does so both through the character most in common among its contributors — their familiarity with the Program and their respect for it — and through the style and content of their contributions. As it represents the St. John's Program, The St. John's Review espouses no philosophical, religious, or political doctrine beyond a dedication to liberal learning, and its readers may expect to find diversity of thought represented in its pages.<br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> was first published in 1974. It merged with <em>The College </em>beginning with the July 1980 issue. From that date forward, the numbering of <em>The St. John's Review</em> continues that of <em>The College</em>. <br /><br />Click on <a title="The St. John's Review" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=13"><strong>Items in the The St. John's Review Collection</strong></a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
thestjohnsreview
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
95 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
The St. John's Review, 2003/2
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kraus, Pamela
Brann, Eva T. H.
Carey, James
Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Sachs, Joe
Van Doren, John
Williamson, Robert B.
Zuckerman, Elliott
Coleman, Shanna
Sachs, Joe
Sedeyn, Olivier
Smith, Brother Robert
Klein, Jacob
Salem, Eric
Hopkins, Burt
Mawby, Ronald
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XLVII, number two of The St. John's Review. Published in 2003.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
The_St_Johns_Review_Vol_47_No_2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
St. John's Review
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/608f19dce5e2e91219b859731230b3bf.pdf
c6056b927d21bc37ae63857e7650022d
PDF Text
Text
'sReview
St. John's College
1784-1984
Summer, 1984
�Editor:
J. Walter Sterling
Managing Editor:
Thomas Parran, ·Jr.
Editorial Assistant:
Jason Walsh
Editorial Board:
Eva Brann
S. Richard Freis,
Alumni representative
Joe Sachs
Cary Stickney
Curtis A. Wilson
'
Unsolicited articles, stori~s, and poems
are welcome, but should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed
envelope in each instance. Reasoned
comments are also welcome.
The St. John's Review (formerly The College) is published by the Office of the
Dean, St. John's College, Annapolis,
Maryland 21404. Edwin J. Delattre,
President, Samuel S. Kuder, Dean.
Published thrice yearly, in the winter,
spring, and summer. For those not on
the distribution list, subscriptions:
$12.00 yearly, $24.00 for two years, or
$36.00 for three years, payable in advance. Address all correspondence to
The St. John's Review, St. John's College,
Annapolis, Maryland 21404.
Volume XXXV, Number 3
Summer, 1984
©
1984 St. John's College; All rights
reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part without permission is prohibited.
ISSN 0277-4720
Compos£t£on: Fishergate Publishing Co., Inc.
Printing: The John D. Lucas Printing Co.
Cover courtesy State of Maryland
Maryland State Archives. Laws 1784
Chapter 37 Page 1.
�THE
StJohn's Review
Contents
2
A Search for the Liberal College (book review)
Joseph Killorin
6
The Analysis of Fictions
Scott Buchanan
15 . . . . . .
The Breathing Side of Ocean (poem)
William Thompson
16 . . . . . .
The Problem and the Art of Writing
jacob Klein
23 . . . . . .
Passage (poem)
Elliot Zuckerman
24 . . . . . .
The Myth and the Logic of Democracy
John S. Kiiffer
31 . . . . . .
Bandusia, Flower of Fountains (poem)
Richard Freis
32 . . . . . .
On Mimesis
Victor Zuckerkandl
40 . . . . . .
The Archimedean Point and the Liberal Arts
Curtis Wilson
48 . . . . . .
The P~ogram of St. John's College
·Eva T H. Brann
OccASIONAL DrscouRsEs
56 . . . . . .
Sermon Preached at St. Anne's Church, Annapolis
J Winfree Smith
59 . . . . . .
The Golden Ages of St. John's College
Eva Brann
62 . . . . . .
William Smith: Godfather and First President of St. John's College
Arthur Pierce Middleton
BooK REviEw
66 . . . . . .
The Early History of St. John's College in Annapolis
Charlotte Fletcher
68 . . . . . .
The Old Gods (poem)
Gretchen Berg
�BooK REviEw
Summer 1984
A Search for the Liberal College
]. Winfree Smith, St. John's Press, Annapolis, 1983, vii+135 pp., $11.00
Joseph Kill orin
T
his is the story of how a man conceived
and founded, as an act of war against the
familiar educational enterprises of our age,
a college to cultivate the intellectual virtues
by means of what he called the liberal arts;
how, after a decade, its restle~s and weary maker, overreaching to a grander goal, attempted to confound his
original creation; and how, abandoned by him, it fell at
first into confusion until a second man, after a good
night's sleep, restored it safe and sound on its foundations, not without dire warnings thereafter against safe
foundations and sleep.
Who could possibly have thought, as Winfree Smith
says some did think, "that it would be preferable to have
someone from outside the college tell the story on the
ground that I might be partial to the curriculum and the
men who had most to do with starting and establishing
it"? The same Athenians, perhaps, who thought some
Scythian might tell their story more impartially than
Thucydides? Winfree Smith "went through the program"
under the conscript fathers and has acted for over forty
years a part in the life of the college that itself demands
a chapter. Yet his allegiance to St. John's appears only
in the restraint and decorum with which he presents its
history, and in the clarity with which he handles its principal intellectual concerns. The restraint is that of one
who knows first-hand far more of the facts and has had
cause for far sharper judgements than archives and other
secondary sources record, and which facts and judgements, one assumes, must sometimes therefore be forbidden to this history. On a very few occasions he gives
Joseph Killorin graduated from St. Joh.n's College, Annapolis, in 1947. He
is Callaway Professor of Literature and Philosophy at the Savannah unit of
the University of Georgia.
2
us only the deed with insufficient clue to motive; we
need the help at least of
"Some said ... , while others
said ... :'
Nowhere is Mr. Smith
more discreet or his interpretation more needed than
in the exit of Buchanan at
the conclusion of this history's enthralling central
episode, perhaps misleadingly titled "The Fight with the
Navy in Wartime and the Departure of Barr and
Buchanan:' The chapter begins, "This is a strange and
perhaps incomprehensible story:' Mr. Smith links up the
moves between the Navy and St. John's Board, both of
whom seemed to find this local war they discovered themselves in strange and incomprehensible. No wonder. As
Mr. Smith makes us see, it was a war in one man's soul,
in which war Mr. Barr was merely a messenger, the Navy
was merely an historical occasion, and the St. John's
Board a chorus of friends found to be betrayers. For the
war at the end of Buchanan's career with St.John's was
a psychomachia. The Demiurge, comparing his copy of
St. John's to the pattern laid up in Possibility, raged in
despair. Or, can one say, his "mistaken historical judgement'' at last revealed him to himself as a N essus, not
a Heracles, and in self-horror he demanded that his poisonous "program should be laid on the shelf and forgotten:' As Mr. Smith now presents this story, it is a good
deal more comprehensible than it seemed on the spot
(or even than Mr. Smith made it seem to me on the spot).
But for so byzantine a story, res ipsa non loquitur, or at least
the tears of this res do not speak out.
Buchanan in April 1945 virtually offered to sell the
campus to the Navy. Why within a year did he reverse
himself and decide to fight the government in the name
SUMMER 1984
�of"the great liberal arts college family;' "the sacred city,"
although he still did not wish to continue the college in
Annapolis? And why, after the battle to keep the campus was won, did he denounce the St. John's Board as
"stupid and blind . . . and therefore highly irresponsible to the vision . . . and disloyal" because they wished
to hold on to what they had? Of course Buchanan's life
had always been responsible "to the vision;' but why had
he been overcome with a holy horror at housing this vision in the scaffolding of his own New Program? He
called the New Program merely "a revolutionary blueprint to subvert and rebuild education, ... a bulldozer
inside a Trojan horse." And when after ten years it had
not yet subverted education, he cursed his program not
only as "a mistaken historical judgement;' but as "a poison
corrupting a household at St. John's and ... because of
its being at St. John's it would become a poison wherever
it was tried." It was also, in one of his favorite figures,
"a wind-egg;' an empty birth. (Thirty years later he asked
St. John's students how the search for a liberal college
was going, "and if it's still on, why do you have the same
curriculum now that we had thirty years ago?" [Embers
of the World, p. 180].) Was this turning in 194 7 against
the New Program connected in Buchanan's mind with
his turning from a non-voter to a political activist (on
the national platform committee of the Progressive Party
[Embers, pp. 99-195])? Mr. Smith's summing up of
Buchanan's tormented saga keeps our eye on the
subject -St. John's: if there was a tragedy in all this, he
says, it was that Buchanan's behavior jeopardized the only
college he and they had by losing for it Mellon's $4.5
million.
Not much is illumined in this history of Buchanan's
charm or of his power of mind and character. (Nor do
these things often appear in Wofford's conversations with
him. Perhaps Saul Bellow is needed.) But that mind and
that presence struck all with respect and many with love.
That is why it is so important to comprehend this story
as far as possible.
The community, dispirited if not paralyzed entirely
by the founder's curse, whispered in groups and
floundered for two years. Who now could speak for them?
Anyone would be measured against Buchanan. Yet
neither another Buchanan nor, worse, a new prophet with
a new program could save what they felt was worth the
saving. What was needed was a N uma or, rather, an
Augustus. And of course they knew he had actually been
among them all along. Neither imitator nor innovator,
he was a restorer.
In Scott Buchanan and in Jacob Klein, other faculty
members and students all saw plainly in act before their
eyes what Heidegger called the "faculty of wondering at
the simple, and of taking up and accepting this wondering as one's abode~' And Buchanan's fear that established
routine (even in the best possible curriculum) might inhibit spontaneous learning was also a persistent fear of
Klein's. They both saw college as an abode for practicing the habit of staying awake among the almost over-
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
whelming inducements everywhere to sleep in unexamined opinion.
One might gather from Mr. Smith's portraits,
however, that Buchanan and Klein, both as philosophers
and deans, not only differed about why men do not stay
awake, but-far more to the St. John's point-about why
men do stay awake (when they do). Buchanan saw inducements to sleep embedded in the deficiencies of the
educational tools: in second-rate books and curricula, and
in arts unhoned for activating and liberating men's thinking power. Under the spell of the best books and the true
liberal arts the soul of any faculty member and any student learns to fly. Klein saw inducements to sleep welling from within, from "inactivity of vegetative or at best
appetitive souls~' It is a part of our nature, he told our
class, to fall "subservient to the appalling practical
automatism of our way of life;' for intellect to sleep, to
forget, before "the dull onslaught of routine and matterof-fact attitude:' Perhaps the life of almost all men (including in one year all but ten members of St. John's
faculty) is mostly a sleep and a forgetting. But, yet, intellect does not die.
Why do (some?) men desire to stay awake, to know
in the fullest sense? Mr. Smith presents, with an admirable explication, what is obviously a treasured parable
about the two Fathers- treasured, I would guess, because
it shows how one of them (almost?) forgets his own deepest faith, the faith of St. John's. The self-exiled founder
had wandered for six years when he returned to the sacred
city he once said he had poisoned- for a conference.
At St. John's "in the early days," Buchanan
remembered, "we were concerned about the whole range
of virtues, and the theological virtues were seriously inquired into. There was a concern about Faith, Hope, and
Charity ...." Because "the intellect does not live without
faith, without (hedging here; Mr. Smith may have caught
his eye] something ofthe sort ... :• Mr. Smith reminds
us that even Thomas does not see faith "as an imperative
for bringing intellect to life:' But did Buchanan say intellect is dead? Yes. Intellect unwatered by "ideology, faith,
or something or other" has died, he seemed to say, leaving everywhere in the house of dead intellect "a dismal
grim dullness:' The founder's suggestion that without faith
men do not desire to know thrusts to the heart of St.
John's. So Mr. Smith persists, "But did Mr. Buchanan
really mean that without faith (intellect] was dead?" And
the historian charitably answers that this is unlikely, on
the ground that Mr. Buchanan never before had faith
in Faith, but only employed it for "lively intellectual gym_nastic:;s~'
Now, like Mercury bearing the words of Jupiter to
that other wandering founder ("heu! regni rerumque oblite
tuarum!- Alas! forgetful of your own world, your own
kingdom!"), or like Parsifal opening the forgotten shrine
to heal the self-wounded Leader, Klein speaks.
Buchanan: We have to have something that will bring
intellect back to life. I have not any solution for this.
Klein: The intellect lives.
3
�Some men desire to know most fully, and intellect, the
highest activity, is under no necessity to proceed from or
to flower in faith, much less in ideology "or something
or other!' It is this other faith, in intellect itself, that both
of them demonstrated in their lives: the faith that
tormented Buchanan to abandon St. John's and sustained
Klein in restoring it. It was the spectacle of that act of
faith in intellect- most eminently in the lives of those
two and of Leo Strauss, but of others too- that many
of us carried away to ponder in our hearts in all the years
after.
Not, as our historian notes, that this confusion of
faith-in-intellect with faith was not itself a regular theme
for questioning. And indeed Mr. Smith himself usually
led the questioning. Note the extra-dryness of tone when
Mr. Smith recalls Buchanan on the sacraments or the
Incarnation, or rather the idea of them. And there is no
word in the vintner's vocabulary for the dryness with
which we are told that a President of St.John's once said
"the college as such was committed to belief in a God
who listens to and answers petitionary prayer?' Intellect
at St. John's came up against Faith in what seemed to
us at first novel ways: some had Faith (I mean Jews and
Christians now), and hated Theology, while some had
no Faith and loved Theology. And, again, Mr. Smith was
a citizen, we gathered, of Jerusalem, who nevertheless
elected alien residence in Athens. (He once ended a
review of a lecture on Kierkegaard: "Is it necessarily true
that faith in Jesus Christ requires the opposition of
reason? Is reason, after all, that important?" Just as he
couldn't believe Buchanan thought intellect was dead, we
couldn't believe Winfree thought that in any respect reason
was unimportant.) Mr. Buchanan claimed equal citizenship in both Athens and Jerusalem, or rather he thought
that each was also the other. Mr. Klein was a citizen of
Athens, for whom the desirability of citizenship in
Jerusalem was not even discussable. Mr. Kaplan (our
semi-official guide to Jerusalem) and Mr. Scofield (our
strongest guide to tragedy) were life-long renters in the
House of Intellect; we loved them, among many other
reasons, for their smiles of suspicion as they heard out
the landlord in his more aggrandizing moods.
Another persistent theme in the College and appearing in Mr. Smith's account of Mr. Klein was its ambivalent view of history. There was a public ban on
history, as sometimes there is a public ban on alcohol;
one drink can lead to the gutter, a little history can lead
to "historicism," which is the curse of the intellectual class
throughout and since the nineteenth century. Yet we
learned (in the coffee shop) from Mr. Klein that he and
Leo Strauss had studied under the greatest and most subtle "historicist" of all, Heidegger, whose "radical
historicism" seemed to us, after all, a little like the attempt of Mr. Klein himself to make clear the history of
"thinking:' (This conversation followed Mr. Klein's annual week of extra-curricular [!]lectures on the radical
difference between Greek and Cartesian mathematics.)
Yes, it turned out, there was a legitimate form of
4
history- only one: the history of thought (in Mr.
Klein's-and Husserl's-written words) as "the interlacement of original production and 'sedimentation' of
significance." At St. John's we were attempting to reactivate "sedimented" thought, recovering thinking, the
original "wondering at the simple" (the original production would be reflected in the greatest books), out from
history. All along in our often trackless seminar wandering (do they still try to cross Thomas on law with Burnt
Njal?) we had been holding on, Mr. Klein made us see,
to this Ariadne's thread from the thinking of great
thinkers. The way in which Mr. Klein suggested we examine how words present things to us was different from
the ways ofWittgenstein or Austin. We were, it seemed,
superimposing, from our great authors, word on word,
context on .context, examining-as on a palimpsesthow the oldest, the original, handling of this thing showed
through the new and colored it, or, on the other hand,
was blanked out. How startling to see through Descartes,
Hobbes, Leibniz, Swift, Rousseau, the paths back to
Aristotle and Plato that had led from a thinking to a
rethinking! Mr. Klein in seminar, throwing up his hands
from time to time, would explode with twenty minutes
or so of this legitimate history. Mr. Strauss, besides his
lectures, would offer at times in Klein's seminar a full
evening of it. The discussions that followed later were
never so keyed up and so "informed" Heidegger and late
Husserl were mentioned, but we could not know then
also how unique were Klein's and Strauss's "history" lectures, which, except for Strauss's Hobbes, we never read
unless as mimeographed lectures. (Speaking of lecture
subjects, am I alone in not remembering now what was
said in a single lecture about the liberal arts-except
about Music, where-aside from Augustine-you simply
had to invent, the wilder the better. I see Music, the
traviata of the Seven Sleepers, has been downgraded to
Harmonics.)
If chiefly Buchanan and Klein informed this search
for a liberal college in its first twenty-one years, Mr.
Smith's subject is not the separate actors but the College
as a community concerned with the learning effort and
particularly the curriculum, its surprisingly adaptive soul,
as it moved from its first frantic plenitude through its
successive, more practicable, shapes.
And in the curriculum, one should mention (I am
not the one to say more) a last persistent theme or obsession. I remember that in our first week the Demiurge
himself warned us they had all been struggling with the
"matter" of the laboratory to try to make it more rational
and that the struggle would, with us, continue. The
laboratory has provided a theme more native to St.John's
than even faithless theology or anti-historicist history. Mr.
Smith calls attention to the now ancient yearning of these
knights of intellect to unify all the sciences, sheer force
of analogy having regularly failed. With Humphreys,*
*Humphreys Hall, where the laboratories were located in the 1940s
and 1950s.
SUMMER 1984
�it seemed then, the eros of intellect could not get beyond
an interesting fumble. Consideration of this matter of
the laboratory makes one see, on the one hand, how
romantic was St. ] ohn's reach as opposed to its grasp,
and, on the other hand, why an insider had to write this
history. For how could any outsider write the next
sentence with so little sarcasm and with so much smiling rue?
give unity to all knowledge (p. 57), was nevertheless in
an essential way like other modern seekers for unity
through method, and thereby unlike Klein.
Actually [Engelder, Dunkelberger, and Schiller] was not
a bad text for learning chemistry, but it did not do much
in the way of relating chemistry to the question of being qua being.
This kind of overriding concern to unify the diversity
of experience Buchanan shared with, say, both Dewey
and Whitehead, but not with Klein, who held "it is very
hard even to postulate unity" in the sciences as well as
in all the other fields of learning (p. 119).
Mr. Smith shows us, then, that the "radical inquiry"
which "St.John's College means to be engaged in" meant,
in its beginnings, at least two, and very different, kinds
of questions and answers. We cannot know how a longer
interchange between two such different men and different
concerns might have altered the content and style oflearning at St. John's. From what interchange we actually
observed there arose a spontaneity, a liveliness, a felt
presence of intellect, and along with this a model of intellectual manners which it is impossible to forget.
About Buchanan versus Klein, there was also, in their
last years together at St. John's, a distinct but light-hearted
sense of danger to students' minds, not that either man
willingly (horrible dictui) provoked it in the slightest way.
For the Collegian (August 20, 1943) five seniors wrote a
spoof in which J ascha, having sat at Euclid's feet, and
having rejected Descartes ("Jascha: All the world's in rack
and ruin/Grecian dough has ceased its brewin'./Genus,
species have passed by,/All that's left is x and y!'), at last,
arriving at Coney Island, is enticed by a carnival barker
named Buchanan:
So Mr. Smith's whole view of St. John's beginnings
arouses on every page comparisons with one's own partial memory of admirations, exhilarations, frustrations.
We felt at once the thrill of participants in Odysseus
Buchanan's plot to halt the Decline of the West by driving our unaccredited Trojan Horse into the Sacred City
of Higher Education, assured by Mr. Barr on our first
Sunday night that it was ripe for bulldozing, dying in
fact of the bourgeois-vocational-elective-system disease.
There were, to be sure, other, but "progressive;' Trojan Horses at work before us (Sarah Lawrence, Bard,
Antioch, Bennington, Black Mountain, and Minnesota),
and "we" found ourselves often at war with their sympathizers, instead of the common enemy we were all out
to do in. What followed was mere pretension at debate
about education's proper end and means in which, as it
has long since become clear, there was not much will,
on any side, to ')oin" the issues, except, perhaps, in
Meiklejohn's reply to John Dewey (Fortune, January
1945). But the difference between us and all of them was
obvious: we depended on the (mostly long past) great
books.
Now Mr. Smith's whole view invites us to see what
could be meant at St. John's by its goal of "radical inquiry" at that historical moment (1) when the American
scene was breeding such opposing Trojan Horses, all
radically inquiring, and (2) when a man with Klein's view
of the past joined a man with Buchanan's view of the past.
Buchanan and Klein shared an anti-historicist interest
in thinkers of the past, where even Meiklejohn understood
history, like education, as a progress towards wisdom.
Buchanan had, like that other American transcendentalist, Emerson, a trans-historical openness to past
thinkers in his desire to connect all insights to the eternal. But with this he combined a modern addiction to
logical systems and methods, such as Ockham's, Ramus's,
and Hegel's. (That Buchanan could not see the antisystematist Nietzsche as a serious philosopher may be
a sign of the differences between his education and
Klein's; it was from the attack launched by Nietzsche, from
phenomenology and deconstruction with their radical
questioning of the metaphysical tradition, that Klein returned to the tradition with a concern for recovering
thinking out of it.)
Mr. Smith implies that Buchanan, for all his faith that
metaphysics and theology were the sciences that would
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
[Buchanan] was a man of the post-Cartesian world in
that he was seeking methods and formulas and symbolic
structures for learning or philosophizing, methods that
would, he hoped, bring together the most diverse worlds
of thought and imagination.
All tickets win, and none do lose,
It doesn't matter which you choose.
Systems great and systems small,
Numbered you must try them all.
Won't you come and play my game,
Metaphysics is its name.
Uascha hesitates, then buys a chance. While
Buchanan turns the wheel, Jascha murmurs.]
J ascha: Oh fate, oh misery, oh dark forebodings . . . !
Buchanan (smiling): You've won a free ride on the
Platinic system.
f]ascha approaches the wheel, hesitates, tears the
ticket up and turns to go. The entire carnival, however,
converges on him in a whirling vortex. Thunder, lightning. Curtain.]
We heard that the piece caused somewhat hurt feelings
all-round. In any case, it turned out to be bad prophecy
about who tore the ticket up and turned to go, and no
doubt too light-hearted an assessment of what the game
rightly was and is.
0 beloved Pan and all you other gods of that place,
grant the fair-and-good man who wrote this book as
many blessings as he has the thanks-for unnumbered
reasons- of those he wrote it for!
5
�The Analysis of Fictions
Scott Buchanan
atter-day discussions of the fine arts have
led to an interesting metaphor which has
suggested the title of this little book. In the
attempt to clarify the criterion of 'purity' in
poetry, music, painting, and sculpture, and
to disentagle it from the older criteria of truth, sincerity, and depth, critics have spoken of 'distance: There is
no doubt that the metaphor has sharpened the sense of
a certain quality recognizable in our appreciation, one
which is closely related to formal clarity. On the other
hand there is little sharpness or formal clarity in the exposition of the metaphor itself. In fact it seems improbable that distance should become an exact technical
term in art criticism as long as the divorce between works
of art and symbols is maintained. The metaphor is empty
until we recall that a symbol, or a work of art, was
originally only a part of something from which it had
been separated, but to which it functionally belonged.
The immediate suggestion from this etymology is that
distance would neatly refer to the degree of separation
of sign from thing signified.
I shall not plead with art critics and aestheticians for
a nostalgic rapprochement between works of art and symbols, but I shall plead with linguists and logicians for the
inclusion of their studies within the broad traditional field
of the arts. The intellectual arts, at any rate, are concerned with symbols, and, it may be added, they are at
present painfully and crucially concerned with symbols
as their essential subject-matter. The pain involved in this
concern arises chiefly from the modern difficulty of
achieving distance or detachment in the terms of our arts
L
The late Scott Buchanan founded the New Program at St. John's College.
Ana(ysis qf Fictions appeared as the first chapter of Symbolic Distance, published
by Faber and Faber in 1932.
6
and sciences. It may be that our art critics are teaching
a deeper and broader lesson than they themselves realize,
a lesson that should be studied by scientists and moralists
as well as the man in the street.
The ancient arts of the trivium, grammar, rhetoric,
and dialectic, which we have relegated to the finishing
school for young ladies, were concerned equally painfully with the symbols of a previous age; they were studied
and applied for a thousand years before their task was
accomplished and they were allowed to give place to the
symbolic discipline of modern science with its operational
skills and its speculative generalizations. It seems worth
while to attempt a brief statement of their methods and
aims, and to enquire into the possibility of reconstituting
the technique to suit modern symbols.
In the first place it was considered dangerous to allow
students to enter upon the higher studies, law, medicine,
and theology, without a thorough training in the trivial
arts. The dangers were literal interpretation of symbolic
formulae and violent application of doctrine to special
cases. No vitally important study was safe in the hands
of untutored persons who could not deal easily and fluently with figurative, abstract, and general terms. No
small portion of our fear and confusion of medieval ideas
is due to the untutored experience we have had with the
isolated fragments of these subtleties that have persisted
into modern times. Laboratory training and mathematical discipline are necessary for the successful handling
of modern subtleties, and in some cases it seems that they
are not enough: vide recent attempts of mathematical
physicists to bring theology down to earth.
The distinctions and consequent specialized treatments of subject-matters in the trivial arts are still important. In the first place the trivial artist distinguishes
between what he calls impositions. There is the use of
words or symbols in the first imposition, as when 'apple'
SUMMER 1984
�refers to this or that concrete spherical red object. 'Apple' in the second imposition is the word itself, a part of
speech or writing. The confusion of imposition leads to
syllogisms like this:
This is an apple.
Apple is a word.
Therefore, this is a word.
In the second place, the trivial artist distinguishes between intentions. A term may be taken in the first intention as when Freedom is intended to refer to free beings; or it may be taken in second intention when it refers
to an abstract principle which may or may not govern
the behaviour of free beings. Confusions of intentions
lead to more serious, because more cryptic, selfdeceptions which we shall discuss under the head of
fictions.
It is in terms of these two distinctions that the trivial
arts operate. Grammar as a science studies words or symbols in the second imposition and the laws for combining them as parts of speech. In modern mathematical
language, grammar studies notations and their useful
manipulations. Rhetoric as a science studies these notations as natural objects having causal connections between themselves and with other natural objects, including man. In this respect rhetoric embraces important parts of psychology and anthropology. In addition
to studying words and symbols in the second imposition,
rhetoric also studies them as terms with second intention. When an orator manipulates notations in order to
'move' an audience, he almost necessarily also instructs
or misinstructs it by elucidating an abstract idea or principle. The lawyer may develop a valid argument by means
of enthymemes in order to convince a jury, or a teacher
may analyse a geometrical figure and prove a theorem
in order to instruct his pupils. The rhetorician must then
give an account of the verbal magic of second impositions and also show how a discourse clarifies or obscures
an ideal subject-matter. Finally the dialectician abstracts
second intentions from terms for the sake of discovering
and isolating the forms which many apparently diverse
notations may have in common. Eventually the dialectician will be concerned with the limits and boundaries
of meanings in which all symbols, even in the first imposition, are implicated. If he is easily tired with formal
distinctions or powerfully moved by rhetoric, he may
become a metaphysician, and hold theories about facts
and universals.
It should be noted how complicated, in the radical
sense of the word, these sciences are. Each one can cover
the whole field of symbols in the one single aspect that
it selects as its proper subject-matter. Another may cover
the same symbolic territory taken in another aspect, and
any given linguistic or logical unit may have three interpretations, or possibly more if rhetoric be more finely
divided. Adequate treatment demands at least three separate accounts which are normally complementary, but
may conflict badly if they are not carefully distinguished.
Finally there is a more general distinction between
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
the tnv1um as a group of sciences whose application
results in a criticism and theory of the symbols and the
trivium as a group of arts whose practice accomplishes
this or that ulterior purpose. It is impossible to speak,
write, read, think, or observe without at the same time
being as an artist, a grammarian, rhetorician, and dialectician. It is impossible to be in any adequate way more
than one of these at one time as a scientist and still is
quite as impossible to make an assertion in one science
without inferences being forced in the others. The controversies between the nominalists, conceptualists, and
realists of the late middle ages are incidents in the
development and differentiation of the corresponding
arts, and it would seem that the ability to understand
and appreciate the arguments has again become important to us although our subject-matters seem very foreign
to the ways of logic-chopping.
Modern scientific training has fairly completely
transferred the grammatical art from the authoritative
texts of the scholastic to human experience as given
material. It has also, though somewhat half-heartedly and
cautiously, followed the ways of rhetoric and dialectic,
but it has not yet achieved the linguistic balance and facility which it should provide. My contention is that its deficiency in rhetoric and dialectic has prevented us from
discovering and maintaining proper symbolic distances
in our highly specialized sects and cults of thought.
The point may be presented in an illustration taken
from our most familiar technical language for symbolic
problems. Perhaps it is its familiarity that has encouraged
us to omit scrutinizing the figurative modes from which
the language has been drawn. A symbol is said to 'represent' what it symbolizes. The metaphor is taken from
optical theory, where mirrors are said to reflect objects.
Imagine a series of mirrors set up between an object and
a human eye in such a way that the first mirror catches
an image from the object and throws it on to the second
mirror which in turn throws it to a third mirror, and so
on to fourth, fifth, and nth in which the eye finally sees
the image. There will then be a series of (possible) images corresponding to the series of mirrors. We may ca11
the image in the first mirror primary, and the other images secondary since they are derived from the first.
Whether we refer to a geometry of perspective merely
or add to that a theory of light transmission, there will
be certain distortions to be taken into account, and hence
qualifications or degrees of representative accuracy. If
we add to such distortions, due to perfectly plane and
efficient mirrors, the possibility of imperfect planes or
degrees of concavity and convexity, and if we allow for
imperfectly reflecting materials, we shall have a problem in the resolution of images such as an astronomer
must solve before he can trust the data which he gains
by the use of a reflecting telescope, spectroscope, and
interferometer.
The representation theory of symbols presupposes
some such analogy as this. Notations whether they are
verbal, imaginative, or operational, correspond to im-
7
�ages in mirrors. Usually primary images are all that the
theory envisages and the problems of multiple distortion
and resolution which arise in connection with secondary
images are ignored. The theory of symbolic distance is
an attempt to introduce into the critique of symbols some
of the devices for circumspection and calculation that will
correspond to optical theory in the art of astronomical
clause can take its place. In this account of grammar it
would seem that discourse is the successive selection and
exhibition of sections from a matrix whose constituents
are adjectives and whose order is fixed by the subsumption of adjectives. As a matter of fact such hierarchies
have been the main content of European thought
throughout long periods of history, as is evidenced in
observation. I hope it is not necessary to warn the reader
variations of the neo-Platonic hierarchy of forms, the
that the analogy is only an analogy and should not be
taken literally before it is fully expounded.
Symbolic distance is a constituent of any set of symbols. It should first be recognized, and then its measurement should be attempted. The suggestion for the latter
is that the number of reflections as given by the nota-
theory of ecclesiastical and political official ranks, and
the rise of the classificatory sciences.
However, this analysis will not do. Forcing it leads
to serious paradoxes, and in fact many symbolic forms
are suppressed even in what we have already described.
tions intermediate to the extremes that correspond to the
For instance, the copula tends to be restricted to only
one of its many meanings, namely, "is identical with;'
concrete object and the observant eye would give a rough
scale of measurement. We shall see that the problem of
pretation when "is a case of' is allowed. Paradoxes are
distortion and resolution in symbols will require considerable revision and reformulation of this suggestion,
were well aware. The connective force of prepositions is
and is only partially relieved of this paradoxical interborn of both these meanings as the Greek Megarians
but it may serve as a working diagram or archetypal image from which the exposition can proceed. It will become
lost when they are buried in prepositional phrases which
clear as we proceed that unresolved distortions of sym-
logical force have to be eliminated with the result that
bols are favourable conditions for the production and per-
whole sentences undergo reconstruction. Nouns become
sistence of fictions, and that the measurement of sym-
hypostatical and immanent entities and threaten the
whole hierarchical structure, as F. H. Bradley so eloquently showed in his defense of adjectives against the
absolute.
bolic distance itself effects some degree of resolution.
So much at present for the field of symbols within
which we are to find and determine fictions. There will
be more to say of it explicitly later, but at this point grammar calls for the choice of' the elementary units from
which the field may be said to be built up. The grammar usually taught to school children deals with the parts
of speech, by which it means the parts of sentences:
are then used as adjectives. Conjunctions that have any
On examination these paradoxes and suppressions
show more or less thinly disguised the elements that have
been ignored, the relations. The copula always is asserted
in respect of some relation, or in logical terminology, in
some category. The preposition is obviously relational
nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and
and directive. Conjunctions with logical force express very
so forth. Older grammar began with smaller units, such
as the parts of words: syllables, sounds, and marks, and
it might even include non-verbal elements. Certainly
fundamental relations, and nouns are either substantives
or, like functions in the mathematical sense, systematic
there is no reason apparent in the representation theory
relations. In fact with the same kind of ingenuity that
educes the adjectival hierarchy from the sentence struc-
why these should not play the part of elementary units,
but it may be well for us to start with the parts of
ture, we can educe a network, or matrix, of relations from
sentences, and allow generalization to follow the suggestions we find there.
The form of the simple sentence seems to dictate its
division into three parts, the noun, the verb, and the ad-
analyzed into relations, and after the manner of the contemporary mathematical physicist we can rearrange our
preconceptions in such a way as to turn the world into
a relative and expanding universe. Relations are mar-
jective, or the substantive, copula, and the adjective. The
vellously elegant hypostatical entities, and they appeal
strongly to the metaphysical imagination. We shall have
to say more of the fictions arising from this mode of
need for an account of more complex sentences and the
possibility of substituting phrases and clauses for one or
another of these parts of speech has led to the separation of the form of the sentence and the making of rules
of substitution. These allow not only a prepositional
phrase to be substituted for an adjective, or a copula and
an adjective or an adverb for the verb, but also for the
replacing of a substantive by an adjective. In fact, by the
which all discourse can be drawn. Adjectives can be
generation also, but here it will be sufficient to point out
that we have paradoxes and suppressions like those that
accompany the adjectival grammar. The chief sufferers
here are the adjectives and nouns that serve as terms for
perform the function of a substantive, as when it is the
the relations. They are needed to anchor the relations,
but their service is soon dispensed with and they give
their places to relations between still other terms whose
life and activity is also limited. Here again also the whole
network is finally taken in one piece and attached as an
adjective to some substantive of hypostatical origin and
subject of a sentence, and that an adjective may be very
complex as when a preposit\onal phrase or an adjectival
that we are pushing good analysis too far in each of these
proper selection of rules of substitution it is possible to
show that any sentence expresses some section of a merely
adjectival hierarchy. This means that an adjective can
8
we have Bradley's problems on our hands again. It seems
SUMMER 1984
�cases, and that there ought to be a more temperate
medium which will throw the precedin$ methods into
complementary service.
This last suggestion is reinforced by certain points
in Bentharns' Theory of Fictions (Kegan Paul, 1932). It
seems that J ererny Bentham spent the greater part of his
life in exposing ghosts. There were ghosts in his family
horne when he was a child, and later he found john Doe
and Richard Roe in the law courts, as well as the economic and the natural man in Rouges of Parliament. In
fact every institution harboured ghosts, and some of them
were even worshipped. After a busy life spent in exorcizing ghosts of all descriptions and reputations, Bentham decided to retire to some quiet place and draw up
the rules for the permanent cure of ghost-seeing in
general. He had learned that the genesis of ghosts is
linguistic, and he therefore knew that the required rules
would be orthological, and in particular would deal with
the clarification of fictions. The exposure of ghosts is
brought about by the clear exposition of meanings in
language. For this purpose he lays down the fundamentals of a suitable grammar and rhetoric.
He begins with a classification of words as substantives, adjectives, relatives, and operatives according to
the usual conventions of school grammar except for the
substitution of operatives for verbs. We shall see the importance of this exception later. He then points out the
various practical devices for fixing the meaning that a
word shall have in a given piece of discourse. These are
chiefly comparison of words by means of dictionaries and
etymologies, and definition by means of classification according to genera, species, and differentiae. So much he
expounds only to point out the subject-matter and the
conventional and therefore recognizable ways of handling
it. Nothing has happened to fictions and ghosts up to
this point. And so it is with the types of grammar that
we have pointed out so far; they are not sensitive enough
to discriminate between fhe vicious and the efficient uses
of language.
The clarification of fictions requires exposition by
paraphrasis. This in turn depends on a certain telescopic
character in words as Bentham recognized, particularly
in words that have a fictional force. A single word may
stand for and at the same time obscure very complex
linguistic forms. A sentence containing such a word may
convey quite false and misleading intents to a hearer who
cannot make the proper reference. Thus in the grammar of adjectives a single adjectival word may be
substituted for a whole clause or phrase, and then this
single world may occur as the subject of a sentence. The
result for a naive hearer or reader may be the addition
of an apparently substantial entity to the sum of things
that the ordinary person would call his real world. Thus
as Bentham shows, many people have fought wars and
died in order to achieve Liberty or Justice, simply because
they have heard someone use these words as subjects of
sentences. Phlogiston, caloric fluids, and the ether have
influenced centuries of laboratory practice for the same
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
linguistic reason. Bentham recognized the telescopic
character of these and other words, and recornrnend~d
paraphrasis for the resolution of their distorted images.
Paraphrasis is the process by which a real subject may
be substituted for a fictional subject in such sentences.
It has two parts, archetypation and phraseoplerosis, as
Bentham very pictorially calls them. These names really
refer to parts of the process by which the fictional subject was generated, and therefore call for the reconstruction of the structure that lies behind or inside the
telescopic word. Archetypation is the process by which
a term is made to represent a thing. In terms of the representation theory of symbols it is the setting up of the first
mirror so that it will reflect some one aspect of the concrete individual. It is on such archetypes that the rest
of our symbolic world depends. Phraseoplerosis is the
filling in of the secondary, tertiary, and n-ary symbols
that mirror for us the primary or archetypal symbols.
When some of these intermediate symbols are lacking,
we mistake the remaining ones either for archetypes or
for individual objects, and we suffer from fictional
deception.
Bentham has this to say about archetypation: Simple propositions are either physical or psychological.
Psychological propositions have physical propositions for
archetypes; physical propositions are asserted about
things either at rest or in motion. Ultimately every proposition predicates the existence, past, present, or future,
of some state of things which is either motional or quiescent. These remarks have a heavier metaphysical load
than we need to carry for our purposes, but it is easy
to see that the distinction between physical and
psychological propositions accords with the distinction
between primary and other symbols. The specifically
psychological side of symbols will more suitably come
into the next chapter when we are discussing the production and gcowth of fictions. The formal and operational side will concern us here.
Phraseoplerosis may be a very complex process, and
Bentham has listed many suggestions that we shall have
to systematize. The general term of the separate processes
is synonymization, and these processes correspond very
closely with the various sorts of transformations that take
place in secondary symbols under the conditions of
distortion, on1ission, and amplification of representation
or mirroring. The Benthamite list follows:
Antithesis
Illustration
Exemplification
Description
Enumeration
Parallelism
Ampliation
Restriction
Distinction
Disambiguation
(Determination by opposites)
(Adducing analogies)
(Showing instances)
(Application of unique traits)
(Of instances)
(Comparison by complex analogies)
(Characterization by relations to other terms)
These terms are fairly pictorial and, with the explanatory
phrases that I have added, help to· convey what may be
better gained by reading the archetypation and
9
�phraseoplerosis of the word 'church' as Bentham gives
it (Theory of Fictions). It can also be seen that the list has
overlapping terms, and that it is probably not exhaustive
of the processes that would be necessary in given cases.
These are Bentham's brief suggestive descriptions of processes that we find him employing throughout his other
writings. If we can translate his terms to a new basis,
I think it will be possible to show the systematic foundation on which he was working. This new basis will be
taken from the science of rhetoric, or that part of it which
deals with figures of speech, but, as an account of notational structure, rightly belongs to grammar.
There seem to be two important ways that sentences
involve figures of speech. In one of these ways a sentence
is to be understood metaphorically; in the other a sentence is to be understood literally. It is by ignoring this
distinction that the grammar of adjectives and the grammar of relations gain the specious generality that leads
to the paradoxes that we have noted in them. The grammar of adjectives tends to conceal metaphors, as when
an adjective in one hierarchy is predicated of an adjective in another hierarchy without confessing the jump.
The grammar of relations on the other hand pretends
to give all sentences a literal interpretation. Each grammar has its proper virtues, but the virtues are heuristic
and speculative rather than analytical. A first rough division of sentences into literal and metaphorical serves a
practical and common-sense end, and the possibility of
referring them both to more complicated units, the
figures of speech, takes care of their complementary
properties.
In the language of one contemporary school oflogic
sentences may be divided into two different kinds of incomplete symbols. Some sentences, those to be understood literally, need other literal sentences as co-ordinate
context to make their meanings clear. Other sentences,
metaphors, need to be expanded into sets of literal
sentences. In this manner of speaking, metaphors are
condensed summaries of systems of literal sentences, and,
as we shall see, they become fictions when their exposition is ignored.
·
The distinction between metaphors and literal
sentences is important and obvious in the literary use
of language. 'Napoleon was a wolf and 'Napoleon was
a soldier', though in the grammar of our schools of the
same verbal form, are easily distinguishable in a literary
context. In 'Napoleon was a wolf' we have a good case
of Bentham's archetypation, the picture of a wolfleading
a pack to the destruction of flocks of sheep, and this picture obviously represents, or can be represented by, a
system of literal sentences, one of which would be
'Napoleon was a soldier: The finding and articulating of
this set of literal sentences would be what Bentham calls
phraseoplerosis. There is no doubt that such archetypation and phraseoplerosis would have been comforting to
the ordinary folk in the Napoleonic period of history. We
usually have similar but closer and less recognizable fictions in our minds, and they need similar treatment.
10
As in the case of the previous grammars, there are
matrices of terms from which metaphors are drawn. As
a matter of fact such matrices are constructed by the proper combination of adjectival hierarchies and relational
networks, but they have much greater generality and
usefulness than either of their constituents, and the process of combination would not be illuminating at this
point. These figurative matrices are like those from which
determinants are made in algebra, terms set in rows and
columns to make rectangular patterns, some oblong and
some square. Diagrammatically they look like this:
a
b
c
d
a
b
h
c
i
b
e
h
c
!
b
e
h
k
!
g
a
d
g
a
d
(1)
e
k
d
J
j
I
(2)
(3)
'
c
(4)
'
!{
I
J
Thus 'Napoleon is a wolf could be interpreted as a
metaphor drawn from a matrix of the first type, with four
terms thus:
Napoleon
peasants
wolf
sheep
(1)
Or from the second type:
Napoleon
army
peasants
kings
wolf
shepherds
(2)
pack
Or from type (3):
ambition
plans
hunger
hunting
end
means
sheep
success
satisfaction
consequences
(Napoleon)
(wolf)
(man)
It will be noted that the terms in this matrix do not include any of the terms in the metaphor except as these
are expanded in the matrix. This example might easily
be extended for the purposes of a psychological-ethical
analysis of the history of Napoleon. Another type might
state the comparative anatomy of Napoleon and a wolf.
The extent and shape of a given matrix depends on the
explicitness of the subject-matter, the available notations,
and the purpose of the diagram.
According to the mathematician a matrix should be
read merely as it stands, but this is doubtfully possible
in algebraic matrices, and quite impossible when the
terms are verbal. The mathematician's point is that matrices are merely arrangements, and the moment any
selection or rearrangement is attempted, a matrix
SUMMER 1984
�becomes a determinant with a value at least potentially
determined. The mathematician's insistence is somewhat
like the metaphysician's insistence that a prime matter
completely unformed can be separated from things and
dealt with in isolation, and in the metaphysical analogue
we may see what the mathematician intends to point out.
For the metaphysician wishes to say that matter can enter
into any of a certain class of things, and is not restricted
to this as against that form, except disjunctively, either
this or that. Likewise the mathematician intends to say
that different determinants can be drawn from the same
matrix, and this means that a matrix has a greater range
of possible forms than any one interpretation can put
upon it, though this range has definite limits, as could
be shown by the application of a calculus of permutations and combinations to the aggregate of terms.
It is the presence of the indeterminacy under a
definite form that makes it so difficult to read a matrix
without imputing to it one or another of the possible interpretations. On the other hand the attempt to make
a matrix fully explicit meets with great difficulties. A
matrix as it stands has many meanings but we do not
know which one is intended. A verbal matrix is like an
algebraic formula in which we do not know what is being talked about nor whether what it says is true. The
fact that it has words as terms makes it doubly puzzling
to the ordinary reader because we recognize the words
of which we usually think we know the meaning and yet
the clues these give us lead to labyrinthine confusions.
Just so to some people an algebraic equation calls for
solution and the filling in of unknown quantities, search
for which by the untrained algebraist leads across the
swamp of trial and error. The trained algebraist notes
the form of the equation and follows the rules appropriate
elements, the table top and the number five, but the
analogy makes clear that the similarity is not directly relevant. It rather holds between two relations, one between
a part and the whole of the table-top, and the other between one and five; it is between these relations only that
the similarity holds. Furthermore the similarity does not
hold between any two terms either of the metaphor or
of the analogy, but rather between two relations about
which nothing more than a similarity is stated. The
distinction here between what is stated and what is not
stated in the analogy shows what is definite in the matrix,
and what is left indefinite, and the distinction is important to keep in mind when dealing with metaphors,
analogies, and matrices in general.
The example chosen above is of course of the simplest
sort, and there are more complicated sorts, correspon-
ding to the types of matrices diagrammed previously. In
each case a similarity is stated between the respective relations that connect the terms in the several rows or columns. The primary relations connecting the successive
terms in any row or column may be of any sort as long
as the other rows and columns involve similar relations
similarly placed. Also terms may be repeated from one
row or column to another, resulting in the type of matrix
from which the Greeks drew their favourite analogical
formulae, the mean proportional. A completely
degenerate case of this would be a matrix in which all
the terms were identical and all the relations relations
of identity. The other extreme of this type would be a
matrix in which all the terms were distinct and different
and the relations in any one row or column different from
those in any other row or column. In this case we should
have what might be called a thin analogy, the similarity
holding only between orders resulting from quite different
to it. In some cases he will know that there are no determinate solutions, in others that there are several solu-
relations. All cases of physical measurement are cases of
tions, and in still others there may luckily be one and
only one. But there is still another kind of mathematician who will realise that the solutions are trivial illustrations only and that there is more to be learned by a study
of the form itself, and that such study may proceed
in either terms or relations, provided the relations give
rise to similar orders. Stated otherwise, a matrix consists of rows and columns of terms, such that the relational order in one row is repeated throughout the others,
and the relational order in one column is repeated
through transformations, generalization, and the many
tricks in mathematics that correspond to what Bentham
calls archetypation and phraseoplerosis. The ways of
such thin analogies. Any degree of diversity is allowed
throughout the others. Obviously the most abstract
matrical notation as it is written on paper fulfills the above
requirement in the bare spatial relations of its terms, but
generalization and manipulation of forms seem vague
that does not prevent it from exhibiting the form of an
and confusing to those who have like ourselves lost grasp
of their language, and these remarks about mathematics
may be comforting by way of citing precedent for the
following remarks about matrices of words.
The form that we have exhibited in matrices is the
form of the analogy; this is true both for mathematics
and for grammar. The relation between metaphors and
indefinite number of other matrices. One further point
their matrices is best shown in the expressions we have
for measurement. Thus to say that the table is five feet
long is a quasi-metaphorical short statement for the
analogy: a certain section of the table-top is to the whole
table-top as one is five. The original metaphorical statement says that there is a certain similarity between two
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
of formal description: Any retangular part of a given
matrix is also a matrix; and any given matrix may be
included as a part in some larger matrix. Any shifting
of the order of terms, and the rules for such shifting would
come under the treatment by rhetorical operations.
Bentham illustrates archetypation by an analysis of
the fiction of moral obligation. Chasing etymologization
as the clue, he says that the archetype involved in any
reference to obligations incumbent on persons is the pic-
ture of a man pinned to the earth by a heavy weight which
must be removed if he is to get free. This picture is the
archetype of the fiction in that it sets the pattern for the
11
�phraseoplerosis that is required to make clear just what
the elements and relations are that go ioto the social situation where we fmd obligations. In another place he cites
the picture of a man bound by ligatures to a load which
he is carrying as the archetype of obligation, and then
goes on to detail the elements in this situation. The flat
literal-mindedness of these interpretations is a striking
quality in all of Bentham's work; he was vividly aware
of the great distances in fictional discourse and was not
afraid to take them at one stride. The rest of the analysis
is concerned with the details of his well-known hedonistic
ethical theory.
If we assume that the analysis consisted in the construction of a matrix, the picture of the man pinned to
the ground by a heavy load serves to fill in the top row:
man
load
This row then serves as an archetype or model upon
which the other rows are to be built, and we may imagioe the last row as follows:
person
duties
There will be as many intermediate rows as are necessary
to make the fiction clear. In Bentham's case the middle
rows would present the main terms in the hedonistic
theory, and the original archetype would be expanded
to more terms for the sake of a finer analysis.
As the matrix grows by the addition of rows, the columns also take form and when it is complete we have
another archetype in the first column, which repeats its
form in the succeeding columns, and as a matter of fact
this second archetype is often used in the construction
itself. It would be used as an aid for the purpose of suggesting terms where the words for things and ideas are
in a confused state and difficult to choose. We may call
these second archetypes cognate to the first; they become
useful in measuring distances as we shall see. They may
displace the original archetypes in cases of emergency.
It should be noted that often the relations that constitute
the archetypal order in the columns are very thin relations of correspondence; whether they give place to
thicker relations or not depends on the skill of manipulation applied to the matrix in deriving formulae from it.
There are two important processes in scientific method
that are exceptions, the so-called one-oneing of series and
the observation and measurement of data. In these cases
there is a stage where mere correspondence is taken as
original and the process of induction passes from this to
detennination of relational order (for instance, in the case
of series, to the analysis of serial orders, and in the case
of measurement, to the articulation of relational hypotheses). The shift of attention from an archetype to its
cognate and back again sets the twin problems of
mathematical and empirical induction in a most instructive light. It informs imagination and memory, and may
at any time save the analytic process from complete
collapse.
12
Archetypation lays down the basic structure of the
matrix in the rows and columns. Phraseoplerosis completes the matrix by filling in secondary rows and columns. The remaining part of grammar is concerned with
the determinants and the rules by which they are drawn
from the matrix. In the first place two kinds of determinants are to be distinguished, the analogical determinant and the literal determinant. The analogical determinant is little more than a reformulation of the matrix,
though there is some variation in the ways that this can
be done. Thus the matrix
a
d
g
c
b
e
h
/
l
can be written as a determinant thus
a:b:c:d:e:J:g:h:i
which may be read
a is to b is to c as dis to e is to f as g is to h is to i.
The same matrix can also be written
·j ·
a .· d .· g .· .· b .· e .· h .· .· c . . ,·
In the Euclidean account of proportions, from which
this notation is taken, the second determinant would be
said to result from the first by alternation, and other
forms with which the reader will be acquainted result
from the first by inversion. The application to matrices
and analogies is obvious and needs no further comment.
These might be called the complete analogical determinants derivable from a matrix. Partial determinants
can also be derived by taking any rectangle or square
of terms as they stand, or by taking the corresponding
parts of selected rows or columns. For instance,
a
g
b
h
gives rise to the determinants
a:b::g:h
and
a:g::b:h
The derivation of literal determinants is a more fundamental process. Suppose we try to take a single row
or column by itself. We can do as Bentham did and
translate it into a picture, for instance, the man bound
to a load, but pictures are too ambiguous. If we are to
keep the necessary degree of rigour and explicitness, we
shall have to substitute some more determinate relation
for the implicit or variable relation that is indicated in
the matrix. Instead of simply
a
b
c
or
a: b : c
we shall have to say
SUMMER 1984
�where R 1 and R 2 are more or less explicitly defined relations. Thus
man
load
will have to be amplified or explicated to
man bound to load.
The derivation of literal determinants demands some
determination of the unknown or unstated relations of
the matrix. It is a more difficult process than any other
so far mentioned. It leads to the notion of a fully determined matrix in which all the relations would be made
explicit thus:
a
R'''
R'
R"
c
R'''
R'
b
R'''
e
d
R'"'
g
R"
f
R'
h
R"
R""
R''''
in which the primes show the diversity and yet the
similarity of the relations. Fortunately such fully determined matrices, if we may still call them such, are not
always needed. If the archetype is sufficiently familiar
as ,il picture, the determinate relations may quite
harmlessly remain submerged, as far as the analysis of
fictions is concerned. On the other hand, some degree
of explicitness must be brought into the analysis at some
point. Otherwise matrices, determinants, and analogies
in general become the vehicles of mysteries and the multiplication of mysteries. Familiarity with pictures is a scaffolding built in imagination for the sake of the establishment of explicit relational structures.
The derivation ofliteral determinants from matrices
actually calls for the specification of the relations in the
rows or columns concerned. These relations, as long as
they are in matrices, need only be specific enough to fulfil
the demands of analogical similarity; that is to say, they
are apparent variables as they enter into analogies. The
analogy says that there is at least one relation between
a and b which is like at least one relation between c and
d. It may be that there is more than one such relation
on each side for which the analogy holds. Literal determinants, on the other hand, substitute constant relations
for the variables, and since there may be more than one
constant that satisfies the conditions of the analogy in
the matrix, there may be several literal determinants for
any one row or column. If there is only one such constant, we say the original row was thin; if more than one,
the original row was thick Thin and thick relations make
weak and strong analogies respectively, and the usual objections to arguments by analogy are directed against
abuses that arise from confusing such relations. The cure
for such abuses is the careful explication of literal
determinants.
Certain violations of the rules for drawing literal
determinants from their matrices may give rise to what
might be called metaphorical determinants. In the matrix
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
a
c
b
d
it may be noted that a in the first row corresponds to
c in the second row. If we now substitute 'is' for 'corresponds td, we have the simplest and most familiar type
of metaphor. 'Napoleon is a wolf is an instance, and it
was drawn from the matrix
Napoleon
wolf
peasants
sheep
Another class of violations give rise to more subtle and
lively metaphors. 'Napoleon barked at the sheep' or 'The
Wolf stampeded the peasants' would seem to argue the
supposition of diagonal relations in the matrix, or the
product of the cognate relations. Strictly speaking this
is not the case. It is easy to see that 'barked at' and
'stampeded' belong in the literal determinants for the second and first row respectively, and that the metaphorical
sentences merely appear to shift them to the diagonal.
A literary purpose has been fulfilled by ellipsis, which
in these cases has either crushed or staggered an analogy.
Metonymy and synecdoche play similar happy havoc with
matrices, and likewise allegories, myths, and scientific
theories with more complex analogies.
It should now be clear that the results of phraseoplerosis consist in explicit relational statements extracted
as literal determinants from analogical matrices. Some
propositions as we meet them in discourse are metaphors
which are to be analysed and made explicit by archetypation and exposition in matrices. Metaphors are thus elliptical expressions for a group of propositions that we derive
as literal determinants from their matrices. The simplest
literal determinant will be a proposition that states a
dyadic relation holding between two terms of the matrix.
Larger literal determinants can be analysed into these
units. These are the atoms whose confluence in discourse
results in symbolic structures, and their conjunction in
analogies is the basis for the representation theory of
symbols.
One of the difficulties in the representation theory
is that propositions do not always show in their verbal
structures the kind of precise correspondence to one
another and to their objects that the theory demands.
I think I have shown one reason for this, namely that
some propositions are metaphorically elliptical, or contain telescopic words and incomplete symbols. A!llllysis
of these propositions removes the difficulty by showing
their elementary units and how they do correspond in
analogies. Another difficulty is due to the fact that not
all the symbolic units, the relational couples, are expressed in verbal propositions. In fact relations are in
a real sense themselves fictions, as Bentham says. They
can be translated into other symbolic elements, and in
ordinary discourse some relations are so translated and
some are not.
The best term to describe the symbolic elements into
which some relations are translated is operation, or
13
�operative. The discovery of operations in mathematics
and their careful formulation was a turning point in
analytic theory. So it might have been in the other
linguistic sciences. In mathematics it is possible to formulate the assumptions of geometry in terms of points,
translations, and rotations. The last two are operations
to be performed, first, on points and then on any elements
that result from such operations. Thus a line results from
the translation of a point in a given direction, and a circle from the rotation of this line about a point. When
such a formulation has been made, it becomes apparent
that the operations have taken the place of the fundamental relations in the older geometry. Likewise in
algebra the relations in an algebraic equation can be
formulated as operations on elementary symbols. Similarly the relational constituents of any language can be
translated into operations, a fact which has recently been
noted and developed by anthropologists and pragmatists
in philosophy, and recognized by them as parallel with
the operational interpretation of physics as we have it
stated in Bridgman's Th£ Logic of Modern Physics. As a matter of fact any material that is used symbolically can be
interpreted operationally, and this is done by substituting
operations for relations in all cases.
Some conservatives are alarmed at the apparent
degradation of science and thought in general brought
about by this translation. They think that relations have
been annihilated and that therefore rigour must have
been lost. They should be reminded that all the rigour
that is essential has been carried over in the translation,
and it should further be pointed out that there were very
puzzling paradoxes in the calculus of relations that were
disguised and hidden in the rules of operation. In other
words operations have always been present, and sometimes their neglect has had confusing consequences. The
operational interpretation of symbols recognizes these
puzzles, and at the same time applies its grammar to a
wider range of symbolic materials such as, for instance,
the use of scientific instruments and the patterns of
human behavior that enter into intellectual arts. Thus
the rules of grammar become mure general and adequate
as the grammarian admits that the whole field of symbols is his subject matter.
However these controversial matters may stand, the
point for us here is that a full analysis of fictions should
include operations as well as that part of the symbolic
14
complex which happens to be symbolized in sentences.
Thus the metaphor of measurement noted above, "The
table is five feet long;' must be analyzed into an analogy,
one side of which collslsts in the operation of successively
applying the unit of length to an interval which corresponds to the multiplication of one by five in arithmetic.
Most discourse for reasons of brevity and convenience
is half relational and half operational in its significance,
and the difficulty of deriving literal determinants from
matrices is often avoided by the introduction of operations where relations are not named. Similarly, the
representation theory will often not apJrly unless operations are introduced to supplement the propositional form
which is deficient.
Bentham realized this point a hundred years ago and
for that reason substituted operatives for verbs, thus gaining at the outset directness and concreteness in the results
of his analysis. The pictures which he used for archetypes,
when given operational interpretation, lead directly to
the detail of phraseoplerosis and the full exposition of
fictions. The final interpretation of matrices would also
treat the spaces between the terms in the rows and columns as blanks to be filled in with operations appropriate
to the analogical form. Thus we can say that the operation that will transform a to b is similar to the operation
that will transform c to d, and discover that Love makes
the World go round because the turning of one's head
and the apparent whirling of the visual field involve the
same relation or operation, namely, rotation.
With the extensions which the operational interpretation make possible for verbal symbols, sentences can enter
grammar in two ways: metaphorical or literal. If they
are metaphorical, they should be interpreted and analysed
by archetypation and phraseoplerosis with the help of
analogical matrices and the derivation of literal determinants. Literal determinants can then be asserted as
propositions or entertained as propositional functions
whose forms are relational. If sentences are literal, they
can be placed in matrices with their proper analogical
contexts. All of this may be done under the operational
interpretation.
Such is the grammatical account of the structure of
symbols and the description of the field within which fictions arise. It remains for rhetoric to show how these
structures arise in use, and what changes they undergo
and pass on to other things.
SUMMER 1984
�The Breathing Side of Ocean
The storm has lifted and the summer sea
lies still, a shimmering immensity,
as the spent waves slide over the sand.
The mind can almost grasp a sea this still,
is tempted to forget itself until
the vacationers return, crowding the strand.
They are well-equipped: umbrellas erected,
towels placed, radio-stations selected,
bodies well-oiled and tanning, they compose
a tedious leisure. Let the sun bless
them with lethargy. It will suffice.
I watch their children bobbing in the shallows,
and remember wading here, a child-king
for whom the sea dreamed freely, waves arching
toward the shore with the glory of Chinese
warriors, their horses crowned with foam,
their swords flashing victoriously in a prism
of mist beneath the chalky, mountainous clouds.
At evening I meander down the beach
to where the pelicans feed on dead fish.
The clouds are high and thin, luminous ghosts
attending the seas heavings, the waves crashing
dim silver. I lie down, thinking of nothing,
and watch the sea for hours, how it persists.
William Thompson
William Thompson is a graduate student in English at the University
of Virginia.
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
15
�The Problem and the Art of Writing
Jacob Klein
T
he subject of this lecture is The Problem and
the Art uf Writing. And that is what I am going
to talk about. My real theme, however, the
theme that prompts me to deliver this
lecture, is- Reading. For what we do here,
are supposed to do here, most of the time, is- reading.
I submit- and I hope you will not mind my saying thisthat, on the whole, we do not read too well. There are
obviously many reasons for this failure, varying from individual to individual, from circumstance to circumstance. It would be quite a task to try to account
for all of them. But there is one reason- one among so
many-which is conspicuously noticeable. Reading
means, first of all, to face a written text. And it seems
to me that we do not sufficiently reflect on what this fact
entails, on what writing itself implies or presupposes, and
on what it, of necessity, precludes. To talk about Reading
leads thus unavoidably to the subject of Writing. Hence
this lecture.
In reflecting about writing it is impossible to disregard
the spoken word. How could we, indeed? For human
speech, this marvel, this greatest marvel perhaps under
the sun, is right there, behind or beneath or above the
written word. It is difficult (although not impossible) to
conceive that there could have been writing without
human speech existing in this world. I mean, writing
seems to follow speaking. Writing and speaking exhibit,
at any rate, common aspects as well as aspects in which
they differ. Let me discuss those similarities and differences at some length.
The differences are not as clear as one might sup-
The late Jacob Klein taught at St. John's College, Annapolis, for over thirty
years. For a decade, from 1948-1958, he served as Dean of the College.
16
pose at first. Speaking, we might say, appears, of necessity,
as an audible sequence of sounds, a sequence in time;
actual human speech is never available as a whole, while
anything written is visibly there at once, in a book or
on a piece of paper or a chunk of stone. While reading,
even silent reading, takes time, as does the act of writing,
a written text, which takes up some space, is present all
at once in all its parts. But what about a tape-recorded
speech or conversation? Is not the whole right there, on
the marked tape? Are not written records of the proceedings, say, in a law court complete in such a way as
to project the temporal sequence of all the speaking that
goes on into a more or less limited space in which the
entire sequence is duplicated, and thus preserved, at
once? Such projections, duplications, and preservations
of live speech by means of manual skills or mechanicoelectrical or electronic devices amount to canning processes. The result is indeed canned speech that can be
released again into its proper medium by vocal or
mechanical or electrical means. The written word, however, is not at all canned speech. The primary cause for
the existence of the written word is not the desire to
duplicate and to preserve the sound of the spoken word,
but the desire to preserve its meaning so that it could
be conveyed to others over and over again. Writing tends,
therefore, to a shortening of the spoken word, a shortening that manifests itself in a variety of ways. Let us consider this phenomenon in some detail.
First of all, any writing is shorthand writing. Any
writing will do violence to the sound of the spoken word
for, although it cannot help reproducing words, its
primary purpose is to convey the meaning of those words.
The various methods of writing show that clearly. Chinese
characters, as you all know, although they can be read,
are drawn not to be read but to be understood without
recourse to the medium of sounds. They are appropri-
SUMMER 1984
�ately called ideograms. Egyptian hieroglyphics, at least
the oldest ones, convey their meaning directly, even
though out of them evolved a syllabic and alphabetic
script, something that happened to Chinese characters,
too. But even alphabetic writing, i.e., writing reproducing the sounds of words with the help of some thirty letters and combinations of letters, can often be read only
if the meaning is grasped first. This is particularly true
in the case of English writing. We would not know how
to pronounce, for instance, the assemblage of the three
letters BOW or ROW without the context that gives this
assemblage one of its several meanings. The reason for
this ambiguity is that the number ofletters is not sufficient to indicate the various sounds we are producing
while speaking. Although in many cases, as in the examples given, it might be easy to remedy the situation
by changing the spelling, it does not seem possible to
reproduce in writing the sound of all spoken words with
complete faithfulness. And that would probably still be
true if we adopted a phonetic system of signs, as the
linguists do, unless we multiplied the number of those
signs immeasurably. It is rather remarkable that the inadequacy of our sign systems does not really bother us.
It is true that something very similar can be said of
spoken words (in any language) inasmuch as the same
sound may convey differnt meanings depending on the
context, as for example the sounds "spell;' ''lie" (lye), "die"
(dye), or the sound of inflections in nouns and verbs. In
cases like those, writing might help to distinguish the
meanings, but it does not always do that. The relation
of written signs to the sounds of words seems, on the
whole, more ambiguous than the relation of those sounds
to their meanings.
Now, what seems to me significant is that the shortcomings of our character or letter systems appear to
reflect the tendency inherent in all writing to shorten the
flow of spoken words for the purpose of clarifying and,
above all, of preserving their meaning. This shortening
is done by reducing the number of the spoken words,
by condensing them, as it were, and this in turn is done
by selecting and arranging them in a proper way. That
is where the problem of writing begins to emerge.
Such shortening and condensing cannot be attempted, let alone achieved, unless the whole of what is to be
written is in some way present to the writer- I mean the
whole as a whole, not necessarily in all its details. In
shortening and condensing the spoken word, writing extends the devices by which words and sentences are con-
joined in live speech. The device of shading the meaning of words by inflections or prepositional and adverbial linkages, and above all, the device of combining not
only words but whole sentences by means of conjunctions and variations of verbal forms- the sum total of
all such devices constitutes what we call the arts and
disciplines of Grammar and Syntax. These terms refer
to disciplines which are the result of some reflection on
the manner of our speaking. It is not without interest
to observe that such reflection bore fruit, in other words,
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
that those disciplines took shape, in confrontation with
the written word, as the very word "grammar" indicates.
But writing itself transforms those grammatical and syntactical devices by applying them on a much larger scale
to the whole of a written work. The term "syntax"
( cruv"ta~t<;), in particular, acquires a much more comprehensive meaning. The word means "co-ordering," "putting things together in a certain order;' "com-posing." Anticipating the whole of what is to be written down, the
writer has to fit the parts of that whole into a proper order.
We have a direct pointing to this procedure in the title
of Ptolemy's book that we study here: it is called
Matherrwtical Composition (cruvra~t<; !!<XStl!i<X"tlKl'j)-"mathematical" in contrast to a possible non-mathematical composition relating to celestial phenomena. But the same
term cruvra~t<; could be applied to all written works. The
anticipated whole imposes upon the writer the task of
com-posing its parts with the graduated emphasis due
to each of them. And just as the devices of such a composition are extensions of syntactical devices (in the
restricted sense of the term "syntax"), the devices involved
in varying emphases, the devices of articulation, appear
to be extensions of grammatieal shadings observable even
in simple sentences of live speech.
The shortening and condensing of spoken words in
writing demand, then, modifications and extensions of
grammatical and syntactical devices. In writing, the
devices of Articulation and Composition add a new
dimension above and beyond the one governed by grammatieal and syntactical rules. It is in these new devices
that the problem of writing resides. That problem can
be formulated as follows: how can the anticipated whole
be made to unfold itself so as to become an actual whole,
that is, in Aristotle's immortal phrase, to become
something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end?
Right at this point, we see that the term "writing"
may be somewhat misleading if it is understood to suggest that the act of writing must be done with some kind
of instrument on some visible material. A speech in a
political assembly, in an election campaign, or on some
other public occasion (a lecture, for example) may well
be delivered without any written text, even any written
notes; the speaker could, of course, have prepared his
speech beforehand in writing, but he need not have done
so; he must, however, have prepared it somehow by thinking about what he is going to say and about how he is
going to say it; he must thus have anticipated the whole
of his speech and have committed this whole to his
memory, again not necessarily in all its details, but in
such a way that its composition and its main articulations are present to his mind. A speaker of this kind is
a writer, too. His rhetorical problem is not different from
the problem the writer faces. The speaker's memory is
covered, as it were, with the "imprints" of the whole. On
the other hand, a letter, a hastily scribbled note, can, on
occasion, be something like canned speech, if that letter
or note reproduces faithfully what would have been said
without writing.
17
�The distinction, then, between the spoken word and
the written word reduces itself to the distinction between
saying something spontaneously and saying something
in the light of an anticipated whole. Yet, this does not
seem sufficient. It could become more meaningful if we
looked at the effect speaking or writing may have or may
not have on the listener or reader.
We all remember a phrase that Homer uses so often
when describing human speech, the phrase "winged
words" (E1tEU n·mp6EV'tU). Whence this image? In most
cases, the phrase occur& when a personage, a god or a
man, addresses another single personage, a god or a man.
Occasionally it is also used when someone speaks to a
group or a crowd of people. Minstrels in Homer are never
said to utter or to sing "winged words." Now, words are
not called "winged" to indicate their soaring or lofty quality. The image seems rather to imply that words, after
escaping the "fence (or barrier) of the teeth'' (EpKo<;
OOOV'tOJV), as Homer puts it, are guided swifty, and
therefore surely, to their destination, the ears and the soul
and the understanding of the addressee. Words, especially
spontaneous words, can indeed be spoken in such a way
as to "sink in;' as we say. But this possibility grows more
uncertain with the growing indefiniteness of the addressee. It is more difficult to reach a crowd of men than
a single man. Exertions of a special kind are then required. In writing, the indefiniteness of the addressee
becomes almost complete. Live speech is spontaneous,
not confined within the boundaries of an anticipated
whole, and more often than not endowed with wings.
Written speech, visibly put down or invisibly committed
to memory, is prepared, composed and articulated as a
whole, and may yet lack wings. The problem of writing,
then, is: how to give wings to written words so that they
may reach their destination, the soul and the understanding of men.
To solve this problem, that is, to know how to compose and to articulate words so as to give them wings,
is to possess the art of writing. However artful the composition, some of us, of course, will not be touched by
the wings. There are no safeguards against that.
In the main, there are two ways in which this problem Baa be solved.
One is: to say explicitly all that is necessary for the meaning of the written text to be grasped, that is, not to omit
any link in the chain which binds our understanding,
and not to say anything which could disrupt that chain.
This kind of composition is conspicuously present in
mathematical works, in Euclid, Apollonius, good calculus
textbooks, and so forth; it is prevalent in any writing
meant to convey to us an understanding of the ways of
nature, of nature's structure, of the interlocking of natural
phenomena; its traces may be found elsewhere, too, especially in legal writing. The articulation of such works
tends to follow the sequence oflogical inferences. In fact,
it is the reflection on what is implied in this kind of composition that leads to the conception and establishment
of a very special art and discipline. This discipline has
18
as its subject that element in human speech, that element of the A.6yo<;, which gives it the character of
reasoned discourse. It concerns itself with the pure structures of the A.Oyo<; and bears therefore the name of Logic.
Subsequent reflection may make us doubt whether words
derived from actual speaking can serve as vehicles of
logical inferences. This doubt, in turn, leads to more
refined versions of the discipline of logic, leads to what
is call today Symbolic Logic. Any writing termed
mathematical or scientific is under the spell of the idea
of a strictly logical demonstrative discipline that proceeds
from accepted premises through a chain of inescapable
inferences to irrefutable conclusions. Seldom,. if ever, does
a composition embody this idea in its purity. The degrees
to which this idea is being approximated form a wide
range. What interests us here is the character of the wings
proper to compositions of this kind. This character is the
necessity inherent in our thinking.
The other way in which the problem of writing can
be solved is quite different. Here what is most important and decisive is not said explicitly at all. Compositions of this kind tend to articulate the whole in such
a way as to raise questions about the link that holds them
together. It is our answer that will either illuminate the
whole or plunge us into further darkness out of which
we shall be groping anew for light. Writings of this kind
taunt us. The character of the wings proper to them is
the taunting presence of a hidden answer, yet of an answer
within our reach. In what follows I shall try to give examples of this second way of writing. I shall take them
from Homer and Plato. But before embarking upon this
dangerous enterprise, I have to add a not unimportant
remark to what I have just said.
I said that in the main there are two ways of solving
the problem of writing and I have tried to indicate what
they were. I said "in the main" because there are- as
always- border cases and fringe phenomena in writing
that may loom large before our eyes and glow in a
peculiar light. Among the oldest cases of writing are, for
example, written laws. There are also monuments, themselves something like imprints on the collective memory
of mankind, but imprints made visible, and there are
inscriptions on them glorifying the deeds of some great
man or of some great ruler or of an infamous one. There
are epitaphs. There are short poems expressing a mood
or a whim, aphorisms, sayings, and proverbs. I omit mentioning other examples. (There are too many of them.)
We tend to cherish such border cases and fringe phenomena and to devote special attention to them. But I should
venture to say that they find their place on the map of
writing in terms of coordinates derived from the two main
stems of writing I was talking about.
And now, let me turn to the first example of the
second of these main stems.
Consider the Iliad. Among the great many events that
follow each other in the story and the description of which
constitutes the whole of the poem, there are certain ones
of decisive importance, which are quite familiar to us:
SUMMER 1984
�(I) the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles which
leads to Achilles' withdrawing from the fight; (II) the victorious advance of the Trojans; (III) the intervention and
death of Patroclus; (IV) the reappearance of Achilles on
the field of battle; (V) the death of Hector; (VI) the
funeral ofPatroclus; (VII) the surrender of Hector's body
to Priam. All these decisive events could be put in a
diagram as follows:
I
JI][·
·--------------- -x --..z
,6 " '
Disregarding the more or less superficial division into
books or songs and even allowing for all kinds of tampering with, and dislocations of, the original text, there is
no denying that the decisive events are crowded into the
last third of the whole. Between (I) and (II) events of great
significance certainly do occur, as, for example, the death
lost through Agamemnon's action. It is then said (I,
511-12): "But Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, said nothing at
all to her and sat in silence for a long while (&ljv):' An
awful silence! Thetis repeats her plea. At last, Zeus consents and nods, a sign of an irrevocable decision. Olym-
pus shakes. Thetis departs, apparently satisfied that she
has accomplished her mission. Has she?
The second event occurs after Patr~::>elus' death
(XVIII. 165-229), while the battle for Patroclus' body
rages before the ships between Hector and the Aiantes
and while Thetis is on her way to get new arms for her
son from Hephaestus. Hera sends Iris to Achilles, without
Zeus and the other gods knowing anything about the mission, to urge Achilles to intervene in the struggle for
Patroclus' body. Since Achilles has no arms at this juncture, he is asked by Iris to do nothing but to show himself
to the Trojans, to frighten them by his mere appearance.
Achilles, "dear to Zeus" (203), obeys and does more than
what Hera through Iris asked him to do. Pallas Athene,
who is nearby, does her share: she casts the tasseled aegis
around his shoulders and she sets a crown in the guise
of a golden cloud about his head and from it issues a
blazing flame. Thus he appears- alone, separated from
the other Achaeans- in the sight of the foe, a flaming
torch. But not only does he appear, he shouts, three times,
and the wounding of many and important warriors, the
Diomedean terror, the wounding of two gods, the encounter of Diomedes and Glaucus, the peaceful scenes
a terrible shout, clearly heard-and "from afar Pallas
Athene uttered her voice" (217-18). Unspeakable confu-
in Troy, the unsuccessful embassy to Achilles, inconclusive
duels among men and delightfully treacherous actions
on the part of the gods-all of which contribute in varying degrees to the unfolding plot. In the main, however,
the battle is swaying back and forth all the time until
finally the Trojans reach the ships of the Achaeans. During all that time Achilles sits in his tent, sulking, and only
occasionally watching the fight. The pivotal event, the
death of Patroclus, which changes, which reverses
saved.
What kind of shout is this? Is it one of triumph? Of
everything, occurs very late in the poem, in the sixteenth
book. It is as if the poem took an exceedingly long breath
to reach that point and afterwards rushed with breathtaking speed to its end. This is the more remarkable since
the entire period of time the poem encompasses is one
of 49 days and Patroclus' death occurs on the 26th day,
that is, very nearly in the middle of that period.
Why is the composition articulated in such an unbalanced way, we wonder. Let us see.
There are two events-among many others-which
I have not mentioned at all. Yet it is these two events that
seem to be the two foci from which all light dispersed
throughout the poem stems.
The first takes place when Thetis, Achilles' mother,
is visiting Zeus to ask for his help on behalf of her son,
reminding Zeus of the help he once received from her.
She wants Zeus to turn the scales of the war, to let the
the Trojans have the upper hand until finally, in the hour
of the Achaeans' greatest peril, 'Achilles, and only Achilles,
might be able to save them from certain defeat, lead them
to victory, and thus regain his honor, which he allegedly
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
sion and terror seizes the Trojans. Patroclus' body is
threat? Is it an ordinary war cry, raised to a very high
pitch? It is certainly not like the bellowing of the wounded
Ares (V, '859, 863). Two verbs are used to describe that
shout, one of a rather neutral taint, and, at the decisive
moment, another,
iuxro
(22S), which has a range of
meanings. One of these meanings is "crying out in grief;'
Shortly before (29) the same verb was used in precisely
this meaning to describe the lament of the maidens at
the news of Patroclus' death. It will be repeated shortly
afterwards (XIX, 41) to describe Achilles' shouting when
he rouses the Achaeans to battle. Why does Achilles shout
now, though not urged to do so by Iris? Certainly, to
frighten the Trojans, to make them desist from Patroclus'
body. But can this shouting fail to express the unspeakable
pain that fills his heart, the pain which had just brought
his mother to him from the depth of the sea? Here indeed is a terrible sight to behold: a man raised to his
highest glory by Pallas Athene, wearing the aegis,
crowned by flames, radiant, truly god-like-and this same
man crushed by grief, miserable in his awareness of hav-
ing himself brought the immensity of this grief upon
himself. The apotheosis of Achilles is the seal of his doom.
And it is his voice, his brazen voice (XVIII 222), his terrible shouting, which brings terror to the foe, that expresses
his misery and his doom. Pallas Athene's voice seems but
a weak echo of that of Achilles or is even completely
drowned out by the latter's intensity.
But are not these two events related?
19
�Does not Achilles' shout sonorously echo Zeus' silence?
Can we not guess now why Zeus remained silent for a
long while? Surely, he had to take account of the susceptibilities of his wife, as any husband would- and in his
marital relations Zeus is no exception- but is it only
Hera whom he was silently thinking about? Must he not
have been concerned about the whimsical nature of
Achilles' plight and Thetis' plea? And, on the other hand,
how could he have refused to satisfy Thetis in whose debt
he was? Is it not right then and there that Zeus decided,
in wisdom and sadness, irrevocably too, to accede to
Thetis' demand, to give honor and glory to Achilles, but
to do that in a manner which neither Thetis nor Achilles
suspected? The long stretch of the poem which corresponds to Achilles' inactivity fills Zeus' silence. While
the tide of the battle is being reversed, Patroclus' approaching death is announced twice (VIII, 476; XV,
64-7), the steps which lead to it are carefully pointed out
(XI, 604, 790-804, especially 792-3). Achilles will get
what he wants, but at the price of the greatest loss he
could suffer- the loss of his beloved friend, his other self
(XVIII, 79-82). In the hour of his triumph he will be
the most miserable of men. The ways of Zeus are as wise
as they are crooked. Zeus does not know about Iris' mission. But do the strong-headed and light-minded goddesses, Hera and Pallas Athene, know what is going on?
They do not, nor does Achilles' mother (XVIII, 74-5).
While Pallas Athene transfigures Achilles into a god,
Achilles is mortified. He has grasped Zeus' intent. He
says himself (XVIII, 328): "Not all the thoughts of men
does Zeus fulfill"; as Homer has said before (XVI,
250-2), commenting on Achilles' prayer before the slaying of Patroclus: "One thing the father granted him, the
other he denied:' Zeus denied him the safe return of
Patroclus. He denied it for Achilles' true glory's sake. For,
as Zeus confides to Poseidon, mortal men are his concern even in their perishing (XX, 21). That is what
neither Hera nor Pallas Athene understand. Hera does
not understand the biting irony of Zeus' remark to her
(XVIII, 357-9): 'Well, then, you have accomplished this,
you have aroused Achilles free of foot. Verily, the flowinghaired Achaeans must be your children:'
Achilles' suffering at the moment of his triumph is
Achilles' own. It cannot be matched by anything on
Olympus. It is as much the prerogative of a mortal as
it is the attribute of a hero. Homer is the teacher no less
of Aeschylus than he is of Plato.
This, then, is one example of the way in which a piece
of writing taunts us to understand what is being said not
20
in so many words, but through the articulation and composition of the whole. The answer I have given may not
be the right one or may not suffice. It is up to you to
find a better one.
Let us turn to the second example, Platds Phaedrus.
This example has the virtue of being not only an example of writing, but also a piece of writing the main theme
of which is writing itself. The two people who do the talking in this dialogue are Socrates and Phaedrus. Phaedrus
is a young man who loves passionately everything connected with words. He is a qnA.6A.oyo~ and so is Socrates.
The conversation is between two lovers of words and takes
place, on a summer day, outside the walls of Athens, near
a cool brook, under the shade of a tree in which cicadas
make a continuous and, I suppose, sometimes deafen.
.
1ng nmse.
The dialogue is divided as follows: there is an introductory part which I shall omit, although it is highly
significant. Then there are two clearly distinguishable
parts as follows:
"' Q00
~
=·
" lis.
I
The whole dialogue is framed, as it were, by two
figures. One is. Lysias, a famous speech-writer, who, at
the very beginning of the dialogue, appears on the scene
in the most suitable mask, to wit, as the scroll in
Phaedrus' left hand. (The scroll contains a speech written by Lysias.) Lysias remains present in that guise
(although presumably not always in Phaedrus' left hand)
throughout the entire dialogue. The other figure is
!socrates, another famous speech-writer, who is conjured
up by Phaedrus and given stature and dignity by Socrates
at the very end of the dialogue. One emerges as a past
master of bad writing and the other as full of promise
of becoming a writer of superior standing. Between these
two extremes Phaedrus is confronted with the problem
of Speaking and Writing-and so are we.
In the first part, three speeches are heard, the one
written by Lysias and read by Phaedrus, the other two
spoken by Socrates who keeps attributing their authorship variously to somebody he cannot remember, or to
the local deities, the Nymphs and Pan, or to the poet
Stesichorus, or to the cicadas, or to Phaedrus. The two
speeches spoken by Socrates are, at any rate, painstakingly elaborate, and, if they are not to be taken strictly
as written speeches, can hardly be conceived as impro-
SUMMER 1984
�vised unless, indeed, they are "inspired;' that is, dictated
by divine or superior powers.
Lysias' speech is the plea of a man to a young boy,
in which it is contended that it is better to favor a nonlover than a lover. Phaedrus considers it a wonderful
speech, "charming," as he would say today. Socrates finds
plenty of faults in it and proceeds to deliver a better
speech on the same theme, except that this speech blames
the lover and stops short at the point where it is supposed
to begin praising the non-lover. Phaedrus does not succeed in making Socrates finish that speech. It remains
truncated. Instead, Socrates, by way of recantationbecause he has offended Love- delivers another speech
in praise of Love. This speech, the most eloquent, occupies the middle part of the dialogue and is spoken by
Socrates while the sun goes through its highest course.
There is a definite change in the tenor of the dialogue
after the speeches are done with, and this changed tenor
persists throughout the second part. The conspicuous difference in the tenor of the two parts poses the problem
of the dialogue's composition.
Socrates and Phaedrus begin to speak, quietly and
soberly, about the spoken and written word and continue
doing so until the very end of the dialogue. Phaedrus
agrees with Socrates that the real problem concerning
writing is to distinguish good writing from bad writing
and is ready to embark on a discussion on this subject.
It is here (258E-259D) that Socrates calls Phaedrus' attention to the cicadas over their heads. He tells a story
about their origin: they were once human beings, even
before there were Muses; now, in their present form, so
says Socrates, they are supposed to report to the Muses
and to tell them who among men honors whom among
the Muses; they are watching, says Socrates, him and
Phaedrus now, at noontime, and if they see both talking
to each other and not asleep -like sheep and most
men- they might be pleased and report accordingly. The
question arises: why does Socrates tell this marvelous and
fantastic story of the cicadas' origin and nature at this
moment? It seems to be done to underscore that, from
now on, Phaedrus and Socrates, instead of exchanging
elaborate speeches, that is, written or dictated words, will,
in leisurely and sober fashion, converse about speechmaking and speech-writing and thus restore to the spoken
word its proper and unchallengeable function. The trouble is that Socrates' tale interrupts this sober conversation. And let us not forget that this sober conversation
is embodied in a written text.
In what follows, we witness the previous speeches being criticized and analyzed. The beginning of Lysias'
speech is subjected to a special scrutiny. And in the course
of it this beginning of Lysias' speech is made to repeat
itself, twice (262E; 263E-264A), word for word. We hear
Socrates interpreting freely the speeches he himself made,
assuming the role of their "father," so freely indeed that
they appear somewhat changed: the doubtful is omitted,
the wording is modified, additions are made (264E ff. ).
It is Socrates' way of supporting and defending the truth
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
they might contain. We observe Socrates and Phaedrus
bearing down on various books which claim to teach the
art of speaking. Phaedrus, the "lover of the Muses," is
not altogether satisfied with this kind of conversation
which he describes as "somewhat bare" (262C).
At the crucial point, when the discussion seems to
revert to the problem of good and bad writing (274B),
it is again interrupted by Socrates. He suddenly asks:
"Do you know in what way you would best please divinity
in the matter of words, either in making speeches or talking about them?" Phaedrus replies: "I certainly do not.
Do you?" Socrates: ''A tale, no more, I can tell from hearsay; a tale that has come down from our fore-fathers;
as to the knowledge of the truth, it is theirs alone:' And
Socrates casually adds: "But should we ourselves find this
truth, would any human fancy or opinion (S6l;uaJ.LU)
about it still be of any concern to us?" To which Phaedrus
replies: ''A ridiculous question!" Urged by Phaedrus to
report what he heard, Socrates proceeds to tell the tale
of Theuth and Thamous, legendary Egyptian personages,
a tale in which Theuth is reported to have invented letters, and thereby writing, and to have presented this invention to the god-king Thamous. I shall read now what
Thamous, according to Socrates, says (274E-275B):
"Most artful Theuth, one man has the ability to beget
artful things, another the ability to judge of their
usefulness or hamfulness to their users; and now you,
who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that
which they possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because
they will neglect their memory, inasmuch as their tftist
in writing will make them recollect by means of external marks which are no part of themselves and will not
make them recollect from within through their own effort. You have thus discovered an aid not to memory but
to reminding. And you give to those who learn not truth
but merely the appearance of wisdom: they will become
acquainted with many things without proper teaching
and will seem to know, while remaining for the most part
ignorant and hard to get along with since, instead of getting wise, they will merely have acquired the reputation
of being wise:'
We should not forget that this is a tale and that we
have been warned by Socrates: hearsay is no substitution for our own discovery of the truth. Again, we should
not forget that this tale presents itself to us as a written
text which, according to the very content of the tale, cannot be relied upon without proper teaching. Neither
should we forget that the discussion of the problem of
good and bad writing has, once more, been successfully
interrupted.
What follows in the written text is a description of
writing that makes it appear a playful thing, undertaken
for "amusement's sake" (276B-D). One cannot expect
written words to be serious. For, as Socrates says (275D),
"you would think that they (the written words) speak as
if they had understanding, but should you, from a desire
21
�to learn, ask them anything about what they say, they
do nothing but repeat always one and the same thing!'
They cannot, therefore, defend themselves against misunderstanding and abuse. Furthermore, they cannot and
do not discriminate between those to whom they speak.
Any author who holds that there could be much solidity
and clarity in his written work, whatever its subject,
deserves to be blamed for that, regardless of whether there
is anyone to voice the blame or not (277D-E; 275C).
What, then, about the distinction between good and
bad writing that Socrates and Phaedrus set out to discuss?
Nothing is said about it. The answer to that question has
been- of necessity, it seems- playfully withheld. Still,
whatever has been said about the problem of writing has
been enacted in the dialogue. The repetitiousness of the
written word, its inability to defend itself, the superiority of the spoken word in spontaneous conversation which
interprets with understanding what was written downall that has been enacted by Socrates and Phaedrus in the
dialogue. Must we not continue the conversation to solve
the problem of good writing, to find the answer which
was not stated in the dialogue? And does not precisely
the Phaedrus, as it is written, offer an example of how good
writing can be done?
I have few concluding remarks.
Is Plato right in attributing superiority to the spoken
word, to any conversation in which winged words can
be exchanged spontaneously? There is a point at which
this superiority seems to disappear altogether.
22
A most remarkable similarity obtains between words,
spoken words of live speech, and money, money that is
available in coins and bills. Both are precious, both circulate freely, coins and bills from hand to hand, words
from mouth to mouth. The imprints on coins and bills
are gradually erased, effaced, rubbed off, just as the
meanings of words seem to become fuzzy, blurred and
empty with the passage of time. There is even
counterfeiting in language as there is in money. Human
speech, that greatest marvel perhaps under the sun, can
and does indeed deteriorate to an extent which renders
it obnoxious and totally wingless.
It is at this point that the written word may come
to its rescue. As we so aptly say, words can be "coined."
This happens both ways: words can be coined in support of cliches, fostering and increasing the ever-present
tendency to diminish the vigor and meaning of speech;
but words can also be coined afresh.
In a letter to a friend, Virgil, a writer, says that he
gives birth to verses in the manner of bears and according to their custom (parere se versus modo atque ritu ursina),
that is to say, that he handles his verses the way the mother
bear handles her newly born cub: assiduously and persistently she licks it into its proper shape. Such assiduous
work, performed on the written word and undertaken
to assure the right articulation of a composed whole, can
and does restore and preserve the integrity of human
speech. It is thus that the written word repays its eternal
debt to the spoken word.
SUMMER 1984
�Passage
Ich habe unter meinen Papieren ein Blatt
gifunden . . . wo ich die Baukunst eine
erstarrte M usik nenne.
Goethe
Cold as it is, this Duomo isn't frozen
Music. Measures I have in mind grow stiff
To no fa<;:ade, no calculable space,
No shrines for worship. God
And Goethe can't discern the difference,
Not having heard my music. This is not
To say that music has anything much to do
With sound- the unessential ear-caress
Of cello or contralto. Only the tones
Have number. Music moves
By turnings, unprefigured, unannouncedFallings that promise risings, like the wink
Of Eros at the crossing of the bar.
Elliot Zuckerman
Elliot Zuckerman is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis.
THE ST JOHN'S REVIEW
23
�The Myth and Logic of Democracy
John S. Kieffer
D
emocracy is a myth. From one point of view
there is not and never has been a government or a society that is truly democratic.
But on the other hand, when the name is
given with sinGerity to a government, there
are demands imposed on that government and its people that compel them to act so that the name is not completely falsified. This is the nature of a myth. It is a story
that is both false in detail or in literal fact, true in spirit
and in general.
The myth of democracy is, however, in our tradition
more definite than these general considerations. The
myth of democracy is the history of ancient Athens. It
has its quintessential formulation in the funeral oration
of Pericles, though it is told by all the great Athenian
writers; poets, historians, orators, or philosophers. It is
a lively, living myth. When modern historians write about
Athens, they reveal as much about modern political feeling as they do about ancient Athens. All the battles of
politics in the nineteenth and twentieth century have been
fought in the Agora of Athens.
The myth of Athenian Democracy has been one of
the great formative myths for our times. The goddess
Athena stands in the center of it. Athenas place in the
myth is exemplified in the Eumenides. She was the founder
of the court of the Areopagus, which symbolized the
wisdom and justice that were to replace the tribal custom
of blood-feud. The Athenians saw themselves in this central myth as escaping from the reign of the daughters
of Night, the furies. Now Athena is the goddess of the
In the course of a lifetime of teaching at St. John's College, Annapolis, John
Kieffer served as professor, tutor, President and Dean of the College.
24
household arts, of weaving, of managing. She also gives
the art of persuasion and practical reason.
In the Statesman Plato draws an analogy between the
art of weaving and the art of government or kingship.
It is not fanciful to suppose that he had Athena the weaver
in mind when he did so. He must have been thinking
of the way Athena had woven the fabric of her polis from
the warp of the bold natures who dominated the assembly
and the woof of prudence in the Areopagus. At any rate
the history of Athens shows this interweaving of boldness
and prudence, grandly in Themistocles and Aristides,
meanly in Nicias and Alcibiades.
The myth of democracy is largely legend, that is, a
story explaining some great phenomenon of history.
What does it explain? To take an example of another
myth, in the case of the Trojan cycle it seems probable
that the myths explain the breakdown of the Mycenaean
world. Periods of chaos are productive of legend. But this
is not the full story. The my.th of Troy as we have it is
the work of a man of genius who seems to have lived long
after the disappearance of the Mycenaean world. The
expansion of Greece through colonies seems to have been
the exciting cause of the Homeric poems. This was again
a period of swift change such as to be fertile in making
myths. So, for the Trojan war,. it seems that two periods
of history contribute to the story. (I am not saying that
the Homeric poems are caused by historical circumstances. The absolute cause must be the myth-making
faculties of Homer and his unknown predecessors. I am
saying that historical periods supply the material for the
poet's imagination to work on. And further, that periods
of change supply the most usable kind of material. Still
further, it may be that the finished poem, the Iliad or
Odyssey, is produced in a stable period following a period
of change.)
With the analogy of the Iliad and Odyssey in mind,
SUMMER 1984
�we may try to see what historical circumstances furnished
material for the myth of democracy. I am not going to
say "the fifth century," because that was the myth. To us
looking back it has historical being and becomes circumstantial to the myth; to the people living then it did
not, of course, exist historically, and so could not be the
phenomenon they felt called on to explain. I think the
historical phenomenon I am looking for is that same
period of colonization, or rather its concluding phase,
that had been, in its earlier phase, the material for
Homer. The second set of historical conditions for the
myt~ of democracy would be the rise of the Persian
empire.
So it is my contention that the myth of democracy
that we know from a community of bards and classic
writers, and that they knew from the rhapsodes of the
assembly, somehow told itself by applying its imagination to the colonizing period that ended in the sixth century B.C. and to the Persian wars. What was there about
that period that aroused the imagination to see a way
of government by words? And secondly, why does this
produce a myth of democracy?
I answer my first question first. Words must have
achieved a new importance for the sea-faring colonizers.
Ulysses shows by his example how his survival depended
on his skill with words: his quick repartee with the
Cyclops, his courteous speech and inspired tale-spinning
among the Phaeacians, his self-concealing lies when he
had returned to Ithaca. We can well imagine how often
a group of colonizers had use for quick wit and ready
tongue, to ease their way among strange tribes on the
coast ofltaly or the Crimea, to gain advantage over rival
groups seeking. a "home far off' on the same site, to settle disputes among the colonists themselves, now they
were living far from their accustomed ways and ancestral
habits.
This last was perhaps most important of all, for,
though hearth fire.and home gods accompanied the colonists, and ancestral customs were carried in their very
souls, the change of setting must have weakened the sentiment with which the colonists regarded them. Moreover,
many of their gods and customary rites must have been
inappropriate to their new surroundings. Add to this that
the colonizers went in small groups to widely scattered
places, from the Crimea to Spain, and came from many
different home cities, and so there was no central direction of their movement. They were forced to rely on their
own resources. No wonder then that the colonies were
often pioneers in new constitutions and in the development of written law. In all this words assume an importance not only greater than before, but also of a different
kind. As confirmation from the converse let me remind
you that the Spartans, who did not colonize and did not
carry on commerce overseas, were a byeword to the rest
of the Greeks for brevity of speech and have given us
our word Laconic. No one should be surprised to notice
that Homer was an Ionian and that both poetry and
philosophy sprang into being in colonial areas: Sappho,
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Alcaeus, and Archilochus in the islands; Thales, in Ionia,
Pythagoras born in Samos and settled in Southern Italy.
The rise of Persia contributed to the myth in a different way. In the first place Persia created Greece. It
was the threat of conquest by her world empire that made
the Greeks know themselves as Greeks. This was the
origin of the myth of Hellas. The Hellenes were forced
into a cooperative effort for self-defence. Once more the
power of words was made apparent. You cannot read
Herodotus without observing how rational discussion
among the allies was essential to the measures taken to
meet the Persian danger and how much persuasion was
needed to bring the leaders to agree on plans in common.
So we have the myth of Hellas and have seen how
the Greeks have discovered the power of words to hold
together a self-uprooted, changing society. Why does the
myth of democracy eventuate from this finding? To
answer this question we may first look at the political
myth that prevailed in Greece before the colonizing
period and that guided the plans and actions of the colonizers. That myth, I suggest, was the patriarchal myth,
the myth of fatherhood, of the wisdom of the elders. It
was the myth that was to be named aristocracy when later
ages became self-conscious and invented labels for its
customs. Its foundation in economics was in the ownership of land and its legal expression was through ancestral
custom, the laws (thesmoz) of Zeus-born kings and the pronouncement of oracles. The myth or elements of it survived all through the later age of democracy, oligarchy,
and tyranny. You can feel its presence on every page of
Plato. By contrast one of the formative myths of modern
democracy is the Social Contract. Now the Social Contract implies the natural equality of all men; it
foreshadows brotherhood rather than fatherhood and is
forward-looking not backward-looking. Men in a SocialContract society ask what new agreement shall we make
to deal with a new situation; in a patriarchal society they
ask, what does the custom of our ancestors, or the will
of our father, God, direct us to do. Probably the inner
logic of political behavior will always interweave the
strands of fatherhood and brotherhood. Our society is
founded on the Social Contract and yet our own Social
Contract, the Constitution of the United States, has
become, and had to become, an institutionalized father
image, the incarnation of ancestral wisdom.
In the foundation of the Greek colonies this order
is reversed. The colonies, as we have seen, were founded
according to the ancestral model of the mother city, but
by the logic of the situation, geographical dispersion, and
political autonomy, the colonies were forced to look ahead,
not back, and to act in practice as if on the theory of
the Social Contract. Accordingly, as we have seen, they
became leaders in the writing of constitutions and the
making of legal codes. Moreover, as we have also seen,
the Social Contract implies equality. Therefore, the
tendency toward democracy acquired the backing of
political practice. When the cumulative force of the many
separate experiences with government showed what had
25
�happened, historic patterns came into view. Tyrannies
arose, oppositions in the name of ancestral custom converted the traditional, unself-conscious aristocracies into politically conscious oligarchies, and the people, the
Demos, thereby became conscious of itself as a political
force.
I see the grounding of the myth of democracy, then,
in the colonial movement, which weakened the unquestioned acceptance of the old patriarchal way oflife of the
land-owning aristocracy pictured and idealized in Homer
and Hesiod, and in the Odes of Pindar. I have argued
that colonizing put a new emphasis on the use of words
as means of politics and that this meant a tendency away
from ancestral custom toward something like a Social
Contract. Another way of putting it is that tradition
disappeared to be replaced by reason. Historical realities
never exactly conform to categories of thought. The more
rational new forms of the colonies retained traditional
forms and relations and developed their own tradition.
Conversely, the traditional forms began to use the mode
of reason in their struggle for self-preservation.
The democratic myth includes something more than
a set of historical conditions and a new way of using
words. It includes also an implicit change in the view
of men in relation to one another and a new foundation
of political power. These two changes are related to each
other. If we can believe the accepted view of most
historians, the colonizing movement was one expedient
adopted because of population pressure. Rather than risk
revolution, the citizens of the metropolis decide to encourage a portion of the populace to emigrate and colonize. So, you see, a group that may have been an unconsidered mob of base-born paupers acquires a new
status. Partly this is because of its physical strength as
it grows more numerous, and perhaps because of the appearance of bold and intelligent leaders in its ranks. More
significant, however, is that, by the proposal to send out
a colony, the old aristocracy confers on the group of colonies the dignity of a rational equal. No longer are they
just a number of poor people who can be absorbed as
tenants or clients and cared for in a fatherly way by the
well-born land owners. It is now in embryo a corporate
body with whom the aristocracy can treat in a reasonable
way. This is the birth of Demos.
It is noteworthy that colonization was only one of the
possible expedients for dealing with the problem, but the
most rational and successful one. Another was the Spartan solution of the opposite extreme. The Spartans converted themselves into a permanent police force, holding
down lower orders by terror in a state of permanent subjection. Another solution, which went along with colonization, was conversion of the metropolis from agriculture to commerce and industry. This was the course
taken by Athens and Corinth, the former not an active
colonizer, the latter one of the greatest mothers of colonies. It was to these commercial cities that the progressive back-flow of new ideas and institutions first extended its influence and was most permanently effective.
26
In both Athens and Corinth the accommodation to the
new age was made by means of tyranny. Athens, however,
passed through the stage of tyranny under Peisistratus in
the sixth century and went on to Periclean democracy.
Corinth lapsed from Periander's tyranny into oligarchy.
As you remember, Athens and Corinth were the first antagonists in the Peloponnesian War.
In all this ferment which gave birth to Demos, and
Anti-Demos, we may add, there operates a world force
that assisted and hastened the coming of Democracy and
perhaps helped move events in that direction. This was
the introduction of coined money. Coinage both made
possible the commerce that sustained the colonial
development and was an important factor in the rise of
rationality. The latter because first coinage simplified
numbering and measuring goods for exchange, and then
because it struck a blow against the aristocracies' system
of personal values. As Marx puts it, exchange value
became dominant over use value. Whatever evils follow
from this exchange, it does represent a greater rationalization of human life. Protagoras' "Man is the measure" is
the philosophical end product.
One result was the substitution of property qualifications (represented in monetary terms) for qualifications
of birth, in settling the constitutional organization of the
polis. This was Solon's fundamental reform in sixth century Athens. Although he graded political power according to wealth, the successors to Pericles gradually
transformed the institutions until the property qualification became meaningless. But while these reforms ended
forever the old aristocratic power, they introduced the
schism that was to prove fateful, that divided Greece between democracies and oligarchies. For as to the birth
of Demos there always remained an uncertainty. Was
Demos the poor alone, or was he the whole state?
Periclean Athens came close to ending the schism, but
at the cost of a new division. The Demos of Athens was
corrupted by the imperial power the city gained as a result
of the Persian War, and ultimately the rational basis of
democracy and its appeal to the aspirations of men was
lost in the struggle for power. So the myth of Athenian
democracy ends in tragedy.
I believe we can trace a progress in the form of one
central question. Aeschylus and Pericles seem to ask the
question, 'What will make democracy work?" while Plato
asks rather, "Why won't democracy work?" Socrates is
the pivot on which the question turns. The transformation of the question is due, I think, to the tragic flaw in
the democratic myth that I have pointed out. For
Aeschylus, the answer to his question is that democracy,
which is represented as the victor over the Furies, will
work if it reverses the compact between Athena and the
Furies, now become the Eumenides, and preserves
Athenas court of Areopagus. In other words he accepts
the democratic exchange, but warns that the wisdom of
the elders, which we have seen to be characteristic of the
old aristocracies, must be allowed to make its voice heard.
Democracy is to be the government of all, not the govern-
SUMMER 1984
�ment of the many. Pericles, to judge from the funeral
oration, finds the source of the wisdom needed to guide
deliberation in the character and institutions of the Athenians. Athens is the School of Hell as, and must be, consequently, her own first scholar. For Pericles, too,
colonial experiments in rational construction of government had time to sink into the consciousness of the
Hellenic world, the authority of ancient wisdom, enshrined in sententious sayings, was first perverted then
democracy is the government of all; Demos is not just
challenged: perverted by being applied in contexts apart
from the old ways of behaving, then challenged by a ra-
the poor. The city will have wise leaders and a public
opinion that is a judge of good leadership, even if it is
not capable of originating policy. For Aeschylus and
tionalizing ascription to reason. For example, the most
famous gnomic utterance, "Know thyself," attributed to
various ones of the Seven Sages, meant, first of all, no
Pericles wisdom is something a little mysterious. They
each, in fact, are somewhat complacent in accepting the
doubt, know thyself to be an insignificant ephemeral
creature, the kind of being Zeus in Prometheus Bound intended for destruction. The perversion of the saying is
confident view that the success of Athens is due to her
wisdom and that one need not doubt that the wisdom
is there.
Socrates' whole life was a life of questions. In him
the power of rationality puts ancient wisdom to the question to declare its meaning to a new generation. The
democratic heirs of the old patriarchate had inherited
the noble terms, Ko./...6<;, tlya96c;, 8tKat6c;, "noble," "good"
and '~ust:' But just as Cleisthenes had rearranged the
patriarchal tribes of old Athens into geographic wards,
in order to obliterate the political power of the ancient
birth, so the sophists were rearranging meanings of the
ancient words and thereby obliterating the ancient moral
wisdom of the polis. As they became gradually aware of
what they were doing, the Sophists summed up the
discussion with the words qn)av; and v6!J.ot;, nature and
convention. 'What is just by nature differs from what
is just by convention" is a thesis that points up the contradiction in the democratic position of Pericles and his
contemporaries. To Conservatives the ancestral custom
of justice is natural and opposed to the injustice of tyranny, which is conventional. The sophists transvalue
values. Ancestral custom is conventional, brute power
is natural. "The natural is just" is the major premise here.
The mysterious paternal wisdom that Aeschylus saw interpreted by the goddess Athena and Pericles found in
the curriculum of the School of Hellas has become a subject of inquiry to the rational spirits of the sophists.
Socrates therefore appears in the pivotal role of
democratic dialectic. To the simple man, who was satisfied
instanced in the chorus of the Antigone, "Many the wondrous things, but none more wonderful than man." The
challenge, or substitution of new authority, is portrayed
in Prometheus who gives man the liberal arts and the
industrial arts, and frees him from his abject dependence
on the powers of nature. Finally, the naked opposition
to the original meaning of the saying is subsumed in Protagoras' "Man is the measure of all things." This saying
is effective because it not only expresses the end point
of an intellectual tendency to reverse man's relation from
one of dependence on nature to one of control of nature;
it also, additionally, reflects the economic and political
shift from an aristocracy of land-owners, with their
dependent tillers of the soil, and their own dependence
on the whims of weather and season, to the commercial,
sea-faring society of the colonies and Athens. In this society all things are measured by coined money, man himself
becomes a coin that measures all things with which he
comes in contact.
Socrates is a statesman, then, because he made possible the rational criticism of politics. He is a democratic
statesman, because it was only in democracy that his
method could work. I do not mean that people in an
oligarchy or an aristocracy could not play the game of
dialectic. But for Socrates his method was not a game;
it was a political program, aimed at the improvement
of the process of government. The reason why it could
work only in a democracy is that it is only in a democracy
that the means of governing is speech. Oligarchy and
with the wisdom of his fathers, he was a sophist. To the
aristocracy alike rest on a non-rational foundation, the
sophists, themselves, he was the supreme antagonist and
reactionary.
Socrates claimed to be the only true statesman in
one of wealth, the other of personal prestige or nobility.
Political control is reached either by purchase or by inspiring awe and in the end, sustained by force. Whatever
reasoning may go on among the elite themselves, the final
Athens because he alone went about asking people to
examine themselves and to find out what as men they
really wanted. The so-called statesmen simply out-bid
each other in giving the people what they thought they
authority is external to reason. In a democracy, on the
growth of democracy, was tending to destroy the foun-
other hand, reason is the final authority. I do not imply
that a democracy always reasons well or that the authority of reason never breaks down. I mean simply that you
can't have democracy without this principle. In Athens
the people discovered the principle, used it implicitly
without full understanding, were insufficiently self-critical
dation in ancestral wisdom not alone of democracy, but
of their own wisdom, and so put Socrates to death.
of any orderly government. The early aristocracies could
The death of Socrates was followed, within less than
a century, by the death of Athenian democracy at the
hands of the Peripatetic philosopher, Demetrius, of
Phalerum. In their dying both became myths for us.
wanted. This position of Socrates' is a rational criticism
of democracy. He saw that the movement to rationality,
which, as we have seen, played so large a part in the
subsist in their moral life on the gnomic pronouncements
of the sages, buttressed by the ambiguous declarations
of the oracles. As soon, however, as the success of the
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
27
�There is a curious difference, however, in our reception
of the myths. No one, I suppose, would hold that Socrates'
death is a warning for us not to seek knowledge. Yet there
have been many who have held the death of Athenian
democracy a warning not to practice democracy. To a
certain extent this difference may be due to the dialogues
of Plato. In them Socrates is hero and democracy villain,
at least as many read the dialogues. But Plato is not
melodramatic. The death of Socrates is as much the
tragedy of Athenian democracy as it is of Socrates. Plato,
I think, makes it clear that this is his feeling. One has
only to read his loving and hating satire on democracy
in the eighth book of the Republic and compare it with
the coldly disinterested treatment of oligarchy, the unmitigated contempt of tyranny, to see that Plato was no
oligarchical reactionary. In spite of Platds anti-democratic
profession we gain from him a sense of the power of the
democratic myth to make itself the standard by which
all other forms of government are judged.
One point the myth puts immediately before us for
decision. Are we going to understand democracy as a
government of the many or of all? This, as we have seen,
was the tragic uncertainty in Greek democracy. Thucydides has shown the irreconcilable division that drove the
democrats more and more in the direction of many rather
than all. It is not primarily an intellectual confusion, but
a real difficulty. Walter Lippmarm has stated the difficulty
for our time in his recent book, The Public Philosophy. In
it he shows what confusion surrounds the term "the people" in our political thought. It is not a semantic or intellectual confusion, though he uses a semantic device
to make it clear. It is the kind of confusion that cannot
be cleared away, because the people means both things
at once that Mr. Lippmann tries to separate. His two
senses are, the electorate at any given election, "the peepul" of political satirists, and the whole host of the nation, the ancestors, ourselves who now are living, and
the unborn generations to come. Government belongs
to all the people in this latter sense, while the electorate
of the moment is but a temporary trustee for the whole
people. Yet in so far as a generation is the product of
its ancestors and holds its beliefs from them (in large part)
while also having in its heart hopes for its progeny, it
is impossible to separate the people from the People. And
on the other hand the larger People is itself a temporary
part of humanity. Its habits and beliefs may be, in a larger
context, as momentary as the people in any given election year. It seems to me that, just as ancient democracy
both lived and died through the tension of few and many,
so our democracy lives in this same tension, extended
through time. Whether it will eventually die from the
tension is not for us to say. Mr. Lippmann has done us
a service by reminding us that it exists. Aware of it, we
know better where we are and, possibly, how we should
act.
Mr. Lippmann's analysis brings to light another problem in democracy that has its analogue in the Athenian myth. He is concerned with the encroachment of
28
the legislative on the executive. From this point of view
the history of Athens is eloquent. By the time of Pericles,
and in large part owing to his policies, the Athenian
assembly had acquired untrammeled supreme power. By
force of his personal persuasive powers Pericles guided
the policy decisions of Athens. While he lived Athens was,
according to Thucydides, ('in name a democracy, in fact
a government by the first citizen." The story of the corruption of affairs by demagogues after the death of
Pericles is too familiar to need retelling. We have seen
it repeated here under the name of McCarthyism. Demagoguery thrives because of the tendency of the people
to forget that it is not the People and the second problem is the outgrowth of the first.
Whether the cure for these conditions is possible
within the democratic framework is not settled by
reference to the myth. A slogan used by ardent democrats
that "the remedy for the ills of democracy is more
democracy" is an expression of faith and hope, but hardly
a prescription. One asks how will "more democracy" work
its curative effect. Moreover, the demonstration that cures
attempted by non-democratic :means, the ancient oligarchies, the modern fascisms, are invariably remedies worse
than the disease merely displays another slogan. It does
not help point to a solution.
Perhaps Plato offers a solution in his conviction that
politics is a science, an episteme. For Plato this discovery,
which he generalized from Socrates' claims to statesmanship, led to the conclusion that monarchy or aristocracy
(of the wise) was the best government. Since only a few
can be wise, therefore, only a few can govern. In this way
democracy is put out of court. In the Politicus, however,
Plato in despair puts all human government out of court,
by showing, against the Republic, that a wise king must
be a god, no man having sufficient wisdom for the task
of kingship. Platds desperation is our opportunity. Having once and for all disposed of government by an elite,
Plato forces us to the only possible course of action, which
is to discover how to make do with what we have.
If Plato is driven to despair because the science he
held politics to be was beyond human capacity, the fault
may lie in Platds conception of science rather than in
human nature. Plato sets up a rigid alternative: either
an all-wise king or an unchangeable code of laws, embodying the unchanging principles of political conduct.
The dialectic of wisdom and reason, out of which we saw
the myth of democracy grow, is replaced by complete
separation of them into mutually exclusive realms. In the
myth of the dialogue, the Statesman, they are placed in
different eons of the world, kept apart by a cosmic
catastrophe.
In trying to escape Platds dilemma, let us first agree
that politics is a science, that is, that a government will
be successful in achieving justice only when it is conducted by men of intelligence, possessing wisdom and
knowledge. I shall further premise that a dictatorship or
an oligarchy, however intelligent, wise, and knowing its
leaders, necessarily rests in the end on extra-rational foun-
SUMMER 1984
�dations and will ultimately rely on force to keep its power,
in other words, to exist. This means that opposition to
the government, however rational, will be a crime. All
such governments are therefore unjust. Hence, only
democratic government can, in principle, achieve justice.
Can democratic government achieve justice in practice? I do not know, but before fleeing with the despairing Plato to Utopia, I would consider what means may
exist to make democracy worth a try.
I would first see whether the rigid alternatives of Plato
are really so separate. Considering his first alternative,
the all-wise king, we can see that, if his wisdom is to succeed in making just decisions in particular disputes, it
is not sufficient for the decisions to be abstractly just.
They must be accepted as just by the parties to the
dispute; otherwise, the king will have to use force and
to that extent his government will be unjust. His subjects therefore must have at least the intellectual capacity
to recognize justice. But so they will be intellectually
above the standard supposed by Plato to measure the
capacities of all but a few men.
In the case of the other alternative, rigid laws governing by general principles admitting no exceptions, there
is no chance at all for justice, since no particular case
exactly fits a general principle. Therefore, the standard
for men is even higher. The men in this society must have
the wisdom to recognize that everyone must accept a little
injustice for the sake of others.
I have pointed out these consequences of Platds position in the Statesman because I believe they reveal two
demands that just government makes on its citizens, one
that they know what justice is and the other that they
accept something less than justice for themselves in any
given situation. These seem to me to be the presuppositions of the Social Contract, but they do not depend for
their existence on the theory of the Social Contract. It
is rather the other way around. The Social Contract is
a myth to account for these two inescapable demands of
society. It now remains to show that they can be met by
a democratic society, and to suggest some of the means
available to a democracy for meeting them. That they
cannot be met by a society other than democratic has
already been stated as a premise.
The first demand requires the assumption of human
rationality, while the second requires the assumption of
human wisdom. You will notice that Platds hypothesis
of an all-wise ruler entails rational subjects, while his
hypothesis of pure rationality of government entails wise
subjects. Insofar as democracy is government in which
all rule and are ruled in turn, both presuppositions are
entailed. You will notice too that the government of
wisdom is personal government, while the government
of rationality is institutional or government of law. I think
you will now see how I will argue that democracy meets
these demands. A government of laws is no respecter of
persons, but any government other than democratic is
a respecter of persons, insofar as it distinguishes a ruler
or ruling class from the other members of society. The
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
condition that makes the injustices inherent in human
government bearable, however, is that they be justly
distributed without respect of person. So the second demand is met by democracy.
You may well say here that I have fled to a Utopia,
only I am in the company of John Stuart Mill instead
of Plato. I admit at least to idealizing, since I would be
hard put to show that our own or any democracy is now
practicing or ever has practiced these principles. I do
believe that our practice under the constitution comes
within nodding distance of them and I will say what
means seem to me to have developed in the course of
history since the days of Athens to make them less
unrealistic.
The two principles are that men are capable of acting rationally and of acting wisely, that is, capable of
knowing principles and having the skill to apply them.
The means to establishing democracy are the ways of converting these capabilities into actualities, of bringing it
about that men do as they are capable of doing. From
Aristotle on, teachers have recognized that men learn by
doing. This fact makes sense to me of the slogan that
the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. If
democracy operated by rational discussion, the way to
learn the art of rational discussion is through discussing
rationally the problems encountered in society.
The foundation, then, for bringing democracy into
being and maintaining it is the liberal arts. There are
two practical problems here. One is to have liberal arts
in one's tradition, the other is to make them available
to all citizens. On the first count we are in one respect
more fortunate than the Athenians. They were inventing the liberal arts while they were inventing democracy.
The positive work of the sophists was their invention of
the liberal arts. Sophocles, Herodotus, Euripides,
Aristophanes, the whole list of classic Greek authors
testify to the lively effect of this invention. Thucydides
and Plato confirm it, while they portray its somber side
of failure. We are more fortunate in this, that having the
tradition that they invented, we are less dazzled by the
brilliance of the invention and can use it more soberly.
On the other hand, we can lose the liberal arts by reducing them to routine, as the Greeks reduced the wisdom
of their early sages to conventional opinion. Nevertheless,
because we have the Greek authors, we can go back to
them, and have done so from time to time to light again
the fires of the liberal arts.
Secondly, to make the liberal arts available to all has
been the work of the universities and of educational institutions. Although education has all too often seemed
to divide society into the educated and the uneducated
and so to become an instrument of aristocracy, this has
not really been the case. Even when education has subserved aristocracy as in Europe, where university training became the road to wordly prestige in church or government, the very possibility of acquiring this prestige
drew men of ability from all ranks into the upper classes
and so promoted a movement towards democracy. For,
29
�however perverted the use of the liberal arts, the simple
lesson they propounded remained the indifference of
reason to false distinctions of pride. When education at
times became completely perverted, offering itself as a
mark of culture, it generated its own antithesis in the
class of self-made men, self-graduates of the "school of
hard-knocks;' and the resulting discussion brought education back to its true purpose. The very existence of educational institutions tends to universal education, which is
the first prerequisite of democracy.
In addition to educational institutions as a ground
of possibility for democracy today is a difference in the
material of education. This is the shift from the spoken
word to the written word, and the accumulation of a great
number of books. At first sight these changes might seem
irrelevant to democracy. The first great library was built
by the Macedonian kings of Egypt. The decline of speech
in favor of writing reflected the withdrawal of intellectuals from political activity in times of monarchy and
empire. May this not, however, be an instance of
Toynbee's "withdrawal and return." The oratory of Athenian democracy was partly the cause of its instability.
Books gave a haven to the liberal arts and preserved them
for a better day. They gave a stable form to the tradition
of rationality. Whatever harm there was in the medieval
deference to the authority of an Aristotle or a Galen, their
books conveyed still more the authority of reason. Even
before the barriers to learning had been broken by the
printing press, and increasingly thereafter, there was a
rational authority to rally around that could and did oppose the blind authority of despotic governments. The
Bible, of course, was the spiritual center of the bookish
tradition. Quite fortunately, the Bible never despotically
blotted out the books of the secular tradition, as the
Koran had done in the Muslim world, but Revelation
took reason as its handmaiden.
One consequence of this for the preparation of the
new experiment in democracy was the demarcation of
the political sphere from the spiritual. The Athenian experiment foundered in part because the polis demanded
the whole of men's energies. As Ernest Barker has said,
the polis was both state and church. Thus political conflict among the Greeks led to irreconcilable opposition
and the formation of Platds two cities. The church
drained away some of this passion and, by pointing to
an otherworldly standard, made it possible (after much
confusion, it is true) for men to differ rationally and not
always feel compelled to attempt to murder one another.
The church became the guarantor of wisdom in human
affairs and enabled it to avoid entanglement in conflict
with reason, which, as we have seen, was the confounding of Greek political life. The result of the Christian
belief in the temporary nature of this life led to a
30
tempered effort to ameliorate evil conditions and prevented the doctrinaire insistence on immediate, wholesale solution of problems, the kind of attitude that so often
has wrecked the order of society.
Democracy, of course, was not an immediate consequence. What I mean to suggest is that our democracy
is the heir to a tradition that contained it in seed, because
it preserved and nourished the two conditions of wisdom
and reason, so delimited that they could work together.
This is manifest especially in the law. The law came to
depend on written records of a peculiar sort. Where the
Athenian courts pretended to the wisdom to discover absolute justice in every case they had to decide and had
no concern with rational precedent, our modern law
learned from the written record of justinian's Roman law
the lesson of the rational adjustment of principle and particular case. Plato had proposed as a desperate remedy
for the masquerade of Athenian courts as omniscent kings
a rigid law which could never be changed. Roman
jurisprudence had set itself the task of discovering law
as a science and had transmitted this ideal to the modern
world. In the concept of law that can be interpreted to
fit different cases, jurisprudence gave an answer to Platds
contention that democracy cannot work because government is a science and the many are not wise. By granting an appeal from the unwisdom of the momentary majority to the institutionalized wisdom of the lasting majority, the law made an answer to Plato. This is. Lippmann's "tradition of civility."
I have all too briefly sketched some of the materials
that democracy has to work with in the human attempt
to achieve justice. In conclusion, let me say what I think
I have been saying. Democracy is the best form of government because the people insist on governing themselves,
and any attempt of men to govern other men against their
will begets injustice, which is the negation of the end of
government. People can govern themselves, because they
can be wise and reasonable. Athens once made a brave
attempt at democracy and left us a myth from which we
can learn about democracy. Moreover, she left us the
beginnings of the liberal arts, which, once given to the
world, took to themselves the discoveries of Romans, of
Jews, of Christians and have transmitted to us the
paradigms of the science of government, especially in
education, law and religion. I hold neither to the law of
progress, which would affirm that democracy is the inevitable final stage of history, nor to a biological analogy
which places democracy as one stage in some cyclically
unfolding course of events. I think that men can and
sometimes do succeed in governing themselves; that by
rational self-criticism they may prolong their success; that
a genuine education will sustain their self-criticism.
SUMMER 1984
�Bandusia, Flower of Fountains
for Martha
(Horace, Odes, Book III, 13)
Bandusia, flower of fountains,
clear uprushing of waters,
due thick, sweet wine with roses,
tomorrow's rite; due this kid
whose tipped brow and goatish play
hint the loves and the battles to comenever! His hot, thick blood
will curdle with dark your bright fall.
No rage of midsummer can quicken
your quiet; dispensing cool ease
you soothe the meandering cattle,
heal the yoke-weary ox.
Fame will mirror your beauty
when I speak the ilex branched over
the riven rock, whence loquacious
clear rivulets chatter and leap.
Richard Freis
An alumnus of St. John's College, Annapolis, Richard Freis is currently
collaborating with the composer, Alva Henderson, on a new opera, Achilles.
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
31
�On Mimesis*
Victor Zuckerkandl
T
he motif of this lecture-"motif' in the sense of
what set it in motion- is Aristotle's definition
of tragedy as imitation- mimesis- of human
action, and in gen'eral of the arts of painting,
sculpture, poetry-narrative, dramatic, lyric
poetry-music, and dance as mimetic arts, imitative arts.
This is the group of arts which we today call by the unfortunate term of fine arts. (I am not going to use this
term; I shall call them, with Aristotle, the mimetic arts,
or briefly, the arts; for the context of this lecture, then,
the arts means the so-called fine arts. One of them is missing from Aristotle's list: architecture; so I will not refer
to architecture either.)
All these arts, Aristotle says, are mimesis, imitation.
They represent, so to speak, different species of the genus
imitation. The imitative element is not something secondary, accidental in them; it is their essential quality. A work
of art is what it is, namely, a work of art, because it imitates; the artist is essentially an imitator. Take away from
a work of art the element of imitation, there will no longer
be a work of art; deprive the artist of the imitator's skill,
he will no longer be an artist.
This theory seems to rest on solid ground, to be in
sound agreement with the facts. Nobody can deny, for
instance, that every painting, every sculpture, shows
something, represents something, and in this sense imitates that which it shows. (This is true for non-objective
painting, too; the only difference there is that the things
shown are not objects of external visual experience, but
1
The late Victor Zuckerkandl came to St. John's College, Annapolis, in 1948.
He taught at St. John's for over a decade. On Mimesis was delivered as a formal lecture at St. John's College, Annapolis, in 1955.
32
objects of the imagination.) Every tragedy or comedy represents an action, and in this sense imitates the action
and the people involved in it; every narrative poem tells
a story, every lyric poem expresses some idea; they imitate the story, the idea. It is not as obvious with music
and dance, but Aristotle states, as Plato did before himand he has a large following through the ages- that music
and _dance express, and in this sense imitate, emotions,
passwns.
We can grant all this and immediately move on to
the directly opposite position: there is no imitation in
the arts. When Aristotle looked at the paintings which
decorated the walls of Greek houses, what did he see?
Colors and shapes covering a two-dimensional surface.
The things represented are three-dimensional. How can
two dimensions imitate three? By the art of perspective,
we say, which creates an illusion of depth on a surface,
and which the Greeks of course knew. There are no more
Greek wallpaintings to be seen; they are gone. But we
know the art of painting of the Greeks from the vases
that have been preserved. There is no attempt at perspective here; everything is strictly two-dimensional. Would
Aristotle maintain that a mediocre wallpainting which
makes skillful use of perspective is a better work of artbecause it is a better imitation- than one of those perfect
vase paintings? When he walked up the great steps leading
to the Acropolis and looked at the Parthenon, what did
he see? Among other things, the long series of marble
reliefs-the remnants of which we still see todayrepresenting the long procession of men and horses at
the festival of the goddess Athene. Men and horses in
motion-do the sculptures imitate them? The marble
does not move. How can sculpture, frozen in time, imitate motion, change in time? When Aristotle went to
the theatre to see a tragedy, what did he see? Figures on
the stage wearing huge masks. If they were intent on im-
SUMMER 1984
�itating human beings, why should they hide the only visible testimony of their being human, their faces? When
the chorus sang and danced, did they intend to imitate
emotions, say, of mourning, or fear? People who experience these emotions do not dance or sing. Aristotle
must have been either very naive or very unresponsive
to the experience of works of art if he could hold that
theory. How responsive or naive Aristotle was, I do not
know. But he certainly was not that naive. We can safely
assume that he was aware of these circumstances. Naive
in this case is not Aristode's understanding of the arts
but our understanding of Aristotle, more specifically, our
understanding of the meaning of mimesis.
When Aristotle says "the arts are mimesis," he did
not mean that they produce mechanical duplicates,
replicas, copies that might be substituted for the real
thing. When he called the artist an imitator, he did not
class him with the man who knows how to bark like a
real dog. He understood mimesis in a wider sense which
might be translated, "making of images, imaginative imitation." Image in this sense is never a mechanical
duplicate; it involves a transfer into another medium, a
sort of translation or transformation. The painter
transforms three-dimensional things into twodimensional colored shapes; the sculptor transforms moving things into unmoving stone, bronze, wood; the poet's
medium, into which he transforms actions, events,
characters, are words; the musician's, tones; the dancer's
gestures. In the process of transformation the maker of
the image may be led very far away indeed from his
model; elimination, condensation, on one hand, extension, elaboration, on the other, may produce an image
which is anything but a mechanical substitute of its model
(e.g., Steinberg). But always will the image be recognized as image, that is, as representing something. Its very
significance rests on the fact that it is an image, that is,
related to that which ·it represents. The adequate
understanding of an image is not plainly to see it, but
at the same time to see through it to its model, to see
the relation of image to model.
A closer scrutiny of the evidence, however, will show
many discrepancies between even this refined mimetic
theory of the arts and the observed facts. (I am not going to review the whole evidence; I merely mention a
few points.) First of all, the artist himself is very inadequately described as an imitator, in any sense of the word.
The young man or woman who decides to become an
artist -we assume that the decision is justified- does not
do so out of any desire to imitate anything-or rather,
the one thing he desires, passionately desires, to imitate
is another artist. The decisive events in a future painter's
life are visits to art galleries, not hikes in the country;
the future dramatist's fate is determined by evenings in
the theatre, not by reading the newspapers or witnessing a murder. Andre Malraux, whose PsycholOgy of Art
is the most comprehensive presentation of the visual arts
from a non-mimetic viewpoint- it has nothing to do with
psychology as we understand the term; it is a
THE
S1~
JOHN'S REVIEW
philosophy- puts it very pointedly: "The composer loves
compositions, not nightingales; the painter loves paintings, not sunsets." It is always art that makes the artist,
not nature, or life. The arts therefore have no
beginning- no more than language- or, in other words,
the beginnings of the arts are mythical.
Before we go on I want to clarify further these
concepts- image, and maker of images. The prototype
in a way is the demiurge in Platds Timaeus, who fashions
the universe as the image of the ideal model. All the essentials are here. Where there is an image, there must be
a model. The maker has his sight set on the model; he
takes his bearings from the model. The image is derived
from the model. The model is prior to the image, not
only in time (which is obvious- the image can hardly
precede the model) but also in rank: the model is more
than the image- if in no other respect, then because it
is the real thing; the other is 'only an image.' As Plato
puts it at another place, the image is farther removed
from truth than that of which it is the image. One might
object that many works of art glorify, idealize, their
model (for instance, in the case of an idealized portrait).
But in this and all similar cases the actual model is not
the real object in front of the artist, but an idea developed
from the contemplation of that object-in the case of a
person, the idea of his unrealized potentialities, or the
idea of what this man should look like in order to look
like a great man.
With this understanding of image it seems hard to
admit that a work of art is essentially an image. In the
strictest sense there is no model. The role of the model
in the making of a work of art is of the most trivial sort.
This becomes evident when we watch artists at work. A
famous example is Beethoven's shaping of the melody
of the last movement of the Ninth Symphony, the Hymn to
Joy. We have the testimony of this working process in a
few sheets of sketches. If a melody is an image of an emotion, then the model here would be the emotion of joy.
It is perfectly clear that the composer is not concerned
with joy or any other emotion, but with the relations between tones; if there is a model, he certainly is now working with his back to it. Nor is he now engaged in matters of secondary importance, like the search for the right
means to express an emotion. He is now struggling with
the essential problem; success or failure of this as a work
of art will not be determined by the finding of the right
relation between tones and an emotional model, but by
finding the right relation between tones and tones. This
corresponds to the fact that when the melody is heard
for the first time in the symphony it makes perfect
sense- I still have yet to find the person who would find
any relation between the melody there and the emotion
of joy. The model, if there is one, is as unimportant to
the understanding of the melody as to its making.
Recently I read a paper which analyzed the seven different versions of a famous German poem- successive
stages of development from a crude beginning to a finished work of art. The poet: Conrad Ferdinand Meyer;
33
�the title of the poem: Dead Love. The model is clearly
recognizable from the very beginning: two people returning from a walk one evening, and realizing that their love
had died, and that they themselves had killed it. The
whole development has nothing to do with the relation
to the model-like trying to tell the story clearer, throwing more light on the relationship between the two, and
so on. It has to do exclusively with rhythm, verse, rhyme,
syntax, choice of individual words- choice of words not
for the sake of a better relation between words and story
but between words and words. And again, the development is not concerned with means, secondary matters;
the changes mark the difference between a very poor and
a very good poem, that is, with the essence of poetry.
As these changes have nothing to do with the realation
of the words to the model, the poem cannot essentially
be an image. Even more disturbing is this: the story at
the end, after all the changes, is no longer exactly the
same as it was at the beginning; but it is quite clear that
the changes in the poem were not adjustments to a
changed story; it seems rather the other way, the changes
in the words, rhythms, etc., changed the story. So if we
want to call the poem an image, it would be the rather
extraordinary case of the image changing the model, or
even of the image making the model.
Or take a tragedy, Hamlet. Where is the model of
which this is an image? Is it the story Shakespeare read?
The chronicle which reported the events of bygone days?
The vague, uncertain figure, the real Hamlet? Was
Shakespeare's sight set on any one of these as the model
of which he wanted to make an image? It is clear that
if there is a model of which Shakespeare's Hamlet is the
image, it could only be Shakespeare's Hamlet againthe idea of such a man, such a character which
Shakespeare formed in his mind and then made the central figure of his play. If this is the case, the essential
achievement is not the making of the image but the forming of the idea; Shakespeare would be the artist he is,
not because of his capacity to make images but because
of his power to produce models. But is this a reasonable
account of the process? That he first figured out the man
and then wrote the play about him? I would rather say
that the writing of the play was his way, the only possible way, to figure out the man. By making the image he
produced the model- if you want to put it in this
paradoxical way. When Phidias made the statue of Zeus,
what was his model? His idea of the ruler of the gods?
Where did he get this idea? It was certainly not a current idea -witness the statues of the preceding generation. It was an idea generated in his own mind. And
again, it does not make sense to me to imagine that he
first figured out his idea and then made the image. Most
likely he did not begin with the idea but with a block
of material; he then uncovered the idea in the material
on which he worked. If we call it an image, then the model
comes into being together with the image. Those who
saw it did not understand it because they knew the model;
they understood the model because they saw the image.
34
That is, the statue gave them a new understanding of
Zeus. The image makes the model. Not even with
painters like the impressionists and their followers who
turn again and again to nature in order, as it seems, to
be as close as possible to their models, is the case as simple as it looks. When they leave their studios and go out
into the open, it is primarily to effect a break with an
outworn tradition; what they expect from nature is
delivery from the dead weight of convention. Nature tells
them what not to do, but as to nature being the modelwe have only to look over their shoulders and see what
they do, what they mean when they say 'true to nature.'
True to their own nature, maybe. Otherwise it is much
less a transformation of the model into an image thanand I use once more Malraux's words- the secret destruction of the model for the benefit of the construction of the canvas.
I think this is enough to give an idea of the evidence
contradicting the image theory of the arts. The evidence
in turn supports the diametrically opposed theory: the
work of art is not an image. Still it is important, meaningful, significant. The significance of an image lies in
its relation to something outside itself; the work of art,
not being an image, has no such relation. Its significance
therefore must lie wholly within itself. It is a completely
autonomous construct, closed within itself, without any
essential relation to anything beyond itself, carrying its
full meaning strictly within itself. I quote (this is Clive
Bell, the protagonist of this theory; he refers mostly to
the visual arts, but the implications are that the theory
extends to all the arts): "He who contemplates a work
of art inhabits a world with an intense and peculiar
significance all it own; that significance is unrelated to
the significance of life . ... The representative element
may or may not be harmful; always it is irrelevant. For
to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing
from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no
familiarity with its emotions ... for a moment we are
shut off from human interests ... to appreciate a work
of art we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form
and color and a knowledge of three-dimensional space
... I appreciate music, a pure art with a tremendous
significance of its own and no relation whatever to the
significance of life.... The contemplation of pure form
leads to a state of extraordinary exaltation and complete
detachment from the concerns of life."
To me this seems a theory of despair. I fail to see how
anything completely detached from the concerns oflifeand one of them is the search for truth- can be in any
way important, significant. This theory builds a wall
around the arts, isolates them completely from the totality
of human experience, makes of them a world of their own.
It leaves the fundamental question wide open. No matter how self-contained a construction the work of art is,
tones related to nothing but tones, colors to colors, words
to words, there must be at least one relation to something
which is not tones, words, colors, namely, me. Granted
that music is tones related to tones, but their being so
SUMMER 1984
�related must be related to me, the listener; otherwise,
why should I bother? The same for the other arts. The
statement about the work of art being meaningful in itself
is no answer; it merely pushes the problem further back,
and makes it in a sense insoluable.
I understand the force of the argument which pushed
the theory in this direction. The work of art can only
be either an image, related to something outside itself
and meaningful because of this relation, or not an image, not related to anything outside itself and meaningful
only within itself. If the evidence against the image theory
gets too strong-as it did -what remains but the other
alternative? At this point we have to recognize that this
whole alternative- image or no image- is phony. There
is no either/or situation here. We have not yet fully exhausted the meaning of mimesis.
It is Aristotle himself who sets us on this track. In
a paragraph of his Metaphysics he uses mimesis in a very
much different meaning. In Chapter 14 of the Vth book,
when he talks about the concept of quality in reference
to number, he mentions composite numbers. For the
benefit of those who have not yet read the VIIth book
of Euclid or have forgotten it, I have to explain what composite numbers are. The Greeks distinguished between
linear, plane, and solid numbers. The linear or onedimensional number is simple number as we think of
it when we imagine the units, so many of them as there
are in the number, all lined up in one straight line; the
plane or two-dimensional number is the number we get
when one number is multiplied by another number: so
many times so many-like a rectangle contained by two
sides; the solid or three-dimensional number adds one
more factor: so many times so many times so manylike a solid figure contained by three sides. For instance
24, if considered as so many units, is a linear number;
considered as 3 times .8, it is a plane number; considered
as 3 times 2 times 4, a solid number. A number like 25,
5 times 5, or 81, 9 times 9, is called a square number,
for obvious reasons; 27, 3 times 3 times 3, a cube number.
All the numbers which are not linear are together called
composite numbers. Now Aristotle says: "composite
numbers which are not in one dimension only, but of
which the plane figure and the solid figure are the
mimema':_ the word mimema means the result of
mimesis; the Greeks have two words for our one, "imitation;' which means both the process of imitating and
the result of that process, the thing which imitates.
It is clear that none of the meanings of mimesis we
have so far considered apply here. A square, for instance,
is not an image of a number like 25, 36, and so on. The
number is not the model of the square. The square is
not derived from number, is not meaningful because of
its relation to number. We do not understand a square
by recognizing its relation to number. And the maker
of the square, so to speak, is no image-maker, did not
have his sight set on any number, did not make the square
as an image of a number. The square is, W-as made as,
and is understood as an element in the autonomous con-
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
text of geometry. It is even impossible to understand a
square otherwise than in the context of geometry; the
study of the square-and of the plane figure, or the solid
figure- involves only references to geometric figures, no
reference to anything outside of geometry. Whatever
meaning a geometric figure has, this meaning is completely contained within the figure as an element of
geometry.
On the other hand, there is, over and above this
meaning of the geometric figure which we now call its
immanent meaning, another, a transcendent meaningand I am using the word transcendent literally, without
metaphysical connotations, that is, going beyond one's
limits. The meanings of all words are transcendent: the
meaning of apple pie, for instance, is transcendent, as
the word is something audible, while the things belonging to it lie beyond the limits of the audible in the edible. So square or plane figure or solid figure have, in addition to their immanent, a transcendent meaning, a relation to something which is not figure but number, and
this is the meaning Aristotle refers to. This meaning is
not arbitrarily assigned to the geometric figures as we
arbitrarily assign meanings to words or symbols; the relation seems to arise from the nature of both geometric figure
and number, and therefore, when it is called up, it throws
a new light on number, and reciprocally also adds to the
significance of geometric figures.
I would like to clarify this new meaning of mimesis
further, by using a quotation of a more modern thinker.
Pascal writes: The numbers imitate space. Here space
does not mean geometric figures but extension, the great
receptacle, that in which all the extended things of the
universe have their place. In what sense can number be
said to imitate space? Numbers are not images. 17 cannot be the image of 17 things as we have no 17 things
without first having 17. Number is pure construct, a construct which knows only its own inherent laws, takes no
regard of anything outside; numbers are primarily related
to numbers, not to something which is not number. Their
system is a perfect example of an immanently meaningful
order. Still we all know, are all aware, that mathematics
is not a beautiful game of numbers, that it has over and
above its immanent a transcendent meaning. I do not
refer here to the usefulness of mathematics but to its
truthfulness. What this transcendent meaning is, is of
no concern to the mathematician or to the student of
mathematics; in the making as well as in the understanding of mathematics we are exclusively concerned with
numbers in relation to numbers, not with numbers in
relation to other things. This does not mean that the
transcendent meaning is less important; without it,
mathematics would not be what it is, namely, true. But
the question of that meaning is no longer a mathematical
question. When the transcendent meaning crystallizes
in a philosophical mind- that of a person or a
generation -as it did for instance in that thought of
Pascal, then it becomes clear that the pattern of this meaning is not that of an image. If it were, we would have
35
�to say that number is the image of the order of universal
space. How could it be this, as the very idea of a universally ordered space, is the outgrowth of our having
numbers. The mimema here is not derived from its
counterpart but reveals, or almost produces, its counterpart. This is a very disturbing observation, that a pure
construct of the mind discovers itself as in profound
agreement with a universal order. It is as if we were
writing a test and then discovered that we had written
a translation.
We can now try to formulate the difference between
image and mimema in this new sense. The image has
its origin in the model and its significance in the relation to the model; the mimema has no model. Its origin
is in its own context- number from number- and its
significance is twofold. Primarily it is pure construct. It
is nothing but construct, determined solely by the inherent logic of the construction, not by any outside factor. Its transcendent meaning is of an entirely different
type from that of image. The relation image-model is
a one-to-one relation- image of this, not of that -like
that between a word and its meaning, a sign or symbol
and the thing signified or symbolized (and this takes into account the possibility of one word having different
meanings, etc.). The relation of the mimema to its
counterpart must be different, as we see from what we
have said: the mimema made and understood without
any regard to its counterpart~ the mimema revealing or
even producing its counterpart, and so on (this is-like
saying to a foreigner: you listen only well to the sound
of 'apple pie' and you will understand what it means).
What precisely this relation is, is the problem which I
will raise and maybe clarify a little, but not answer. The
main thing, it seems to me, is to show that such a problem exists. We are so caught in the meaning pattern
of words and symbols that we take this to be the pattern
of meaning. Statements like: "I know this is meaningful
though I do not know what it says," sound foolish to us.
They would not to less positivistic minds. Socrates did
not doubt that the sentences spoken by his inner voice
were meaningful, although he had sometimes a hard time
finding out exact1y what they meant. The ancient world
was full of oracles which were supposed to speak the truth
even though it was very difficult to understand what they
said. And even today, the Christian does not doubt that
the sentences of the Bible speak the truth, irrespective
of whether or not he understands what they say.
Let us come back to the mimetic arts. I would now
say this: Aristotle is right in defining painting, sculpture,
poetry, music, dance as kinds of mimesis- provided
mimesis is understood as we do it now. I would not flatly
say that Aristotle did understand it in this way when he
applied it to the arts. But it might have been a marginal
possibility in his mind. After all, we gathered this meaning of mimesis first from his own use of the term.
We recapitulate. What have we got? Two theories.
One asserting that the work of art is essentially image,
significant because of its relation to the model, a transcen-
36
dent relation. The other asserts that there is no such
essential relation of a work of art to anything outside
itself, and that therefore its significance lies all within
itself, is immanent. We have now a third possibility: the
work of art is mimema as we now understand the term.
The work of art has both transcendent and immanent
meaning. Primarily it is pure construct, nothing but construct, made and understood without any reference to
anything outside. This construct has by nature a counterpart outside, and the relation to the counterpart makes
it what it is, a mimema. Accordingly the question: What
does it mean? (namely, over and above the immanent
context), is a legitimate one. Only we must not forget
(as we usually do) that the relation between the work of
art and its counterpart, which is in question here, is not
the same and not even similar to that between the image and its model.
The art to which this interpretation most easily and
most naturally applies is of course music. The element
of construction is very much in the foreground in music,
perhaps more so than in any other human activity with
the exception of mathematics. It comes as close as possible
to the idea of a pure construct- its material, the tones,
have relation only to each other, not to anything else (the
opinion that the tones of music are kinds of idealized
sounds of nature, need not be taken seriously); we express this also by saying that music is pure form, form
without content, or-as this seems to imply empty
form- that in music form and content are the same.
Music is essentially tones-in-relation; whatever meaning
there is in a tone points to another tone, not to something
which is not tone. A perfect example of immanent meaning. Yet we are also aware that this statement, "Music
is tones-in-relation;' -is not an adequate or satisfactory
answer to the question which the phenomenon of music,
its presence among us, puts to us. We are aware that in
this answer something has not been accounted for; in
other words, we are aware of the fact that music is
mimesis, of the fact of its mimetic significance. Not all
the threads of meaning that attach themselves to music
coil inwards; some of them lead outwards, and they hold
the whole construct in its proper place, as it were, the
place of mimema. But although without an awareness,
however dim, that there are such threads of transcendent meaning there is strictly speaking no musical experience, the knowledge what they are, where they lead
to, is in no sense a prerequisite either for the making
or the understanding of music. The question: What does
it mean? referring to the transcendent, not the immanent meaning, is no longer a musical question. The composer does not ask it, at least never when he writes music,
only when he philosophizes, which he rarely does. And
the study of music, if it is to lead to an understanding
of the works of the tonal art, is the study of tones-inrelation, of immanent meanings. Of course the question
of the transcendent meaning is a valid question -a question for philosophy. But before even admitting it as valid,
we must make sure that it is not asked in a thoughtless
SUMMER 1984
�way: What does it mean?-with 'what' I usually ask for
a 'this' or 'that', and so I tacitly introduce the assumption that the relation between music and its mimetic
counterpart is of the same kind, of the same type, as that
between a symbol and a thing, an image and a model,
a word and its meaning. This way, the very asking of
the question would prejudge the answer. The problem
is precisely to find out what kind of relation prevails between music and its mimetic counterpart. You see, from
the outset we get deep into philosophy; and so we understand why good answers to this question do not usually
come from musicians but from philosophers. One of these
answers, a famous one, I will now quote, not because
I want to suggest that this is it, but because it helps us
to understand the nature of the questions.
In his Harmonies of the World Kepler writes:
The movement of the heavens is nothing but a certain everlasting polyphony (intelligible, not audible) effected by dissonant tensions comparable to
those syncopations and cadences wherewith men
imitate those natural dissonances, tending towards
certain and prescribed clauses, each involving six
terms (like the six parts of polyphonic music),
demonstrating and defining with these notes the immensity of time. It is therefore not too astonishing
that man, the ape of his creator, should finally have
found the knowledge of polyphonic song which was
unknown to the ancients, so that in some short part
of an hour, by means of an artful harmony of many
voices, he might play the everlastingness of created
time, and thus to some extent taste the satisfaction
of God the Workman with his own works in the
sweetest feeling of delight which comes from the experience of music, that imitation of God.
The word imitation appears here twice. Certain
elements of music, syncopations (which then meant a type
of dissonance, not a rhyth,mic irregularity) and cadences,
are called imitations of the motion of the stars; and music
as a whole is called an imitation of God- Dei imitatri
Musica. Clearly imitation stands here for mimesis, in the
sense we try to understand it. It has nothing to do with
image. Otherwise the study of composition would have
to begin with Ptolemy or Copernicus. And no listener,
however familiar with astronomy, has yet-as far as I
know-discovered in a polyphonic piece any reference
to the motions of the planets. Neither is music an image
of God; atheists can be excellent composers, and religious
faith is not a prerequisite to the enjoyment and
understanding of music. Also many of those polyphonic
songs Kepler referred to were written to decidedly nonreligious words (to say the least) and in this sense were
certainly no images of God. Still, by being music, mov-
composer produces a piece of music according to the laws
of the tonal construct. By doing this, he produces an imitation, a mimema, of the heavens, of God. He did not
know it, he did not intend it, he could not help it happen. It happens behind his back, as it were. The listener
hears tones-in-relation. In hearing this he becomes aware
that this is an imitation of something which is -not tones,
a mimema. What it imitates he does not know and need
not know; yet he may have a sense of direction in which
to look for that counterpart. In some mind this awareness
may crystallize into an act of mimetic recognition in
which the counterpart of the mimema is apprehended.
Kepler saw it in the stars, in God. The result is a new
recognition of the universe, of God. I would even say,
more strictly, it is the recognition of a new universe, a
new God. The Universe, the God, whose imitation we
recognize music to be are not the same as they were
before. Not only did the man who made the music imitate something he did not know, which nobody knows,
but also the imitation produced the thing imitated. This
is like saying: a man writes a text and later finds out he
has done a translation; or: a man is charged with writing
a translation, but he gets no text; when he asks for the
text, he is told that the text does not exist, but that it
will come into existence by way of his translation.
These are fantastic propositions. I will try a metaphor
to make them more manageable. Imagine a man working on some material, some block of metal. His intention is to produce a perfect surface -whatever he may
consider a perfect surface. This he accomplishes. When
he has done it he discovers that his surface shows a reflection-. He-discovers that he has produced a mirror. It was
not his intention to produce a mirror, he did not even
know that there are mirrors. (I do not think here of mirror
in the conventional sense, as a surface reflecting visual
images, but of mirror in the most general sense, in the
sense in which a magnetic needle might be called a mirror: its existence "reflects" and thus makes apparent the
existence of a magnetic field. In the case of our man's
metal surface, the reflection may for instance assume the
form of vibration.) The reflection may be vague, not well
defmed. The chief thing about it is that it is not the reflection of a thing that was there and seen before; it is the
reflection of something so far unseen: the mirror receives
the reflection from a direction where there was emptiness
before. The reflection leads to the discovery that there
is something there to be reflected. Considering the very
special shape of the surface which seems to be the condition for its functioning as a mirror, one might even
ing according to those dissonant tensions, cadences, and
suspect that the thing reflected had an interest in becoming manifest in the reflection, and secretly guided the
hand of the worker so that the outcome would be as
desired. This sounds a little mystical. I refer to the everrecurrent comment of artists that while at work they feel
the other rules of tonal motions, it imitates God. There
is also the profound remark that the musician in truth
enacts a play the subject of which is everlasting time; but
this I won't take up now. So what are the inferences? The
themselves as instruments, as tools of some power whose
source is located outside themselves-a sort of Socratic
diamonion for workmen. However this may be, returning to music, the tones are the surface; if they are in the
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
37
�right relation, they will become a mirror; there will be
a reflection from somewhere, testifying that there is
something out there to be reflected. To Kepler's eye the
thing reflected, revealed in the reflection, was divine
order. The order of tones appeared as 'imitation', as the
mimema of a divine order.
What about the other arts? What happens if we apply our interpretation of mimesis to them? The application there is not as obvious as in the case of music. The
painter or the sculptor certainly do imitate in the conventional sense of the word, do produce images; yet if
the work of art is essentially miinesis in the other sense,
then the imitation in the conventional sense cannot be
essential. The painting, the sculpture, are essentially, like
a piece of music, free constructs, that is, determined by
the laws of the construction, not by anything coming from
outside. That the painting is a likeness of something is
a secondary, an accidental factor; it is not that which
makes the painting a work of art, a mimema. In other
words: insofar as the painter makes an image he is not
an artist, and insofar as he is an artist he makes no image. On the other hand, as mimema, the painting has
also transcendent meaning, a counterpart; but this
counterpart cannot be that which the painting represents,
of which it is an image. A good painting of a chair is
not essentially an image of a chair; it is essentially a construct of shapes, lights, colors, which happen to look like
a chair-the reference to the real chair is non-essential.
The likeness is merely an element in the construction;
it belongs to the immanent meaning. The transcendent
meaning has nothing to do with 'chair', real or ideal. In
the terms of our metaphor: the chair of the painting is
mirror, not thing mirrored; it is not a reflection, but a
reflector; and what it reflects is certainly not 'chair'.
I look at a Greek statue, say, of the god Apollo. I
know, I have been informed, that this represents that particular god. I understand what the statue is an image
of. Whether the model of this statue was a real person
or an idea does not matter. I can deduce from this statue
all kinds of thought regarding Greek art, religion, culture.
With all this, I have only seen the image, not the
mimema. I try to see better, that is, to do nothing but
see, forget all information, speculation, rationalization,
give the eye a chance to find its way undisturbed. After
a while, the statue so to speak takes me over, takes over
my body. My body assumes the attitude of the statuenot actually of course, and not in imagination- this has
nothing to do with imagination- but in what I would
call body-thought; my body consciousness becomes the
inner. counterpart of the external attitude of the statue;
I have the experience of body which the statue would
have if it had consciousness. In this case the experience
is of body at rest- not of body, the thing, in a state of
rest, but of body and rest as absolutely one. This is contrary to our normal experience where rest is felt, when
there is no consciousness of body, in complete
relaxation- body being the source of perpetual unrest.
Here, however, there is full presence of body, full·
38
awareness, awakeness of body-the statue stands-and
perfect rest. In other words, it is rest not as absence of
tension but as equilibrium of tensions. This is a revelation of a previously unknown mode of body existenceand this, not the God Apollo, or the Greek idea of a god,
or Greek culture, is what this statue is the mimema of.
Let us lastly consider tragedy. Aristotle defines it as
imitation, memesis, of human action -a certain kind of
action- done in the medium of language- a certain kind
of language. As long as the word imitation is not taken
too literally nobody will quarrel with this. Every tragedy
has a plot, action involving people, and in this sense imitates, represents human action; and the making of a
tragedy is concretely a writing- tragedies are writtenwritten language is the medium in which it comes to light.
The only question is: is this, as Aristotle seems to say,
that which makes a tragedy what it is? Is written work
a tragedy because it is this particular kind of imitation,
representation?
I would deny it. If tragedy is mimesis in the sense
in which we now understand it, it is primarily an
autonomous construct, a language construct, not a
representation. The representation in it is not its essential quality. On the other hand, as mimema it does have
transcendent meaning, is significantly related to a
counterpart. But this counterpart is not the story, the plot,
the people, is not that which it represents-and this includes ideas, the moral, anything that can be deduced
from it.
This requires some clarification. The term "language
construct" seems to imply that we consider a piece of
poetry, such as a tragedy, primarily from the viewpoint
of syntactical construction, rhythm, meter, verse, rhyme,
sound- from a purely formal standpoint. We would then
deal with them as organized sounds in time- organized
according to certain formal patterns, not according to
meanings. We would then detach the constructive element from the meanings, consider words apart from
meanings. This would be a misunderstanding of the term
language construct. Words arc not sounds plus meanings; they are meaningful sounds. Words divorced from
meanings are no longer words, no longer language. If
language is the material of my construct, then meanings
are a part of the material. In handling this material I
cannot but always handle meanings too. A language construct is a construct of sounds and meanings. To call
tragedy a language construct does not therefore mean
that it is considered, as we say, from the formal stand. point only, apart from the content. The content- plot,
people, action- is itself an element of the constructionthe most important element-along with the language.
The writing of a tragedy is not the making of an image
of people in action, or the search for the most convincing (persuasive) way to present people in action; it is
primarily a construction of people in action, whose chief
means of communication is language. These people and
their actions and passions have no existence apart from
the words; in tragedy, as in music, form and content are
SUMMER 1984
�one. The words are the tones, the people are the melodies;
it is as impossible to think of these people apart from
the language as it is to think of melodies apart form tones.
So if tragedy is mimesis, the so-called content belongs
entirely to the context of immanent meaning of the
mimema; the plot, the people cannot be that of which
the tragedy is the mimema. Again in the terms of our
likeness: the people and their action are not that which
is mirrored, they are the mirror; not the reflection but
the reflector; or as Aristotle would say, they are not that
which is imitated but that which imitates.
With this in mind we can face the question how to
understand, how to explain to ourselves, the peculiar
quality of the experience of a tragedy, the difference between being a spectator in the theatre, having the thing
represented really happen to oneself, watching it happen to others, reading a report about it. These other
possibilities- misfortune befalling oneself, observing
misfortune befall others, reading or listening to a story
about such misfortune -are certainly most depressing
experiences. The experience of tragedy leaves us in a state
of elation. We desire it. How can we understand this?
Take Oedipus Rex. Why should we expose ourselves
to it? The story we know well enough. Of course, knowing the story, and being made actually to live through
it-which is what happens in the theatre-are different
things. But for what purpose should we be made to live
through it? What else could this be but a torture? It is
true that this is theatre, that it is not a real story, real
happenings which we observe on the stage-and there
are certain styles of representation which emphasize this
quality of non-reality. But no matter how realistic or
unrealistic the representation, if that story does not come
fully alive on the stage and make it come alive in the spectators, we might just as well stay home and not go to
the theatre at all. So what does it profit us to live through
it? Aristotle's answer is: only by living through it can we
learn from it; we learn through imitation. I confess I am
not convinced. What can I possibly learn from Oedipus
Rex-and I take the word learn to mean what we usually
understand as learning? I do not want to make any cheap
remarks. Seriously, the idea is that by living through
Oedipus' experience and at the same time reflecting on
it-as we can because we are not really living through
it-we might detect the point on his way where he
possibly erred and where the choice of another course
might have saved him from his tragic fate. But is this
really the moral of Oedipus? Does the tragedy not do
the very opposite to us, namely, drive home with the
greatest possible force that no matter what you do, how
hard you try, fate cannot be avoided, that there is no
escape from fate, and if this fate is fall, then fall one must.
The whole impact of this tragedy seems to me the experience of the inevitability of fall. And what could such
an experience be but of most depressing kind: still, this
like any other tragedy leaves us elated.
In its pattern the experience of tragedy is similar to
the experience of a work of the visual arts as I have tried
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
to describe it. It is not an illusion- believing something
to be real which is not real- nor can I ascribe it to
imagination -lending the color of reality to something
which I know to be not real- it is an experience of participation. As I experience a tragedy I remain what I am
and where I am; at the same time my consciousness
spreads out and goes over into the people involved in the
dramatic action- into all of them; in reference to the
words, I am at the same time hearer and speaker. The
words, the people, the action are all together, as we said,
the construct of tragedy. By participating in them I
become one with the construct, I become mirror, and
I receive the reflection of something-whatever it may
be- that of which tragedy is the mimema. I become
aware that the immanent order of the construct is order
also in relation to something else, that there is
something- not a thing, rather a state, a mode, a dimension of human existence whose order is revealed in :;
tragedy, in reference to which tragedy is in order. In this
sense we can say: we experience tragedy as true. This is
the source of the elation. Take away tragedy- there is
the suffering, dejection, despair, the great visitations, the
inscrutable catastrophies- the whole chaos of human
misery. This chaos tragedy transforms into order. Tragedy
does not explain suffering, or justify it, or give it to us
as a fact to which we have to resign ourselves; but it
bridges the gap between suffering and reason. Oedipus
Rex is not an explanation or a justification of fall; it is
I would say the logos of fall. This is then one way to
redeem fall, and tragedy on the whole, one way to redeem
the suffering of man. We understand that tragedy
originated in the cult of the god Dionysus, the redeeming god of the ancients. We understand also why in a
truly Christian world there is no room for tragedy. The
Christian finds redemption in other ways.
I want to come to a conclusion. In the last analysis
the problem will boil down to the question about the relation between a work of art and reality. We have mentioned one theory which denied there was any relation
between them. If we admit a relation, there are two possible interpretations of mimesis: as image, where reality
is the source from which the work of art is derived; and
mimesis as reflection, where the work of art is the source,
the detector, of new realities. I will close with two legends
which 'imitate', better than I would be able to, the two
different views. One is the well-known story of the most,
famous painter of Greece, Appelles; it is said that wheEL
he painted grapes, birds would come and pick at them.
The other is the story of one of the great painters of old
China. When he became old he began to work on a painting which he showed to no one; he worked on it for years,
and finally he called in his friends and pupils, and there
it was: showing a .landscape with mountains and a road
leading from the foreground back towards the hills. They
looked at the painting and at the old man, and suddenly
they saw the man enter the painting, begin to walk on
the road, getting smaller and smaller until he finally
disappeared in the mountains.
39
�The Archimedean Point and the Liberal Arts
Curtis Wilson
T
he subject of the lecture is, in accordance
with tradition, the liber.al arts, liberal artistry.
And I wish to point out, to begin with, that
these words "art" and "liberty" are difficult
words; they do not designate anything you
can point at with the index finger; they belong, not to
the order of motion and perception, but to the order of
action and idea. They are, as I shall try to explain later
on, dialectical words. And the question arises, how are
such words to be defined? Where should one begin? What
standpoint should be taken in setting out to define these
words? These are not merely theoretical questions; wars
are fought between those who understand words like
"liberty;' ')ustice;' "right," "obligation;' in different ways.
Archimedes, the mathematician, is said to have said:
Give me a fixed point on which to stand, and I shall move
the world. He was referring, of course, to the power of
the lever; to the law according to which the ratio of the
two forces is the same as the inverse ratio of the lever
arms. All that Archimedes requires, then, is a fixed pivot
or fulcrum, a lever of extraordinary length, and a place
to stand, and he will be able to move the earth.
This claim would not be stated in quite the same
terms by modern scientists, beginning with Newton; I
shall not go into the modifications required, but only state
that they are required precisely because, in a sense that
is both real and figurative, man has now discovered the
Archimedean point, the point outside the earth, the
knowledge of which permits us to unhinge the earth. And
Curtis Wilson is a tutor at St.John's College, Annapolis. The Archimedean Point
and the Liberal Arts was delivered as the Dean's opening lecture in the fall of
1958 at St. John's College, Annapolis.
40
this point, being a place to stand, is also a standpoint
from which man attempts to view himself. Kafka
somewhere says that, while man has discovered the Archimedean point, he uses it against himself; that it seems
that he was permitted to find it only under this condition.
Modern science, beginning with the Copernican or
heliocentric theory, is a return to Archimedes, and was
so regarded by its founders, particularly Galileo. Copernicus discovers in the sun the fixed point from the standpoint of which the earth moves. He looks upon the earth
as though he were actually an inhabitant of the sun. He
lifts himself, by an act of the mathematical imagination,
by means of ratios and geometrical diagrams, to a point
from which the earth and its earthbound inhabitants can
be viewed from the outside.
The Archimedean point'is shifted yet once again, or
rather made infinitely mobile, when Giordano Bruno announces the infinity of the universe. What is characteristic
of the thought of Bruno is the fact that the term "infinity"
changes its meaning. In classical thought the word "infinity" is understood negatively. The infinite is the indeterminate, the boundless; it has no limit or form, and
is inaccessible to human reason which lives in the realm
of form. But according to Bruno the word "infinity" no
longer means a mere negation of form. It means rather
the immeasurable and inexhaustible abundance of the
extended universe, and the unrestricted power of the
human intellect. Man no longer lives in the world as a
prisoner enclosed within the narrow walls of finite ordered
cosmos. He can traverse the air and break through the
imaginary boundaries of the celestial spheres. The human
intellect becomes aware of its own infinity through
measuring its powers by the infinite universe.
Einstein has insisted that we may assume with equal
validity that the earth turns round the sun or that the
sun turns round the earth; that both assumptions are in
SUMMER 1984
�agreement with observed phenomena, and that the difference is only a difference of the chosen point of
reference. Thus the Archimedean point is moved a step
farther away from the earth to an imaginary point in the
universe where neither earth nor sun is a center. We are
no longer to be bound even to the sun, but move freely
in the universe, choosing our point of reference wherever
it may be convenient for a specific purpose.
This shift of standpoint, from the earth to a point
outside the earth, received a certain kind of corroboration in Galileo's telescopic discoveries, the discovery of
the moons of jupiter and of the phases of Venus. These
discoveries did not prove the truth of the Copernican
theory; theories are never proved, only confirmed. And
in fact, if we accept the theory of Einstein, we can no
longer ask about the truth of the Copernican theory, for
the Archimedean point becomes infinitely shiftable. But
for those of Galileo's contemporaries who already accepted the Copernican theory, his telescopic discoveries
were a confirmation of the power of the human intellect,
which, by means of man-made instruments and mathematical theories, can free itself from the earth, and break
down the age-old barrier between the sublunar and the
celestial spheres.
One cannot fail to note, in the works of Kepler and
Galileo, a certain exhilaration, a sense of the power of
the human mind. According to Galileo, ". . . the
understanding is to be taken in two ways, that is, intensively, or extensivefy; and extensivefy, that is, as to the
multitude of intelligibles, which are infinite, the
understanding of man is as nothing, though he should
understand a thousand propositions; for a thousand in
respect of infinity is but as a cypher: but taking the
understanding intensively, I say that human wisdom
understandeth some propositions so perfectly, and is as
absolutely certain thereof, as Nature herself; and such
are the pure Mathematical sciences, namely, Geometry
and Arithmetick: in which Divine Wisdom knows infinite
more propositions, because it knows them all; but I
believe that the knowledge of those few comprehended
by human understanding equalleth the divine, as to the
objective certainty, for that it arriveth to comprehend the
necessity thereof, than which there can be no greater certainty."
By mathematics Galileo understood implicitly the
science of physics, since the book of nature, as he says,
"is written in mathematical characters." For both Kepler
and Galileo, man becomes a god, travelling through
space, able to calculate for his own displacement, and
so to arrive at knowledge which, intensively considered,
is perfect.
I shall not attempt to retrace the vicissitudes of this
scientific faith through the last three centuries. It would
be a complex story, I would even say a dialectical story,
a romantic biography, as it were, of a recently deceased
friend. The aim was to express qualities through figure,
to substitute a geometrical configuration for each primordial quality, to explain all things by figure and move-
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
ment considered as situated in an infinite matrix of time
and space. The doctrine of atomism was part and parcel
of this scientific faith, the notion of an inert matter or
stuff cut up into tiny shapes. But it was soon found
necessary to attribute occult qualities to the matter of
the atoms, mysterious dynamic qualities like gravitation,
and the atoms were gradually transformed beyond recognition. The geometrized space of Galileo has become with
Einstein a symbolic space-time matrix. The development
of theoretical structures has been constantly in a direction away from the simple geometrical object, which the
mind's eye can see with the certainty that it is there. Einstein has to deny that at a definite, present instant all
matter is simultaneously real. Whatever theoretical
physics is talking about today, it is not something which
is imaginable with the eye of geometrical imagination.
I am told that you can learn the fundamentals of quantum mechanics in about six months; then it takes another
six months to understand that you understand it, though
you cannot imagine what the theory is supposed to be
about. The tension between the empirically given and
the imaginable on the one hand, and the content of theoretical physics on the other, has increased to the breaking point. The mirror of nature that scientific faith
endeavored to build has been shattered, and the scientist finds himselflooking straight out into the unknown.
Already in the seventeenth century the new conception of the world- the world as viewed from the Archimedean point- had given rise to a reaction of doubt and
fear. "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens
me;' says Pascal. Pascal's distinction between the esprit
de geometrie and the esprit de finesse is directed against the
geometrical and astronomical view of the world. The
geometrical spirit excels in all those subjects that are
capable of a perfect analysis into simple elements. It starts
with axioms and from them derives propositions by universallogical rules. Its excellence lies in the clarity of its
principles and the logical necessity of its deductions. But,
Pascal would say, there are things which because of their
subtlety and variety defy the geometrical spirit, which
can be comprehended, if at all, only by the esprit de finesse,
the acute and subtle spirit. And if there is anything which
thus defies the geometrical spirit, it is the nature and
mind of man. Pascal holds that contradiction is the very
essence of human existence. Man has no "nature;' no
homogeneous being; he is a mixture of being and nonbeing. His precarious place is midway between these
poles.
The discovery of the Archimedean point produced
a crisis in man's knowledge of himself. Self-knowledge
has almost always been recognized as the highest aim
of philosophic inquiry. It is impossible to penetrate into
the secret of nature unless one also penetrates into the
secret of man. The discovery of the Archimedean point
demanded that man view himself from a totally alien
standpoint, that he understand himself ultimately in
terms of geometrical figure and the impact of atoms. The
seventeenth-century philosophers were fully aware of this
41
�cns1s, and attempted to meet it in different ways. But
the most obvious and crucial step, the step which was
already implicit in the Copernican shift of standpoint,
was taken by Descartes: the removal of the Archimedean
point into the mind of man, so that he could carry it with
him wherever he went, and thus free himself entirely from
the human condition of being an inhabitant of the earth.
Descartes says: I think, therefore I exist; or: I doubt,
therefore I exist. Beginning with the idea of universal
doubt, he concludes that there must be something which
doubts, which thinks; and this something is what he is.
He identifies himself as a mind, a thinking thing. And
this thinking thing is the fixed and immovable point from
which all else must be derived, the existence of God and
of other minds, and of things which have extension or
occupy space. Descartes himself recognizes the connection of his thought with the Copernican revolution, for
he states that if the earth does not move, then all of his
doctrines are false.
Unfortunately the Cartesian removal of the Archimedean point into the mind of man fails to assuage the
Cartesian doubt. Descartes' argument, cogito ergo sum) I
think, therefore I exist, is faulty. For as Nietzsche pointed
out, it ought to read: cogito ergo cogitationes sunt) I think
therefore there are thoughts. It does not establish the existence of a something which thinks; it can only end with
what it begins, namely thinking. And the questioning
and doubting remain; universal doubt, not in the sense
of really doubting everything all at once, which is impossible, but in the sense of the indefinite possibility of
doubting things one by one as they occur in thought.
And so one becomes a question to himself, asking who
he is- which is one sort of question- and what he is,
which is another sort of question.
Both the successes and failures of the scientific revolution have resulted in an anarchy of thought with regard
to the nature of man. The Archimedean standpoint leads
to theories of man in terms of impulses, forces which are
analogous to mechanical forces, the sexual instinct for
,_ Freud, the economic instinct for Marx. But the different
theories contradict one another. No age previous to ours
was ever so favorably placed with regard to the empirical
sources of knowledge of human nature, and yet never
was there so little conceptual agreement. And it becomes
the task of modern man, if he is to avoid the piecemeal
response of dissipation, and the one-track response of
fanaticism, to inquire once again into the being that he
is, and that he can become.
I make a new start, not from the Archimedean point,
but right in the middle of things.
And let me begin this time with the obvious, with
the observation that man is a linguistic animal. He
speaks; also, he uses writing as a substitute for speech.
The word "linguistic" is derived by a metaphorical extension from the word for a bodily organ, the tongue.
The tongue is used in articulating the voice. The Homeric
epithet for men was oi lltpo:n:e~ iivepw:n:ot; !ltpo:n:e~ is
from llepi~w, the verb meaning to divide; and the phrase
42
means those who divide or articulate their voice.
This does not, of course, tell us what a language is,
or in particular what human language is. A chimpanzee
can articulate most of the sounds used in human speech;
his tongue and lips can be used to articulate sound in
the same way as the human tongue and lips; but he is
not a linguistic animal in the same sense as man is. The
chimpanzee uses gesture and voice to express rage, terror, despair, grief, pleading, desire, playfulness, pleasure;
he expresses emotions. Man also utters cries expressive
of distress, pleasure, and so on, but these interJections) as
they are called, are quite frequently vocal sigus of a higher
order, the use of which as interjections comes about by
a degradation from their proper use; in fact, they are
quite frequently vocal signs borrowed from the language
of theology.
Man articulates his voice with the conscious intention of signifying, or sign-ifying, something to somebody.
The notion of a sign is, ordinarily, wider than that of
language. With respect to the relation between sign and
thing signified, we can distinguish three kinds of signs.
First, indexical signs, or indices. Here the sign is causally
connected with that which it signifies; thus smoke is a
sign of fire, because it is. produced by fire; the direction
of a weather vane is a sign of the direction of the wind,
because the direction of the weather vane is determined
by the direction of the wind; and the position of a
speedometer needle indicates the speed of the automobile,
because it is causally connected with the rotation of the
wheels. Secondly, there are iconic signs, or icons, which
are significant of something to somebody because they
are similar to that thing in some respects. Examples of
such signs are photographs, replicas, geometrical
diagrams, images of every kind. Finally, there are conventional signs, often called symbols; and under this
heading fall most of the words of human language. Symbols are all those signs which are signs only because they
are interpreted as such by some organism or mind; there
is no other connection between sign and thing signified,
as there is in the case of indices and icons.
Sometimes the word "language" is taken in a broad
sense, as any set or system of objects or events which are
significant for some being, or which are such that certain combinations of them are meaningful or significant
for some being. In this case, we should have to include
as special cases the language of looks and glances, the
language of the bees, and the language of the stars.
The incredible navigation feats of migratory birds,
such as the white-throated warblers which migrate between northern Europe and Africa, have been shown
recently to depend on celestial navigation, a reading of
the stars as indexical signs oflatitude and longitude. The
experiments were performed in a planetarium, and it was
shown that during the migratory period the birds decide,
on the basis of the look of the sky and an inner time sense,
exactly in what direction to point in order to be aiming
toward their destination. If they are so far put off course
as to have, say at midnight, the midnight appearance of
SUMMER 1984
�the Siberian sky over their heads, they know in what
direction to point in order to regain their course.
The language of the bees, on the other hand, consists in significant actions which are mostly iconic. As
the researches of von Frisch have shown, a honey bee
that has returned after successful foraging for food goes
through a strange and complicated dance, and this dance
is so designed, by the direction of the step and tempo,
as to show to the other members of the hive both the
direction and distance of the find.
None of these systems of signs is strictly comparable
to human language, which differs in essential respects.
But all of them consist of signs, and a sign is a very special
sort of thing, which would not come into focus if we stood
at the Archimedean point.
Wherever there is a sign, there is a relation which
is at least triadic in complexity, that is, a relation which
relates at least three things. The sign stands to somebody
for something. The something may be called the object
of the sign; but it should not be supposed that the object
is always, or even ordinarily, what we call a physical object or thing, something that is spatially bounded, capable
of existing for a stretch of time, and movable. The object of the sign is just whatever the sign signifies, which
might be redness or horizontality or justice. The
somebody, human or not, for whom the sign is a sign,
interprets the sign as signifying the object; or we may say
that the sign produces in this somebody an interpretant
or thought. Thus the three things related in the signrelation are (1) the sign, which will be a physical object
or event in any particular case; (2) the object, or thing
signified; and (3) the interpretant.
A triadic relation, such as we have in the sign-relation,
cannot be reduced to any sum of dyadic relations, that
is, relations relating two things. Dyadic relations can be
diagrammed by means of a letter with two tails, thus:
-R- . It is understood that something has to be written
in at the ends of the tails, to indicate the two things
related. Hitting is a case of such a dyadic relation, as
when we say "a hits b." Triadic relations, on the other
hand, have to be diagrammed by means of a letter with
three tails, thus: -1}-. An example of such a relation
is the giving involved when john gives the book to Mary;
the giving is a relation between three things, John, the
book, and Mary. Similarly a sign signifies something to
somebody.
Now it is easy to show that the combination of dyadic
relations only leads to further dyadic relations; for instance, by combining the relation "uncle of'' (- U-) with
the relation "cousin of'' (-C-), we only obtain the relation "uncle of cousin of' (-U -C-) or "cousin of uncle of'
(-C-U-); and the diagram shows that the combined relation has only two tails. Therefore triadic relations cannot be built up out of dyadic relations. Hence the sign
relation is not reducible to anything involving only dyadic
relations. As a consequence, no theory about the world
which seeks to account for everything in terms of dyadic
relations, such as we have in the impact of atoms or
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
gravitational attraction, is adequate to account for sign
relations. Lucretius, for instance, is wrong.
Now given the irreducibility of signs to things which
are not signs, we have yet to advance another step before
we reach the level of human language. We have, in the
first place, to understand the distinction between a sign
which is a signal or operator, and a sign which is a designator
or name; between a sign which serves as stim.ulus to a
motor response, and a sign which serves as an instrument of reflective thought. Man is a naming animal.
Human language is characterized by a freedom of
naming. Man can devise a vocal name for anything that
he can identify or distinguish as. being, in some way, one.
This freedom of naming depends, for one thing, on the
manifoldness of the sounds which the human voice can
produce and which the human ear can distinguish; and
it depends for another on leisure and reflectiveness.
Among peoples whose mode of life grants them little
leisure, the naming of things may be very restricted; thus
Malinowski found that among the Trobrianders of the
South Seas there are no special names for the various
trees or bushes which provide no edible fruit, but all of
these are alike called by a name we may translate "bush:'
When leisure intervenes, however, the reflective botanist
or zoologist, or in general the reflective namer, makes his
appearance, and nothing is safe from being named, not
even the Nameless, which after all has that name.'
The identification that goes with naming is like the
drawing of a circle, which separates all that is outside
the circle from all that is inside. Among the words which
name, I include adjectives and verbs as well as nouns,
for all such words have the general function of identification, of signifying something that is, in some way, one.
Corresponding to every adjective or verb there exists, or
can be invented, a corresponding noun; in English, for
instance, we frequently turn adjectives into nouns by adding N-E-S-S, and verbs into nouns by adding T-I-0-N.
All such words are called, traditionally, categorematic terms.
And the key to the categorematic terms, the key noun
or noun of nouns, is "monad" or "unit;' which Euclid
defines as that in accordance with which each of the
things that are is said to be one; and which was also defined by the ancients as the form of forms, dlirov ellio~.
The categorematic terms are of different sorts, depending on the kinds of thing they designate. Some of the
things they designate can be simply located in space and
time, and others cannot.
There are, for instance, terms for simple qualities like
"red;' "bitter;' "shrill." The awareness of such a quality,
considered by itself, is unanalyzable and incommunicable; it is just what it is and nothing else. I can
never know that my neighbor's awareness of the redness
of the curtain is the same as mine; if he uses the words
"red" and "blue" on the same occasions as I do, this only
means his classification of colors corresponds to mine. The
identification of qualities by name presupposes acts of
comparison and classification.
There are names for physical oqjects, "horse;' "chariot;'
43
�"Hektor!' A physical object has unity insofar as it is
bounded in space, persistent for a stretch of time, and
capable of moving or being moved. It is identified as an
invariant within a spatial and temporal framework. The
character of the spatial framework is determined by the
character of possible motions. Motions are reversible, so
that one can return to his starting-point; and motions
are associative, so that one can change direction, add motion to motion. In other words, motions form what
mathematicians call a group of operations. The character
of possible motions implies that space is homogeneous,
that it constitutes a uniform background against which
physical objects can manifest their unity and invariance,
that is, their boundedness, persistence in time, and
mobility.
There are names for materials, such as gold and
water, and names for such strange beings as rivers and
streams; whatever a stream or river is, it is something
you can step into twice, though the water is never the
same.
There are names for happenings, events, motions;
running, grasping, twisting, leaping, coronation,
assassination.
All the kinds of name I have mentioned so far
designate things that can be pointed at. But the meaning of such words cannot he defined simply by pointing;
pointing by itself is totally ambiguous; if the pointing
is to be understood, something else must be understood
at the same time. For instance, we have to understand
that it is a physical object that is meant, or a color, or
a shape, or a material, or a motion. The tree is not only
a tree, but is green-leaved, tall, branched, and so on. In
whatever direction one points, there is manyness, plurality of aspect.
All such naming, then, presupposes and implies an
act of comparison and classification, the isolation of
something from a matrix or background of possible
meanings. Man is an animal who compares, finds ratios;
he is a rational animal.
There are names for things which cannot be localized
in time and space, names like "law;' "liberty,"
"art;' "nature," ')ustice," "knowledge," "wisdom." Such words
belong, not to the order of perception and motion, but
to the order of action and idea. We ascend here to a new
level which, once again, is not discernible from the Archimedean point. These words cannot be defined through
classification, through specification of genus and differentia. They are polar or dialectical words, which take up
their meanings in relation to the meanings of other words
of the same kind. The word "freedom" presents different
facets to the word "tyranny" and to the word ''slavery";
and any one of these words requires the services of the
others.
Most if not all of the dialectical words are borrowed
from the realm of the corporeal, visible, and tangible;
the original reference is forgotten, and only the metaphorical extension survives. Both the Greek 0iK11, justice,
and the Chinese word i, morality, originally meant a way
44
of life, that is to say, a particular way of life. But there
are many ways oflife, and the adjudication between rival
opinions requires a universal meaning. The universal is
then grasped in the particular. The definition of the
dialectical words depends on representative images or
anecdotes, like the Hobbesian state of nature, or the state
constructed in Platds dialogue, Republic.
In all cases, naming involves the location of a kind
of commonness, law, regularity, invariance- something
on the basis of which one might classifY or predict. And
in all cases the commonness, law, regularity, invariance,
makes its appearance in a matrix of relations. Whenever
anyone has managed to grasp such an invariance or
regularity or commonness, he has thereby in some
measure released himself from the tyranny of diversity.
As Aristotle says, the soul is so constituted as to be capable
of this process. And he adds that it is like a rout in battle, stopped by first one man making a stand and then
another, until the original formation has been restored.
The human freedom of linguistic formation is not
limited to naming. Human language is combinational;
it permits the combination of sign with sign to form a
complex sign called the sentence, the proposition, the affirmation or denial, or-to use the Greek word-the logos.
In order really to say something, one must say something
about something. The fundamental type of expression
with complete or independent meaning is the sentence;
a meaning is completely specified only if it is imbedded
in an affirmation or denial, something that could be an
answer to a question.
Words that, in a broad sense, name or identify, can
be answers to questions. They have a certain possible completeness of meaning, which becomes actual when they
are uttered in a context of other words or in a non-verbal
situation which serves to specify the way in which they
are being used. The single word "fire;' for instance, may
have different meanings depending on the situation in
which it is uttered; whether, say, by a neighbor whose
house has caught on fire, or by an artillary officer, or
by Pascal in his study, in an attempt to express a theological truth.
Or to take a case where the context is verbal: the
meaning of the word "man" in the sentence "Some man
is a liar" is not entirely the same as its meaning in the
sentence "Man is mortal;' and is different again from its
meaning in the sentence "Man is a species!' In "Man is
mortal" the word stands for all things which it is capable
of signifying, all men who ever were, or are, or will be,
this man and that man and so on. In "Man is a species"
the word stands for a certain nature which it signifies; and
it is not possible to descend to individuals, to assert that
this man or that man is a species. In "Some man is a
liar;' the word "man" stands not for all things it is capable
of signifying, but only for an indeterminate individual,
this man or that man. We may say in general that while
any categorematic term is capable of signifying, the
precise way in which it signifies is determined by its use
in an assertion, a sentence.
SUMMER 1984
�Every sentence contains, besides categorematic terms,
other signs which are called syncategorematic signs,
words like "if;' "with;' "by;' "the;' "is;' "every;' "because;'
"not;' and signs which consist of inflectional endings or
word order. These signs are not names; they determine
the range of meaning of other terms, or the mode of connection of terms in sentences; they express instrumentality, the modalities of the possible or probable, tense,
negation, conditionality, and so on. In translating from
one language to another, these signs present the greatest
difficulty, for they are most likely not to translate into
a completely analogous form in the second language. The
conditional "if;' for instance, can be expressed in German by a mere inversion of the order of subject and verb;
Greek and Latin can express the instrumental "by" or
"with" by means of case endings of nouns; .and Latin
somehow- though not very happily- manages to get
along without a definite article. Nevertheless, we can expect that any adequate language will supply the connective and determining functions in some way.
The crucial syncategorematic sign is the sign of assertion itself. In the Indo-European languages this is supplied by the finite verb form; the verb has, in addition
to its function of naming or identifying, the function of
indicating that sometlllng is to be affirmed of something.
In Chinese there is no verb "to be;' and instead there is
a little particle "yeh;' which may be translated "indeed?'
Thus one says ''Tail long indeed;' meaning The tail is long,
and ''Boat wooden-thing indeed;' meaning Boats are made
of wood. The particle "yeh" may be taken as an epitome
of the business of the sentence, to assert or declare.
There is, then, a freedom of linguistic formation in
human language, freedom in the formation of names and
sentences. And this freedom extends to the subject-matter
of language itself; we can talk about language, use
language to describe language. This peculiar atop-theatopness is characteristic pf human capacity. Thus we
can make machines which make tools, which are used
in turn to make macliines. And according to Kant, man
is the only animal who can read a sign as sign. This implies that man is the only animal who can make signs
of signs; the only animal that has a hierarchical or selfreflexive language. And it implies also that he can become
aware, as by a sidelong glance, of his own linguistic activity, and raise it to the level of conscious artfulness,
liberal artistry.
Because of the triadic relation between the sign, the
object, and the thought or interpretant, we can distinguish three branches of linguistic artfulness. Grammar will
deal with linguistic formation, with the conditions which
any sequence of signs, and in particular any sentence,
must satisfy if it is to be meaningful. Logic will deal with
the conditions which any sequence of signs must satisfy
if it is to be true of any object, and in particular with
linguistic transformations which preserve truth, with the
derivation of one sentence from another in such a way
that if the first sentence is true of any object or objects,
then so is the second. Rhetoric will deal with linguistic
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
transformations that are persuasive, with the conditions
under which one thought or interpretant leads to another
in the mind of the interpreter. The focal topic of grammar is the sentence; of logic, the argument; of rhetoric,
the trope or figure of speech.
Grammar has to do with the conditions of meaningfulness, or conversely, with the avoidance of nonsense.
Meaninglessness or nonsense is to be distinguished from
absurdity. A word heap like king but or similar and is meaningless, and so is Gertrude Stein's A rose is a rose is a rose,
unless a comma be inserted after the second occurrence
of "rose"; an expression like round square or All squares have
5 comers, is absurd or countersensical, though meaningful.
The avoidance of nonsense is the business of grammar;
the avoidance of absurdity is the business of logic.
Grammar has to do with the recognition and distinction of forms and modifications of meaning which any
adequate language must be capable of expressing, the
existential sentence, the hypothetical antecedent, the
generic sense of a common noun, negation, the plural,
the modalities of the possible and probable, past, present, and future, and so on. If a language is to mirror
truly, in its verbal materials, the various kinds of possible meanings, then it must have control over grammatical
forms which permit the giving of a sensuously distinguishable "expression" to all distinguishable forms of
meanings. Different languages may differ with respect
to their adequacy. It is the task of the grammatical art
to see through the grammatical forms of particular
languages to essential distinctions of meaning, and to the
ways in which meanings may be combined so as to result
in the completed meaning of the sentence.
Logic is concerned with relations between sentences,
with transformations of sentences yielding new sentences,
in such a way that if the original sentences be true of
any objects of thought, then so are the derived sentences.
Wherever logic is being employed, the logical function
will be expressible in terms of a sequence of sentences,
of which one or more will be regarded as antecedent,
and one or more' as consequent.
Among sentences, some are denials or contradictions
of others; in fact every sentence has a denial, and the
denial of a denial is the same as the original sentence
denied. Everyone who cares to speak or assert anything,
has to take it as a rule that a given sentence cannot be
both truly affirmed and truly denied; on pain of contradiction, we say, he cannot both affirm and deny
something of something at the same time and in the same
respect. This principle, called the law of noncontradiction, cannot be proved. Anyone who dares or
cares to deny it cannot be talked with without absurdity, for his very denial would imply a denial of his denial.
He is, as Aristotle says, no better than a vegetable.
There are sentences which are consistent or compatible with one another, so that one can be denied or affirmed without our having, on pain of contradiction, to
affirm or deny the other.
And there are sentences which are related as antece-
45
�dent and consequent, where the affirmation of the one
requires us, on pain of contradiction, to affirm the other.
In this case, the antecedent is said to imply the consequent.
Implication always depends on syncategorematic
words, words which do not name, but which connect or
modify the meanings of names, words like "and;' "or;' "ifthen;' "all;' "every;' "some;' and so on. For instance, if p
and q are two sentences, and if I assert the sentence "If
p then q," and also assert the sentence "p;' then I am forbidden on pain of contradiction to deny the sentence ((q."
Or if A, B, and C are objects of thought, and if! assert
that all A is B, and that no B is C, then I am forbidden
on pain of contradiction to deny that no A is C.
In all applications of logic there are signs- either
categorematic terms or sentences- which occur vacuously; all that is required of them is that their meaning
should remain self~identical. The implication depends
solely on the connective and determining words, the syncategorematic signs.
The logical art enables us to pass from sentence to
sentence, to draw out the consequences of what has
previously been asserted, to construct the tremendous
deductive sciences of mathematics and theoretical physics.
An omniscient being would have no need for such an
art, but man is a discursive animal, who can only pass
from truth to truth in some consecutive order, in time.
Rhetoric has to do with the ways in which one thought
leads to another. As rhetorician, one is concerned with
linguistic transformations which occur in daydreams and
reveries, in jokes and poems and myths, in the formation of opinion, in the coming about of discoveries and
insights. While the task oflogic is to look through signs,
so to speak, toward the self-identical character of objects
of thought, the task of rhetoric is to look through signs
toward the polar character of thoughts.
Every identification of meaning involves the drawing of a circle which includes and excludes. Every
sentence involves affirmation or negation. The fundamental polarity in thought is that between same and
other.
There is an ancient Pythagorean table of opposites,
contrarieties, polarities: odd-even, unity-plurality, rightleft, male-female, rest-motion, light-dark, good-bad, and
so on. These polarities rest not only on the law of contradiction, but on the polarized character of man's life,
the erotic character of his linear voyage through time and
space. The other polarities become invested with Eros,
the desire for pleasure, for honor and power, for community, and for knowledge.
Wherever there are poles, there are tropics. The word
"pole" comes from the Greek word n6Ao<;, meaning pivot.
Wherever there are pivots, one expects to find something
that turns; and the Greek word -rp6n:o<;, from which we
derive the word "tropic;' means a turning. Thus the
tropics of the earth turn round the poles. Wherever there
are polar oppositions of terms, one may expect to find
what are called tropes, that is, turns or figures of speech,
similes, metaphors, metonymies, ironies.
46
In the 15th book of the Iliad, there is a point at which
Hector is seeking to break the ranks of the Achaians, but
is unable, we are told, for they endured like a tower, 'just
as a rock in the sea endures despite wind and waves:' The
rock in the sea is a simile, of course, for the endurance
and courage of the Achaians. The polarity here is between man and rock. I read into the rock the human endurance, and then I turn round and read into the human
endurance the steadfastness of the rock. I look at each
from the standpoint of the other; I use each to obtain
a perspective of the other. The movement is from man
to rock and back to man. I obtain an echo of man from
the rock.
As I pointed out earlier, the words for moral notions
and for the activities of the mind are derived by metaphor
from words for visible or tangible things and motions.
Poetry involves a regaining of the original relation in
reverse, a metaphorical extension back from the intangible into a tangible equivalent. It involves the discovery
of what T. S. Eliot calls an objective correlative of the interior life; that is, the finding of a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, which will be the formula of a
particular feeling or thought, so that when the external
facts are given, the feeling or thought is immediately
evoked.
Modern science can also be viewed, on the theoretical
side, as a gigantic trope or series of tropes, a series of
models or images whose meanings are drawn out by
logical inferences. Thus one may conceive electric current after the analogy of a river, or electric oscillations
after the analogy of mechanical oscillations, and other
aspects of electricity suggest other metaphors which in
turn acquire corresponding mathematical formulation.
Modern mathematics and mathematical physics overlies
a mass of disjunct imagery which it does not appear possible to unify; instead, imagery is used dialectically to transcend imagery, in successive stages of formalization.
Finally, let me not fail to mention the trope of irony,
the dialectical trope par excellence. Irony is an elusive trope;
its essence lies in simulation or dissimulation, in the use
ofthc tension between what appears and what is. It can
be savagely or gently mocking, but it also contains the
seeds of humility. When Newton* sees a criminal being
led to the gallows and says "There but for the grace of
God go I;' he is not congratulating himself on not being
a criminal; he reads himself in the other and the other
in himself, and the irony lies in this peculiar combination of"yes" and "no;' as these two are connected by means
of the God-term. When Socrates says "I know that I do
not know;' he combines affirmation and denial in such
a way as to produce a peculiar transcendence. Irony is
here the net of the educator.
The possibility of irony rests on the tension between
what appears and what is. Man exists at the horizon be-
*The hymn-writer.
SUMMER 1984
�tween appearance and idea; his being is an intermediate,
a metaxy, as Plato would say (co l!oca~u). And the task
of education, starting in the middle of things, is to use
the appearances, the images, the names and the
sentences, to produce a development toward hierarchy
and wholeness which uses all the terms.
I have but a few more words to say. Man is a being
who is constantly in search of himself; this is the human
condition. Socratically speaking, he is a questioning
animal, a being who, when asked a rational question,
can give a rational answer. So questioning and responding, both to himself and others, man becomes a responsi-
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
ble being, a moral being. In the image of the Republic,
the movement of dialectical or dialogical thought, as
guided by Socratic irony, is upward, from darkness into
light, from partiality to wholeness, from appearance to
intellectual vision. The Socratic irony produces a transformation of terms, a hierarchy, a perspective of perspectives, in which the contradictions of pOlitical life, and of
the soul which is an inner political life, are resolved by
becoming hierarchially related to the idea of knowledge.
The Socratic irony punctures pretense, and points
beyond, to the unity of knowledge and to the great dialectical interchange which has yet to be carried out.
47
�The Program of St. John's College*
in Annapolis, Maryland,
and Santa Fe, New Mexico
Eva T. H. Brann
I. Principles and Parts of the Program
I. The Principles and Parts of
the Program
Authors
Arts
The Community of Learning
II. Problems and Questions
Concerning the Program
The Place of the Program
in American Education
The Omission of Certain
Studies
Study Modes of the Program
Institutional Difficulties
"Real Life"
Eva Brann is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. The Program of St. John's
College, was written for the Rockefeller Foundation Conference KToward the
Restoration of the Liberal Arts Curriculum;' September 28, 1978.
48
E
very plan of education, whether borne up by a
passing trend or bound into a long tradition,
is fraught with implicit philosophical principle.
Since the program of St. John's College is
devoted to that peculiar kind of learning which
of necessity includes a reflection on its own conditions,
most members of the college accept the obligation- or
yield to the fascination- of engaging in ever-recurrent
discussion and review of the philosophical bases that
underlie their activity. A part of the life of the college
(some say too much, some too little) is devoted to such
reflection. To mention this activity is a matter of minutes,
while to reproduce even a sample of it would require not
hours but, probably, years. Furthermore, precisely
because it is a living inquiry, it is impossible for one
member to state the results in behalf of the whole college. That would be tantamount to announcing that we
had communally determined the answer to such questions as "What is learning?", ''What are the objects of
learning?", "What is human nature?", and "What is truth?"
Such an announcement is, judging from good precedent, not in itself unthinkable, but it would be absurd
in view of the central aim of the college, which is the
pursuit of what I can only call radical inquiry. The college certainly has other and, it sometimes seems, conflicting aims. If the usual purposes of institutions of higher
learning can be said to be: 1. training for scholarship or
research; 2. pre-professional preparation, 3. broadening
of views and sharpening of intellectual faculties and
development of the sensibility, 4. initiation into the
cultural tradition- then the college eschews the first
almost completely, does the second fairly adequately, succeeds in the third but erratically (that is to say, about
SUMMER 1984
�as well as other good schools), and accomplishes the last
superbly, albeit according to its own lights. But, however
well the college may do any of these things, it does them
only incidentally to the central aim, which is to us the
very purpose of liberal education.
By radical inquiry I mean the attempt to delve as
deeply as possible into the roots of the world, to bring
to light not only the nature of things but also the nature
of thinking. When I say that it is the central aim of the
college, I do not- God forbid- mean that every waking
moment is devoted to first philosophy, but rather that
philosophical questions are always in the background, are
always welcomed, are always on the brink of being entertained, even when the subject at hand is highly technical
or acutely esthetic.
Now precisely because such an inqu~ry is a search
for truth and substance, it needs to be free, free in the
sense of being conducted in a setting that imposes the
fewest bars and the least presuppositions possible. The
program of the college embodies an attempt to provide
such a setting. If the actual life of the college is difficult
to describe succinctly, its formal aspect, this very plan
oflearning, should be quite capable of coherent and concise presentation.
Now the program of the college consists of an almost
totally prescribed course of studies. It sets not only the
books to be read but the exact order in which they are
itself. I shall try below to set out our approach to the intellectual world, an approach that still accords it enough
integrity so as to engender in a faculty the confidence
to derive a plan of studies from it.
The enabling freedum which is essential to our sort
of inquiry depends on a program explicitly embodying
strong but minimal notions- strong enough to help and
sparing enough not to hinder inquiry.
We have agreed on two approaches as meeting these
demands. They stem from an old tradition. But it is not
because they are old that we adopt them; on the contrary, they are, presumably, long-lived because they contain much pedagogical wisdom. These approaches have
the medieval designation of Authors and Arts.
AUTHORS
The wisdom of the West is handed down in a collection of books by individual authors, books of words, symbols, notes and images, books of philosophy, science and
poetry, books of intellect, reason and imagination. I
believe that the existence of such a written tradition is
an accepted fact among all educated people. The issuing of definitive lists of these books has been a favorite
activity of pedagogues since the Renaissance, and the
zestful debates concerning the inclusion or exclusion of
items have usually confirmed a perennial core. We tinker
with our list-which we find in the main satisfactory-
to be studied and even the times, to the hour, when and
for various reasons. The main cause is that far more
the people with whom they are to be discussed. It requires its students to forego all notions of being born a
books by right belong on it than can be read in four years.
(We now have an informal rule obligating anyone who
wishes to add a book to the list to point out- at his
peril- the one to be dropped to make room for it.) Again,
humanistic or a scientific type, makes the silent speak
and the speech-makers be quiet, imposes dozens of
earnest formalities, requires teache.rs to teach what they
certain texts turn out to be unsuccessful in discussion.
do not know well to students who did not particularly
choose to be taught by them, and requires relentless activity in the name of true leisure. And all these constraints
Also, the splintering of the tradition in recent times makes
the modern choices much less settled. So, while we invariably begin with the Homeric epics, our final readings
vary. When I last taught seniors about to go forth into
the so-called world, we ended most appropriately with
that perfect conflation of thought and action embodied
in Supreme Court decisions.
These books form a coherent tradition because their
are imposed, I must now try to show, in the interests of
intellectual freedom.
It is not, of course, academic freedom in the usual
understanding, that is, the students' right to study what
they please and the professors' right to say what they
think. In the St. John's community, the latter is not so
much a right as a duty, though a duty mitigated by a
pedagogic tact. The former freedom is, except for small
choices, confined to the initial decision to come to the
college, though that decision is never permitted to be
made sight unseen. Electives, which the program ex-
common mode is response, repudiation, revival. Each
book is explicitly or implicitly a commentary on, or a
critique of, preceding books. Much as we regret having
affixed to ourselves the fatuous formula of a "great books"
college (and exactly 100 of them, forsooth!), the irrefutable experience seems to be that these books are
great, that they are inexhaustible in their depth and
cludes, are the most characteristic feature of modern
university organization, introduced into this country
definiteness, in their responsiveness and self-sufficiency.
significantly by Thomas Jefferson. They were devised,
on the one hand, to take account of the individual talents
(and what often weighs more, the supposed inabilities)
of the students, and on the other, to make up for the loss
It is, after all, by these criteria that the educated consensus has chosen them and guarded their survival.
What makes the study of these books relevant to practical inquiry is that they are all occupied with versions
of consensus concerning a universally enforceable educa-
of the same root questions. Arguments have been made
in this century claiming that these questions are radical
misdirections of human effort, and that the tradition is
tional plan. The St. John's program, on the contrary, is
based on the assumption that certain fundamental studies
are still universally accesssible, reliably exciting and formulable as a plan to which a whole faculty can commit
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
in need of a respectful but merciless dismantling, but such
critiques are, and mean to be, themselves within the tradi-
49
�tion. In short, these books are helpful only on the simple working assumption that human questions are so continuously transformed as to remain fundamentally the
same now, then, and tor all time. If that is false, the study
of these books-and indeed any book not written here
and now-is a mere antiquarian amusement. I should
add an observation essential to the enterprise: The
acknowledgement that there are perennial questions is
the very antithesis of the claim that such questions have
no answer-a presumptious supposition which implies
that one has seen deeply enough into the well of things
to know that it has no bottom.
One chief characteristic of these works is that they
are original in both senses of the term: very much the
author's own product and very much at the beginning
and origin of an intellectual development. Such texts differ from text books by communicating the order and
the difficulties of discovery rather than delivering prepared packets of knowledge. Hence, precisely by reason
of their originality, they imply a certain arrangement of
studies, or better, they obviate the principal organizational features of modern university studies, which is the
department corresponding to a field of study.
The department is the expression of a thoroughgoing
intellectual prejudgement, namely the Baconian division
of the intellectual world into parcels of ground, fields,
areas, within which can occur that concentrated cultivation, that intensive specialization, and that well-defined
research, which make possible the advancement oflearning and the accumulation of intellectual products.
Without attempting here to sketch out the intellectual
revolution which made such a division of labor possible
and profitable, let me simply say that this college, as an
undergraduate teaching institution, is willing to forego
all its advances for the sake of radical reflection. For us,
students "make an original contribution" when they go,
for themselves, to the origin of things. We want them
not so much to think something new, as to think anew,
not so much to discover truths for the world as for
themselves.
These books, then, in their o~iginality, precede the
fixing of the divisions of studies. In the language of hindsight, in them philosophy is not yet one of many equal
specialties, poetry is still a source of wisdom, physics and
theology are still continuous. Hence the reading of
authors involves fewer assumptions than the study of
fields and permits the more natural pursuit of those questions otherwise so frustratingly formulated as
"interdisciplinary?'
The order in which the books are read is by and large
chronological. This observation of the given order again
embodies a minimum of prejudgement. In addition it
makes obvious sense for the student to have read what
the author has read. As Hegel knew his Aristotle or
Milton his Homer or Stravinsky his Bach, so, perhaps,
ought the student. In certain, though by no means all,
cases it is even indispensable to be so prepared.
Contrary to appearance, this temporal order is not
intended to have anything to do with the "history of ideas".
50
We have no interest at all in having students learn how
different notions have succeeded each other. Indeed, in
distinction from every school I know of, we have no interest in the past whatsoever (though a good many of
us are privately avid readers of history). The fact that
some of these books are written by authors who happen
to be physically dead is perfectly peripheral. For insofar
as the books really do form a tradition, their matter has
entered into the present. It has done so in at least two
ways, which correspond to the two old senses of the word
tradition: It signifies a process of handing down but also
of traducing- of preservation, but also of subversion.
Hence the matterrofthe older books is always there, either
as an absorbed and digested element of the development
or as the forgotten cause and motive of an antithetical
formulation.
The attitude toward the books which the college tries
to foster is one of respectful~ attention combined with
vigorous independence. We demand such respect even
for the small number of lesser or even shoddy books
which we include not on their own account but for the
influence they have had. This respectful listening and
critical responsiveness are meant to be carried over into
the communal exercise which seems to us most appropriate to the study of tradition.
We call this institutional device the seminar and
regard it as the central class of the college. It is a discussion group of no more than twenty students, which-meets
twice a week throughout the four years of the program
on a set text. It is emphatically not intended as a rap
session or an encounter group, or as some exercise in
group dynamics. In fact, there is no manipulation and
no method which properly belong to the seminar; on the
contrary, the rule is the great Heraclitan saying, "Listen
not to me but to my speech." There is, however, a certain structure. There are two seminar leaders who alternate in asking an opening question. The object of having two is to prevent the unopposed profession of
authoritative opinion and to encourage students to address each other rather than the teacher. Every member
of the seminar is expected to contribute to the discussion and to do so responsibly, responsively, and civilly-all
members use a formal mode of address. The seminar
may work at explicating the text or attempt to determine the truth. These two and a half hours can be vapid
and they can be vigorous, silly or sublime, rambling, sequential, hilarious, serious. In accordance with the ancient discovery that speculative loquacity flourishes after
dark, the seminars are held at night.
Juniors and seniors are given a ten-week break in the
middle of the year to join the only elective class of the
college, the preceptorial. It is a small study group on
a book or a theme, offered by a tutor and chosen by the
student.
ARTS
Our second approach to reflective inquiry is through
the liberal arts. The liberal arts are traditionally, and,
I think, rationally, divided into the arts concerning speech
SUMMER 1984
�and the arts concerning learnable objects, that is, the
medieval trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the
quadrivium (four grades of mathematics and natural
science).
The arts of language and of mathematics are root
skills. By adapting the way of these arts, the college hopes
to overcome the vexed question concerning what fields
of study the institution should offer and which of these
a student should be allowed to avoid. As I understand
this question, it has, from the pedagogical point of view,
two aspects. First, a modern university offers numerous
wonderfully ingenious and equipotent studies among
which young students have scarcely any way of choosing but by mere and unmatured preference. It also harbors certain dubious offerings, advertised in the language
ofpiffie-land, which the same student has hardly any way
of exposing but by bitter and expensive experience. Hence
the choice of goods and the avoidance of trash pose an
equally baffling problem to young learners, one whose
acuteness increases with their obliviousness of its existence. Second, the serious studies usually require of
those committed to them steeply increasing sophistication and specialization, and it is not clear that such learning is, in the language of educational psychology,
transferable; indeed it often seems that a high degree
of early specialization depresses rather than raises both
the students' willingness and ability to bring learning to
bear widely.
The arts, on the other hand, are eminently transferable, for although they are always wedded to a defmite
matter- the grammar is, say, French grammar and the
mathematics is, say, projective geometry-the skill and
the matter together can be continuously elaborated and
adapted to any use. What is more, they are eminently
defensible as required subjects for their own sake, for
they are by nature elementary, and that means that,
aside from the boom of their general accessibility, they
display an inviting combination of simplicity and depth.
At least our students seem to be won by some such quality
when they get absorbed, for instance, in the mysteries
of the copula "is" and why a certain type of Greek sentence does without it, or again, when they recover the
mental leap which leads from the naive to the formal
meaning of the mathematical limit notion.
Once more the use of the arts in the program serves
to avoid prejudgements. For these arts are antecedent,
both in time and in thought, to the debilitating split between the humanities and the sciences which dominates
modern schools. The skills of the trivium and the
quadrivium involve continuous and complementary
human abilities: It is not only that the art of mathematics
can be most humane and the art of language ought to
be very precise, but that the elements of both are rooted
in one and the same human power, the power of thought.
Furthermore, the arts help us avoid the necessity for those
"methods of analysis" courses with which schools attempt
to reintroduce some sort on generality into their studies.
We want to circumvent them because each such method
embodies an enormous amount of intellectual prepara-
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
tion which students are scarcely sophisticated enough to
to discern. For example, the tremendous intellectual
predeterminations involved in the application of quantitative methods to the social sciences can hardly become
perspicuous to students unless they have thoroughly
reflected on the nature of quantity and the process of
quantification itself- one of the very intentions of our
mathematical program which can, however, hardly be
achieved without some detailed but reflective study of
pure mathematics.
In accordance with the twofold way of the arts, the
program provides for two kinds of day classes called
tutorials: a language tutorial and a mathematics
tutorial. These are recitation classes, most of which meet
four times a week, and they are devoted to various exercises, above all to translation and demonstration.
The language tutorial uses translation as the chief
learning device. The languages studied and used are
Greek and French. An ancient language is useful to us
precisely because it is "dead;' that is to day, completely
fixed and literary. Greek in particular is chosen first,
because it is, in illuminating contrast to English, a highly
inflected language; next, because of its intimate relation
to our seminar readings; again, because of its literary
riches; and finally, because most of the faculty has quite
shamelessly fallen in love with it. The choice of French
is more arbitrary. German or Russian might do as well,
although it is argued that French poetry, in its artfulness,
best lends itself to rhetorical analysis. The work of the
language tutorial almost always begins with some sort
of translation exercise.
The object of the tutorial is above all to reflect on
the relation of language to thought, of the languages to
each other, of correctness to persuasiveness, of logic to
grammar, of form to meaning. It is secondly to support
the seminar by a slower and more detailed reading of
some of the central passages of seminar books, and last
(though, by our own intention, least) it is to learn the
language in question, for without some concrete medium
the discussion would be mere hot air. Hence the tutorial
always, and sometimes rather inefficiently, shifts back and
forth between the necessary rote learning and the desired
reflection, the more so since language, unlike mathematics, cannot be learned by advancing in a linear sequence from agreed beginning to desired conclusions;
it has no clear given "elements:'
The mathematics tutorial is apparently the pedagogically most successful part of the program, and, many
of us think, the most gratifying to teach.
First of all, it ought to be said that in the tutorials
the injunction against the use of textbooks is of necessity somewhat relaxed. As it happens, the most appropriate beginning mathematics textbook is also a work
of originality and subtlety: Euclid's Elements. All
freshmen begin their mathematical studies with a consideration of its first definition: "A point is that which
has no part;' and they end up, four years later, with the
four-dimensional geometry of Einstein's special theory
of relativity.
51
�On the way, they study mostly original texts. It may
seem surprising that in so unquestionably progressive
a study as mathematics and mathematical physics (the
tutorial includes both, especially astronomy) the original
sources are good teaching tools. But suppose one thinks
of it in this way: Einstein, in the famous 1905 paper which
sets out special relativity, explicitly presupposes a
knowledge of Maxwell's work. Maxwell cannot be understood without Newton, who, in his own phrase, "stands
on the shoulders" of Kepler and Galileo. Galileo advocates
Copernicus' system.
Copernicus revolutionizes the
Ptolemaic cosmos. Ptolemy's theories cite Appolonius'
Conics and Apollonius is inaccessible without the
Elements of Euclid. These are, in reverse order, some
of the very texts used in the tutorial. Seen in this light
the so-called "genetic" approach makes immediate sense.
And yet, regarded as textbooks, these works are often
cumbersome and complicated. They are frequently not
conducive to efficient learning and technical proficiency.
But then, it is not our object to train productive or
problem-solving mathematicians, though we acknowledge and want all the benefits usually attributed to
mathematical studies: precision of thought, logically valid
reasoning, the power of demonstration, and an appreciation of intellectual elegance. Once again, however, the
chief aim is reflection on the nature of mathematics and
the possibility of its application to nature. And for that
the original texts are almost indespensible, providing only
they are not approached in the spirit of the history of
science, that is, as repositories of past and surpassed forms
of thought. Instead, we look to them as setting out both
enduring intellectual acquisitions and accounts of the
revolution of intention and understanding which accompany their continual displacement and absorptionrarely refutation- by subsequent discoveries. In particular, we follow with fascinated care the development
of mathematical structures from those humanly immediate objects of the natural intellect which engage the
ancients to the sophisticated high-level abstractions of the
constructive reason which preoccupy the moderns. This
implied view-that the ancients and the moderns are at
once separated and connected by a deep intellectual rupture whose thorough apprehension is crucial to the
understanding of modernity-is perhaps the one substantial interpretative dogma built into the program.
For three years a full fourth of the students' time goes
into the laboratory. It is a most problematic, and yet
an absolutely essential, part of the program. While the
tutorial and the seminar take off from written texts, the
laboratory is concerned with what its early modern proponents, eager to assimilate the direct study of nature
to respectable learning, called the book of nature. But
at the same time they also spoke of putting nature to the
test of torture to extract her secrets. Contained in this
figure of speech is the necessity for a laboratory, literally a workshop, in which strange tools are usedinstruments not of production but of contemplation, instruments of observation and measurement. Close and
52
careful study of the appearances was certainly practiced
among the ancients, but the elaborately prepared and
controlled kind of experience which marks the central
device of the laboratory, namely the experiment, is
peculiar to the moderns. That is why this class is a
separate and problematic exercise in a program devoted
to interpretive reading.
Pedagogically, too, the laboratory has its special difficulties. The first function of the experiments is the determination of new truths of nature. In asking students to
repeat experiments, albeit crucial ones, we run the danger
of mounting a deliberately rickety reenactment with
unrevealing results, or of getting slick reconfirmation of
predetermined laws. Add to this the necessity, in more
sophisticated experiments, of using the notorious '~lack
box;' the instrument whose insides are a dark mystery
to the user, and it will be obvious how hard it can be
to engender and maintain thoughtful excitement in this
class.
Our aims are clear enough. We want to reflect on
that enormously powerful activity called science which
has arrogated to itself the name of knowledge simply;
to think about the changes in meaning that the word
"phenomenon" has undergone, from the ancient injunction to astronomy to "save the appearances" to Heisen-
berg's uncertainty principle; to consider the term "hypothesis'~ for example, to understand what Newton means
when he announces: "I make no hypotheses"; to understand how nature must be transformed to undergo
mathematization; to think about time as the beat of the
soul and the reading of a clock; to study force considered
as acting at a distance and as a field; to understand energy
in its continuities and discontinuities; to ask what life
is; and so on and on. I might add that the problem of
"scientific method;' much beloved of philosophers of
science, seems, somehow to fade away before the
brilliance of original natural inquiry.
The actual laboratory sequence remains somewhat
fluid even after thirty years of practice, mostly on account
of the embarrassment of riches from which to choose.
At present it begins in the freshman year with the observation and classification ofliving things and the atomic
constitution of matter, that is, roughly, biology and
chemistry. These subjects are taken up again in the senior
year and pursued beyond the threshold of ordinary observation as molecular biology and quantum mechanics. In
between there is a year of classical physics. Wherever
possible the preparatory readings are original papers,
from Aristotle to Monad, from Galileo to Schroedinger.
In the sophomore year a music tutorial replaces the
laboratory. Music is traditionally the coping stone of the
liberal arts, the juncture of the theoretic with the fine
arts and even with theology. Here mathematics becomes
qualitative in the ratios which govern consonances; here
grammar becomes passionate in the tone relations which
constitute a musical rhetoric.
The music tutorial is generally regarded as the most
difficult class to teach, because, our fond dogma to the
SUMMER 1984
�contrary, previous preparation and ta1ent are necessary
to the tutor and make disturbing distinctions among the
students. We do require all freshmen to sing together in
the chorus and to learn some musical notation, but that
is not quite adequate.
The music class begins with the elements of music.
The theory of proportions, which has been studied in
the mathematics tutorial, is applied to the construction
of the Western, diatonic scale, and rhythm, melody and
harmony are taken up. Then musical texts are subjected
to detailed analytic listening, partly in preparation for
the seminar, which includes a number of musical works.
One example is Bach's Matthew Passion. The seminar
might respond to the fact that Bach was a learned
theologian by asking how the arias of the musical passion comment on the Gospel text -an inquiry for which
the music tutorial has provided the preparation.
Finally, all members of the college are expected to
attend one formal weekly lecture on any subject, which
is given by a visitor or a tutor, and is followed by a
(sometimes interminable) question period in which the
mood ranges from puppy-dog aggression to deep cooperative probing. This exercise in listening and responding
to connected discourse is quite important, especially for
students who are so much called on to engage in
conversation.
It goes without saying that we have various special
devices for examining students beyond their daily performance and for reporting to them our opinion of their
work. The most important formal test is the senior essay,
which is intended to be a work of reflection rather than
research; these essays vary in quality from dispiriting to
exhilarating.
One last observation on the program as a whole:
Because of the many factors that have to be juggled, the
integration of the parts is in stretches so loose as to be
hardly discernible. HapP.ily there are other occasions
when it is satisfyingly ~patent, when the tutorials,
laboratory and seminar immediately and essentially bear
on each other. The details of the schedule of studies and
their relations are set out in the catalogue of the college,
a frequently revised document to whose authority we attach great importance.
THE COMMUNITY OF LEARNING
It remains to say something of the community of
learning in which this program is realized, that is, the
students, the faculty and, briefly, the administration.
First, our students. We have always maintained that
the program is intended for students of widely varying
intellectual capacities, and that there is no distinctive St.
John's student. Since our progress is stepwise and patient and almost all the work is elementary, there should
be few parts that are technically beyond anyone's range.
Indeed, a slow and naive student may contribute more
searching questions than a quick and sophisticated one.
·We find that, except for occasional sad cases, self-selection
is the best guarantee of aptitude; the desire to learn
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
outweighs the question of talent. Our students, consequently should and do come from everywhere-as they
end up doing practically anything. As it turns out, they
do, in fact, perform so very well on the standard national
tests (in which we, nonetheless, place little faith) as to
make the college appear far more selective than we intend it to be. There is, moreover, good corroboration that
the program is indeed universally accessible. It comes
from our Graduate Institute in Liberal Education, a summer- version of the program intended in the main for
school teachers. Our graduate students, who teach in
large part in inner-city schools, whose academic training is usually neither very recent nor, often, very good,
and who are preoccupied with urgent practical problems,
take to the program with great gusto and gratifying
success.
The faculty, on the other hand, has undeniably over
the course of time grown into a certain distinctiveness,
which is largely the consequence of the one circumstance
we have most difficulty in explaining to the academic
world. Just as we expect the students to study the whole
program, so we expect ourselves to teach it. Naturally,
not everyone has done every part of the program, but
it is an aim to be attained, though over decades. It means
constant new learning, sitting in on each other's classes,
phoning for help. It sometimes means being only hours
ahead of the students. But I think, on the whole, it makes
us better teachers, closer to the students' difficulties and
more apt to find the most revealing way out. What
characterizes the faculty is, therefore, a certain proud
shamelessness about admitting ignorance and engaging
in public learning. One way to describe this group might
be to say that it is recalcitrantly unacademic: No departmental politics-we form, if you like, one large department. No imperial references to "my field" or "my century" or "my material'!.._ we have a common subject, the
program. No pride of competence or rank- our single
rank and title is tutor, that is to say, "guardian" of learning. In spite of royal battles over matters of principles
and gently simmering personal animosities, the faculty
engages in continuous common study and conversation.
When I say "faculty" I include our administrators. Our
deans are, according to the college policy, chosen from
among the tutors, and the other administrators, including
the president, have always (as much as they could) joined
in the learning and the teaching-a circumstance of incalculable value to the college. I think that most of us
would say that this happy collegiality is simply a reflection of the integrity of the program.
This then is a sketch of the plan and the people that
constitute St. John's College. Now might be the moment
to ask why a community should feel entitled to devote
itself to the kind of inquiry I have described. I think our
communal answer- briefly formulable but not briefly
defensible- might be that such activity is both the
mark and the source of human excellence. And if we
are told that that is all very well, but that there are more
urgent and iinmediate tasks for a college, solid, realistic,
53
�practical aims, and if we are asked how we can, in good
conscience, set them aside, we might answer with some
counter-questions: Have any of those myriad accom-
modations to the times into which schools have been
driven made education one whit more immediate to life?
Have the educators' urgencies in any way made the stu-
dent a better judge of the right action? Is realism in
education practical? Does it work? Ever?
II. Problems and Questions Concerning
the Program
Of course, rhetorical questions do not adequately
dispose of the many difficulties raised about the college
by friendly and not-so-friendly observers, and most intensively, by the faculty and the students themselves. Let
me briefly list what seem to me the chief topics of debate,
and indicate some first answers.
THE PLACE OF THE PROGRAM
IN AMERICAN EDUCATION
We are often asked, and have to ask ourselves, why
St. John's College has not been more widely imitated,
and of what use, beyond its own minuscule enterprise,
it can be to American education if it is indeed inimitable.
There have, in fact, been a number of programs modelled
on ours, but by and large, the departmental organization of American schools is simply too rigid to accommodate the radical modifications demanded by this program, while the propitious conjunction of factors
fession, especially law and medicine. By their own report,
after an initial disorientation, apparently comparable to
that of Adam and Eve after their ejection from paradise,
they find their years at the college both professionally
and personally helpful to life in the world- though
"helpful" is too bland a word for the effects of the program. It would be more candid to report that some
students say they feel crippled by the habit of reflection
they have acquired, while others- far more- claim that
the world belongs to them as, they think, it does not quite
belong to their peers.
THE OMISSION OF CERTAIN STUDIES
One of the apparently inevitable questions at the
orientation session which the Instruction Committee, the
faculty group charged with the supervision of the program, has with the incoming freshmen is: Why do we
study no Eastern books? The answer is threefold. First,
four years barely suffice even to begin with our own
Western tradition. Nothing worth doing could possibly
happen in the time we might squeeze out. Second, it is
by no means clear that the Eastern books can be fitted
into a Western, academic, institutional framework
without making a travesty of them-that they do not demand to be approached within their own living discipline.
Third, we have reason to distrust available translations,
because by an undiscriminating use of metaphysical terminology they seem so often to turn Eastern wisdom into
a pale and unoriginal reflection of Western philosophy.
In the case of Western texts we are alert to the fact that
translations will tend toward the higher gibberish and
necessary to a new founding is very rare. I think we
we have the communal competence to counteract this
should not yield to the implication that institutions that
are good in themselves are not doing their social duty
unless they are also exerting wide influence around them.
Nonetheless, the college does have a wider role to play
difficulty- not so with Eastern works. We have similar
hesitations about Islamic texts. It is not from disrepect
but from the exact opposite motive that we omit these
traditions.
in American education, namely, as one distinctive point
of reference: a self-confident but receptive center of
the very notion of "encountering other cultures;' especially
debate, an established repository of experience and a will-
as an undergraduate enterprise. Our deeper difficulty
The fact is that we have the greatest misgivings about
ing source of well-tested working devices for the restora-
is with the concept of culture itself, which can, notor-
tion of the liberal arts.
iously, include anything from menus to metaphysics. The
The imputation of elitism is sometimes made in this
context, but we must simply reject it. The program is
intended for all literate human beings and most particularly for citizens of a republic-our style of learning is eminently participatory, and questions of political
philosophy play a large role in the program. If smallness
and intimacy is a sin, one might as well accuse the family
of elitism. As for the expense of such an education, if
the true costs of public, large-scale, higher education were
ever honestly reckoned, this college, which has, as it were,
only one single large department and no need for fancy
hardware, might look good.
Finally there is the problem of vocationalism, of
preparation for careers. Is this kind of education nothing
but a respectable luxury on the educational scene? In
fact, way over half our students go on to graduate and
professional schools and they enter every conceivable pro-
54
more immediate pedagogical problem, however, concerns
the idea of "encounter" or "exposure." Surely it is not safe
to encounter strange ways when one is not yet solidly
grounded in one's own, nor is it sound to approach alien
traditions when one cannot afford to pursue them in
depth and detail.
The other major omission of the program which is
often questioned is that of history. Even observers who
accept the fact that we do not study any of a number
of other worthwhile fields wonder how we can read the
texts without a "historical background." Our answer, far
too abruptly stated, would be, first, that such capsule
history conveys very little except a prejudgement, and
second, more importantly, that the works are intended
by their authors to be directly accessible and selfsufficient, and that this claim must be, at least to begin
with, respected.
SUMMER 1984
�STUDY MODES OF THE PROGRAM
Our students seem to have little difficulty in accepting an all-required program which they have, after all,
chosen, which has a fairly explicit rationale, and which
has the adherence of their teachers. Indeed, they turn
out to be the most orthodox defenders of the program
against the inroads of elective elements. What they do
complain about is the lack of choice in tutors, since they
are assigned to classes and discouraged from asking for
transfers. It is a necessary hypothesis of the college community that all tutors are about equal in their ability to
guide classes which do not, supposedly, depend so much
on the teacher as on the text and the students. Of course,
the hypothesis is not quite true; our classes depend a great
deal on teachers, and also all the tutors are not equally
competent and exciting; a few are not even very good
teachers. This is one of the perennial problems of a college whose faculty thinks of itself as primarily a teaching
faculty. The best that can be said is that we do agonize
over the situation.
On our part, we worry about the amount of spoon
feeding and handholding our students absorb and wonder
whether it strengthens them or unfits them for making
choices and working independently. We are never quite
sure what we ought to do in this respect.
Our students, again, tend to suspect us- sometimes
with irritation and sometimes with a kind of intellectual
frisson- of propagating some esoteric dogma through the
classes. Nothing can resolve these suspicions except constant readiness on the part of the faculty to make explicit
and to discuss the assumptions behind our studies.
An academic critic might question the complete
absence of scholarship and reasearch. Truth to tell, the
students do not miss them, and they do get the benefit
of their teacher's fuller attention. Perhaps there is some
loss in the absence of ongoing intellectual productivity
(though many of us do write quite a bit), but we comfort ourselves with the thought that there is something
very timely indeed ab6ut our ambition to recollect and
revivify our intellectual inheritance and our reluctance
to join in the further accumulation oflargely unabsorbed
rational artifacts.
Finally, the scantiness of our contemporary readings
is often criticized. I think that, like everybody else, we
are simply embarrassed by the fragmented enormity of
the material. We would excuse ourselves from fully resolving this difficulty by pointing out that the appreciation
and critique of modernity, which is indeed one of our
central preoccupations, is best initiated with the aid of
earlier, more fundamental texts.
INSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTIES
Pressure is the chief difficulty in realizing the pro-
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
gram institutionally: the pressure of doing difficult daily
preparation, the frustration of racing through extensive
seminar assignments, the weariness of continuous involvement in that contradiction of terms, the scheduled conversation. We used to call the week between semesters
"Dead Week!' Tutors and students alike felt like zombies.
By way of relief we have been slowly cutting down
the program, shortening the readings and giving
ourselves some long weekends. But oddly enough, the
final fact of the matter seems to be that, endless complaints notwithstanding, people like it this way.
The one aspect of this problem that observers most
often notice is the relentless, strenuous intellectuality of
the college. Again there is some relief in the art studio,
the drama groups and in amateur music. Also students
have the choice of being at the Western campus, which
is said to be somewhat more relaxed. But the condition
itself is not curable, since it is the consequence of a pro-
gram that has no intention of educating "the whole person" (an enterprise which is part impertinence, part im-
possiblity), but addresses itself mainly to what is selfaware, rational and communicable, in sum, to what is
traditionally called free in human beings. The faculty's
contribution must be a great effort to ensure that it is
not a dry and brittle but a passionate and absorbing intellectuality that dominates the community.
"REAL LIFE"
Our students persistently bring to us a perplexity
which we share, though more occasionally and less
acutely. Who is there who spends his life with objects
of thought and does not sometimes feel a panic of fright
that reality is not being reached, that life is going on,
but elsewhere? Young students are especially vulnerable
to such suspicions, because they are the most afflicted
with idealism, a propensity for pitching ideas too high
for action and too shallow for truth. But the sporadic
fear that thought and life are forever disjoined -which
has nothing to do with such mundane worries as being
prepared to make a living- is an endemic anxiety of any
serious community of learning and particularly of St.
John's College.
Now the ultimate relation of thought to things and
theory to action is precisely one of those perennial questions of the inquiring tradition with which we are incessantly preoccupied. Hence all we the faculty can immediately do is to urge melancholic students to engage
in lots of sports (we have a lively and inclusive intramural
program) and to refrain as much as possible from being
mere intellectuals- I mean, people who stake out arrid
claims in a ghostly, self-sufficient environment of abstractions. Probably the best we can do is ourselves to show
fairly unfailing trust, not to say faith, that thinking can
reach the world and that learning is indeed possible.
55
�OccASIONAL DiscouRsEs
Summer 1984
Sermon Preached at St. Anne's Church,
Annapolis
]. Winfree Smith
W
hen the latest edition of Tieline reached
me in Santa Paula, California, the first
thing that met my eyes was an
announcement that the St. John~ Program
had been adopted by St. Anne's Church
School. That, I thought, is taking too far the intimate
relationship between St. John's College and St. Anne's
Church which we are this day celebrating. Then, of
course, a careful reading of Tieline showed that the St.
John's Program mentioned therein was a program
developed for pre-school children at St. John's Cathedral
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and, being for pre-school
children, differed in some particulars from the St.John's
College program.
There certainly has been an intimate relationship between St.John's College and St. Anne's Church, so much
so that Tench Tilghman in his recently published Early
History of St. John~ College in Annapolis could say that from
its earliest infancy St. John's College was haunted by
Episcopal clergymen. During the first century of its existence under charter as St. John's at least five rectors
of St. Anne's were also principals or vice-principals of
the college. Those were the titles given by the charter
to those who nowadays would be called presidents or vicepresidents. The Reverend Ralph Higginbotham, who had
taught in the King William School, was the first principal or president of the college to be also rector of St.
Anne's, having been elected rector in 1785, the year after
the college was chartered. That the intimate relationship
was not always a happy one is shown by the fact that Higginbotham's reputation suffered because it was thought
by some in the St. Anne's congregation that he gave too
For over four decades, the Reverend
St. John's College, Annapolis.
56
J.
Winfree Smith has been a tutor at
much attention to the college and not enough to the
church.
There were also presidents of St. John's who were
Episcopal priests but not rectors of St. Anne's. The most
noteworthy of these was the Reverend Hector Humphrey
who was president of St. John's for 26 years just prior
to the Civil War. He is the only one of all these clergymen,
whether rectors or not, to whom there is a memorial in
this building, the second window along the south aisle
starting from the chancel end.
In 1941, when I came to Annapolis, the St. John's
baccalaureate service was held in St. Anne's Church, as
it had been over the years and decades.
It has, however, been more than a hundred years since
a rector of St. Anne's has been president of St. John's
and more than forty years since the baccalaureate service was held in this building. And so one begins to
wonder whether the intimate relationship still exists, as
far as any institutional offices or formalities are
concerned.
But on this occasion it might be well for us to think
rather about a deeper relationship that might exist between what St.John's stands for and what the Episcopal
Church stands for. There is, as you may know, a motto
of the Virginia seminary: "Seek the truth, come whence
it may, cost what it will." This is a good motto for St.
John's, but it is a bad motto for the seminary or for the
church, and I know at least one seminary Professor who
agrees. It is a good motto for St. John's because what
Sf' John's stands for is the search for the truth, and there
is no presupposition as to the source of the truth or as
to what the truth might be if it were to be discovered.
St. John's as such is not hostile to Christianity or even
indifferent to it. But, unlike the Roman Catholic college
where I now am, it has no religious commitment. The
church, on the other hand, is not in the position of merely
SUMMER 1984
�seeking the truth nor is there for the church any question as to the source of those truths which are most im-
portant for human beings to know. The church rests on
the assumption that God has revealed the most important truths for human beings to know and that the source
from which we receive them is the Holy Scriptures of
the Old and New Testaments.
In spite of this assumption that there is divinely
revealed truth and that it is to be found in the Holy Scrip-
lead them to deny the truth of the articles that give them
difficulty. We have recently read reports of a poll taken
among bishops of the Church of England that disclosed
that a majority of them do not believe that Jesus is God
or that he was raised from the dead or that he was born
of a virgin. Now the reports did not give any account
of the reasons why these bishops have made these denials,
i.e., what they have found so difficult as to be impossible in the articles having to do with the incarnation, the
tures, there is considerable confusion at the present time
resurrection, and the virgin birth. These three articles
as to what the Episcopal Church stands for. My claim
during the whole of my long ministry has been that the
Book of Common Prayer is the guide to what the
Episcopal church stands for and that the Nicene creed
do not all stand or fall together. One might well believe
that Jesus was truly God and completely human and
believe that even now He is truly God with only a human
soul without believing that His human body was raised
from the dead and without believing that He was born
of a human mother without a human father. I happen,
as Archbishop William Temple did, to believe in all three
articles, but I recognize that some Episcopalians might
in one of these see a difficulty that they would not see
in the others. I would claim, however, that what is
definitive of a Christian is the acknowledgement that
Jesus Christ, while being completely human, is God,
recited as part of our act of Eucharistic worship contains
those revealed truths in which Episcopalians, indeed in
common with other Christians, put their trust.
This claim has been challenged by several Episcopal
priests on the basis of a little change in the English text
of the Nicene creed as it apprears in the Prayer Book.
The little change is the change from "I" to "We;' from
"I believe" to 'We believe" at the beginning of the creed.
The commission that made this change did so for no
other reason than that they wanted the English version
to be an exact translation of the original fourth century
Greek version of the creed. But these priests understand
whatever one may believe about the resurrection or the
up what they consider the burden of the faith. Accord-
virgin birth.
Does the New Testament say that Jesus is God? Yes,
the first verses of the Gospel ofJohn say that Jesus, who
is there called the Word, not only was with God but was
God in the beginning and that through him creatures
ing to them, when we say "we believe;' we don't mean
came into being. Do those verses say that Jesus is of one
that I believe everything that we believe. When we say
"we believe" we mean rather that the Episcopal Church
believes all those things that are in the creed while I may
believe only in God as creatorwithout believing anything
about Jesus or the Holy Spirit and some other Episcopalian may believe something about Jesus without believing that Jesus is God, of one being with the Father, or
perhaps even without believing that God exists. If this
is the right way to understand the change from "I" to "we;'
should we not, when the Prayer Book is next revised,
substitute for "we" the words "The Episcopal Church'' so
being with the Father? No. Does the New Testament say
that anywhere explicitly? Nowhere explicitly. Yet if the
Gospel of John has Jesus telling the truth when he says
in that Gospel, "All that the Father has is mine;' do we
not have to conclude that, ifJesus has all that the Father
has, that all must include the very being of the Father?
I do not know what the nay-saying English bishops
would reply. Perhaps they would raise questions about
the authority of the Gospel of John. A while ago I said
that the church rests on the assumption that Holy Scripture is the source of divinely revealed truth. That does
that each of us could say out loud "The Episcopal Church
not necessarily mean that every single sentence in Scrip-
believes" but where necessary and sotto voce "I don't" or
"God knows what I believe"? Is it not absurd to make
maybe is not so absurd. The articles of the creed are not
ture is true. It may be that the pure gold of the word
of God in Scripture is mingled with the dross of the
human authors of Scripture. But how do we separate the
gold from the dross? Sometimes it seems that all the skill,
a commendable human skill, of the Biblical critics is
needed to make that separation, a skill which one can-
easy to accept. Different articles present different dif-
not expect to average Christian to have. Also sometimes
that the shift from "I" to ''We" means that we can divvy
such a separation between the faith of the Episcopal
Church and the faith of Episcopalians?
But behind this absurdity there is something that
ficulties. Even Thomas Aquinas, who, one might sup-
it seems that the presuppositions of the Biblical critics
pose, would find it rather easy to accept the articles of
are themselves questionable.
the creed, on the contrary maintains that the articles are
There is a rather widespread modern dogma that is
the source of one difficulty that people in the modern
age have with the resurrection and the virgin birth. That
to be distinguished precisely according to the distinct difficulties they present.
Whatever difficulties Thomas Aquinas may have
seen, there are certain difficulties which modern
Episcopalians, including bishops and priests, as well as
laymen, encounter. The difficulties do not lead them to
say "Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief." Rather they
THE ST JOHN'S REVIEW
is the dogma that modern science has made it impossible for modern man to believe in miracles, that modern
science has shown that miracles are not possible. This
dogma lies behind all the talk about demythologizing
Scripture. Modern science, of course, has not shown what
57
�it is alleged to have shown. To show that miracles are
impossible one would have to prove the non-existence
of an omnipotent God. No one, as far as I know, has
ever done that. For if God is omnipotent, everything that
happens is within His power, and though things may for
the most part happen in the way science or ordinary experience says, they may by the will of the omnipotent
God happen differently.
If the difficulty is that we cannot believe anything
unless it is evident to our senses or evident of itself to
our intellect or made evident to our intellect through
reasoning, then, to be sure, we cannot believe the articles
of the creed, though we may not be in a position to deny
them either. But here we touch upon something fundamental. For the very reason that we say that it is faith
that grasps the truth of what is divinely revealed is that
such truth is not evident to the senses or the intellect.
It is not evident that there is a God. It is not evident
that God is the omnipotent creator of heaven and earth.
If we think we can believe only what is evident or can
be evident to our senses or intellect or that faith is not
a way of grasping the truth, then we should give up Christianity altogether.
I maintain that the articles of the Nicene creed as
a whole, with all the difficulties they present, lay a claim
upon every Episcopalian. Surely they need the whole context of Christian thought and life if they are to have
fullness of meaning. But these articles represent a fundamental part of what the Episcopal Church stands for.
Does the truth revealed by God exclude searching for
the truth? No. It provides a rich field for such a search.
The human intellect has much to do in exploring the
meaning of what is revealed, in tracing its presuppositions and consequences for Christian thinking and doing, and so in discovering truths that are involved in the
explicitly revealed truths. It also has much to do in seeking truths not revealed in Scripture and the ways they
may be related to those that are. St. John's College may
be instructive for Christians as regards the discipline of
thought necessary for any search and hence for this search
that presupposes revelation. There is also another way
in which St. John's might be an example both for
58
theologians and for inquiring Christians generally.
Among present day theologians there is often the prejudice thatthe theological thought of the past is of merely
historical interest, that the theology of the Fourth century fathers or of the Medieval theologians or of the
reformers or of the Anglican divines like Richard Hooker
or Lancelot Andrewes is old-time stuff. It is a mere prejudice that in the age-old mainstream of Christian
theology there are no or few permanent insights into
Biblical revelation, that in the words of a ridiculous hymn
"we must keep abreast of truth;' that in theology the new
supersedes the old (as it seems to have done in modern
physics, not in theology), that in the present day the
theologian must devise a theology compatible with what
is alleged to be the thought of the present day. Liberation theology, to take one example, is based on the
premise that it is only on the foundation of the teaching
of Karl Marx that justice for the poor and the oppressed
can be achieved, and so that theology, which rightly seeks
justice for the poor or the oppressed, identifies God with
the historical process as understood by Karl Marx and
his twentieth-century followers, an identification that
would be rejected by Marx and is to say the least doubtfully Christian.
"Seek the truth, come whence it may?' A good motto for
St. John's College. St. John's is open to the possibility
of new truth hitherto unknown and wherever it may come
from. But, as everyone knows, St. John's people read old
books. They read them not because they are old, not in
order to find out what this or that person or people
thought in this or that past age, but because those who
thought well in the past raised questions that are relevant in all times and gave answers worthy of consideration at all times. It may be well for theologians and inquiring Christians of the present day to forget about hopping on contemporary intellectual or philosophical bandwagons and seek to recover the thought of the great
theologians of the past because of its perennial relevance.
This thought, as all Christian thought must, centers in
the question "what think ye of Christ?" and in the answer
that He is both the truth and the way to the truth that
He is.
SUMMER 1984
�The Golden Ages of St. John's*
Eva Brann
F
riends of the college, Fellow Students and
Fellow Tutors:
The theme tonight is "Liberty and Liberal
Education:' but the occasion is the two-hundredth anniversary of the founding of our college. Late in 1784 a bill, no. 37, was introduced into the
Maryland Senate, entitled "An act for founding a college on the Western Shore of this State and constituting
the same, together with Washington College on the
Eastern Shore, into a university by the name of the
University of Maryland:' The "college on the Western
Shore" was to become St. John's. (The fascinating tale
of its naming has been convincingly reconstructed by our
former librarian, Charlotte Fletcher.) So St. John's was
first conceived as one of the two colleges of a state university. We have the honor of having Professor Fallaw here
tonight to represent our intended sister school.
I will spare you the protracted, fitful and even
tumultuous history of St. John's metamorphosis into a
private college. The legacy of its public origin is the
Charter of 1784 which remains in essence our charter:
It proclaims that "institutions for the liberal education
of youth in the principles of virtue, knowledge and useful
literature are of the highest benefit to society, in order
to train up and perpetuate a succession of able and honest
men for discharging the various offices and duties oflife
both civil and religious with usefulness and reputation ... ?' The charter expresses the prevailing view in
the early republic, propagated in numerous essays, that
liberal education is the necessary support of a republic,
*Eva Brann delivered this talk as part of a symposium on "Liberty and Liberal
Education" held at St. John's College, Annapolis (September 20, 1984), for
the Two-Hundredth Anniversary Colloquium.
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
that tyranny and ignorance, liberty and knowledge are
to be equated. In this spirit, a frenzy of college founding followed the Revolution; nineteen colleges were
established between 1780 and 1799, among whom St.
John's was one of the earliest, being chartered in the very
first year "of the present favorable occasion of peace and
prosperity;' in the words of the charter.
The legislature's expectation for public usefulness
were amply fulfilled. Between the first graduation in 1793
and 1806 (when its troubles with the state became acute),
there came out of St. John's four future governors, seven
United States senators, five representatives, judges galore
and one governor of Liberia. That time was later termed
the "Golden Age:' So also is an early Golden Age attributed to the "New Program;' our present program, on
the principle that the time is always goldener on the other
side of this generation. Actually, it seems to me, the whole
near half-century of the New Program, constituting
almost a quarter of the college's history, is a second
Golden Age, though it has a distinction different from
that of the first founding. Let me therefore propose a
question to you which has a certain charm for me: Is
this present college of ours an old school or a new school?
To begin with I want to entertain you- I hope you
may be entertained- with several circumstances which
induce this question, some more wonderful than significant, but some significant as well as wonderful. For example, the first grammar master was called Peter
McGrath; who knows but that our Hugh McGrath is
his reincarnation? Similarly there was a friendly but unofficial relation between St.John's and St. Anne's Church
in the person ofthe Reverend Ralph Higginbotham, the
last master of the King William School and rector of St.
Anne's, who was one of the stalwarts of the first founding. Now we have our Winfree Smith. What is
remarkable about this relation is that it is scrupulously
59
�unofficial (though there have been lapses between the first
and second founding). The college charter stood early
in a developing tradition of religious liberty which prohibited religious tests for students and forbade that they
be urged to attend any particular religious service. St.
John's went even further: It was the first school, I believe,
to have a principal who was not a clergyman, ] ohn
McDowell, St. ] ohn's first president (though three
clergymen, a Roman Catholic, an Episcopalian, and a
Presbyterian had taken a major part in its organization).
Could this same spirit of religious liberty, a spirit whose
merit it is that it manages not to be anti-clerical, not to
be attributed to the present college?
To descend from the spirit to sticks and stones, there
is McDowell Hall, a half-finished ruin in 1784, which
became the college's first building, containing class rooms,
the library in the octagonal room under the cupola, and
the dormitory. Each student was furnished with a
chamber pot under his bed, a service which has been
dicontinued. McDowell burned down in 1909 but was
faithfully restored. Do we inhabit an old or a new
building?
have been played out all the perenially absorbing institutional issues of American liberty: the rivalries of local
with centralized foundations, ofwell-offwith poor man's
schools, of public with private establishments, of religious
with secular education. It matters even if we, tutors and
students, have more urgent things to do than to absorb
the history of this little local phenomenon. I would have
to be an Edmund Burke to say well and clearly why the
antiquity of the college matters to the cause of liberty,
but I will try to say it briefly: First, in its phoenix-like
propensity for reprise and revival the college is an offshoot and an index of American liberty, which seems to
me quintessentially characterized by that second chance,
that new departure, which does not kick its springboard
under but rather preserves and absorbes its ground. And
second, through its continuity, through the simple fact
that it was there with its liberal tradition, the college could
offer a home to a program which made a conscious and
deep connection between liberty and liberal education.
It is the making of that connection in the New Program which is the new wine, tart and heady, in the old
bottle of the classical college. Let me conclude by say-
But, of course, the question becomes really fascinating
ing, quite superficially, what I conceive that connection
with respect to studies. In those early days the college
proper (there was a preparatory department attached)
was called "the philosophy school:' The curriculum was
prescribed and unified. The students read original texts
and studied mathematics as well as '~natural philosophy;'
that is, science. The languages were Greek and optional
to be.
The idea that political liberty and education go hand
in hand was an article of faith with the educational writers
of the early republic, a matter of preachment rather than
inquiry. There was, however, much debate about the kind
of education the republic required: Should it be primarily
utilitarian training or liberal education, at least for youths
destined for leadership? (Since Aristotle's book on educa-
French. For example, the novitiates, or freshmen, read
Plato and studied Euclid and the juniors read Aristotle
and studied fluxions, that is, calculus. While we marvel
at these detailed similarities to the present program, we
must, however, remember that at that time these studies
were but a version of the normal classical American college curriculum, with account taken of the science of a
hundred post-Newtonian years. In histories of education
our New Program is sometimes described as reviving the
classical college curriculum. But granting- even revel-
tion, "liberal" in this context has properly meant "nonvocational.") But even in this discussion it was repeated
to weariness that, to quote our character, "institutions
ling in- the apparent parallelism, is it really such a
understood that liberal education somehow made for in-
revival?
Let me try an answer: the present St. ] ohn's is, to
coin a phrase, new wine in old bottles, and that has some
dividual enlightenment. For example, the Marylander
Samuel Knox wrote in an essay (which won a prize offered by the American Philosophical Society in 1799) that
"the one great object of education should be to inculcate
independence of mind and consequently an aversion to the
embracing of any species of knowledge, moral, physical,
bearing on the theme of liberty and liberal education.
First, the antiquity of the bottle matters. It matters
that the physical place remains recognizably the same,
that an alumnus of the first graduating class of 1796 could
nostalgically poetize the liberty tree:
And many a frolic feat beneath thy shade
Far distant days and other suns have seen.
(Dr. Shaw)
It matters that this tiny, tough college has sprung back
from two closings and several nadirs of mediocrity and
that it has throughout the centuries attracted the oddly
intense sentiment-accompanied, to be sure, until re-
cently by rather more subdued financial solicitude-of
its alumni. It matters that it is a microcosm in which
60
of liberal education are of the highest benefit to society?'
My point is: In the large enthusiasm of the founding such
fine-grain question as just how the liberality of education was to underwrite the liberty of the republic fell
through the cracks of the argument. To be sure, it was
or religious, without examinat~on and consequent conviction." (This same Samuel Knox, incidentally, nearly
did us in. Belonging to what might be called the] effersonian faction in education, he prefaced his essay with
an address to the Maryland legislature urging them to
support local academies, that is, secondary education in
the counties, rather than a college for the wealthy in the
state capital. This advice was what it had long been looking for: It withdrew financial support and the college fell
into its first decline.) But how one might implant liberty
in a mind was as dark then as "teaching students to think
for themselves" is now. It was a time not for theory but
SUMMER 1984
�for turning out competent citizen-rulers, and that is just
what the college did in its first Golden Age.
In its second Golden Age it was right and timely for
the college to ask the perennial question "what is the relation of liberty to learning?" and to make the ground of
the inquiry the hypothesis that the connection may be
found in the soul of the learner. Its doing so was timely
because thus the college acknowledged that the easy and
immediate relation of those early days between liberal
learning and republican statesmanship had long been
ruptured. And it was wise because thus the college
brought forward the oldest and the newest, the most persistent and the most urgent, of all political questions:
What is the relation of thought to action?
So the hypothesis which discerning critics who charge
the college under the New Program with being an "ivory
tower" would have to refute are these: That we do live
in a country in which there is liberty and that liberty
is both exercised and preserved by true action, namely,
free action. That such action is by its very nature preceded by thought, from which it follows that human beings, the young especially, ought to have a period of reflective learning as a prelude to both private and public
action. That this pedagogical prelude should take the
form of liberal, that is to say, non-vocational, education,
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
not only because such learning is a deep need and a perennial possibility of the human soul, but even more
because the theory that is meant to precede action cannot be pursued otherwise than freely, that is to say,
spontaneously.
The St. John's Program, then, is nothing but a
coherent set of occasions for encouraging liberal learning. The question of real interest, just how it is specifically
designed to induce liberty of soul, I leave, as is fitting,
to one of the most characteristic of these occasions, the
question period.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Charlotte Fletcher, "1784: the Year St. John's College Was Named",
Maryland Histon'cal Magazine, Vol. 74, No. 2, June 1979.
Richard Hofstadter, Academic Freedom in the Age of the College, (New
York 1955).
David Ridgely, Annals of Annapolis, 1649-1812 (Baltimore 1841), pp.
237-244.
Essays on Education in the Early Republic, ed. Frederick Rudolph (Cambridge 1965).
Bernard C. Steiner, History of Education in Maryland (Washington 1894).
J. Winfree Smith, A Search for the Liberal Arts College, (St.John's College Press 1983).
Tench Francis Tilghman, The Early History of St. John's College in Annapolis, (St. John's College Press 1984).
61
�William Smith: Godfather and
First President of St. John's College*
Arthur Pierce Middleton
0
n Wednesday, November 11, 1789, an event
occurred in Annapolis which the college's
historian, Tench Tilghman, has described
as the day that St. John's College officially
began its academic career. Members of the
General Assembly, the Chancellor, judges of the General
Court, gentlemen of the bar, and the worshipful corporation of the city, followed by the students and a "numerous
and respectable concourse of people;' went in procession
from the State House, through North Street, to what is
now called College Avenue, and then to Bladen's Folly,
which had been converted into a suitable building to
house St. John's College. There-presumably in the
Great Hall- Dr. William Smith, who had been named
the day before president pro tern of the College, preached
what the Maryland Gazette described as "an elegant sermon;' and the Rector of St. Anne's Parish and former
Master of King William's School, Ralph Higginbotham,
gave an oration on the advantages of a classical education.
Why William Smith was an excellent choice- indeed
the obvious one- for both president pro tern of the infant college and for preacher on this auspicious occasion
is what I am here to explain. And I may add that it is
strange that such an eminent figure in the intellectual
circles of eighteenth-century America needs any introduction at all. But the sad fact is that he is not as well known
today as he deserves to be- or as he was to his
contemporaries.
A Colonial historian, Canon Middleton is a former Director of Research for
Colonial Williamsburg, and former Research Associate and lecturer at the
Institute of Early American History at the College of William and Mary. This
discourse was delivered in the "'lCa and History" Series, King William Room,
The Library, November 6, 1984.
*An address given in the "Tea and History" Series, King William
Room, the Library, November 6, 1984.
62
Born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 172 7, William
Smith was the son of a small landholder and the grandson of a physician and astronomer. His sister married
an officer of the Royal Navy who later acquired fame
as an admiral who defeated a Dutch fleet in 1797 and
was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Duncan of
Camperdown. One of his brothers settled in Philadelphia,
practiced law, and eventually became a judge of the
highest court in Pennsylvania.
William Smith was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, just at the beginning of the great Scottish
renaissance of the eighteenth century. After serving as
a schoolmaster for a time, he came to New York in 1751
as a private tutor to the sons of a wealthy gentleman on
Long Island. While there he published poetry in the New
York and Pennsylvania newspapers, a letter in defense
of freedom of the press, and a pamphlet on education
urging the creation of a college in New York City.
In 1753 he published his magnum opus, a pamphlet,
(of 86 pages) entitled A General Idea of the College of Mirania,
with a Sketch of the Method of Teaching Science and Religion.
Intended for the proposed college in New York, it set forth
Smith's concept of the curriculum and methods of
teaching appropriate to a liberal arts college. And it was
a real breakthrough for the twenty-six year old scholar,
for, as we shall see, it fell into the hands of Benjamin
Franklin and led to Smith's appointment as head of the
Academy of Philadelphia, which was about to be made
into a college.
Smith was a strong believer in a classical education,
but, in the characteristic vein of the Age of Reason, he
proposed rejecting some things commonly taught at colleges and adding others. Inspired by a quotation from
Archbishop John Tillotson (1630-94 ), he held that "the
knowledge of what tends neither directly nor indirectly
to make better men and better citizens, is but a knowledge
SUMMER 1984
�of Trifles: it is not learning, but a specious and ingenious
sort ofidlenessc' Consequently, Smith rejected the "Rubbish" of the vast tomes of ancient Rabbis, Schoolmen,
and modern Metaphysicians, and also "the polemic
writers about Grace, Predestination, moral Agency, the
Trinity, Ec Ec;' and added that "The years of Methusalem
would be far too short to attain any Proficiency in all
the Disputes and Researches of this kind, which have so
long puzzled the learned world, and are still as much
undecided as at first. Almighty God seems to have set
the knowledge of many Things beyond our present Ken,
on purpose to confound our Pride."
Instead, Smith recommended "rejecting Things
superfluous and hypothetical" and urged that we "mount
directly up to fundamental Principles, and endeavour to
ascertain the Relations we stand in to God and universal Intelligence, that we may sustain, with dignity, the
Rank assign'd us among intellectual Natures, and move
in Concert, with the rest of Creation, in accomplishing
the great End of all thingsc'
Such a distinction was a little daring for a college
erected in a colony in 1753, where the natural tendency
was to avoid anything novel and to cleave, instead, to the
accepted ways of the Mother Country. Smith made
another distinction that was, perhaps, even more daring, by dividing the whole body of prospective students
into two categories: those who had an aptitude for the
learned professions, and all the rest- including those
whose aptitude inclined to the mechanic arts. Different
training, he thought, should be provided for the two
groups. The classic languages, for example, would be of
use to the former, but a waste of time for the latter.
The book had no immediate results. King's College,
which opened in New York six months after the book
appeared, was, as Smith ruefully observed, "on a plan
somewhat different:' But the copy of the College of Mirania
that he sent to Franklin did produce results, and Smith
was invited to be the head of the Philadelphia Academy.
Before taking up his post, however, he returned to
England where he was ordained a priest of the Church,
and where he conducted a highly successful fund drive
for the Academy of Philadelphia. Upon his return in
1754, he set about to transform the school into a college,
and began his long and distinguished career as its provost.
During the next quarter of a century, William Smith
became a fixture in the intellectual life of the City of
Brotherly Love, and one of the chief promoters of the
new liberal cultural movement in the fields of belleslettres, art, music, and drama that developed there in
the second half of the eighteenth century. His students
at the college formed a nucleus of a group that included
Francis Hopkinson (musician, composer, poet, and later
a Signer of the Declaration of Independence and designer
of the American flag); Thomas Godfrey, Jr. (poet,
playwright, and author of the "Prince of Parthia" c.
1758-59), and Benjamin West (whose aptitude Smith
discovered, and who studied art in Italy in 1760, and
became the court portrait painter to George III and
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
ultimately president of the Royal Academy). In the realm
of law and politics, one of Smith's students who later made
good was William Paca, lawyer, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor of Maryland, and a
Federal judge. One of the ways in which Smith sought
out and encouraged literary ability was by founding a
magazine in 1757 which, though short-lived, proved to
be a vehicle for many rising young men of talent.
Culturally, it was the most influential periodical in colonial America-and was entitled The American
Magazine, or Monthy Chronicle for the British Colonies.
As Smith's biographer, Alfred Gegenheimer, has said,
the almost simultaneous production by three proteges
of Smith of one of the earliest American musical compositions, the first American drama to be professionally
performed, and the first American painting of permanent worth is a phenomenon-and William Smith was
the catalyst of this outburst of musical, dramatic, and
artistic talent.
Smith's fame spread far and wide, eventually reaching
his fellow countrymen in Great Britain. While he was
there, raising money for the college in 1759, he received
the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Aberdeen, Oxford, and Dublin universities-an uncommon distinction
for a colonial.
Liberal though he was in cultural and intellectual
matters, William Smith was somewhat conservative in
matters political. Almost as soon as he arrived in
Philadelphia, he began to participate in public affairs,
writing pamphlets, publishing letters, and preaching sermons. Though sharing many cultural and educational
ideas with Franklin, Smith soon quarreled with him on
political grounds. Franklin belonged to the antiproprietary or country party, whereas Smith identified
himself with the proprietary party and frequently
castigated the Quakers, who dominated the legislature,
for refusing to appropriate funds to defend the frontier
settlements against Indian attacks. On one occasionin 1758-he was arrested by the Assembly, convicted of
libel, denied the right of habeas corpus, and sent to prison.
Supported by the trustees of the college and by the proprietary governor, Smith taught his classes in moral
philosophy through the prison bars. Released by the
courts, he went to England and appealed his case. It took
a long time and a great deal of money, but eventually
the King-in-Council sustained his appeal and directed
the governor to declare His Majesty's "High Displeasure"
at the Assembly's unwarranted disregard of habeas corpus. Smith was completely vindicated and British justice
triumphed.
As the controversies that led to the Revolution unfolded, Smith readily sympathized with the grievances
that the colonists expressed after the Stamp Act debacle,
but he was very slow, indeed, to accept the idea of independence, holding to the increasingly forlorn hope that
sooner or later the British Government would make
amends and grant sufficient autonomy to satisfy the
Americans and to reconcile them to a continuance within
63
�the British Empire. But such was not to be, and his reluctance to embrace the concept of seceding from the Empire until after July 4, 1776, got him into trouble with
the patriot party. On January 6, 1776, he was called
before the Philadelphia Council of Safety charged with
speaking disrespectfully of the Continential Congress.
There being no evidence, the charge was dropped.
Curiously enough, the next month Congress invited him
to give an oration commemorating General Montgomery
and the men who had fallen with him in his unsuccessful
attack on Quebec. Smith also defended the colonists' action at Lexington and Concord as justifiable selfpreservation. And on December 8, 1778, Smith preached
in Christ Church, Philadelphia, to a Masonic gathering
in the presence of George Washington. Hence, he could
scarcely have been considered a loyalist at that time. The
moderation of his views, which caused some to suspect
him of being a loyalist, led others to look upon him as
a rebel. On December 20, 1776, the loyalist, Samuel
Seabury (later to become Bishop of Connecticut), wrote
to the English ecclesiastical authorities that Smith, like
other Philadelphia priests, "rushed headlong into the
Rebellion:' This perception of him by others as being
something other than what he felt himself to be did
nothing for his volatile disposition and probably provoked
him to register his resentment in rather strong language.
During the Revolution, soldiers were quartered on
the college grounds, and most students returned to their
homes. When the British troops approached Philadelphia,
the college was shut down for nearly two years. It reopened in January, 1779, shortly after the British
evacuated the city. But Smith's adversaries in the
Assembly persuaded that body to dissolve the trustees
and faculty of the college, and to substitute a new board
that was more under the control of the legislature.
It must have been heartbreaking for Smith to be cast
out after nearly thirty years of devoted and distinguished
service to the college. In 1780 he left Philadelphia and accepted a call to Chestertown, Maryland, where he became
Rector of St. Paul's and Chester parishes. Since his stipend of 600 bushels of wheat per annum was inadequate,
it was understood that he was free to accept a few private
students, and shortly thereafter he was put in charge of
the Kent County Free School, of which Charles Willson
Peale's father had been the master forty years before.
Within two years Smith had conceived of the idea of a
University of Maryland composed of two colleges, one
on each shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and he raised funds
and persuaded the Maryland Assembly to charter
Washington College in Chestertown. By May 14, 1783,
when the first commencement took place, Smith had
raised more than £10,000 Maryland currency, and the
list of subscribers was headed by the national idol,
General Washington, who gave £50 and permitted his
name to be used for the college. At its third commencement- in 1785- nine men were awarded Doctor of
Divinity degrees, including the Jesuit, John Carroll, who
had helped Smith draw up the charter of St.John's Col-
64
lege the year before, and who later became the first
Roman Catholic bishop in the United States and the first
Archbishop of Baltimore.
Meanwhile, Smith published a pamphlet in 1788 appealing to the Pennsylvania Assembly to reinstate the
violated charter of the College of Philadelphia. Now that
the rancors of the Revolutionary War were beginning to
subside, many prominent men exerted influence in
Smith's behalf. In 1789 the Assembly reinstated the old
trustees, faculty, and provost. Smith was vindicated once
more, but it meant that he must forsake his fledgling college in Chestertown and return to Philadelphia. Oddly
enough, in the year 1789 when he served as president
of St. John's College, temporarily and for ceremonial
reasons, he was also president of Washington College,
Chestertown, and of the College of Philadelphia as well.
I wonder how often in our history one man was president of three institutions of higher learning at the same
time!
When Smith created Washington College in 1782, the
preamble of the charter described it as a part of a projected university which was to include a sister college on
the Western Shore, the two to be united under one
jurisdiction. Since this concept of a state university
bestride the Chesapeake (like the Colossus of Rhodes)
was the product of his fertile brain, it is only natural that
Smith, the most eminent academician in the United
States, should have been in the forefront of the move to
create a college on the Western Shore to balance the one
in Chestertown. A group of gentlemen met in Annapolis
on December 3, 1784, to hasten the project. They appointed six men- three clerics and three laics- to a committee to "complete the . . . bill for founding a college
on the Western Shore, and to publish the same immediately:' Imagine how long it would take today! But
in those halcyon days, the job was done in less than two
weeks. ''A Draught of a Proposed Act ... for Founding
a College on the Western Shore of this State, and for constituting the same, together with Washington College on
the Eastern Shore, into one University, by the Name of
the University of Maryland" was published, and later
enacted by the House of Delegates on December 30,
1784.
In passing, it is worth noticing that pursuant to the
Maryland Declaration of Rights of 1776, which swept
away all the civil and financial prerogatives of the
Anglican (or Episcopal) Church, the three ecclesiastics
on the committee respresented the three principal subdivisions of Maryland's Christian community: Dr. Smith
the Episcopalians, John Carroll the Roman Catholics,
and Patrick Allison, a Presbyterian divine, the Protestants
generally, and especially the dissenters from the former
Established Church. The Draught borrowed large portions of the Washington College charter which had been
written by Smith. After the charter of the new college
in Annapolis was enacted, Smith declared that he and
his Roman Catholic and Presbyterian colleagues had
draughted it "happily and with great unanimity:'
SUMMER 1984
�This ecumenical concord, together with the toleration engendered by the Age of Reason, Jet them to write
into the charter that all qualified students were to be admitted "without requiring or enforcing any religious or
civil test" and "without urging their attendance upon any
particular worship or service, other than what they have
been educated in, or have the consent and approbation
of their parents or guardians to attend:' But there was
no idea of trying to eliminate religion from education.
The college was to nurture students in their own church
affiliations and provide them with opportunity to frequent
their particular foJ.ms of worship in the churches in
Annapolis.
While all this was going on in the 1780s, Dr. Smith
was active and influential in the Church in Maryland
and on a national level. Four months after arriving in
Chestertown in 1780, he presided over a convention consisting of three priests and twenty-four laymen, which
made the first move towards organizing the Diocese of
Maryland. This was the first convention of the Episcopal
Church in any of the thirteen American States that was
composed oflay representatives as well as clergy and that
undertook to cope with the changes brought about by
the Revolution in the polity and liturgy of the Anglican
Church in America. Annual conventions were held in
Maryland thereafter, and Smith was chosen to preside
over every one of them until he left the State and returned
to Philadelphia in 1789. These conventions erected the
diocese of Maryland, created a constitution and canons,
and, in 1783, chose Dr. Smith as biship-elect of Maryland.
On the national stage, too, Smith emerged as one of the
leaders, along with William White (first Bishop of Pennsylvania) and Samuel Seabury (first Bishop of Connecticut). Smith's organizing talent, impressive intellectual
stature, and speaking ability resulted in his election as
president of all the early general conventions of the
Church, and his selectiol'l as chairman of the committees that formulated the constitution of the Episcopal
Church and produced the first American Book of Common Prayer in 1789-the very year in which he served
as President pro tern of St. John's College, participated
in its opening ceremonies, and preached his "elegant Sermon." These are indications of his eminence in the eyes
of his colleagues and contemporaries.
William Smith's life and career were crowned with
success and recognition, and he became one of the
foremost celebrities of his day. But he suffered several
adversities, and they, rather than his triumphs, give us
insight into his character. One was when he was imprisoned unjustly by the Pennsylvania Assembly. Another
was when he was ejected from his provostship of the College of Philadelphia by the political machinations of his
enemies. In both cases he resolutely resisted and ultimately obtained vindication, which indicates his con-
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
fidence in justice and his strength of character. After all,
the classical authors whom he taught had said that as
fire tests gold, so adversity tests brave men!
But his other great adversity, the chagrin and humiliation of being denied consecration to the Episcopate,
reveals him to be a man whose faith was even greater
than his pride and his ambition. All the reasons for this
disappointment are not known to us, but it appears that,
like many eighteenth-century gentlemen, Smith was accustomed all his life to imbibe hard liquor in liberal
amounts. He was certainly not an alcoholic-his active
life and prodigious achievements make that quite clear.
Although he did not habitually overindulge-at least in
public- he was reported to have done so once, while attending the General Convention in New York. Smith
denied the allegation and called for proof, which as far
as we know was never forthcoming. The Maryland Convention dismissed the allegation as unproven-and even
unlikely- but the charge hung over him like a cloud, and
he never again applied to the General Convention for
confirmation of his election or for recommendation to
the Archbishop of Canterbury for consecration.
This darkest hour, I think, proved paradoxically to
be his finest hour. He was, in effect, considered guilty
until proved innocent, which is a cr~el reversal of the
juridical axiom. And his undeniable contributions to the
Church, and especially his organizing and liturgical
abilities, seem to justify his consecration as the first
Bishop of Maryland. Much as he yearned for the lawn
sleeves of a bishop, Smith did not allow what in his view
was unwarranted rejection to curtail his devoted service
to the Church. He continued to serve in any way the
Church could use him. And he remained one of the most
prominent priests of the Church, being chosen to preside
over every convention in Maryland until he left in 1789,
and over every House of Deputies of General Convention until 1801 when ill health prevented him. In addition, he had the high honor of being selected to preach
the sermon at the burial of his old political enemy, Benjamin Franklin, and he was chosen to preach at the consecreation of the first three bishops of the Episcopal
Church that were consecrated in America: Thomas John
Claggett of Maryland, Robert Smith of South Carolina,
and Edward Bass of Massachusetts. Moreover, he remained on friendly terms with Bishop White, who opposed his consecration, and with Dr. Andrews, who made
the allegation against him in the first place. It would seem
that love of Christ and his holy Church took precedence
over egotism, righteous indignation, and- ambition. There
is perhaps no better illustration of his Christian character
than this. And this eminent and impressive academic and
churchman was the first president pro tern of St. John's
College.
65
�BooK REviEw
The Early History of
St. John's College in Annapolis
Tench Francis Tilghman
Annapolis, St. John's College Press, 1934.
XIII+199 pp. Illustrations. $13.00
hen Tench Francis Tilghman
wrote The Early His tory of St.
John's College some forty years
ago, he wanted to use it as a "kind of glass
to view the changes in American educa-
W
tion as they affected the smaller college."
What emerges in the telling is a conservative St. John's, more faithful to a liberal
arts curriculum adopted in 1789 than
responsive to the winds of educational
change blowing through other early
American colleges. Referring often to
passing educational fads in American colleges contemporary with St. Johds, Dr.
Tilghman details the insubstantial
changes made in St. John's original curriculum until, following the lead of other
American colleges, its board in 1923
adopted an elective program.
Dr. Tilghman writes wittily, irreverently, and ironically about the college's trial and perils throughout one hundred and fifty years. He describes the
state of student morals, faculty woes and
board resilience amid the snares of
sociable Annapolis, the "ancient city;'
which grew more provincial while
Baltimore developed into the metropolis
of Maryland. The book offers an entertaining slice of Maryland history, a
chronicle of youth at the Western Shore
college attended by many Eastern
Sharemen, where students studied,
drilled, frolicked and sported. Their life
styles were influenced by a series of
presidents, but most profoundly by three
outstanding ones: John McDowell, a
graduate of the College of Philadelphia,
a gentle disciplinarian who led by example; the Reverend Hector Humphrey, a
66
graduate of Yale, a stern disciplinarian
with puritanical leanings; and genial
Thomas Fell, educated at King's College,
London University, Heidleberg, and
Munich, who presided when sports and
dances became an integral part of college
life at St. John's and other American
colleges.
Private citizens and the Legislature
made generous pledges to launch St.
John's in 1784: the Legislature by charter
promised it a perpetual grant of 1750
pounds per annum. When St. John's and
King William's School merged in 1786
(Dr. Tilghman questions that it was a
merger), the King William's board
pledged two thousand pounds and agreed
to close their school, called the Annapolis
School, when the college opened. Because
of this agreement, St.John's felt a special
obligation to educate Annapolis youths,
and in 1789 it opened a grammar school
which operated as part of the college until 1923.
Between 1789 and 1805, years later
called the "golden age;' the college prospered. Then in 1806 a republican Qeffersonian democratic) majority in the
Legislature rescinded the charter provisions which promised St. John's and
Washington colleges adequate taxgenerated incomes "forever." The
Republicans favored the founding of
county academies over supporting the two
colleges founded by the Federalists. PresidentJohn McDowell resigned in protest.
Those who could have provided the
needed financial support, though outraged by the perfidy of the Legislature,
followed its example: they gave nothing
from their personal wealth to run the college. Thereafter the board was forced to
beg at each biennial session of the
Legislature for what little money it
received.
Twenty-five years later in 1830 the
board (helped by an alumni aSsociation
composed of men educated in the
McDowell years) persuaded the Reverend
Hector Humphrey to become president.
Under his administration the buildings
on St. John's campus known as Humphrey and Pinkney were built. He imposed strict rules of conduct on grammar
school and college students alike. He continued a voluntary military program
begun in 1826, partly for discipline, partly
for exercise (there was no athletic program), and partly for career training.
Like the grammar school, the military
program, compulsory at times, continued
until 1923. Dr. Tilghman believes that the
grammar school and the military program hindered the development of St.
John's as a college.
During the nineteenth century, student fees and state grants plus fees received from the pasturage of cows at fifty
cents a head per month, a fee later raised
to two dollars, made up the college income. The board converted each grant into scholarships. For instance, in 1850,
when the state granted $15,000, the board
offered one hundred and fifty scholarships
worth one hundred dollars each. What a
student was charged over and above the
amount he received as a scholarship was
reserved for faculty salaries, and a teacher
was assigned the job of collecting it. Once
in desperation an unpaid teacher sug-
SUMMER 1984
�gested that scholarships be sold to produce revenue. Dr. Tilghman remarks,
"How anyone could sell a scholarship, and
yet have it remain a scholarship, is more
than a little puzzling."
Out-of-state students would have
brought money to the college but none
enrolled. In 1853 Professor EJ. Stearns
resigned in disgust saying that St. John's
remained a small provincial college
because the faculty was horribly overworked and underpaid; antiquated textbooks were studied instead of original
works; and "young men will not come to
be treated under school-boy discipline."
Yet the presidents and faculty were
not provincial in either background or
outlook. They came from respected colleges and universities, and when they left
Annapolis many joined prestigious
faculties elsewhere. St. John's offered "a
complete and general education, that
which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices,
both private and public, of peace and
war," like Milton's ideal college, a model
cited in a letter written by President
Henry Barnard. In truth many St.John's
alumni filled important offices in the
state, church, and military services.
The early college almost expired
several times for lack of money. During
the Civil War the college campus was
commandeered as a Union parole camp
and hospital. Until the college reopened
in 1866 Professor William Thompson
held classes in town, thus fulfilling a college obligation by charter amendment
always to teach at least five foundation,
or charity, boys.
In 1809 the U.S. Supreme Court had
ruled for Dartmouth College against the
state of Massachusetts for breach of contract. The St.John's board, believing that
the state of Maryland had acted unconstitutionally, like Massachusetts, when
it refused in 1806 to continue an annual
grant promised St. John's by charter, sued
the state in 1859. Subsequently, the
Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the
state had indeed breached a contract, but
because the college had continued to accept a lesser state money under an "Act
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
of Compromise" agreed to in 1830, it no Dean Scott Buchanan, and the colonizlonger had claim to the original grant. ing expansion to Santa :Fe, New Mexico,
Years later, in 1880, the St. John's board under President Richard D. Weigle, in
declared that state pride alone prevented the early 1960s.
it from taking its case to the U.S. Supreme
Dr. Tilghman's history and Reverend
Court. This veiled threat worked: "The J. Winfree Smith's The Search for a Liberal
Legislature rose nobly to the occasion," CoLLege, which covers the early years under
restored the arrearage accumulated since the New Program, both published by the
1861 and approved an annual appropria- St. .John's Press to celebrate the college's
tion plus a five-year grant.
two-hundredth anniversary in 1984,
When Thomas Fell became president should be read tog·ethcr. Interesting
in 1886, the college consisted of sixty-eight parallels are immediately obvious. Viewstudents and a campus full of dilapidated ing St. John's of the New Program era
buildings. The student body grew and through the glass Tilghman provides, we
three buildings- Woodward (the sec the Dartmouth College case cited
Library), Randall (a dining-room and again in the 1940s, by President Barr
dormitory), and Iglehart (the gym- when he defended the St. John's campus
nasium) -were built during his ad- against encroachment by the U.S. Naval
ministration. When he resigned in 1923 Academy. Earlier board efforts to unite
"he took with him the affection of hun- two colleges within a university under the
dreds of old students."
1784 charter preceeded the founding of
Dr. Tilghman divides the one hun- a second St. John's College in New Mexdred and fifty years of St. John's history ico in 1960 under that charter. In 1890 a
into eight epochs and describes in detail proposal that women be educated at St.
the curriculums adopted in each. The John's was introduced by trustee-alumnus
first, designed by President John ] udge Daniel R. Magruder: women were
McDowell and the Reverend Ralph Hig- admitted to St. John's in 1950. In 1891
ginbotham, was the most rigorous of all. President T'homas tell unsuccessfully
It required proficiency in the ancient solicited private donors for an endowlanguages, mathematics, natural philoso- ment: President Weigle made many sucphy, and logic. To graduate, a student had cessful solicitations in his administration
to undergo a public examination. In the (1950-1980). A good curriculum underlate 1860s President James Clarke Well- girded the early college just as the curing introduced English literature with the riculum known as the New Program
reading of Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, undergirds today's college.
Hooker, and 'T3.ylor; and he added Plato's
I disagree with Dr. Tilghman's view
dialogues and the Greek dramatists to the on the relationship between King
list of Greek classics read.
William's School and St. John's College.
Dr. Tilghman treats the eighth epoch I believe that a new corporation was
(1923-193 7) very briefly. I hope some day created by a merger between the two ensomeone will cover this period more fully. tities in 1786 and that St. John's College
For in 1923 the board discontinued the is a continuation of King William's
grammar school and military program, School. This view has been more fully
making St. John's solely a four-year liberal developed in a paper that has been acarts college. Four teachers appointed in cepted for future publication.
this period- George Bingley, Ford K.
Charlotte Fletcher
Brown, John S. Kieffer, who served as
both president and dean under the New
Program, and Richard Scofield -were to
help steady the college at two critical junctures in its twentieth-ce/ntury life: the Charlotte Fletcher was librarian of St. John's College, Annapolis, from 1944 until 1980. Her article
transition to the New Program in 193 7 1784: The Year St. John's College waJ- named was pubunder President Stringfellow Barr and lished in the Maryland Historical Magazine in 1978.
67
�The Old Gods
What titanic captive, god in chains
smokes the earth with his dire
breath that scorches? All are bound
in blood, lapping rock with flame
which flares towards the sources, then
reverses to fall back into the cave
where puppets dance in mockery
of truth.
Dolphins hammer the sea
to dints of foam, pressing a shield
for the adamant depth; who knows
what immortal agony exhorts them
to friend the singer as a brother.
How seeps that song of harmony
filtering through fault's abyss?
Stricken priestess chants her office,
mad eyes trail a clue of destiny.
Whose altar is the overwhelming will?
The answer blinds us, leaves us asking still.
Gretchen Berg
Gretchen Berg is a graduate of St. John's College, Annapolis. She lives in
Vermont where she pursues her interest in writing and painting.
68
SUMMER 1984
��The St. John's Review
St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland 21404
Non-profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Permit No. 66
Lutherville, Md.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em>
Description
An account of the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em><span> is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College. All manuscripts are subject to blind review. Address correspondence to </span><em>The St. John's Review</em><span>, St. John's College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 or via e-mail at </span><a class="obfuscated_link" href="mailto:review@sjc.edu"><span class="obfuscated_link_text">review@sjc.edu</span></a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> exemplifies, encourages, and enhances the disciplined reflection that is nurtured by the St. John's Program. It does so both through the character most in common among its contributors — their familiarity with the Program and their respect for it — and through the style and content of their contributions. As it represents the St. John's Program, The St. John's Review espouses no philosophical, religious, or political doctrine beyond a dedication to liberal learning, and its readers may expect to find diversity of thought represented in its pages.<br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> was first published in 1974. It merged with <em>The College </em>beginning with the July 1980 issue. From that date forward, the numbering of <em>The St. John's Review</em> continues that of <em>The College</em>. <br /><br />Click on <a title="The St. John's Review" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=13"><strong>Items in the The St. John's Review Collection</strong></a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
thestjohnsreview
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
68 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
The St. John's Review (formerly The College), Summer 1984
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sterling, J. Walter
Parran, Jr., Thomas
Walsh, Jason
Freis, S. Richard
Sachs, Joe
Stickney, Cary
Wilson, Curtis A.
Sachs, Joe
Brann, Eva T. H.
Killorin, Joseph
Buchanan, Scott
Thompson, William
Klein, Jacob
Zuckerman, Elliot
Kieffer, John S.
Zuckerkandl, Victor
Smith, J. Winfree
Middleton, Arthur Pierce
Fletcher, Charlotte
Berg, Gretchen
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXV, number 3 of The St. John's Review, formerly The College. Published in Summer 1984.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
The_St_Johns_Review_Vol_35_No_3_1984
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
St. John's Review
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0cfdf4b66c5ee4f1d0fc4f9424e1a900.pdf
de920dd95ceb997451d9596ee7655fc7
PDF Text
Text
THE
St.
Spring, 1984
�Editor:
J.
Walter Sterling
Managing Editor:
Thomas Parr an, Jr.
Editorial Assistant:
Susan Lord
Editorial Board:
Eva Brann
S. Richard Freis,
Alumni representative
Joe Sachs
Cary Stickney
Curtis A. Wilson
Unsolicited articles, stories, and poems
are welcome, but should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed
envelope in each instance. Reasoned
comments are also welcome.
The St. John's Review (formerly The Col·
lege) is published by the Office of the
Dean, St. John's College, Annapolis,
Maryland 21404. Edwin J. Delattre,
President, Samuel S. Kutler, Dean.
Published thrice yearly, in the winter,
spring, and summer. For those not on
the distribution list, subscriptions:
$12.00 yearly, $24.00 for two years, or
$36.00 for three years, payable in ad·
vance. Address all correspondence to
The St. John's Review, St. John's College,
Annapolis, Maryland 21404.
Volume XXXV, Number 2
Spring, 1984
©
1984 St. John's College; All rights
reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part without permission is prohibited.
ISSN 0277-4 720
Composition: Fishergate Publishing Co., Inc.
Printing: The john D. Lucas Printing Co.
Errata:
In Beate Ruhm von Oppen, "Stu·
dent Rebellion and the Nazis: 'The
White Rose' in its Setting;' The St.
John's Review. Winter 1984:
page 4, column 1, paragraph 3, line
12, should read: of a dollar a year
later:
page 4, column 2, last paragraph,
line 1 should read: Life at school
changed greatly ...
page 7, column 2, paragraph 3, last
line should read: officially, in
international discourse.
paragraph 4, line 5 should read: he
ended a long speech with a long
sentence affirming
�THE
StJohn's Review
Contents
2 . . . . . . The Inefficacy of the Good
Douglas Allanbrook
14 . . . . . . Via Positiva; Via Negativa (poems)
Gretchen Berg
16 . . . . . . Logos and the Underground
Curtis Wilson
26 . . . . . . Orwell's Future and the Past
Ronald Berman
34 . . . . . . Is Nature a Republic?
David :)tephenson
40 ...... Between Plato and Descartes-The Mediaeval Transformation in the
Ontological Status of the Ideas
James Mensch
48 . . . . . . Looking Together in Athens
Mera Flaumenhajt
60 . . . . . . Two Manuscripts of Jacob Klein's from the 30's
Left and Right
The Frame of the Timaeus
OccASIONAL DrscouRSES
66 . . . . . . The Roots of Modemity
Eva Brann
BooK REviEw
70 . . . . . . U.S. Catholic Bishops, Nuclear weapons and U.S. defense policy
Robert L. :)paeth
73 . . . . . . Cumulative Index, April 1969-Winter, 1984
ON THE COVER: Athens, Acropolis, The Parthenon. Gallery of The South Peristyle.
�ST. JOHN's REVIEW
Spring 1984
The Inefficacy of the Good
Douglas Allanbrook
T
he field upon which political actions are
played is one of moral desolation. If certain
men or cities stand high and brilliant above
this field, are remembered and praised in
future generations by their countrymen or
by the world, this praise, these many political encomia,
almost never arise out of the goodness or true virtue of
the subject; they are service rendered by words and
memory to power, fame, and empire. Caesar's name lives
on in the very titles of power and empire- the Kaiser,
the Czar of all the Russias-while Catds suicide is
cherished in the memory of a few as a proper failure,
and he himself is most marvelously enshrined on the
lowest slope of Purgatory as Dante leaves Hell and begins
to go up. It is apposite in this consideration to rememher Thucydides' words concerning poor Nicias when his
life comes to an end at the end of the Syracusan adventure, as recounted almost at the very end of Book VII
of the histories. You will recall Nicias' actions against the
demagogue Cleon, whom Thucydides detests, and hJs
opposition to Alcibiades in front of the assembly which
was to decide upon the Sicilian expedition. He attempted
to deter the Athenians from the venture by calling to their
attention the enormity of the cost and the vastness of the
armaments required. Of course the effect of his speech
on the assembly was the opposite of what he had expected, "for it seemed to them that he had given good
advice, and that now certainly there would be abundant
security."* And soon, "upon all alike there fell an ardent
desire (eros) to sail~' (VI-XXIV, 2-3).
*The translations of Thucydides are Charles Foster Smith's published
in the Loeb Classical Library.
Douglas Allanbrook is a composer and tutor at St. John's College,
Annapolis. This article was delivered as a formal lecture in Annapolis
in the fall of 1983.
2
The Spartans in the Pylos affair knew that N icias was
for peace, and indeed the period of relative calm in the
midst of the long war was known as the Peace of Nicias.
He was a very rich and pious man, and it is a terrible
irony that this very piety fatally delayed a possible retreat
for the Athenians in the last awful month in front of
Syracuse. He knew that the Spartans trusted him,
and it was not least on that account that he trusted in
Gylippus (the Spartan general) and surrendered himself
to him. But it was said that some of the Syracusans were
afraid, seeing that they had been in communication with
him, lest, if he were subjected to torture on that account,
he might make trouble for them in the midst of their
success; and others, especially the Corinthians, were
afraid, lest, as he was wealthy, he might by means of
bribes make his escape and cause them fresh difficulties;
they therefore persuaded their allies and put him to
death. For this reason, then, or for a reason very near
to this, Nicias was put to death-a man who, of all the
Hellenes of my time, least deserved to meet with such
a calamity, because of his course of life that had been
wholly regulated in accordance with virtue.
(VII-LXXXVI, 4-5) ..
Many years ago from this platform I lectured on the
Spanish Civil War, and I employed a lengthy simile in
an attempt to catch the nature of what was revealed in
that and perhaps in all civil wars. It struck me in my
younger years that the Spanish War crystallized the conscience of the age, and revealed the more enormous civil
war that is the perennial fact of our political life. My
simile was drawn from Geology. Our landscapes, from
sea to shining sea, with their fields of grain and their
snowy Rockies, have their origins in vulcanism, in eruptions, in lava flows, in revolutions and the grinding of
tectonic plates. The intent of the simile was to focus the
attention of students upon the gleaming surface of our
SPRING 1984
�republics, empires, and cities, and to have them note how
fragile, temporary, and full of illusion is any appearance
of stability. The reality underneath is the force and power
of human ambitions, fears, hopes, and desires for fame.
In light of this simile any place that lastS for generations
with both splendor and decency should be looked at with
particular attention. God knows what blood was behind
Rome; it still remains a fact that this empire lasted as
a place of law for an enormous stretch of time. St. Paul,
a ] ew from Tarsus, demanded his rights as a Roman
citizen, and hence was not tortured. The thousand years
of the Most Serene Republic of Venice stand in front of
us as a monument of probity and sagacity. It was certainly for an enormous stretch of time ihe best place to
live and work in, and the best place to look at. It was
the hub of a commercial empire, as was Athens. Both
the Parthenon and St. Mark's Square are the most spendid and shining things to see and to visit. They are longlived memorials, though the increasing pollution of time
has eroded their surfaces. Can the look of them tell us
of Venice's long life and Athens' brief glory? As memorials
they affect us more than words, and seem to speak to
something apart from both them and us, a vision of a
place to be cherished. In this they resemble the funeral
oration of Pericles. Thucydides, however, puts us on
guard against reading too much into such appearances
in the famous passage in Book I:
For if the city of the Lacedaemonians should be deserted,
and nothing should be left of it but its temples and the
foundations of its other buildings, posterity would, I
think, after a long lapse of time, be very loath to believe
that their power was as great as their renown. (And yet
they occupy two-fifths of the Peloponnesus and have the
hegemony of the whole, as well as of their many allies
outside; but still, as Sparta is not compactly built as a
city and has not provided itself with costly temples and
other edifices, but is inhabited village-fashion in the old
Hellenic style, its power would appear less than it is.)
Whereas, if Athens should suffer the same fate, its power
would, I think, from what appeared of the city's ruins,
be conjectured double what it is. (I-X, 2-3).
My geological simile came to me in the course of
reading Thucydides' account of the revolution, or more
properly, the civil war that occurred on Corcyra, the
deeds committed in that island's internal eruption bear-
ing every resemblance to the deeds committed in the
Spanish War. In his account of the happenings on Corcyra Thucydides regards the larger more general war between Athens and Sparta as the catalyst which releases
the convulsions of party and faction. Every city has within
it democrats and oligarchs, but now the democrats can
call upon Athens and the oligarchs upon Sparta. This
fact brings to the surface something which Thucydides
dares call human nature:
And so there fell upon the cities on account of revolutions many grievous calamities, such as happen and
always will happen while human nature is the same, but
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
which are severer or milder, and diflt:rent in their
manifestations, according as the variations in circumstances present themselves in each case. (III
LXXXII-2).
This sentence has the chilling precision of a scientific appraisal of phenomena, presenting a general rule which
may be applied to the variables of the given case. Thucydides then applies it in detail to the particular situation on Corcyra:
The ordinary acceptation of words in their relation to
things was changed as men thought fit. Reckless audacity
came to be regarded as courageous loyalty, prudent hesitation as specious cowardice, moderation as a cloak for
unmanly weakness. (III LXXXII -4).
Words given as oaths lost all coinage, and under the banners of "political equality under law for the many" and
"temperate aristocracy" everyone marched to his own
tune. People who joined neither party were immediately
under suspicion "either because they would not make
common cause with them, or through mere jealousy that
they should survive." Another universal statement about
human nature occurs almost at the end of this section
on Corcyra:
At this crisis, when the life of the city had been thrown
into utter confusion, human nature, now triumphant
over the laws, and accustomed even in spite of the laws
to do wrong, took delight in showing that its passions
were ungOvernable, that it was stronger than justice, and
an enemy to all superiority. (III LXXXIV-2).
The section concludes with words which the author later
puts into the mouths of the Melians in their famous fictive dialogue with the Athenians:
Indeed, men do not hesitate, when they seek to avenge
themselves upon others, to abrogate in advance the common principles observed in such cases-those principles
upon which depends every man's own hope of salvation
should he himself be overtaken by misfortune-thus failing to leave them in force against the time when perchance a man in peril shall have need of some of them.
(III LXXXIV-3).
T
his lecture cannot have the brashness and passion
inspired by an event which roused my conscience
in high school, and which I found reflected in my
experience as a soldier in Italy during the second world
war. In Italy again, when I learned to see clearly, there
was a civil war going on under my nose, a country torn
internally with horrors being committed under the banners of party, and the whole of the mess fusing and coming to the fore under the catalyst of the great world war
between the Germans and the Allies. Instead this lecture is about the book, or rather the memorial, which
puts such contemporary events into focus for me.
3
�Thucydides states that this indeed was his intention in
writing such a history:
But whoever shall wish to have a clear view both of the
events which have happened and those which will some
day, in all human probability, happen again in the same
or a similar way- for these to adjudge my history profit-
able will be enough for me. And, indeed, it has been
composed, not as a prize essay to be heard for the mo-
ment, but as a possession for all time. (lXXII -4 ).
Such a book and such an attempt intend to make memory
for the future. All battlefields and all wars want
monuments. It is unbearable to think of all that blood
shed and forgotten. Speeches after a battle on a battlefield
must assert the worth and the fame of what has been
accomplished by the dead. Only too often they are halflies about the Fatherland, or an invocation to the God
of Battles for help in the future or a praise to him for
the victory. At their best they call on Providence to help
in binding up the wounds so unhestitatingly opened.
Thucydides' whole enormous book is a discourse intended
to memorialize. It is a landscape with no gods or God
or Providence either in the sky above or under the earth
in some law court in Hell. The author is enormously fussy
about facts, but the book is no chronicle. Certain events
are looked at with a particular intensity in view of the
purpose of the memorial, and so that the book may be,
if not the education of Greece, an aid to the clear seeing
of all who read it. About the speeches in the book Thucydides says the following:
As to the speeches that were made by different men,
either when they were about to begin the war or when
they were already engaged therein, it has been difficult
to recall with strict accuracy the words actually spoken,
both for me as regards that which I myself heard, and
for those who from various other sources have brought
me reports. Therefore the speeches are given in the
language in which, as it seems to me, the several speakers
would express, on the subjects under consideration, the
sentiments most befitting the occasion, though at the
same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the
general sense of what actually was said. (l-XXII-1).
I
n this book which lays claim to being a "possession
for all time" we must ask ourselves which the speeches
are present-what part they play in the artful composition of this book. It is clear that spoken words are
of crucial importance to Thucydides when the words are
public, when they are directed toward future action, and
when they issue from the mouths of certain men. Sometimes, however, the speakers are nameless; they are designated merely as "the Athenians;' or "the Corinthians."
And once in the book the speeches are part of a fictive
dialogue between the people of Melos and these nameless
are judging concerning the future; such would be
speeches made before a deliberative assembly. There are
speeches made before people who are judging concerning the past; such would be speeches made in a court
oflaw by a lawyer in front of a judge or a jury. Finally
there are speeches mainly concerned with the present,
eulogies perhaps, where the judges often are critics or
appreciators of the speaker's words. These three types
are formally spoken of a deliberative, forensic, and
epideictic rhetoric. The business of deliberative speeches
is to exhort and persuade concerning future actions, and
the reason for the talking, the end at which it is aiming
in its persuasion, is the expedient or the harmful. Will
it further the ends of the Athenian state to slaughter the
entire population of M ytilene or not? Thucydides gives
us two speeches on this matter, one from the mouth of
Cleon, a demagogue, which argues for the killing, and
one from the mouth ofDeodatus, an otherwise unknown
man in the histories, which argues against the killing.
Both speeches argue from expediency, and as such fall
precisely within the definition of a deliberative speech
as rhetoric aimed at the useful or the harmful. While
we may lament the lack of any talk of justice in the
speeches of Cleon and Deodatus, Deodatus' speech saves
the lives of the people ofMytilene. It is intended by the
author that we take careful note that the best speech on
expediency saves the population of an entire city.
The business of forensic rhetoric is to accuse or de-
fend, its time the past, its end the just and the unjust.
Was Alcibiades guilty of impiety in the scandal of the
desecration of the Hermes? If this were not cleared up,
the doubt would spoil his efficacy in the minds of the
assembly however much they had been moved by his
speech concerning their future. Did Mr. Nixon do the
right thing in lying? That again was judged, and the outcome had much to do later with the future. What I mean
to say here is that though speeches concerning past actions, which have to do with justice, are distinct from
deliberations concerning the future, which have to do
with expediency, we all wear two hats in such matters.
If in our judgement]oe did lie or did, in fact, steal, we
are not going to listen to him with any particular confidence when he advises us concerning the future, how-
ever prudently he may speak. ] ustice counts for
something. The business of the epideictic is praise or
blame, and it is most generally concerned with the present; its end is the noble or the disgraceful. At the end
of this lecture we will examine the most famous of all
epideictic speeches, Pericles' Funeral Oration.
In deliberative speeches the judges are immediately
concerned with the subject at hand. It is, after all, their
lives, their wealth, their fears, and their honor which are
at stake in an assembly which is debating a future action. One would expect them to be more critical and
''Athenians:' It will be helpful, and it is easy enough,
suspicious given this fact. Given this frame of mind, the
personal character of the speaker assumes a much greater
following Aristotle, to divide speeches in general into
three types. There are speeches addressed to people who
importance than it does in forensic pleading. Who and
what kind of a man Pericles is, has much to do with his
4
SPRING 1984
�persuasiveness. At the conclusion of Pericles' third speech
in Book II Thucydides states this with perfect clarity:
And the reason for this was that Pericl~s, who owed his
influence to his recognized standing and ~bility, and had
proved himself clearly incorruptible in the highest
degree, restrained the multitude while respecting their
liberties, and led them rather than was led by them,
because he did not resort to flattery, seeking power by
dishonest means, but was able on the strength of his high
reputation to oppose them and even provoke their wrath.
(II-LXV-8).
The same holds true, however, for Alcibiades; character
counts, both for and against. Once the enthusiasm for
his youth and brilliance have had time to cool off, doubts
of his virtue enter the assembly's mind, and he is relieved
of his command. As a result the disastrous Sicilian campaign begins its downward plunge. Part of the study of
power and politics, of things as they are, is the study of
how people are persuaded to action. What rhetoric does
is part of the truth of the way things are.
The very first speech in the histories begins with the
word "dikaion'!- it is fair or just. You may remember the
situation. The Corinthians are trying to prevent the
Athenian fleet from joining that of Corcyra, as this would
hamper them in settling the war as they wish to settle
it. An assembly is called, and first the Corcyreans and
then the Corinthians speak. The first sentence of the Corcyreans, which, as we have noted, begins with the expression "it is fair;' is a most complex sentence:
It is but fair, citizens of Athens, that those who, without
any previous claims on the score of important service
rendered or of an existing alliance, come to their neighbors to ask aid, as we do now, should show in the first
place, if possible, that what they ask is advantageous,
or at least that it is not hurtful, and in the second place,
that their gratitude can be depended on; but in case they
establish neither of these things clearly, they should not
be angry if unsuccessful. (I-XXXII-!).
The intent of the Corcyreans, which governs the device
they employ in this sentence, is to establish the reasonableness of what they want. Facts must be faced, and dismissed if they prove to be a hindrance. The fact is that
the Corcyreans have no existing alliance with, nor have
they rendered any important service to, Athens; in fact
they are a colony of Corinth, hence the opening section
of the sentence. Given this embarrassing fact, it must
be shown that what is asked is "xumphora'!- advantageous, or at least not harmful- and that the gratitude
of the Corcyreans might even offer a certain security. The
final reasonable appeal is that if none of the above can
be established, no one's feelings are to be hurt. It is clear,
even if it is not just, that the important persuasive word
must be "advantage;' and that other things that might
bind a political action, such as an alliance or ties of blood
with the motherland, must be glossed over in light of"advantage's" claims. The speech continues with an insistence
upon the changed fact of the Corcyreans' isolation in
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
foreign policy. What had been formerly considered discretion is now viewed as unwise and a cause of weakness. They then hold out to the Athenians the pleasing
package of both honor and advantage, honor in helping
one who is wronged, and advantage in having as an ally
a great sea power. They argue that the Spartans through
fear are eager for war, and that the Corinthians are abetting this fear. They then brush aside the illegality of an
alliance with them (the Spartans and the Athenians are
at this point allied, as you may recall) with a legal argument that has a certain petty rigor, and finally end their
speech with the strongest set of appeals to expediency
that they can muster. First they argue that if they have
more strength the Spartans will be still more afraid of
breaking the truce; second they appeal to the commercial and imperial passions of Athens by pointing out the
convenience of Corcyra, situated as it is so conveniently
for a voyage to Italy and Sicily, and third they tote up
a calculus of the naval power of Greece. There are three
major navies, Athens, Corinth, and Corcyra. Two is more
than three. Don't be stuck with only your own.
The Corinthians in their rebuttal take up one by one
the arguments of the Corcyreans. They argue that the
contingency of a war in which the Corinthians fight with
the Athenians is still most uncertain, and that to be
stampeded by such fear will be to make a real enemy
of the Corinthians; this then /will be a fact, and not a
contingency. Also, and most pointedly, the Athenians of
all people should not tamper 0ith colonies and allies; the
whole life of their city depends on its network of rule
abroad. After the two speeches the Athenians in a second session of the assembly go along with the Corcyreans, though all during the first assembly they are
for Corinth. They make, however, a defensive alliance
only, promising mutually to aid each other in case of attack. The Athenians believe that the war has to be faced,
and do not want to give up the navy of the Corcyreans.
Also they have done a calculus- or gambled on a probability- that the two navies, of the Corinthians and the
Corcyreans, will wear each other out, and hence Corinth will be weaker when war comes. And too the island
does indeed seem so beautifully situated for a voyage to
Italy and Sicily.
oth speeches are made before an assembly of
judges who are debating a course of action future
to them. The principal word in the vocabulary is
certainly expedience as regards future benefits, and this
is always contrasted with the harm that would result from
not calculating on proper self-interest. Fairness and
honor, fear and anger, figure also in this vocabulary, and
each person in the assembly must be consulting his own
desires and hopes and fears for the future. For us, the
readers, these speeches are very different in meaning.
We know, as did Thucydides, that the war will go on for
mofe than a generation, that Athens will lose, that the
society and world of the Greek cities will be debased by
B
5
�the war, that words having to do with probity, honor, and
justice will be tarnished. We are also perfectly aware that
it will not be the end of the world~ as can so easily happen to our world right now, but that it will be the end
of a kind of world in which certain cherished things somehow maintained themselves by tradition, luck, and guts
against the desolation of the barbarian periphery. In other
words, for us they are not deliberative speeches in that
they refer to a future which we the judges do not know.
We judge them not from their expediency or harmfulness
to us, but as judges judging a past event. We are concerned with the just and the unjust, the good and the
bad, and we accuse or defend the Athenians or the people of Melos, the Spartans or the noble defenders of
Plataea, as we look back and down upon their speeches,
knowing what their future is to be. They are for us
writing samples open to our inspection; we are critics
or appreciators or unabashed admirers.
Later in Book I the Athenians give a speech which
we the readers must closely examine. The occasion is a
general council of the allies in Sparta after the hostilities
up at Potidea have been going on for quite a time. The
Corinthians have been hard at work in a preceding
speech, stirring up the Spartans, inciting them to war.
In their speech they have praised the Athenians' resourcefulness and derided the Spartans' old-fashioned habits.
They have even put forth a general rule, stating it
categorically and introducing it with the word "necessity" (anangke ): "it is necessary that things coming after
other things prevail!' A more vivid translation would be
"The new must by the nature of things take over:' In our
role as onlookers and critics of the speech it is easy enough
for us to appreciate the reason the Corinthians have for
saying this, and even the effectiveness of stating it as a
law. The Spartans are stick-in-the-muds, and have to be
brought to their senses in a world that has changed and
that is more quick in its wits than they. If we, as readers,
are more than appreciators, we must ask ourselves if the
proposition is true; does it have any valid~ty as a law, or
persuasive power because we think it's scientific? On
another level of meaning we are aware that Corinth is
in many ways the same kind of place as Athens, commercial, rich, a port, and ancient.
The Athenians, who according to Thucydides happened by chance to be present, asked for permission to
speak. They wanted to slow down the Spartans and to
show the great power of their city, reminding the older
men of what they knew, and telling the younger ones what
they didn't know, believing that their words would direct
the Spartans toward peace rather than war. Their opening sentences should put us, the readers, on guard as to
what is being done. The Athenians submit that they are
not going to answer any charges or speak to the Spartans as if the Spartans were a jury deciding on matters
of justice or injustice, but are only going to speak to them
in order to dissuade them from making a wrong decision regarding the future. The record, on the other hand,
still must be set straight. ''As for all the words against
6
us, we want to show that we have what we have in a manner that is not unseemly and that our city is worthy of
being talked about:' The next paragraph in their speech
brings up the great event of fifty years ago, the Persian
War. There is one acid sentence in this paragraph, which
employs the perennial pair, actions and words, erga and
logoi. The sentence may be rendered as follows: "When
we did these things" (the Athenians are speaking of their
part in defeating the Persians) "when we did these things,
they were risked for the sake of a common benefit, and
since you had a piece of the action, we will not be
deprived of the words that give us credit, if indeed there
is any benefit in that." The sentence revolves like a snake
about the word "benefit:' A freer translation might be
as follows: "We did these things and suffered danger for
a common good; since you received a share of that work,
we will not be deprived of the account of what we did,
if indeed there is any good or profit in an account:' The
word logos, "account;' at the end of this sentence is
delivered with cutting irony. Its meaning might be
rendered as "lip-service':_ the homage that words pay to
action. Of course the actions the Athenians are talking
about are gone into in detail in the next part of the speech.
They are the glorious triumphs at Marathon and Salamis,
events which we memorialize as model triumphs of
civilization over barbarism, triumphs which the Athenians point to as being a benefit to the Spartans as well
as to themselves.
The next paragraph then asks the question of worthiness. ''Are we then deserving of hatred and jealousy
merely because of empire, or rule?" This is the crucial
fact to be dealt with in any dealing with the Spartans.
Thucydides has given as the underlying cause of the war
the fear the Spartans had of Athens' rule or empire, and
now the Athenians must speak to this fact of empire and
rule; they must demonstrate that it is natural and inevitable, and hence not blameworthy. They begin by
arguing that it was according to the necessity of the work
itself that they were driven to extend their rule, and that
they were under the push exerted by fear, honor, and
lastly self-interest. To quote exactly: "It was under the
compulsion of circumstances that we were driven at first
to advance our empire to its present state, influenced
chiefly by fear, then by honor also, and lastly by selfinterest as well:' Later in the paragraph they say "No man
is to be blamed for making the most of his advantages
when it is a question of the gravest dangers." The argument here might be stated as follows: if anyone in the
world would behave in a certain way given the appropriate circumstances, no blame follows for an individual who does behave in such a way. Certainly a very
familiar and only slightly sleazy inference. The argument
then turns to the named individual in a way we are all
accustomed to, saying that "you;' namely the Spartans,
would have done the thing as we had if you had been
in our shoes. The next stage is to pull in normalcy of
behavior under a more telling name, "human nature."
'Thus there is nothing remarkable or inconsistent with
SPRING 1984
�human nature in what we also have done, just because
we accepted an empire when it was offered us, and then,
yielding to the strongest motives- honor, fear, and selfinterest (the list now begins with honor and not fear, you
will note)-we declined to give it up:' 'The next step is
to move from normalcy of behavior to a general law,
hence the next sentence: "Nor again, are we the, first who
have entered upon such a course, but it has always been
laid down that the weaker are hemmed in by the stronger:'
The adverb in the argument has moved from "usually"
to "always!' We have now not an observation of normal
behavior but a binding law of universal action.
The next job to be done in this most central of all
paragraphs is to eliminate any principle or universal idea
which will conflict with the principle of the strong lording it over the weak. This is done slyly and personally,
with the intention of shaming any listener who clings to
such notions.
We [the nameless Athenians say] thought ourselves
worthy to rule, and you shared that opinion, until you
began toting up and calculating your own interests, and,
just as you are doing now, began resorting to talk of
justice ['t6 0tKnt6 Aoy6 ], which no one in his right mind
ever put in front of force and advantage when opportunity gave him the chance of getting something by sheer
strength. (I LXXVI-2).
The grand reversal from blame to praise now follows,
encompassing all that has been said, and carefully placing the small hand of justice into the muscular grasp of
power:
They are worthy of praise who, being subject to human
nature as ruling over us, are more just than they might
have been, considering their possession of power. We believe that anyone else, seeing our power, would demonstrate most clearly, as to whether we are walking a
moderate path; in our case, however, from the very fact
of our reasonableness, blame rather than praise arises
in a most unfitting manner. (I LXXVI -4 ).
This passage in this speech is of crucial importance to
the whole book. The Athenians are explicating their
power and rule. Their speech is an apology for empire,
and contains an argument based on what is claimed to
be a universal law, a law present in human nature, namely
that the strong rule the weak. In the immediate context
of Book I the speech is unsuccessful. The Spartans decide
that the treaty is broken and that the Athenians are to
be blamed, and decide to go to war with Athens. There
is some doubt that the speech was ever made; it seems
clear that Thucydides placed it here and composed it as
part of his explication and memorial of the war. Its propositions are present in the words of Pericles in later
speechs in the book. They are very much present in the
terrifying debate on the fate of the population of
Mitylene. They are the substance of the Athenian talk
in the so-called Melian Dialogue.
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
eaning, in even the simplest of contexts and
situations, has as many layers as an onion. This
is in no way intended to imply that the situation or the context determines the meaning, but tather
that the context or the situation is the occasion for meaning. Who is talking and why? Is it Pericles or Cleon or
Alcibiades or Nicias talking, and why do they say what
they say about the war or about an expedition to Sicily?
What kind of men are they- noble, ambitious, brilliant,
or moderate? Are they talking to a popular assembly,
or to a gathering of aristocrats? What kind of relation
have they to the assembly, or the soldiers, or the aristocratic gathering, or their neighbors? What are they up
to? Why does Pericles want the war? It can hardly be
for the same reasons that Clean or Alcibiades are driven
by, though both might use the same arguments concerning power and justice. Are any of the sentences true statements of the way things are? In the case of this invented
speech we have just examined there are still further layers
of meaning for us. We are an audience separated by an
enormous gulf of time from the author. Why he has the
Athenians say what they say when they say it, and
whether what they say is true or not, must be part of
the meaning to us. It would be only too easy to nod one's
head and, calling a spade a spade, assent to the propositions concerning power and human nature, the strong
ruling the weak, and the weakness of the good. Is it that
our very nodding our heads in assent to such propositions is part of the truth of the propositions? Does it reveal
something of what we are when we do assent to them?
Does rhetoric reveal the other side of being, the dark side,
the shabby side, the reverse side of the coin? Is part of
this dilemma embodied in that famous red-herring of
a term, human nature? I have heard persons of good
character sagely affirm that the Melians were wrong in
not knuckling under to the Athenians. It is a fact that
they were all slain and their city extirpated, and the
ground it stood on plowed under. The truth is that their
deaths only demonstrate the weakness of the good, not
·that they were wrong. I take this to be Thucydides' meaning, and it is with the darkest irony that he puts into the
Athenians' mouths in the speech we have just looked at
the harsh reference to just discourse, ( dikaios logos), their
attempt being to shame the Spartans for resorting to such
talk, to taunt them for their lack of manliness. I will read
the sentence again:
M
And at the same time we thought ourselves worthy to
rule, and you shared that opinion, until you began toting
up and calculating your own interests, and, just as you
are doing now, began resorting to talk of justice, which
no one in his right mind ever put in front of force and
advantage when opportunity gave him the chance of getting something by sheer strength (I LXXVI-2).
If we can be bamboozled by shame into knuckling under
to these propositions about force and power; then the propositions become operationally true.
7
�It is very popular in all ages to dismiss just discourse,
and you may recall Aristophanl'!s' bitter satire in the
Clouds, where just and unjust di'scourse parade their
arguments in front of the audience of Athenian citizens,
an audience full of the presence of the endless Peloponnesian War.
Pericles' Funeral Oration in Book II of the histories
is the world's most famous speech, and it is in praise of
the world's most memorable city. This speech is carefully
positioned in front of the most famous description of a
disease in literature, the great Plague of Athens. It is so
carefully positioned in the structure of the histories that
a former tutor, with his customary irony, used to insist
that the plague never happened. By this I gather he meant
that it was too patently plotted into the literary scheme
of the histories. Terrible and terrifying pairs are placed
in front of us, a juxtaposition oflight, life, and freedom
under law next to darkness, death, and anarchy. Both
the Funeral Oration and the account of the Plague have
been imitated or copied. You will recall Lucretius' Plague,
and we are all most familiar with the countless statesmen-like speeches which employ Pericles' oration as a
model.
There are in addition two other speeches of Pericles
in the book which frame the meaning of the funeral oration. The first one is in Book I, a speech in which he
urges the assembly to war. The other occurs after the
war has begun, and the city has suffered the plague. It
is because of the political aftermath of these events that
Pericles finds it necesary to give this speech, a speech
in which he urges the assembly to hold firm in its pursuance of the war. These two framing speeches, are of
course, deliberative speeches, delivered before the
assembly. They urge and advise concerning the future
course of action to be taken by the assembly, in contrast
to the Funeral Oration, which is a eulogy of the present
and shining spectacle of Athens.
The first paragraph of the first speech contains the
essence of practical decision-making, and as such comments ironically on a future which we, the readers, know:
I, 0 men of Athens, hold to the same judgement as
always namely that we must not yield to the Spartans,
although I well know that once engaged in the actual
work of warfare men are not actuated by the same passionate temper as they are when being persuaded to go
to war, but change their judgements according to what
happens. I also see that I must give you the same or
nearly the same advice I used to give you, and I insist
that those of you who are persuaded shall support the
common decision, even if we should fail, or, in the case
of success, claim no share in the good judgement shown.
For it is perfectly possible for the course of events to unfold irrationally and dumbly as it is for the calculations
of men; it is for this very reason that we lay the blame
on fortune for what turns out contrary to our calculations. (I-CXL-1).
We never deliberate about what we know, but about what
8
we don't know, and we don't know the future, and
especially the future of a war. We may hope for a felicitous
future, but hope is wishing for what rationally cannot
be counted on. There is a piercing logic in the classification of hope as a theological virtue, an excellence beyond
nature; for Thucydides, however, the word carries with
it an ever-present irony. A political decision is always
about the future, and aspires to be a contract. It can't
be a contract, however, for who will make it stick? What
is the binding rule, and if the rule is binding, who will
be the judge? It may be just as well that this is so, for
if the decision is for war, sticking to the decision may
bleed the city to death, or at the very least debase the
spirit and counterfeit the moral coinage.
Later in the speech Pericles goes on to insist that the
slightest concession to the Spartans will be read by them
as fear, whereas a downright refusal of their demands
means that they will treat the Athenians as equals. This
is a kind of argumentation that numbs us every day in
the discussions of deterrence and equal megatonnage.
Pericles throws this at the assembly as an imperative:
So make up your minds, here and now, either to take
their orders before any damage is done you, or, if we
mean to go to war-as to me seems best-do so with
the determination not to yield on any pretext, great or
small, and not hold our possessions in fear. For it means
enslavement just the same when either the greatest or
the least claim is imposed by equals upon their
neighbors, not by an appeal to justice but by dictation.
(I-CXLI-1).
You will note the force of the word slavery in the last
sentence, though there is no clear logical path to be followed from claiming that between equals the slightest
concession means slavery rather than injustice. It is cer-
tainly a normal phenomenon that neighboring states hate
each other. The nearer they are the greater the hate seems
to be, in a kind of inverse-force law whose terms are hate
and proximity. In Greece one has only to think of Thebes
and Plataea, Sparta and Argos, Athens and Corinth,
Athens and Thebes, or Athens and its even nearer
neighbors (regarded with even more intense hatred),
Megara and Aegina. This is one of the perpetual and
damning observations which Dante makes as he looks
at all the cities of Tuscany consuming each other in a
wrath which he can only describe in bestial terms. In
our own age we have only to cast our eyes on any part
of the globe to observe this phenomenon: Poland and
Russia, India and Pakistan, Iran and Arabia, Bolivia and
Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador, Russia and China, Vietnam and Cambodia, England and Ireland. Often the
hatred between neighbors grows up between states that
are somehow united- this happened between the North
and the South in our own United States, and the anguish
of Lebanon presents a spectacle of hatred and blood between every tribe and every sect of a variety of religions.
SPRING 1984
�hese hatreds are nearly ineradicable, and are a
part of the calculus of power. ~hey are present all
through the events of the history we are reading,
but they are never the cause of a major war. This is left
to the fear that exists between equals. While it was under
the aegis of the greater war that the The bans had finally
the satisfaction of seeing their nearest neighbors slaughtered one by one, that greater war arose from a fear between equals. Sparta and Athens are not near neighbors,
and are enormously different, one from the other. They
don't know or understand each other enough to be able
to hate. It is the fear between equals and the humiliation of being treated as an underling by someone who
is the same height as you are that is behind Pericles' statement. This is the heart of his appeal, and the goad to
the assembly's manliness. As Thucydides states over and
over again, a man or a state is more humiliated at being
treated unjustly by an equal than at being beaten or
cowed physically by someone patently bigger or stronger.
We ourselves for the past thirty years have seen an obscene
proliferation of nuclear arms spring like mushrooms from
the ground of fear between equals.
Any hope for the mere existence of the world lies in
an untangling of, or an accommodation to, this grotesque
calculus. And since the snarls caused by fear between
equals have never been untangled in the political affairs
of men, to hope for their dissolution may be irrational,
and even naive. Given the presence of fear and power,
reason staggers and redefmes itself. It becomes a calculus,
a rationalization arising out of the presence of fear and
power, and the word "irrational" comes to mean "imperfectly calculated:' It is for this reason that Hobbes,
the translator of Thucydides, must redefine the meaning of words, and base all meaning in the new and
mechanical psychology with its roots in the fear of war
and the presence of power. If I am driven, the fo'rces that
drive me must be analyzed, and a machine built to contain their energy and to ensure my life. In talking of
Thucydides, who is no systemizer, we must limit ourselves
to noting that in his gravest passages, when he discusses
and notes the events and writes down the speeches concerning the consideration-s we have been pointing to, he
employs the phrase "human nature."
In the next part of his speech Pericles totes up the
power and money of the Athenians. He notes that their
ability to act quickly, and to decide things with resilience
by means of their popular assembly. This he contrasts
with the complicated allied command structure of Sparta.
The Athenians' navy will be their security, and should
be their hope, as it was at Salamis, and with it they need
not fear for their land holdings; their strength lies in their
power, their commerce, and their drachmas. Given all
of these assets he hopes that Athens will prove superior.
This will only happen, he warns, if they do not attempt
to extend their empire while they are waging a war, or
weigh themselves down with other dangers of their own
making---!'for I fear more our own domestic mistakes than
the calculations of the enemy."
T
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
We, the readers, are well aware of the prophecy implied in this sentence, and after Pericles' third speech
Thucydides takes pains to point out the disasters that
followed Pericles' death. He lived only two years and six
months into the war, and without him Athens foundered,
just as under him it was great and glorious and entered
the path of war. The speech concludes by urging the
assembly to adjust in a strictly legal way their affairs with
the Spartans, but to do nothing upon dictation:
This answer is just and fitting for the city- but it
behooves us to know that the war is going to happen,
and that the more willing we show ourselves to accept
it, the less eager will our enemies be to attack us, and
also that from the greater dangers the greater honors
accrue both to a private man and to a state.
(I -CXLIV-3).
At the conclusion to the conclusion Pericles appeals to
the memory of their fathers, who withstood the Persians,
and who with a courage greater than their strength beat
back the barbarian and advanced their fortunes to their
present state. Thucydides comments, "The Athenians
thinking he was advising them for the best voted as he
told them to:'
It may be that a statesman has to act as if war were
inevitable, and see to it that the state is prepared. But
Pericles' argument to the assembly-that not only is war
inevitable but that the more we show ourselves prepared
to accept war, the less eager will our enemies be to accept it- is specious. To an enemy such as Sparta, an equal
in pride and strength, greater acceptance and
preparedness. on the part of the Athenians will mean
greater fear on the part of the Spartans, and thus greater
precautions. Out of that fear and preparedness will grow
further armament and further marshalling of allies, finally ensuring the truth of the proposition that war is
inevitable. It is apt to the point of slyness that the completion of Pericles' complex sentence contains the appeal
to the honor and excellence that accrue to a man and
a city from great dangers. He proceeds to buttress this
by appealing to the memory of the great patriotic war
waged against the Persian barbarians. This rhetorical induction from one war to another is false, as a war between Greeks and barbarian invaders has not the same
nature as a war between Greeks. It would be like arguing in this century from the nature of the First World
War of 1914, which in no way was worth the price of its
blood, to a position which would deny the moral necessity
of the war against Nazi Germany. An argument closer
to the present generation would contain the faulty inference that since the Second World War was honorable
to the nation, the war in Vietnam was also, and hence
should be pursued with vigor and moral certainty.
After the first speech of Pericles in Book I the war
begins. The Spartans invade the land of Attica. Pericles'
strategy has been to pull all of the population within the
walls, to abandon the countryside to the devastation of
9
�the invading Spartans, and to truSt in the navy, the empire, and the wealth of the city. Athens and Attica had
been inhabited continously for a length of time that
seemed mythical to its inhabitants. They were proud of
having been indigenous and co-eternal, as it were, with
the soil of Attica. Their habits and mores were attached
to the countryside, to their estates. The city of Athens,
though the center of Attica politically, was the traditional
center of this long-enduring and ancient countryside, and
had no existence apart from the land about. Pericles'
strategy changed all of this, and the whole countryside
crowded within the walls, squatting even within sacred
places. The Funeral Oration takes place during the winter
which closes the first year of war and the first invasion
of the land of Attica. The next summer the Spartans invaded the countryside again, and before they had been
many days in Attica, the Plague broke out. I shall quote
from Thucydides' account:
It is said, indeed to have broken out before in many
places, both in Lemnos and elsewhere, though no
pestilence of such extent nor any scourge so destructive
of human lives is on record anywhere. For neither were
physicians able to cope with the disease, since they had
to treat it without knowing its nature, the mortality
among them being greatest because they were most exposed to it, nor did any other human art avail. And the
supplications made at sanctuaries, or appeals to oracles
and the like, were all futile, and at last men desisted from
them, overcome by the calamity. (II-XLVII-4)
Thucydides then proceeds to inform the reader as to how
he will treat of this natural disaster:
Now anyone, whether physician or layman, may, according to his personal opinion, speak about its probable
origin and state the causes which, in his view, were sufficient to have produced so great a departure from
normal conditions; but I shall describe its actual course,
explaining the symptoms from the study of which a persons should be best able having knowledge of it beforehand, to recognize it if it should ever break out again,
For I had the disease myself, and saw others sick of it.
(II -XLVII -3).
This passage cannot help suggesting to us, the readers,
that Thucydides intends to write about the Plague in the
same way that he writes about the war. He had the disease
and saw others sick of it just as analogously he was an
admiral in the war, was exiled, and examined it then from
a distance. He next describes in detail the physical nature
of the Plague, and finally turns to the moral desolation
which resulted from it:
And no one was eager to practice self-denial in prospect
of what was esteemed honor, because everyone thought
that it was doubtful whether he would live to attain it,
but the pleasure of the moment and whatever was in any
way conducive to it came to be regarded as at once
honorable and expedient. No fear of gods or law of men
restrained; for, on the one hand, seeing that all men were
perishing alike, they judged that piety and impiety came
10
to the same thing, and, on the other, no one expected
that he would live to be called to account and pay the
penalty of his misdeeds. (II-LIII -4 ).
It is difficult not to compare this passage with the one
which details the horror of the civil war on Corcyra,
which Thucydides so clinically describes both as to its
symptoms and to its progress. The attempt is to describe
something so that it may be recognized if encountered
again. In comparing the Plague with the civil war that
broke out everywhere in Bellas there are differences to
be noted- the Plague may have been carried by rats, a
natural cause, whereas the civil war arose from human
causes. Are human causes a branch of the natural, and
are we obligated to employ the term "human nature?"
If both are diseases, justice becomes medicine, assuming the meaning so common to it in the dialogues of Plato.
he Athenians now suffered a change of feeling·s.
They blamed Pericles for having persuaded them
to go to war. Their land had been invaded for the
second time; the Plague had decimated the population.
The Athenians even sent envoys to the Spartans pleading
for peace, but accomplished nothing. "Being at their wits'
end, they assailed Pericles. . . . He called a meeting of
the assembly- for he was still general-wishing to reassure them, and by ridding their minds of resentment to
bring them to a milder and less timorous mood:' Pericles'
third speech is then framed to meet this occasion. For
us, the readers, it may be the saddest of his speeches.
The war which he had argued for has begun. The glorious city which had reached its zenith under his leadership has just suffered the Plague. The anger and fear of
the people have to be faced down, and the peace movement quelled. He has to ride the back of his tiger and
find words to fit the situation. He begins by saying that
he has expected this anger, and will show them that they
have no reason to be angry with him, or to give way to
their misfortunes. A man's private misfortunes are
worsened by the state's disasters, so it would be folly to
sacrifice the state's security because of troubles at home.
You're blaming both me and yourselves, he says, who
voted after all for the war. I am as competent a man as
you'll find, free from influence of money, and a good
patriot. If you believed me once, believe me now.
Next he waves in front of their eyes the banner of near
infinite rule and power, something, as he says, he had
been loath to do before, as it is almost unseemly and
boastful· to do so. Seeing them so cast down, however,
he will raise their spirits.
T
You think that it is only over your allies that your empire extends, but I declare. that of two divisions of the
world which lie open to man's use, the land and the sea,
you hold the absolute mastery over the whole of one,
not only to the extent to which you now exercise it, but
also to whatever fuller extent you may choose; and there
is no one, either the Great King or any nation of those
SPRING 1984
�on the earth, who will block your pqth as you sail the
seas with such a naval aramament as,you now possess.
(II-LXII-2).
That is, of course, Pericles speaking, nbt Alcibiades urging the conquest of Sicily.
You can go forth, he says, to meet your enemies not only
with confidence but with contempt. For contempt
belongs properly to the man who is persuaded by his
own judgement that he is superior to his opponent. Such
is our case. . . . Fortune being equal, this intelligent
scorn renders courage more secure, in that it doesn't trust
so much in hope, which is strongest when you're at a loss,
as in well-founded opinion, opinion founded on the facts
of the case, which is a lot surer as far as the future is
concerned. (II-LXII -4).
These words of Pericles' find their final home in the
mouths of the nameless Athenians as they present their
view in the fictive dialogue with the Melians:
Hope is indeed a solace in danger, and for those who
have other resources in abundance, though she may injure, she does not ruin them, but for those who stake
their all on a single throw- hope being by nature
prodigal- it is only when disaster has befallen that her
true nature is recognized, and when at last she is known,
she leaves the victim no resource wherewith to take
precautions against her in future. (V-CIII).
They later butcher the people of Melos, and existentially
demonstrate the truth of their words.
The next words of Pericles follow a kind of scenario
that might be summed up as follows: look at the truth,
the facts, shiver, and then gird up your loins; don't be
so fatuous as to play at being good, rather become
famous. Every one hates you because of the empire, but
"it is far too late to back off, even if someone in the present hour of danger wants to play the "good man" by
shrinking from public actions." The verb in this s~ntence
which carries the weight of the scorn is andragathidzetaifrom aner and agathos---.!'play the good or honest man."
Pericles continues:
The empire you possess is a tyranny, which it may seem
unjust to have taken on, but which certainly would be
dangerous to let go of. Such good and honest men would
ruin a state either right here, if they could persuade
others of their point of view, or if they went to found
another city all of their own- men of peace who refrain
from politics preserve nothing unless they are accompanied by men of action; it is no benefit in a ruling city
but only in a vassal state, to submit for the sake of safety.
(II - LXIII).
The speech ends with an exordium to the assembly to
act heroically. They are men, and Homer was their
mentor:
Anyone who has aspired to rule over others has been
hated; but anyone who, aiming high, accepts this hate,
is well advised. (II-LXIV-5 ).
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
The Greek adverb in this sentence is orth6s, "getting things
straight!' The author then comments: "Speaking in this
way Pericles tried to purge the Athenians of their anger
towards him and to channel their minds away from the
present evils:' (II-LXV-1).
e, the readers, have now to attempt to step back
and test the meaning of this speech from our
numbing distance of over 2000 years, a span
approaching the everlasting memory Pericles speaks of
to the Athenians. The speech is enshrined in this book
designed by the author as a possession for all times. Are
there true propositions, bona-fide laws, stated in this or
in other speeches in this book, laws which stand and hold
as universal laws of power and politics? Or are the statements exposed to our attention by Thucydides merely
the sort of thing which is always said and always will be
said in order to persuade an assembly or a senate or a
prince when he is deliberating concerning a future course
of action? Is it true that the stronger rule the weaker,
and that he who rules will be hated? If it's true, must
Pericles say it to the assembly? If he does say it to the
assembly as a means of rousing them to continued warfare, will they then act in such a way as to bring it about
that they are hated even if they weren't before? Do words
aimed at the heart and passions of a people sink in to
such an extent that they become the mainsprings of their
actions, and become to all intents and purposes true? If
Pericles, certainly as good a politician as one will ever
get, finds it necessary to speak scathingly about men
wanting to be good and hence not paying attention either
to their own or to the state's benefit, what manly man
will choose to be "good"? The later shadow of the Gorgias
and the hero Callicles loom large in our minds as we read
these speeches. If at the end of the Gorgias justice and
right obtain only in the dark underworld court of Rhadamanthus, it is because the good and right do not rule
in the desolation of the landscape of power. It would be
a shameless naivete to conceive of any of Plato's political
works as arising from any ground other than one of the
blackest pessimism regarding human affairs. It is true
that he wrote after the Peloponnesian Wars, but that war
does not, in itself, account for what he said any more
than it accounts for what Thucydides said. The war was
an occasion, first for Thucydides and then for Plato, for
observing, for reflecting, and for setting things straight.
In both of them one feels the ache for, and the absence
of, an efficacious good, and while Socrates may speak
of himself as the only true citizen of Athens, Thucydides
the Athenian has put into the mouths of his Athenians
words that fix forever in our memory the inexorable grind
of power, time, and moral decline.
It remains now to speak of the most famous speech,
the Funeral Oration. As is so with many very famous
things, it turns out to be quite peculiar in many of its
features. The occasion for the speech is that "the Athenians, following the custom of their fathers, celebrated
W
11
�at the public expense the funeral\ rites of the first who
had fallen in this war;' and "a rna~ chosen by the state,
who is regarded as best endowed with wisdom and is
foremost in public esteem, delivers over them an appropriate eulogy."
Pericles begins his speech with the usual disclaimer
made by speakers on such occasions-who am I to praise
such men? Actions speak louder than words. The speaker
then attempts to give the best damn speech ever heard.
In this case he succeeds. After the customary opening
the speech takes on a rather sour note. The gist of what
follows is that those who know the dead and what they
did will think that scant justice is being done them by
the speaker, and those who did not know them and their
actions will think, out of envy, that the speaker has committed a gross exaggeration. Despite all this, he says, he
will say what he has to say.
Again, as is familiar and customary upon such occasions, the forefathers and the past are mentioned; again
the peculiarity is that, despite the enormous age and the
weight of custom and tradition in such an ancient city
as Athens, the forefathers are quickly passed over in favor
of the immediate past, the fathers of those in the audience
who acquired the empire, and those alive today who, in
the prime of their life, further strengthened this empire
so that it is well provided for both in peace and in war.
The speech then immediately turns to the City itself, and
becomes the most famous eulogy of the most famous city.
First the polity is praised; it is a democracy where all
are equal under the law in the settlement of disputes,
but where those who are distinguished are honored
regardless of class and wealth. Pericles then praises the
liberality of the town, its freedom from resentment and
back-biting, the vigor and pizzazz of its talk. It is also
a place with all kinds of relaxations, games and sacrifices,
fine buildings and proper houses, and it is so rich and
big that all the products of the earth flow into it. The
city is stronger now because it is freer in its training and
abhors secrecy. The citizen takes an interest at once in
both private and public things: "we are lovers of beauty
with the proper ends in mind, and lovers of wisdom
without softness."
What is of particular interest to us as we reflect on
the speeches is the next statement of Pericles, where he
praises the Athenians as being the most daring in action and at the same time as believing that debate is not
a hindrance to action; for most people boldness means
ignorance and reasoning causes delay. "In respect of virtue;' he says, "we differ from the many- for we acquire
our friends not by recieving good from them but by doing good. We alone confer benefits not by calculating
our own advantage so much as trusting in our own free
and liberal habits:'
If we pause for a moment in the midst of the praise
we realize that this speech is of course to be classified,
if we follow Aristotle's division, as a speech having to do
with the present; its business is to praise or blame, and
12
its aim is the noble or the disgraceful. All the other
speeches we have considered, the speeches of the Corcyreans and the Corinthians, the Athenians' speech to
the Spartans, and the two flanking speeches of Pericles,
had to do with deliberation about future events, and the
propositions embedded in them had all to do with the
exigencies of rule and power as applied to the benefit of
the state.
When we read the glowing praise of Athens' freedom
and liberality in this speech of praise, a facile judgement
might tend towards cynicism. After all, men of good sense
are always wary of exalted speeches, especially when they
issue from the mouths of statesmen on solemn occasions.
A part of prudence must always agree with Dr. Johnson's
dictum that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
In this century the very name "fatherland" sounds as a
nightmare when the memory of what was perpetrated
in its name crosses our consciousness.
What is our judgement now, and what are our feelings as the speech continues? One state:,rp.!=(nt rings so in
our memory as nearly to preclude judgement. Pericles
says, "Putting all this together I say to you that our whole
city is the education of Greece." (A more euphonious
translation speaks of the "School of Bellas:') The sentence
that contains this statement continues, however, as
follows:
And it seems to me that every single man amongst us,
could in his own person, with the greatest grace and versatility, prove hims.elf self-sufficient in the most varied
kinds of activity. Many are the proofs given of our power
and we do not lack witnesses, and we shall be the wonder
not only of men of today but of men of after-times. . . .
We shall need no Homer to sing our praise nor any other
poet whose verses may perhaps delight for the moment
but whose presentation of the facts will be discredited
by the truth. (II-XLI-1).
This is of course true, as we do all remember Athens
2500 years later.
Pericles then turns to the remains of the dead, and
says that it was for such a place that these men died.
Don't believe, he says, the advantages of such courage
by the mere words of a speaker when you yourselves
know as well as the speaker what is to be gained by warding off the enemy. Rather you must when you are about
your daily work, fix your gaze upon the power of Athens
and become lovers of her, and when she appears great
to you, consider that all this has been gained by courage.
(II-XLII!-1).
This is soon followed by another sentence so beautiful
that it is hard to look at it:
The whole world is the sepulchre of famous men, and
it is not the epitaph upon monuments set up in their
own land that alone commemorates them, but also in
lands not their own there abides in each breast an unwritten memorial to them, planted in the heart rather
than graven in stone. (II-XLIII-3).
SPRING 1984
�The eulogy becomes exhortation, and its charge may be
paraphrased as follows: "you have more to lose, hence
be unsparing of your lives, as the difference between your
present beloved splendor and a disaster: is enormous. The
more you have to love, the harder you should fight; ordinary folk have no place they passionately love, as you
do, a place so splendid, which shines in its might and
beautY:' The speech, whose occasion was the customary
eulogy over the first to die in battle, becomes the eulogy
of the city, not the city as a repository of old tradition
and habit, but the present city, replete with power and
beauty, standing in front of the citizen's eyes like the Parthenon on the hill, a love object of incomparable worth,
worth so much that there can be no hesitation in fighting
for her, as she is worth the price. The adoration of her
power becomes the heart of the matter. Beauty and power
are exhibited to the citizens, held up to them as love objects. Eros and Ares, Venus and Mars, are linked, and
the hope of immortal fame standing beyond the inevitable
future blood stirs them to heroic action. They have all
been brought up on Homer. The implicit argument may
be summed up as follows: major premise -lovers are
famous; minor premise- patriots are lovers; conclusion
-fight.
And fight they did. After Pericles' third speech
Thucydides carefully notes:
And yet, after they had met with disaster in Sicily, where
they had lost not only their army but also the greater
part of their fleet, and by this time had come to a state
of sedition at home, they nevertheless held out ten years
not only against the enemies they had before, but also
against the Sicilians, who were now combined with
them, and besides, against most of their allies, who were
now in revolt, and later on, against Cyrus, son of the
King, who joined the Peloponnesians and furnished
them with money for the fleet; and they did not finally
succumb until they had in their private quarrels fallen
upon each other and been brought to ruin. Such abundant grounds had Pericles at the time for his own forecast
that Athens might quite easily have triumphed in this
war over the Peloponnesians alone. (Il-LXV-12-13).
he fact remains that. they lost, and in that long
swath of wartime the words and arguments which
we have examined, which in peacetime might have
remained underground, in wartime came to the surface,
and became fixed and inexorable. They were used in the
assembly which debated the fate of the population of
M ytilene; they were present in the hearts of the Spartans as they led out the courageous citizens of Plataea
and slaughtered them one by one; they were dramatically
composed into the Athenians' dialogue with the Melians
before that population was eliminated. In this same swath
of time civil war erupted all over Greece, the paradigm
of it being the horror on Corcyra, where words changed
their meanings, and people became faceless, and words
became masks behind which the anarchy of the passions
paraded. The habits and customs of the past, the only
T
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
safeguard to be counted upon, crumbled, and the pure
present showed its face like the Gorgon's head.
Can the pure present of power and beauty waved like
a banner in the faces of the Assembly in the Funeral Oration inflame nobly? Is the vision seen worthy, and worth
such travail as the long years shift and pass? Patriotism
is infinitely more difficult for all of us who inhabit these
enormous modern nation-states; there's nothing to look
at. To be a patriot now one has to love a principle and
be willing to die for it, which is so different from gazing
upon a place, bounded by its fields, beautiful to look
upon, rich and marvelously racy to live in, full of ingenious and sharp-tongued people; a place where clearly
one lives a better life than one would anywhere else.
Can the present vision of a shining and glorious city,
the love object presented by Pericles, counter that other
present vision, the immediate anarchy and horror present in both the Plague and in the civil war on Corcyra?
Did Nicias see the same thing as Pericles? Does
Thucydides the Athenian see the same thing as Pericles?
Perhaps he does, but he frames the Funeral Oration with
the two speeches we have considered, and places it, in
his composition, directly in front of his account of the
plague. He also praises Nicias, dying far from Athens,
a failure at the end of a disaster, as the man who "least
deserved to meet with such a calamity, because of his
course of life that had been wholly regulated in accordance with virtue."
orne students with whom I read these speeches last
year felt thill the study of them and of this book led
to cynicism. This is to read what is intended as
irony wrongly. If no solution in human affairs is possible,
it is because nothing of heartfelt concern is a problem
that can be solved. If no solution is possible, human excellence calls for courage and shrewdness to walk hand
in hand with decency and compassion. They don't walk
hand in hand usually, and the best you can get is their
mutual awareness, one of the other. I was struck recently
by a documentary which I saw on television; it seemed
to me like an allegory of power and the good. In it two
women of extraordinary toughness and calculation were
exhibited to us, the viewers. The documentary was about
Mother Teresa, and the scene which stuck in my memory
was filmed in the grand audience chamber in New Delhi.
Mrs. Ghandi, that shrewd, tough, and resilient powerbroker, gave a medal honoring Mother Teresa to that
shrewd, tough, and resilient nun .. Mrs. Ghandi is the
ruler of the largest and most populous democracy in the
world, a nation-state that came into being in the midst
of one of those blood baths which our century is full of,
an event of such terrifying barbarity and slaughter that
ordinary descriptions of Hell seem painted in pastel, and
Corcyra seems a tempest in a teapot, in comparison. For
all that, the nation lurches on in its misery, guided and
coaxed and dictated to by Mrs. Ghandi. Mother Teresa
performs good works, and this is seen by any onlooker
S
13
�regardless of his faith or lack ther~of. It is hard to conceive that either woman, so aware Of the way things are,
expects anything to change in this world she is so much
in the midst of. Mrs. Ghandi, in addition to the parlous
state of her enormous nation, lives under the shadow of
the two monstrous powers with which she shares the continent, Russia and China. She lives also with the bloodhate of her nearest neighbor, Pakistan. Mother Teresa
lives in the midst of the most utter poverty and human
degradation in one of the great cities of the sub-continent.
In the television encounter one could see the hard, clear
glance of Mrs. Ghandi, but even more one could sense
the calculation behind the nun's eyes: was the minister
on the right good for a couple of ambulances, and was
the fat and powerful man on the left to be counted on
for a ton of medical supplies for the benefit of her hospital
for incurables in the heart of that ultimate human city,
Calcutta?
Via Positiva
Back home on a day this time of year
Sharp angled red-trunked trees stand
In a flat green field, new and fruitless,
Each articulate leaf cutting the air clear;
Down cellar where dark and cold are one
Deep baskets fill with roots and gourds,
Mold glitters on the step, damp webs
Softly shawl the ciderjugs and jams;
Past the creek where the hard water
Ducks on the cleaving rock and twists
Into shining braids slit with foam;
There sleep stones and people, slabs and angels;
Further on, after wall and hillside vault
Before mountains crest, a gap opens
Onto a plunging meadow faint with mist
Where ral{bits flash amid the warm still grass.
Gretchen Berg
14
SPRING 1984
�Via Negativa
The freeway inarticulate sea
Draws broken white spine and slurs
The cold haze with a shining edge.
What nimbus dares to charm and ride
From dirt toothed with uncertain traces
Pebbles and their alluvial shadows?
Brittle branches thorn dark streams,
Black ice reflective bridged
With a splintered board or none.
Pursy firs flicker and swerve
Their forked moss matting
An impasse in the blotted sky.
Sharp waters carve the instep's arch;
What name strikes blank air silent
To find no ear, be dumbfound?
I latecomer press my print
With others speechless wonders
Waiting to be spelled out.
Gretchen Berg
Gretchen Berg is a graduate of St. John's College, Annapolis. She
lives in Vermont where she pursues her interest in writing and
painting.
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
15
�Logos and The Underground
Curtis Wilson
AUTHOR'S PREFATORY NOTE
The lecture here printed was delivered in
September 1960 as the dean's 'opener: It is largely
based on Edmund Husserl's Erfahrung und Urteil,
which I worked my way through in the summer
of'60. When Mr. Sterling recently proposed printing the lecture in the Review) conscience told me
I should review the text, to determine whether
I could still endorse the propositions that I put
forward with such somber earnestness 25 years
ago. My conclusion has been both a Yes and a
No.
For the heroism of Husserl's repeatedly
renewed efforts to achieve a presuppositionless
'beginning' in philosophy, my admiration must
always remain. And the attempt to carry out
phenomenological description- the delineation
of how things (tables and chairs, words and sonnets and symphonies, universals like Justice; fictional characters like Sancho Panza, beings like
my cat, persons like the reader) present
themselves in awareness- has a value. In 1960
I considered the Husserlian descriptions as an
antidote to the self-defeating relativism that so
many freshman brought to the college: the pervasive disbelief in the possibility of improving
one's opinions, the bland assurance that your opinion is as good [or as bad?] as mine. Still today
I see as desirable an attentiveness to the
describable character of the things that present
themselves in awareness, just as they present
themselves-to echo the Husserlian phrase. It is
a mode of thoughtfulness that, in an age of reductive slogans, needs to be encouraged.
16
But concerning the Husserlian enterprise I
today have doubts that I had not quite formulated
25 years ago. The descriptions no longer appear
to me securely presuppositionless or selfexplanatory;
and
the
claim
that
phenomenological description constitutes "the
correct method" in philosophy seems to me far
too grand. "Man;' says Claude Bernard, "is by
nature metaphysical and proud;" and the
presumption of certainty seems to me more often
illusionary than not. Methods are useful or
necessary; but of method that claims to have an
exclusive right we must be wary, for any method
presupposes more than we are likely ever to know.
In short, if I have long known that we must begin
in medias res) I am no longer prepared to suppose
that the mind's improvement or the advance of
knowledge will consist in coming to an absolute
starting-point. The very process whereby we successively pronounce the words of a sentence while
intending a meaning seems to me utterly
mysterious, and I think it is a miracle that we
can begin at all.
This is not the place to pursue these thoughts.
(Let me only mention that today I would look
to linguistics and behavioral biology to throw new
light on the 'underground' of the liberal arts; and
I see it as a task for the future liberal artists to
explore with sensitivity the intricate dialectic between genotype and phenotype, between the deep
or hidden structures and what appears. This investigation would not presume to avoid
hypothesis; but insofar as hypothesizing
necessarily involves reduction, it would be cogni-
SPRING 1984
�n Platds dialogue Phaedo, Socrates speaks of
having, at a crucial turning-point of his life,
fled to the logoi. Previously, he says, ~e had pursued the investigation of natur~, seeking th~ <:fficient and final causes of the thmgs of the VlSlble
world. But this investigation having led to nothing that
he could trust he took flight to the logoi. What is
characteristic of Socrates, the Socratic questioning, takes
its start from this flight to the logoi.
The Greek word logos (plural: logoi) has a vari~ty of
meanings, but according to Liddell and Scott, Hs pnmary
meanings are, first, the word, or that by which ~he Inward thought is expressed, and second, the mward
thought itself. Additional and related meanmgs are: statement assertion definition, speech, discourse, reason.
Now I am ~ot going to give a commentary on this
passage in the Phaedo; but I wish to take a start fro~ the
observation that there IS such a thing as logos, meaningful
speech, speech which expresses the inward thoughL And
I am going to explore the questwn: What does this fact
presuppose? What underlies it?
.
I may as well warn you that I shall be attemptmg the
most pedestrian, prosaic, d~y s?rt of d~scnptwn and ~x
plication. I shall try to avmd zntroducznf? or constructzng,
hypotheses or theories, however attractive, which would
account for what is described. I shall try, on the contrary,
to describe certain kinds or types of things which are
recognizably involved in our speaking, and my effort will
be to delineate them just as they present themselves to
us, just as we are aware of t?e~. ~f there is a? ~ssump
tion in my procedure, I think 1t IS the conviCtiOn that
the "I" or self on the one hand, and the world on the other,
cannot be thought of separately. Accurate description of
my experience is description of the exp~rie~ce of al! "I"
or self in a situation, of a presence which IS essenttally
in the world and bound to the world. I shall have to
I
zant of the dangers thereof. The human spirit
is a 'tangled wing; to use Melvin Kanner's figure
for it, and I look to linguistics and biology, as
to the Bible and all deep literature, for the further elucidation of what we are and how we do
what we do.)
And what of the poor freshmen, for whom
the opening lecture of the college year is supposed
to be a kind of exhortation? I tremble to think
how widely my efforts must have missed the
mark; years afterward I was informed that it was
a standard bit of 'put-down' on the part of upperclassmen to tell the freshmen that they could
not expect to understand my lecture. But even
today I know not what verbal gestures might
count as useful, amidst the profusion and confusion of aims and ideas that freshmen arrive
with. How can I say, in one breath: (1) work patiently and hard, for the value of what you acquire will, in general, be proportional to the care
that goes into the acquiring; and (2) think! be
inventive! for what is in front of you can appear
in a new light, and discoveries are possible! but
(3) do not expect certainty? Ifi should say such
things, some of the brightest of my auditors
would find my sayings impossibly contradictory
in tendency, and the only response I could make
would be that I hope and believe it is not so. In
what puts itself forward as human knowledge,
it is by the care and thoroughness, and by the inventiveness and the unexpectedness that throws
a new light, that I attempt to distinguish the better from the worse. I know no other way.
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Curtis Wilson is a tutor and former dean at St. John's College, Annapolis. "Logos and the Underground" was origi~ally delivered as
the Dean's lecture inaugurating the 1960 academic year.
17
�analyze this experience into certain strata or levels, and
because of limitations of time, concentrate on certain fundamental strata which may, unfort~nately, seem to you
the least interesting.
.
In one respect I shall imitate the Socratic flight: I shall
leave out of account all results of natural science-physics,
chemistry, and biology. Over the past 350 years scientists have developed imposing structures of thought which
seem to reveal to us a previously hidden world, alongside
of or somehow behind or underneath the world in which
we live from day to day. Arthur Eddington would say,
for instance, that besides the apparent lectern behind
which I stand, there is another lectern, the real one, consisting of electrons and protons. I would maintain, on
the contrary, that this is an incorrect way of speaking
and thinking: there is only one lectern, the one that is
before me. What is meant by the electrons and protons
can only be understood by considering certain procedures
and experiments and the theories built up around them.
In seeking the roots of these theories I shall be led back
to the world of my everyday experience, and to the
language in which I formulate this experience. To ignore
the layered or storied structure within and underlying
scientific theories, to regard the electron as somehow on
a par with and alongside the table, is to commit what
Whitehead calls 'the fallacy of misplaced concreteness:'
So I shall begin with the analysis of everyday speech and
expenence.
Even here I must make a reservation. I am not trying to take account of all aspects of everyday speech. We
use speech to praise and to blame, to command and to
pray, or even for "whistling in the dark:' I shall be concerned only with the rather ordinary and colorless fact
that in our speaking we make statements, assertions,
which signify states of affairs, the "way things are;' as we
say.
he statement or assertion is the unit of fully
meaningful speech. A single word, outside
an assertion, does not have a fully determinate meaning. If I were to look and point in a certain
direction, and to shout "Firel", you would probably
recognize that I was asserting something. But the same
word "fire" in another context may have a quite different
meaning, for instance in the sentence, "The captain
ordered his men to fire." There are even subtler differences due to context. The meaning of the word "fire"
is not quite the same in the sentence "Civilization depends
on fire," and in the sentence, "The fire was burning brightly in the hearth:' Precisely what a word refers to depends
on the context in which it is used, which may be verbal
or non-verbal or both. But in any case, nothing is really
said until we have an assertion or statement-what traditional logic called the predicative judgment. What is
predicative judgment?
The word '(predication" comes from the Latin
"praedicare;' originally meaning to speak out, to enun-
T
18
ciate publicly. The word was later preempted by logicians in order to translate Aristotle's term katagorein. The
Greek word katagorein had originally meant to denounce,
to accuse in the marketplace or assembly (the root agora
means marketplace or assembly). Aristotle then appropriated the term to express the meaning: to say
something of a subject. What is spoken of, that about
which something is said, Aristotle calls the hypokimenon,
that is, the underlying; that which is said about or of
the hypokeimenon is called the kategoroumenon; it is, one
might say, what the hypokimenon has been accused of. The
corresponding English words, which derive from the
Latin, are "subject" and "predicate." Whenever a predicate
is attributed to a subject, then we have a statement, an
assertion, which expresses a decision regarding the validity of the attribution, or, the justness of the "accusation'~
for example, when "this" is "accused" of being a man in
the statement, This is a man.
Doubts about the universality of the subject-predicate
analysis of assertions have sometimes been raised. Consider for instance, the statement "It is raining?' It might
be suggested, in Aristophantic vein, that the pronoun ('it"
stands for Zeus. But this is surely not what we mean when
we say it is raining. Where is the logical subject- or is
there one?
I think this is a case in which we are fairly clear as
to what we mean or intend, while the structure of the
language fails to reflect the structure of the meaning. I
do not believe it is possible to find an assertion so simple as not to involve at least two mental signs. One is an
index, a sign which so to speak points to something; the
other will be a sign signifying a characteristic or situation or action which somehow belongs or pertains to that
which is pointed to. The assertion as a whole asserts
something of something, and therefore necessarily involves a two-foldness. Language may fail to mirror this
twofoldness. In the present case, I should say, we have
a kind of idea of a rainy day. The indexical or pointed
sign is that whereby I distinguish this day or time, as it
is placed in my experience. The assertion "It is raining"
as~e~ts th~t the present time is characterized by
rmn1ng-gmng-on.
There is another objection to the usual subjectpredicate analysis. When I say ''Alcibiades is taller than
Socrates;' it may be argued that I am talking about two
subjects, Alcibiades and Socrates. When I say, ''A sells
B to C for the price of D;' there are four indexical signs
A, B, C, and D, which are here connected by the relational predicate: ". . . sells . . . to . . . for the
price . . :• The logician may claim that there are four
logical subjects here, four hypokimena. The objection does
not deny the distinction between subject and predicate,
but points to cases in which there is not a single axis running from subject to predicate, but rather a relation which
relates two or more different things.
Let me pass this objection by for the moment.
Because of its greater simplicity, the assertion in which
a predicate is attributed to a single subject would appear
SPRING 1984
�to require consideration before relations are considered.
I shall return to relations later on.
An assertion, I said, expresses a 1 decision regarding
the validity of the attribution of predicate to subject, the
justness of the accusation. It presents itself as knowledge;
it pretends, so to speak, to be the truth. It may, of course,
turn out to be false. For instance, I may have pointed
at something and said, "That is a man;' and then it may
have turned out to be a showcase mannikin. Or the statement may become and remain doubtful or problematic.
Nevertheless, I should say that it belongs to the very
meaning of any assertion to make the claim to being
knowledge. Negation, doubtfulness, probability, or improbability are meaningful only as modifications of this
original claim. Even the statements which are used in
presenting to us a world of fantasy, say the fantasy-world
of a novel or of the Iliad, make this claim within the context of the unity of the particular fantasy-world. The
truthfulness of such a work of fantasy or imagination as
a whole is a rather more difficult matter, and lies in the
ways in which the fantasy-world imitates, either directly
or by analogy, certain features of the world in which we
live.
How do we determine whether an assertion is true?
Certainly we do this, day in and day out; but how? What
we encounter, in asking this question, is the problem of
evidence. What is an evident judgment?
The word "evidence" derives from the Latin word
evidens, meaning visible. The word "evidence" when used
in connection with judgments does not always mean
visibility, but visibility appears to be its most primitive
mean1ng.
think I should digress for a moment to point out
that most of the terms which we use in talking
about thinking depend on visual images. We speak,
for instance, of "definition;' which means setting bounds
or limits; of "synthesis" or "composition;' which means putting together; of"analysis;' which means breaking up; of"implication;" which means folding back upon. All these terms
exploit, more or less evidently, an analogy between thinking and certain motor activities which we can perform,
which we apprehend visually, and which in turn affect
or change what we see.
The assertion itself is something which is apprehended, not visually, but by means of hearing; although,
especially in a post-Gutenburg era, we may tend to think
of assertions as written out, visually. Now there appears
to be a fundamental difference between what is perceived
by hearing, and what is perceived by sight. What is
perceived by hearing is something that comes to be successively, in time. What is perceived by sight can present
itself as being there all at once, as a whole. A tone or
noise or statement comes to be successively, so that its
different parts exist in different times; it is a temporal
event. When I see a table, on the contrary, I take all of
its parts to exist simultaneously, even although what I
see at any one time is only one or two sides of the table.
I
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
I never see all parts and sides of the table at once, I can
only ·come to see all the parts in the sense that, by moving about, I am able to examine them one by" one in succession. But the table is not a temporal event.
This is an important difference, which may have important consequences; but the point for the moment is
this: A statement or assertion, coming to be in time,
makes a prima facie claim to knowledge. Knowledge of
what? We have to say, I think: knowledge of what is, and
of how it is. The judgment has a subject or hypokeimenon,
about which it is. This hypokeimenon must somehow be
pre-given, evidently given, prior to any asserting, if the
assertion is to be what it claims to be, namely knowledge
of what is. But what is evillently given? Many things,
perhaps, but first and foremost, what we can all agree
upon, the individual, visible objects which are presented
to us in the world. The object or thing presents itself to
us as being there, as a whole, with all its parts, within the
visible world. A temporal event, say a sound or a motion, seems, on the contrary, to demand further analysis:
we want to know what is moving, or what is the source
of the sound or other temporal event. The world as it
presents itself to us is first and foremost a world of individual objects.
T
herefore, I am going to start the discussion of
the problem of evidence by discussing the kind of
given-ness which a visible object has. Then I shall
go on to discuss other kinds of objects of awareness, which
can also be made subjects of predicative judgments, and
which may have their own modes of being evidently
given. These other objectivities, potential subjects of
judgments, are in a certain way founded upon our experience of the visible world; they arise for us in connection with our experience, but as Kant would put it,
they do not simply arise from experience- I think that
will be apparent.
How, then, are the individual objects of experience
given or presented to us? As I stated previously, I am
leaving out of account all that the physical and biological
sciences ran tell me of the processes involved in sensation and of the objects of experience. I wish to make,
in addition, certain further simplifications.
In sense experience I am confronted with individual
objects which present themselves as bodies, as corporeal.
But there are many individual objects of experience which
do not present themselves simply as corporeal. Animals,
men, and man-made objects, products of art, are indeed
perceived as bodies within the spatio-temporal world, but
they differ from rocky crags, rivers, and lakes, in expressing the presence or activity of what I shall call "soul." An
ash-tray is not simply a natural body; what it is can only
be understood by a reference to human beings who indulge in a certain vice. A human being is not perceived
as such in quite the same way as a rock is perceived as
a rock; there is involved an interpretation of what is perceived, as expressing the presence of soul, the psychic, the
subjective, the "I" or self of this other who is before me.
19
�The soul of the other is not simply perceptible in the manner of a corporeal object; but it is understood, through
more or less familiar types, with more or less familiar
interpretation of the simple perceptions, as being in and
the flrst time, I already know, in a sense, something about
kinds of characteristics. When I examine an object for
with what is simply perceptible. No.y this whole stratum
it. Not only do I perceive the side which is presented to
of experience, involving as it does the interpretation of
me, but I anticipate, in an indeterminate way, certain
what is bodily as expressing the psychic, I wish to leave
out of account, so as to attend entirely to what all such
experience presupposes, the experience of individual ob-
of the curtain here I imagine at this moment as being
jects as corporeal.
Finally, as a further simplification, you must permit
me to imagine that I am a purely contemplative being,
examining the individual objects out of a pure interest
in finding out about them. It is probably a rather rare
of the characteristics of the unseen side. The other side
grey; it is quite possible that it will turn out to be of
another color, but I am confident that it will have some
color. At the very least, the object is pre-given as a spatial
object, with such necessarz'ly accompanying characteristics
as color and shape; probably also as a spatial object of
a more particular type, belonging to a more specific
occurrence for such a pure interest to govern our activ-
category. The progress of the inquiry takes the form of
ity. Ordinarily we pass over the perceptions to go on to
manipulating objects, or valuing them in relation to cer-
correcting anticipations, or replacing vague anticipations
by definite, perceived characteristics. Every advance of
the inquiry has the form "Yes, it is as I expected;' or "Not
so, but otherwise"; in the latter case, the correction is
always a correction within a range of possibilities which
is not limitless. For instance, I may expect "red"; it will
tain practical aims. The "I" or self, living concretely in
its surroundings, and among other selves or persons, is
by no means primarily comtemplative. A pure comtemplation of a particular object can occasionally occur;
this involves a stopping of normal activity; it need not
be especially important. As subordinate to a philosophic
reflection which seeks to discover the structure of the
world, such contemplation can become serious. My sup-
position here of a purely contemplative interest may be
regarded as a fiction, designed to enable me to uncover
a basic stratum of experience.
The object does not present itself to me in isolation,
all by itself, nor does it present itself as something completely novel. With the awakening of my interest, it comes
forth from a background, in which I take it to have been
existing already, along with other objects. Suppose, for
instance, that the object which I am about to examine
is this lectern; I grasp it as something already existing,
something which was already there, in the auditorium,
even before I was looking at it. Similarly the auditorium,
with its stage and curtain and rows of seats, including
the part I do not see because it does not come within
my field of vision, was already there, was within the
bounds of the familiar St. John's campus, within the
familiar town of Annapolis, within the farther and less
not turn out to be Middle C. To each single perception
of the object there thus adheres a transcendence of perception, because of the anticipation of the possibility offurther determinations. In the succession of perceptions of
the object, I am aware of it as an identical something
which presents itself in and through its characteristics
and relations, but I am also aware of it as a unity of possible
experience, a substratum about which I can always acquire further information.
A
s I turn to the object for the first time, there is
a moment in which my attention is directed
to the object as a whole, before I go on to note
particular characteristics, parts not quite perceived of the
obvious whole. This moment has short duration; the attempt to make it last turns into a blank stare. But even
as I go on to examine particular aspects of the whole,
there remains an effect, a precipitate, so to speak, of this
first mental grasping of the object, this taking-it-in-asa-whole. As long as the object remains the theme of my
inquiry, the characteristics and aspects are not viewed
familiar reaches of Anne Arundel County, and so on,
separately, by themselves, but always as aspects of the ob-
till I say: within the world. This pre-given-ness of objects and of the world in which they are is prior to every
inquiry which seeks knowledge; it is presupposed in inquiry. The presupposition is a passively held belief, a
belief which I hold with unshakable certainty. It is doxa,
ject. If S is the object, and p, q, and r are characteristics,
the Greeks would say. There is a passive doxic certainty
in the being ofthe world and its objects; I cannot imagine it possible earnestly to doubt this belief. Every inquiry into an object proceeds on the basis of the believedin-world. Belief precedes inquiry which in turn aims at
knowledge.
The object itself is never completely novel, it never
presents itself as something completely indeterminate,
about which I can then proceed to learn. The world, for
us, is always a world in which inquiry has already gone
on; it is a familiar world the objects of which belong to
20
then my perceptions of p, q, and r are not isolated, but
each perception of a characteristic adds to, enriches the
meaning for me, of the substrate S; first S is seen to be
p, then S which is p is seen to be q, and so on. And always
in the background there is the sense of the object S as
a temporally enduring something which has these
characteristics. The persistence of S as an identity in time
presents itself passively, in the harmonius succession of
perceptions, as though I had nothing to do with it. Yet
I must note at least in passing that this grasp of the object as an enduring thing is complex, and presupposes
a structure in my inner time, in the flux of changing
awareness, whereby the object presented at any moment
is grasped as having been and as yet to be.
What I am seeking to describe here is a receptive ex-
SPRING 1984
�perience of the object in which I am first aware of the
object and then examine it, noting characteristics, without
actually making judgments or assertions; passing from
perception to perception, without attympting to fix once
for all the results of perception in the form of assertions.
But it is apparent that even in this receptive experience
of one particular object, prior to all judging, there
emerges the basis of the distinction between subject and
predicate, namely, in the distinction between substrate
and characteristic.
I can of course make anything which presents itself
into the theme of an examination or inquiry- the color
of the curtain, for instance, or the aggregate of seats in
the auditorium, which presents itself in a particular spatial
configuration. That with which the inquiry is concerned
as its theme then comes to be a substratum or substrate,
of which I proceed to ascertain the characteristics. The
distinction between substrate and characteristic would
thus seem to be relative to the theme of the inquiry. Some
of the things I perceive and attend to, however, are of
such a kind as to exist only as determinations or
characteristics of something else- for instance the color
here which I take as the color of the curtain. Other things
I perceive and attend to are not essentially dependent
in this way. The curtain, for instance, is not a
characteristic of the auditorium in the same sense as its
color is its characteristic. That the curtain is where it is
is in a sense accidental; it could be somewhere else, and
if it were, its color would have gone with it. In grasping
the curtain as an object of perception, I grasp something
which has a certain independence of everything else,
which does not present itself always and necessarily as
an aspect or characteristic of anything else.
I have been using the word "characteristic" in a vague
sense; and some further distinctions will be in order.
n individual object of perception, a body,
has parts, into which it could be divided by
some process; one part could be severed from
another. Such parts are to be distinguished from
characteristics which qualify the thing as a whole, for
instance the color of the whole, if it is of a sing1e color;
its shape or form; its extendedness; its roughness or
smoothness. Characteristics of the latter kind may be
called immediate properties of the whole. The parts, too, may
have properties, which are not immediately properties
of the whole, but first and foremost properties of the parts:
their shape, color, and so on. Moreover, there are aspects
of the thing which are properties of properties; for in:
stance, the surface of the thing is not an immediate property of the whole, but is essentially the limit of its extendedness, and hence a property of its extendedness.
Some characteristics or determinations of a thing involve an essential reference to other things. The other
things may be actually nearby and therefore perceivable
along with the thing I am examining, or they may be
presented in memory or in the imagination. I have already said that we perceive an object as being of a more
A
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
or less determinate type- it is a kind of tree, or rock,
and so on. The recognition of type depends upon a precipitate of past experience. I do not necessarily remember
particular objects which were previously experienced and
which are similar to the one before me; I do not make
an explicit comparison; but past experience, now apparently forgotten, has somehow produced a precipitate
of habitual familiarity which operates without my being
explicitly aware of it as such.
But comparisons of objects with respect to likeness
or similarity can also become explicit. The comparison
then involves a mental going-back-and-forth between one
of the objects and the other, with at the same time a
holding-in-grasp ofthe one I am not at the moment attending to. The object with which I am comparing the
one in front of me may be present or else absent; in the
latter case it is either remembered or imagined. The
similarity may amount to complete alike-ness or
sameness, or it may have to do with the whole of each
object but still involve difference,' as the large bright-red
ball is similar to but not completely like the small darkred ball. Or again, the similarity may relate only to particular aspects of the objects, as the table and chair may
be alike with respect to color or ornamentation.
The relations I have mentioned thus far- relations
of similarity and difference- are to be distinguished from
relations which presuppose that the things related are
actually present and co-existing, and not given in imagination or memory. For instance, the distance of one
object from another is a relation which requires both objects to be given as present. Again, in order that an object be perceived as part of a configuration of objects,
say a constellation of stars, it is necessary that all objects of the configuration be present in a perceptually
grasped whole. Such relations I think I shall call reality
relations, because they require the real, simultaneous
presence of the objects related.
All relations, whether comparison-relations or realityrelations, presuppose that the objects related are taken
together as a plurality. The awareness of the objects as
forming a plurality is, however, only a precondition for the
grasping of a relation. In order for me to grasp a relation, there must be a primary interest in one of the objects, in relation to which the other objects are seen as
similar, or nearby, and so on. I see A as taller than B;
the focus of interest is for the moment on A, which thus
forms the substrate of the relation. The interest, of course,
can shift to B, in which case I see B as shorter than Ain a sense the same relation. All relational facts are thus
reversible. The general fact that in relating objects I go
from one to the other would be my reason for regarding
the simple subject-predicate analysis of assertions as
fundamental.
The grasping of a relation presupposes that the
plurality of objects related is given; but the given-ness
of the plurality can be of different kinds. In a comparisonrelation one or more of the objects compared may be
an imagined or fictive object rather than a perceived ob-
21
�ordered in succession.] ust how such a form comes about
and there works to build my general familiarity with the
perceivable world. But it is not yet knowledge. We have
some way yet to go before we reach anything which can
be called, in a strict sense, knowledge.
The predicative judgment presupposes an active will
to knowledge. I return to the substrate S, and now grasp
actively and explicitly the fact that it is determined by the
characteristic p. The transition from S to p no longer
occurs passively, but is guided by an active will to hold
S fast by fixing its characteristics. The substrate becomes
the subject of a predication. Fixing the gaze on the hidden unity of S and p, I now grasp actively the synthesis
is a difficult problem. But the point I am making here
is that this objective time, which is presupposed in reality-
of the two which was previously given only in a passive
way. I say: "S is p"; or, "The curtain is beige" (if that is
relations, binds together my own experience and the experience of others, so that it is experience of one world.
the right name for this color).
Having uttered or thought a judgment, my fictional
contemplative fellow has for the first time used words. Now
what does this involve? Let me first distinguish two kinds
ject; and in this case the togetherness of the objects is
brought about only in my own
a~areness,
in my own
inner time, but not in the visible world. The objects
related in a reality-relation, on the other hand, stand next
to one another in a real duration,
ill
an objective time
valid for all objects of the visible world. This objective
time is also valid for other persons besides myself. If someone tells me of his past experience, what he remembers
has its fixed place in the same public time as does my
own past experience. Objective or public time is a form
in accordance with which everything perceivable is
All the distinctions I have been making- between
substrate and characteristic, immediate property and
mediate property, part and whole, comparison-relation
and reality-relation -are, I am claiming, recognizable
as involved in our experience of the visible world, the
world of broad daylight, independently of the forms of
our speech. The forms of speech, I am claiming, are rooted
in these distinctions. In our actual lives, the receptive
experiencing of the perceivable world, on the one hand,
and our speaking, our predicative judging, on the other,
are not separate but interlaced. I have separated them
in analysis because they are separable, and because in
separating them I find it possible to discern the ways in
of words in the sentence "The curtain is beige:' First,
words like "curtain" and ''beige," which could by themselves
. constitute assertions in certain contexts, for instance as
answers to questions. These have been traditionally
known as categorematic terms. Secondly, there are words
which influence within an assertion the way in which the
categorematic terms signify what they signify; these have
been traditionally known as syncategorematic terms. For in~
stance, the word "the" before "curtain" is a demonstrative
which makes the word "curtain" refer to this curtain; the
copula "is" a sign indicating the synthesis of subject and
which objects present themselves in experience. It is a
predicate in judgment. But it is the categorematic term
very simple and obvious thing I am saying. Speech, logos,
presupposes a world, the world, in which it is a fundamental fact that there are distinguishable, relatively
independent objects which present themselves in and
through their characteristics. The world, on the contrary,
does not presuppose speech or language.
"curtain" which tells me what I am talking about, and
the categorematic term ''beige" which tells me what I am
saying about it. These words are common nouns and adjectives; verbs are also categorematic. The meanings of
such terms are what we call universals because the words
in virtue of their meanings are able to refer to many particular instances. All predication involves such univer-
In calling our experience of the world "receptive;' I
do not mean to imply that the "I" or self is altogether
sals. This fact points back to the fact that every perceived
passive in such experience. Every awareness is an
awareness of something; there is a polarity here, with the
"I" or self at one pole and the object of awareness at the
object or characteristic in the perceivable world is per-
other. The "I" is affected by the object; it attends to or
grasps it. Activity and passivity are interlaced in each
awareness.
ceived as of a more or less known or familiar type. The
common nouns and adjectives used in predication refer
to such types. When I say, "This object is beige;' there
is implicit in this predication a relation to the general
essence beige. The relation to the general essence or
universal is not yet explicit here, as it would begin to be
I
f we turn now to the predicative judgment, we
encounter a new kind of interest and activity on
the part of the "I" or self. Let us suppose that I have
perceived a certain object or substrate S, and then noted
a characteristic of it, p. For instance, I may have isolated
the curtain as an object and then noted its color. These
activities- the grasping of the substrate, the holding of
the substrate in grasp while I note the color, which is
thus grasped as belonging to the substrate- these activities
are bound to what is immediately given. The result of
such activities, if I do not fix it once for all in a predicative
judgment, is not really my possession. Perhaps it is not
altogether lost, but sinks into the background of awareness
22
if I said, "This is a beige object;' where the indefinite article a points to generality. Later on I shall try to discuss
the problem of the given-ness of universals. But in assertions about individual objects of the perceivable world,
the explicit grasping of universals is not involved; the use
of common nouns and adjectives is based on our passive,
doxic familiarity with types of things and characteristics.
Assertions about individual perceivable objects run
parallel to our receptive experience of such objects. I have
already mentioned judgments of the type "S is p;' "The
curtain is beige:' Such judgments express the fact that
a substrate is characterized by the immediate property p.
If the focus of interest passes to a second immediate prop-
SPRING 1984
�erty q, we get an assertion of the form, "S which is p
is also q"; or the subordinate clause "which is p" may be
replaced simply by the attributive adjective p modifying S. To take another case: if the property p of S is itself
characterized by a property a, we get an assertion of the
form, "S is p which is a"; and again the subordinate clause
"which is a" may be replaced by an adverb modifying
p. The use of adverbs and attributive adjectives thus
presupposes prior assertions.
There are assertions of the form "S has T;' which express the fact that an individual object S contains a certain part; for example, "The house has or contains an
attic." Assertions of this kind refer back to experiences
in which an object is perceived as being a whole made
up of parts. These assertions cannot be converted into
assertions of the form "Sis p''; the part which is separable
cannot lose its independence and become a property. On
the other hand, a statement of the form "S is p" can be
turned into a statement of the form ''S has T"; for instance, the assertion "This object is red" can become "This
object has redness;' or reversely, "Redness belongs to this
object:' This shift involves a substantijying of the property
designated by the word "red." Substantivity means standing as something which can have characteristics, and
which can therefore become the subject of a predication;
it is opposed to adJectivity, which means being in or on
something else. Substantivity and adjectivity are not
merely a matter of grammatical forms; the difference in
the two depends on a difference in the manner of grasping something, either as for itself, or as on or in something.
Any characteristic of a thing, although initially presented
as in or on a substrate, can be substantified. This freedom
in substantifying rests on the fact that already in the
receptive experience of the world everything that presents
itself, whether substrate or characteristic, can be made
the theme of inquiry; it has characteristics which can be
ascertained, including relations of sirriilarity and difference to other substrates or characteristics.
Again, there are assertions based on our grasping of
relations in experience, for instance the assertion '1\. is
similar to B." Once more we have a subject and a
predicate, but the predicate is more complicated than in
the previous cases. The word "similar" is adjectival, but
its adjectivity is different from that of the word ''red";
it is grasped only through the transition in awareness
fi·om A to B, from the subJect to the obJect of the relation.
Once again, what is adjectival can be substantified, and
we can come to speak of the "similarity of A to B:'
N
ow this freedom in substantifying extends
further, and at this point we can take a very
large step forward. Having uttered assertions,
I can now substantify that which they mean, the synthesis of subject and predicate which is intended in the
act of asserting. I can make statements of the form, "The
fact that S is p, is q;' where q can be an adjective like
"just" or "pleasant." Here the subject of the sentence is
itself a sentence expressing a state of affairs. As subject
ST. .JOHN'S REVIEW
of the new sentence, the assertion "S is p" is no longer
traversed in a two-membered, upbeat-downbeat rhythm;
it is caught, so to speak, in one beam of the attention,
is treated as a substrate of which I can ascertain
characteristics. We here encounter a new kind of object
of awareness, the unity of meaning in a completed judgment. Such objects I shall call obJects of reason, because
they presuppose the activity of reason or logos, the faculty of making judgments.
These new objects, constituted in the activity of
reason, differ radically from the objects presented in our
experience of the perceptual world. The perceptual object is indeed presented in a temporal process; further
examination always enriches its meaning, adds to its
ascertained characteristics. But the object is always there;
the examination of the object can be broken off at any
point, and yet the object is always presented as being one
and the same and there. The activity of the "I" or self produces presentations of the object, but not the object itself.
In the case of an object of reason, on the other hand,
the synthesis of subject and predicate is required for the
object to be given at all; the activity of the "I" cannot
be broken off at an arbitrary point, but must be carried
through to completion, in order for the object to be
present.
The difference may be stated differently. The perceptual object, the individual object of the visible world, is
presented in the course of my inner time, the succession
of awareness, but it always stands before me as existing
in an objective time, a time which is valid for the whole
world of individual objects. It is an individual thing,
distinguished from every other individual thing of the
visible world in virtue of being localized in public space
and time. An object of reason, the unity of meaning in
an assertion, does not belong to the visible world in this
way; we do not find meanings in the world in the same
way in which we find things. The meant states of affairs
are indeed constituted and grasped in my inner time.
But what is grasped when I grasp the content of an assertion is not given as itself belonging to any particular
stretch of the objective time of the world. I am not concerned here with the truth or falsity of the assertion, but
only with the mode of given-ness of its content. That
Caesar crossed the Rubicon may be true or false; but
the kind of object I grasp when I grasp the content of
this assertion, namely a meaning, presents itself as transtemporal, something which is identically the same every
time I grasp it, that is, every time I think of it, but which
is not itself individualized in the space and time of the
visible world.
What I am saying here is, I believe, quite elementary, and is tacitly presupposed in every assertion I make.
For in making an assertion I intend that the auditor grasp
my meaning, and I am disappointed when what he says
and does implies that he has failed to understand. Any
particular uttering of the assertion is an event in the objective time of the world; but I act as if what is asserted
in many repetitions of the assertion is self-identical,
23
�always the same, and capable as such of being communicated.
Now there is one more kind ot object whose mode
of given-ness has to be discussed; tpis is the universal,
the idea, or in the Greek, eidos. The Greek word eidos
comes from the verb "to see;' and meant originally the
"look" of a thing. The look of a thing, what we see on
first impression, is the general type to which the thing
belongs. In the sense of familiar type, the universal has
been with us all along.
Up to now I have been talking about experience of
individual objects ofthe visible world, and about assertions immediately based on such experience. All such
assertions involve an implicit relation to generalities or
universals; this is shown by the fact that in making an
assertion we have to use common nouns and adjectives and
verbs, which in virtue of their meaning are capable of
referring to many individuals. Words of this kind, capable
of referring to many instances, seem to be fundamental
to any language. Even proper names often derive from
common nouns, Smith,. Brown, Klein, and so on. The
implicit relation to universals rests on our typical familiarity with the world, the fact that every object presents
itself as belonging to a more or less definite type.
Is there any way in which ideas or universals can be
explicitly grasped, as evidently given objects of consciousness? This is a difficult question. Let me point out
first that every inquiry aiming at knowledge seems to
presuppose that the universal can be clearly and distinctly
grasped, insofar as it assumes that questions of the form,
What is so-and-so, for instance, What is what we call a
tree, or a meson, or courage, can be inquired into, and
with effort and good luck, be answered. In Greek, the
question is -ri Eanv- What is it? The what is the universal, capable by its nature of being applied to many.
You must permit me once more to proceed on the
basis of the simplest example. Suppose I am confronted
with two objects, S and S', each of which has the property p, say "red." Of course S has its redness, and S' has
its redness; there is a separateness of the properties as
well as of the substrata. But there is also a unity here,
an identity, which I can grasp in shifting the attention
from S to S' and back again. There is a oneness in the
manyness. The comparison of objects, the focusing upon
that with respect to which they are similar, can go on
to further cases, and need not be limited to actually
presented cases, but may include the consideration of
imagined, possible cases. Thus through the medium of the
imagination I arrive at the notion of an infinity, an endlessness of possible individuations of the same eidos. It
may be difficult to define the limits of the possible variation of instances, but in some cases I do seem to be able
to do this, and to see that the universal involves definite
limits, a definite structure, definite relations to other
universals. For instance, I can imagine the colors of the
objects to be different; there is a range of possible colors, but I seem to grasp that whatever color is, it will
always be extended; an unextended color is unimagin-
24
able. Similarly, it appears clear to me that a tone or any
sound must in every instance have an intensity, as well
as the quality we call timbre or tone-quality.
I introduce these cases of intellectual perception, not
because of any importance they might or might not have
in themselves, but because of what they show. It is not
enough, and not quite correct, to say that they derive from
experience, that they are inductions or abstractions from
experience. If I observe 100 swans, and find them all to
be white, I may indeed guess that all swans are white;
but the conclusion is not necessary, and is in fact false,
since there are black swans in Central Africa. It is not
the same with the connection between color and extension; color involves extension essential(y, and I see this not
just by observing particular instances of color, but by a
variation of instances in the imagination, which allows
me to "see" what must be involved in any case of color.
And the idea or eidos, which thus appears as an identity
running through the imaginable instances, presents itself,
like the objects of reason previously described, as
something trans-temporal, something not in the objective world with its objective time, not even immanent in
the acts of consciousness, but as an identity which can
be repeatedly intended by consciousness.
Permit me to summarize what I have been saying.
I have been aiming, not to make hypotheses, but to describe and to explicate; what I have been attempting to
describe and explicate is that which is involved or presupposed in the making of assertions, judgments, predications. The description has proceeded by stages; at each
stage I seek to delineate precisely what the I or self grasps,
as being somehow presented to it.
The making of predications presupposes, in the first
place, my pre-predicative, pre-reflective experience of the
world. My pre-predicative experience of the world can
be separated, in analysis, from speech; our speaking, on
the contrary, appears when analyzed always to point back
to the pre-predicative experience of the world. Prepredicative experience is first and foremost experience
of perceivable objects. The objects present themselves as
in the world, along with other objects, in an objective
time which is valid for all such objects. They present
themselves as belonging to more or less familiar types.
And they present themselves in and through their properties, parts, and relations. There is always a sense of
"and so on" attaching to my experience of a perceivable
object, in that I can always make further determinations,
both of the internal characteristics of the object and of
its relations to other objects. But it remains throughout
an identity, a locus of possible experience, a substratum
of possible determinations.
Predication, on the simplest level, involves an active
repetition of the passage in pre-predicative experience
from substratum to characteristic. The flow of perceptions in our pre-predicative experience goes on harmoniously almost of itself. Predication, on the other hand,
presupposes an active will to fix, once and for all, that
which is given in experience, to make it my possession.
SPRING 1984
�The predication is embodied in a temporal event, in a
succession of sounds, the spoken sentence; but it is not
itself this temporal event. The sound erherges from silence
and falls back into silence; it passes li~e an arrow, leaving no trace in the air. But that which the sound
expresses, the predication, is a unity or identity of meaning which can be repeatedly intended and repeatedly expressed; speaking quite strictly, it is not in the objective
time of the world, but is grasped as trans-temporal. It
is constituted in the activity of the I or self, but it is nonetheless an objectivity; it can be substantified, and itself
made the subject of predication.
Finally, I have described one further and essential
condition of predicative speech, namely the universal.
Every assertion I make involves categorematic terms,
universals, which in their nature are capable of referring
to many instances. The use of the universal in speech
is based, to begin with, on the typical character of my
experience of the world, the fact that objects and
characteristics present themselves as belonging to more
or less familiar types. The universal first enters the assertion so to speak tacitly, without its range of meaning being explicitly grasped. But the will to knowledge can be
satisfied only if the universal can itself be made the subject of predication. The empirical sciences approach such
universal predications by means of statistical inference;
their results are always open-ended, subject to revision.
But it also appears that there is such a thing as intellectual perception, eidetic insight, by which one can grasp
the range of a universal, define it, and make necessary
predications about it, on the basis of a variation of instances in the imagination. I may note that, on a rough
count, nearly half the assertions I have made this evening are such universal assertions.
My effort at description has to end here, although
the stopping-point is arbitrary; there is a vast range of
possible explications of this kind, which would have the
aim of delineating each objectivity or kind of objectivity
presented to awareness just as it presents itself. I regard
such description as important, because I believe the correct method of philosophy is that of attending to and
grasping states of affairs just as they are given or presented, and explicating them with respect to such of their
connections and relations as are likewise presented and
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
grasped. Only by a repetition of this process can philosphically primitive ideas and propositions receive adequate
confirmation. Principles should not be just postulated
or constructed, accepted merely on faith, whether animal
or spiritual, or justified by the emotional comfort or practical success they may bring. That is part of the meaning, I think of the Socratic return to the logoi.
W
hat, finally, about the Underground, since the
announced title of this lecture included that
term? The German word "Underground" can
mean anything which either in a direct way or analogically underlies something else. So in talking about
hypokimena, or subjects of predication, and of the way
in which they present themselves, I can claim to have
been talking about the underground of speech. But as
everyone knows, there is a more subversive and indeed
altogether more interesting sort of underground, the one
which, Dostoevski intends in Notes from the Underground.
This underground is the location, so to speak, of certain writers of the present and of the last hundred years
who throw to us, and in fact to the whole tradition of
philosophy, a certain challenge. There are really many
challenges which they throw; the challenges are difficult
to characterize as a whole, but they might perhaps be
subsumed under the formula of the old myth of Prometheus, according to which all the gifts which make man
man, including speech, are based upon, and therefore infected by a fraud. So Camus and Jaspers and Heidegger speak of man as a castaway, shipwrecked on an island
of everyday-ness. And Heidegger above all has sought
to pull the tradition of philosophy up by the roots, and
to show that our awareness of the world and of ideas as
constituted in inner time involves a fraud. Then wisdom
can only lie in the destruction, the total dismantling, of
what is fraudulent in our awareness. And perhaps the
four revolver shots of Meersault, the hero of Camus' novel
The Stranger, are more efficacious in this respect than the
discipline of listening to and following the logos. On the
other hand, it might just be that the staccato notes which
issue from the Underground will shock us, and cause
us to look once more with open eyes and with wonder
at what is our most characteristically human endowment,
speech.
25
�Orwell's Future and the Past
Ronald Berman
C
zeslaw Milosz wrote in The Captive Mind that
Orwell was phenomenally popular behind
the Iron Curtain because readers were
"amazed that a writer who never lived in
Russia should have so keen a perception into
its life:' 1 But truth is not always the appropriate standard by which to judge fiction. Orwell may have given
us a convincing picture of life in the Soviet Union, and
of the social character of totalitarianism, but that is not
all he has done. He had more than Moscow or even London in mind when writing about the chief City of Airstrip
One, a province of Oceania: it may well be that Nineteen
Eighty-Four is as much about Athens as it is about
Moscow. A place in any work of fiction, like Pemberley
or Laputa or Vanity Fair, is primarily an idea.
Nineteen Eighty-Four differs radically from most stories
of the future. It is not about a great calamity which comes
from outside the social situation. It is resolutely conventional in its description of things and its understanding
of character. There can be very few other works about
the future life of man so permeated by the smell of boiled
cabbage. A producer has despairingly remarked of
science-fiction films that they have been all platinum hair
and diagonal zippers, but there is none of that here; no
fascination with the terrors of change. In many ways,
Nineteen Eighty-Four seems to resist futurism.
Rather it seems to require a lot of knowledge about
history. It challenges our recollection of Lenin, Stalin,
and Trotsky. It suggests events of the twentieth century
as we have experienced them. But the book is also about
certain philosophical arguments. Orwell intends us to
Ronald Berman served as chairman of the National Endowment for
the Humanities from 1971-1977. He is now director of the Humanities
Institute at the University of California, San Diego.
26
recall many of them, beginning with that between Socrates and Thrasymachus. O'Brien is the ultimate version of those Guardians "who keep watch over our commonwealth"' and preserve the purity of its laws. It makes
a good deal of sense to read Nineteen Eighty-Four in the
light of Plato's Republic- and of the Politics of Aristotle.
I think that the book also intends us to recall certain
literary themes. It is a superb example of the topos of
awakening into intellectual and spiritual life. Winston
Smith shares the awakening experience -"It is not easy
to become sane':_ not only with the wretched prisoners
of the Ministry of Love but with all those whose awakening challenges their capacity to understand it, with Lear,
with Kurtz, with Gregor Samsa. I would not call it a
genre, but one of the great literary forms of the West
is about a man who escapes from the Shadows of the
Cave, and is blinded by what he sees.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a very literary book, full of echoes
of other books. It develops ideas which have been argued
for centuries. In a seilse, the sources of this book are
everywhere. To go through Orwell's Collected Essays, journalism and Letters is to be overwhelmed by the names of
authors and the titles of books. His work is a library of
allusions to Arnold, Baudelaire, Belloc, Carlyle, Dickens,
Eliot, Flaubert, Gissing, Hardy, Lawrence, Powell,
Shakespeare, Waugh, and others the full mention of
whom would take a very long time. He read everything,
and he quarrelled with most of it.
We know that Orwell read the classics because he
complained in such detail about having to read them.
When he was at St. Cyprian's (immortalized in "Such,
Such Were the Joys") he was force-fed the classics like
a Strasbourg goose. In order for the school to make a
reputation off the brilliance of its students the scholarship boys were bullied into brilliance. In order to distinguish themselves on the examinations they had to become
SPRING 1984
�little encyclopedias of Latin and Greek, ''crammed with
learning as cynically as a goos~1 is crammed for
Christmas:'' Orwell said of his involuntary mastery of
the classics, "looking back, I realize that I then worked
harder than I have ever done since:'4 it is a fairly strong
remark from the author of Down and Out in Paris and
London.
Orwell's favorite reading on summer mornings at
school, when he was temporarily free from his own set
of academic Guardians, included the novels of H. G.
Wells. It seems odd to think that Nineteen Eighty-Four
should be in part a combination of two such different
kinds of reading: stolen hours with Wells and soldiering
through Latin and Greek. I think we should agree that
Wells stayed with Orwell till the end of his life, and, I
would argue, so did the reading he did with much less
enjoyment.
The dialogue form is rightly associated with Plato,
but before looking at The Republic we ought to consider
the connection between Orwell and Aristotle's Politics. For
the latter, I believe, is the most essential book in that
history of ideas which Nineteen Eighty-Four summarizes,
and of which it is the latest statement. Aristotle's Politics
contains nearly everything but Orwell's plot. The fifth
book of the Politics, on the causes of revolution, describes
a society penetrated by informers, spies, eavesdroppers,
and secret police. It analyzes the conscious institution
of poverty by the state. It discusses the rivalry between
the state and other social units like the family. It refers
to the public promotion of private hatreds. It talks about
war as a form of domestic policy. Above all, it is about
the attack on what Aristotle calls the "spirit" of the polis.
There are many tactical similarities between the two
books. For example, Aristotle writes that "men are not
so likely to speak their minds if they go in fear of a secret
police;' 5 and we can see without difficulty how this observation can have been put into narrative form. (Although,
clearly, given the totalitarian history of our own century
we need not go to Aristotle for the suggestion). It is probably more important for us to be aware of more specific
resemblances. Aristotle, like Orwell, is not concerned with
tyranny as a sudden calamity but as a development of
other forms of political life. When he writes that "the
methods applied in extreme democracies are thus all to
be found in tyrannies" (245) he provides us with a way
of recognizing and interpreting events in Nineteen EightyFour.
Both the Politics and Nineteen Eighty-Four are about the
development of political systems. Both are about a certain
kind of tyranny, which goes far beyond merely political
rule. Both are about oligarchy: Emmanuel Goldstein's
book (actually written by O'Brien and his collaborators)
is called The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism,
a title which neatly connects classical and Communist
terminology. The phrase "oligarchy" itself leads us inescapably to its classic definition, which is in the works
of Plato and Aristotle where the conception of closed
minority rule enters our political consciousness.
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Aristotle describes a number of forms of oligarchy,
not all of which concern us. What we are concerned with
is, I suggest, the kind of oligarchy which has some connection both to tyranny and to what Aristotle disapprovingly calls "extreme democracies:' The ultimate form of
oligarchy comes about when a dynasty has absolute control over property, men, and politics, "and it is persons,
and not the law, who are now the sovereign" (172). The
reader of Nineteen Eighty-Four tends to slide by distinctions, but The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
recognizes the differences between stages of despotism.
It is very close to Aristotle when it acknowledges that
"the essence of oligarchical rule" is to be found in "the
persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of
life." That ((certain world-view" means the law has been
replaced by a different conception, that of power. In
Aristotle, oligarchy becomes tyranny; in Orwell it
becomes dictatorship.
There is a passage in Nineteen Eighty-Four often cited
for its quality of psychological revelation. The passage,
from O'Brien's apologia for the Party, states the satisfactions of power as the reason for exerting it:
We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we
know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German
Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in
their methods, but never had the couragee to recognize their
own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that
they had seized power unwillingly, and that just around the
corner there lay a paradise. ... We are not like that. We know
that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing
it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish
a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes
the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. (116)6
The modern audience is rightly fascinated by the insight
into aberrant motivation. Any teacher of Nineteen EightyFour finds that this passage gets students to realize some
hidden truths about human desires. But the passage is
useful to us in another way, because it makes a crucial
distinction: "all the oligarchies of the past" have had
political ends. And, they have culminated only in the
forms described by Aristotle and other theorists. This
oligarchy will be different in its philosophical imaginativeness. It will extend political definitions.
Orwell has a highly organized sense of the operation
of such an oligarchy. His narrative is deployed around
three issues:,
1. The relationship of the state to certain individuals
who represent potential opposition to authority.
2. The object, political and non-political, of unconstitutional power.
3. The tactics of authority.
These issues cover the common ground between Orwell
and his source. We ought to see how they take shape in
Aristotle, and how they are dramatized by Orwell.
27
�I Individual and State:
II The Object of Power:
Aristotle's. discussion of tyranny is first of all concerned with the relationship of individual to government.
He writes of the man who is virtuous or "outstanding"
in a rather special way. This man is the natural object
of tyranny. He need not be in active opposition to the
state. It suffices that the state recognizes the fact of his
excellence, that it perceives his excellence to be a potential threat. This conception is at the heart of Orwell's narrative. Winston Smith seems unheroic to us, who have
been raised on a literature of more activist heroes. But
it must be understood that he is more honest than the
other characters- except possibly for O'Brien -and that
he is capable of independent thought. And, he loves what
is beautiful. In his world, these constitute remarkable differences. If his character did not constitute a danger to
illicit power then the following dialogue would not have
been written:
Perhaps the most important thing that can be said
about this part of Aristotle's discussion is that. it is not
political, at least not as the phrase "political" is commonly
understood. Aristotle's discussion (244) is existential. He
knows what the "traditional" policies of tyranny are, but
he is much more concerned with policies directed {against
'~nd you consider yourself morally superioi to us, with our
lies and our cruelty?"
"Yes, I consider myself superior." (119)
He has been kicked and flogged and insulted before saying this, and he has rolled on the floor in his own blood.
I think that qualifies as "outstanding."
All outstanding men are potential criminals. Aristotle
was much interested in a certain story about such citizens
(he mentions it on three separate occasions in the Politics).
It is about the appropriate punishment for excellence.
By the time the story had reached him it had become
a parable of political foresight: of policy dealing with propensity. The story is about the "advice which was offered
by Periander to his fellow-tyrant Thrasybulus" about the
best way to deal with those potential enemies, the
"outstanding citizens" of the commonwealth (237). Aristotle refers to this story a number of times, but in an .
abbreviated way. Here I quote the fuller account given
in Herodotus:
On one occasion he sent a herald to ask Thrasybulus what
mode of government it was safest to set up in order to rule
with honour. Thrasybulus led the messenger without the city,
and took him into a field of corn, through which he began
to walk, while he asked him again and again concerning his
coming from Corinth, ever as he went breaking off and throwing away all such ears of corn as over-topped the rest. In this
way he went through the whole field, and destroyed the richest
and best part of the crop. 7
The bewildered messenger returns home, and it is left
to the subtle imagination of tyranny to interpret the
meaning. Herodotus has reversed the asking and giving
of advice, but he has clearly provided the essential
strategy for tyranny: cut off the tallest heads. The Politics
takes its departure for the study of tyranny from this story.
Orwell has translated the idea of outstanding civic
merit- Winston differs from the rest because of his inward honesty, his sensibility, and his intellectual
stubborness- but, as both O'Brien and he acknowledge,
he is indeed morally "superior."
28
everything lihdy to produce the two qualities of mutual confidence
and a high spirit" (emphasis added). The statement seems
oddly inexact, especially for a methodical thinker. It
seems far afield from politics. But is very close to Orwell's
conception of policy in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The statement is rephrased in various ways throughout Aristotle's discussion of tyranny, surfacing finally as
one of his major conclusions about the subject. One of
the great ends of the authoritarian state is, he states, to
break the "spirit" (246) of its citizens. The Politics is a book
rich in detail and in historical example- it lets us know
just what policies are used by Sparta or Athens or Corinth in just what circumstances. But it is also a book of
consummate psychological insight. Aristotle's discussion
of tyranny is much more than a catalogue of ruinous
taxes, unjust laws, and inhuman penalties. He writes
about the effect of tyranny in a way which must have
captured Orwell's eye. He writes about the destruction
of what is intuitive in human character and free in human
expression. He is concerned with friendship, confidence,
trust, feeling and, above all, with spirit. He refers again
and again to "spirit:' coming back to it each time as the
ultimate object of tyrannic power. He insists on the
human necessity for association, and his essay is largely
an analysis of the forms it takes, forms which are the
natural object of unjust power. Nineteen Eighty-Four is
about association in all its forms, from the sexual union
through the choice of friends to the formation of the family, the consent of the community, and the largest voluntary association of all, the polis itself. Each of its episodes
in some exemplary way concerns the breakdown of
human association.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is not a story of political resistance.
It is about the operation of sensibility. It does not describe
the activity of a political cell-Winston's ideas of rebellion
are never more than hopes or illusions. The narrative
is about sexual and aesthetic consciousness. It is about
a man with a sense of taste and style who perceives things
artistically. Its central symbolic object is a piece of coral
embedded in glass; its central act is the act of love.
May I suggest that O'Brien as well as Orwell has read
the Politics? To O'Brien, political theory ofthe past is an
explicit challenge. He mentions that theory constantly,
and always points out how its conception of totalitarianism has been exceeded by his own contribution to that
subject. He takes an unholy delight in posing as a teacher,
conducting a "dialogue" with the uninitiated, discussing
to what degree the future will exceed the moral limits
of the past. He gives us what Aristotle did not guess at:
the reason why tyranny is pleased by power. And he is,
I think, fully and perhaps exquisitely aware of the truism
SPRING 1984
�that is at the beginning of Aristotle's fifth Book: "Men
tend to become revolutionaries from circumstances connected with their private lives" (227), He must be aware
of this, for it is this idea which validates his unending
search for deviations of taste, style, ·.or feeling.
O'Brien competes with all political theory before him.
When he discusses oligarchy his version surpasses the
classical definition; and when he discusses tyranny his
version outdoes the pallid beginnings of injustice
previously recorded. He has the trait-almost the ticof comparing the future with tbe past, which is to say
of comparing his own megalomania to that of all tyrants
before him. What all previous books say about the effect of tyranny on private life will be exceeded after the
orgasm has been "abolished:' The entire philosophical
category of "private" life will also have been abolished.
III The Tactics of Authoritarian Power:
How does the authoritarian state respond to the
natural human desire for association? By defending itself,
Aristotle writes, from "everything likely to produce the
two qualities of mutual confidence and a high spirit:' The
unjust state will prohibit public meetings and make
"mutual acquaintance" difficult. This necessarily means
the invasion of privacy, and Aristotle tells us how that
is accomplished. In essence, men must live their private
lives in public. What they say and whom they talk to must
always be under scrutiny. Under tyranny, all citizens must
literally be under the eye of government.
Citizens must not confuse themselves by assuming
that there are independent and opposed public and private realms. Aristotle's locution for the destruction of privacy is, to say the least, striking and anticipatory. The
forced exhibition of private association,
is meant to give the ruler a peep-hole into the actions of his
subjects, and to inure them to humility by a habit of daily
slavery. (244)
By no stretch of the imagination was Aristotle thinking
of television. But Orwell, who was thinking of television,
may have joined an idea to its technological realization.
In general, Orwell allows O'Brien to show how previous political theory, disarmed by its own limits of imagination (and possibly by its own decency), has failed to
understand both the power of the state and the human
nature upon which it feeds. When we read the list of state
activities provided by Aristotle we sense that it provides
Orwell with a skeleton structure for his story, and provides O'Brien with a history that must be exceeded:
A fourth line of policy is that of endeavouring to get regular
information about every man's sayings and doings. This entails a secret police like the female spies employed at Syracuse,
or the eavesdroppers sent by the tyrant Hiero to all social
gatherings and public meetings. (Men are not so likely to speak
their minds if they go in fear of a secret police; and if they
do speak out, they are less likely to go undetected.) Still another
line of policy is to sow mutual distrust and to foster discord
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
between friend and friend; between people and notables; between one section of the rich and another. Finally, a policy pursued by tyrants is that of impoverishing their subjects .... The
imposition of taxes produces a similar result. ... The same
vein of policy also makes tyrants war-mongers, with the object of keeping their subjects constantly occupied and continually in need of a leader. (244-245)
One grants that these ideas have passed into universal
currency and, after two thousand years, are to be found
scattered from Machiavelli to Lenin. But the vein of
discourse in Nineteen Eighty-Four is pointedly historical.
O'Brien's favorite rhetorical mode is to invoke the incomplete tyrannies of the past from Egypt to the Inquisition to National Socialism whenever he wishes to establish
the ultimacy of the Party. Orwell's historical references
and phrases are more pointed than a casual reading may
bring out. For example, Aristotle states that one of the
best ways to waste civic resources intentionally is to
undertake useless public projects: "one example of this
policy is the building of the Egyptian pyramids: another
is tbe lavish offerings to temples" (245). The Theory and
Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism agrees that it is indispensable for tyranny to destroy private wealth by public
means, but it takes the idea literally. O'Brien-Goldstein
considers Aristotle's example ...!'it would be quite simple
to waste the surplus labor of tbe world by building temples
and pyramids" (85)- but rejects it as too simple a solution. The new tyranny not only builds enormous public
works which waste private wealth; it then destroys them
by war in order to absorb yet more taxation.
There are other references to classical political theory,
and otber echoes of Aristotle's text. Aristotle had written that under tyranny it is customary "to increase the
poverty of the tyrant's subjects and to curtail their leisure"
(245) and O'Brien modifies that formulation: "Leisure;'
he writes, "must be abolished because the totalitarian state
is erected "on a basis of poverty" (84 ). A much larger
theme develops from the use of Aristotle's second major
conclusion about unjust power: the aim of such power
being to reduce citizens to slaves and conquer their innate "refusal to betray one another or anybody else" (246).
Since that theme is in a sense Orwell's book, it becomes
difficult even to organize resemblances. The phrase "betray" is everywhere in the text. But it is used in a special
sense. It does not mean giving up political secrets under
interrogation- it means giving up human association,
betraying the "spirit" of mutual trust, loyalty, confidence,
and love. This conception dovetails with Aristotle's. He
is intensely concerned with the existential conditions of
the unjust polis. The examples he gives and, as we shall
see, the conclusions he reaches are about the emotional,
spiritual, and ethical effects of tyranny upon association.
The unjust polis, he writes, corrupts the feelings of its
citizens, and intends above all "to break their spirit:'(246)
Before he is tortured, Winston makes an important
distinction between confession and betrayal. We should
be aware that Orwell is having him follow the implication of the Politics: that is to say, confession is a political
29
�act while betrayal is an act directed against human
association. Julia, who is measurably less conscious than
Winston, begins this particular exchange by saying that
"Everybody always confesses. You can't help it. They torture you" (73). Winston's reply is as follows:
"I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What
you say or do doesn't matter; only feeling~ matter. If they could
make me stop loving you- that would be the real betrayal."
(73-74)
The distinction is Aristotelian. It signifies not only that
the unjust polis must maintain order but that it must
internalize it. If it prevents "trust" and "confidence" from
developing, it prevents the development of the one thing
it really fears, association independent of political control.
Under torture, Winston first betrays all of humanity, with one vital exception. That is to say, he confesses.
Because confession is not betrayal, he remains, after the first
stage of torture, in some sense immune to the power of
the state. The measure of his character is not only that
he knows this, but admits it:
"You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation
that has not happened to you?"
Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still
oozing out of his eyes. He looked up at O'Brien.
"I have not betrayed Julia;' he said.
O'Brien looked down at him thoughtfully. "No;' he said,
"no; that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia." (121)
Being a good reader of the Politics, O'Brien knows the
distinction that Winston has unconsciously raised. He
reserves further punishment for him, of the kind that will
assuredly "break" his "spirit:' It is of some interest that
O'Brien's phrase, "you have betrayed everybody and
everything'' rings a change on Aristotle's implicit definition of the free and noble condition: the "refusal to betray
one another or anybody else!'
There is an answering passage, after Winston has
been to Room 101 of the Ministry of Love:
"I betrayed you;' she said baldly.
"I betrayed you;' he said. (129)
Julia's explanation is worth some emphasis: "After that;'
she says, "you don't feel the same toward the other person any longer!' The words are the words of Orwell, but
the ideas are the ideas of the Politics. When mutual trust,
confidence, or love disappear, then the "spirit" has in fact
been broken. Human association, the only rival left to
the power of the state, has itself been "betrayed!'
Sometimes words are identical-a key phrase like
"oligarchy" is an automatic reference to its source. It is
as much an indicator of Plato and Aristotle as the phrase
"surplus labor'' is of Marx. Sometimes the words are only
echoes. But the two texts continuously bear upon each
other. There are some small mysteries which crossreference may be able to clarify. For example, the beginning of Nineteen Eighty-Four is anti-feminist. It is so in
30
a special way, Winston being normally sexual and in fact
highly appreciative of the female body. But he hates
women. Or is it that he fears them?
He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and
pretty ones. It was always the women, and above all the young
ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the
swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy. (6)
Some nosing zealot in the Ministry (a woman, probably; someone like the little sandy-haired woman or the dark-haired girl
from the Fiction Department) might start wondering why he
had been writing during the lunch interval ... and then drop
a hint in the appropriate quarter. (14)
Since Orwell did not write like this in his other works,
the presumption is that he had something particularly
in mind. I think that he reworked classical misogyny in
this case, which becomes clear if we consider the source
for this idea about "amateur spies!' Aristotle is one of the
great anti-feminists, and he credits women with
totalitarian proclivities. Within slightly more than a single
page in the Politics (244-245) he refers to "a secret police,
like the female spies employed at Syracuse"; to tyrants
who customarily "encourage feminine influence in the
family, in the hope that wives will tell tales of their husbands"; and to the fact that "slaves and women are not
likely to plot against tyrants."
I have so far talked about tactical resemblances between two books. I would like to conclude with a more
strategic assessment. During the course of his torture at
the Ministry of Love Winston discovers the motives of
the Party. They seem to transcend ordinary political ends:
Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling.
Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be
capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or
curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall
squeeze you empty, and then fill you with ourselves. (113)
In one sense, this statement reveals the characteristic
megalomania of both O'Brien and the Party. O'Brien is
a character of fiction, and one of the things about him
is that he enjoys assuming the God. But the passage also
has an intense connection to the Politics. It is about
changes in emotion and conception- not really about
political changes at all. It is about human association
specifically; that is, about the feelings which connect people to each other. In short, the passage is about what we
should now call social psychology.
When we come to Aristotle's conclusions about the
aims of tyranny- conclusions which he emphatically
states twice on a single page- we see that he defines the
human changes imposed by tyranny also in terms of social
psychology. In fact, he defines the end of tyranny as the
accomplishment of change in human feelings. The following passage, which sums up Aristotle's view of the ends
of tyranny, is about psychology and ethics:
Their first end and aim is to break the spirit of their subjects.
They know that a poor-spirited man will never plot against
SPRING 1984
�~ybody.
Their second aim is to breed mutual distrust. Tyranny
never overthrown until men begin to trust one another; and
this is the reason why tyrants are always ~touts with the good.
They feel that good men are doubly dangerous to their authori~y -dangerous, first, in thinking it sham!'! to be governed as
tf they were slaves; dangerous, again, in their spirit of mutual
and general loyalty, and in their refusal to betray one another
or anybody else. The third and last aim of tyrants is to make
their subjects incapable of action. (246)
IS
The vocabularies of the two passages are similar. They
are both about human association. They are both about
~oc~a! ,~eeli~gs. Aristotle_ writes about "trust;' "loyalty," and
spint while Orwell wntes about "love; "friendship;' and
"integrity." It may be assumed that they bear on each other
in a certain way, for they both argue that a political relationship is founded on existential conditions. But the passage in Orwell is clearly very extreme. It seems almost
if the use of the term can be imagined, very romantic. It
looks at the history of political exploitation and states
that nothing in the history of the world can match its
own tactics and strategy.
It may be useful to compare O'Brien's sense of the
ends of tyranny with modern historical examples because
criticism of Nineteen Eighty-Four is almost hopelessly bound
up with the belief that the book is about actual totalitarian
regimes. My own sense of the matter is that it does not
make much sense to interpret the revelations which come
about during Winston's torture at the Ministry of Love
entirely as if they reflected "reality:' We know rather a lot
about twentieth-century totalitarianism after reading The
Destructzon of European jewry, The Origins of Totalitarianism,
and The Gulag Arch1pelago. These books are significantly
different from Orwell- that is to say, they perceive ends
different from those stated by O'Brien .. They do not suggest that the modern totalitarian state aims at anything
more than the extinction of opposition. The KGB is not
interested operationally in the feeling per se of dissidents:
it uses torture to beat people down and drugs to make
them helpless or psychotic.
In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt sumnlarized the state's attitude toward political opposition:
"Criminals are punished, undesirables disappear from
the face of the earth; the only trace which they leave
behind is the memory of those who knew and loved them
:'nd one of the most difficult tasks of the secret polic~
IS to make. sure that even such traces will disappear
together with the condemned man."B And of course it
must be so- in a nation of 250 million prisoners it does
no ~ood at all to have the worst offenders on parole. The
business of the secret police is to eradicate them not
change their minds.
'
!_'he secret P<;>lice are. not romantic nor do they have
a philosophy. Nmeteen E<ghty-Four misleads us if it suggests that we are speaking only of historical possibilities
and examples. Secret police do not read books or worry
about the past, although O'Brien spends an awful lot of
his time doing both. Secret police have what may be called
the opposite of a philosophy, for they do whatever the
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
leadership requires, even if it contradicts what they were
told an hour before. In fact, as Hannah Arendt so brilliantly describes, the secret police find no trouble in doing things clearly contradictory at the same time: awarding some poor befuddled bureaucrat a medal and recommending the firing squad for him.
Need it be added that the secret police are often content with the appearance only of submission? They are
a huge bureaucracy, and find perfection to be quite hopeless. What they want is compliance, not conversions. For
example, in Poland right now the state is quite happy
not to have demonstrations take place: the provocateurs do
not go about arranging for people to undertake resistance
in order to be entrapped.
There certainly seems to be a big difference between
actual totalitarian ends and those stated by Orwell. It
must be fairly plain, if we return to O'Brien's revelation,
that he has no political objective. But he does have a
political-theory objective. And that objective is what
causes the book to have such striking powers of arousing outrage in the reader. It is concerned with what I
should call the nightmare of philosophy. Like the writing
of Machiavelli it holds a dagger to the body of the West.
It might first be noted that there is a difference between the book's quality and its effect. One recognizes
that Nineteen Eighty-Four is an influential but not a great
novel. It cannot be compared to anything by Dickens or
] ane Austen or even to writers not up to their exceptional
standard. Orwell's mind is first-rate and his language is
always a pleasure to read, but clarity and purpose do not
make great art. Why then is Nineteen Eighty-Four, which
IS not a great novel, a great book?
In_part because it ~ddresses a great concern meaningfully; m part because 1t belongs to a series of books and
meditations which have in certain ways not only captured
but formed our imagination. The reader will understand
when I say that this book-which is not great literaturebelongs with the Inferno, with Pilgrim~ Progress, and with
another book sharing its characteristics, The Prince. In
some important ways, even now in the Age of Criticism
not fully understood, such books provide the archetype
of experience: that is to say, we refer back to them to
understand our own experience. Not all of these books
are equal, but each of them has been definitive. Frankenstein is a much lesser work than the Inferno, but it has
become its own kind of datum.
. The reason why Nineteen Eighty-Four belongs with
Pdgnm~ Progress and the rest is its view of the past. Among
a gre~t ma~y other books it has in a singular way come
to gnps w1th a problem that has engaged political
philosophy since its beginnings. That problem, in one
?f 1t~ shapes, has been brilliantly stated by Isaiah Berlin
In his famous essay on Machiavelli:
If Machiavelli is right, if it is in principle (or in fact: the frontier seems dim) impossible to be morally good and do one's
duty as this was conceived by common European, and especially Christian, ethics, and at the same time build Sparta or
31
�Periclean Athens or the Rome of the Rrpublic or even of the
Antonines, then a conclusion of the first importance follows;
that the belief that the correct, objectively valid solution to the
question of how men should live can in principle be discovered,
is itself in principle not true. This was a truly erschreckend
proposition. 9
The principle of the good social life is familiar even to
literary critics. We see it at work-and being undermined- in every one of Shakespeare's political plays.
Berlin continues:
One of the deepest assumptions of western political thought
is the doctrine, scarcely questioned during its long ascendancy,
that there exists some single principle which not only regulates
the course of the sun and the stars, but prescribes their proper behavior to all animate creatures. Animals and sub-rational
beings of all kinds follow it by instinct; higher beings attain
to consciousness of it, and are free to abandon it, but only tO
their doom. This doctrine, in one version or another, has
dominated European thought since Plato; it has appeared in
many forms, and has generated many similes and allegories;
at its centre is the vision of an impersonal Nature or Reason
or cosmic purpose, or of a divine Creator whose power has
endowed all things and creatures each with a specific function;
these functions are elements in a single harmonious whole,
and are intelligible in terms of it alone.
This was often expressed by images taken from architecture: of a great edifice of which each part fits uniquely to the
total structure; or from the human body ... or from the life
of society.
We know these great metaphors, in Shakespeare, in Herrick, and in Sir Thomas Browne:
There are two books from whence I collect my divinity; besides
that written one of God, another of his servant nature, that
universal and public manuscript that lies expansed unto the
eyes of all; those that never saw him in the one, have discovered
him in the other.10
But such metaphors now have only psychological validity, for since Machiavelli we have been forced to conclude
that they were wrong, that there is no connection between morality and government, or between individual
and "body" politic. Since Machiavelli, Berlin writes, we
have for the most part believed simultaneously in Christian morality and in the political realism of Machiavelli.
But the two contradict each other, for Christianity cannot govern and the state is immoral. It is a Gordian knot.
Philosophers have described the effect of Machiavelli
on the West as "the wound that has never healed." Much
the same might be said of Nineteen Eighty-Four. But
perhaps I ought to put the matter this way: is this book
so traumatic to its audience because of its unequalled
mastery of description of the art of torture? Or because,
as so many suggest, it accurately describes the modern
totalitarian state? Or because of some other reason, a
reason more tragic still, but less visible?
Nineteen Eighty-Four accepts and even exemplifies the
ideas of Machiavelli- not to say the ideas of Lenin, Stalin,
32
and Hitler. But it goes beyond making a fiction of reality. It is about a world without justice. It tells us that
guilt and innocence do not matter, that there is no difference between good and evil. It tells us that the object
of power is power- not pain, not punishment, not
redemption, not correction, not even pleasure. It even
tells us that sanity does not matter, that reason has
nothing to do with rule.
It describes a world of random incident. No matter
how tightly organized the Party may be, and no matter
how strategic its intentions, life in Oceania is a series
of accidents. There is no relationship between necessary
causes and outcomes. Nothing really matters; there is
no definitive boundary between guilt or innocence. Nineteen Eighty-Four offers a great reversal to the concept of
predestination: all within it is a matter of chance. Even
the most perfect monad cannot hold; even Parsons
whispers in his sleep.
Since its beginnings and in all of its times of trouble, the West has feared and rejected the idea of chaos.
We have had much less trouble accepting the idea of the
Apocalypse. Apocalypse is, after all, intelligible. But Nineteen Eighty-Four is built upon the most primitive of
mysteries, of a return to a condition to us so fearful that
our whole mythology is about its transcendance. The
book is much more troubling than the art of the end of
all things. In a sense it is the most illiberal of all books
ever written, for it presupposes that all men will return,
without much troubling themselves, to the chaos which
is the very opposite of civilization.
Even The Gulag Archipelago is about justice, for it is
profoundly concerned with the discrepancies between
Soviet law and punishment. But Nineteen Eighty-Four is
not about the difference between constitutional and actual rights. It is about the nightmare of the West, a nightmare that has been sublimated and soothed by an endless
sequence of meditations on the just society. The reason
why this book is so literally reflective, why it alludes to
Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Lenin, and Hitler,
is that even the last of these had an order in mind. When
Nineteen Eighty-Four tells us that the past is over it means
that the dream of order and justice is itself finished; that
it never corresponded to human actuality. And, even for
moderns, it is a shock to know that the past is over. How
much more of a shock must it be to know that there is
no connection between the self and the polis?
Perhaps the last word ought to be left to a book that
has every few pages intruded into my text and into that
of Orwell: The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
tells us, among other things, of the failure of dreams:
In more primitive ages, when a just and peaceful society was
in fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to believe in it. The
idea of an earthly paradise in which men should live together
in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labor,
had haunted the human imagination for thousands of years.
... But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the
SPRING 1984
�main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The
earthly paradise had been discredited.·. ~90)
To give up the vision of an earthly ,paradise is to give
up more than a myth or speculation. Tt is one of the many
vestiges of history which are to be surrendered. There
is a vision which underlies even this, however. The idea
of a just state, the aggregate of good men, has also
"haunted" or inspired the imagination of the West "for
thousands of years." Why has that been so? First, because
political science itself began in Plato and Aristotle with
that conception: it is by now woven into the strands of
imagination. And second, because the idea of the just
state has always been in critical relationship to the imperfect facts of social life. What Orwell writes aboutwhat makes this book so painful- is the destruction of
those values which make imperfect life endurable.
This book is not frightening because of its absolute
mastery of the detail of torture and disgust. Nor because
it puts totalitarian practice into believable fiction. It
frightens us- arouses what Orwell late in his life called
our "instinctive horror" 11 - because it conceives of a social
order without justice, and of human nature quite capable
ofliving that way. There is one more thing: while Orwell
was writing this book and thinking about it he was reflecting constantly on the development of such a social
order. 12 He was powerfully affected by the futurist novel
li0: by Zamyatin and in his review of it he said, "what
Zamyatin seems to be aiming at is not any particular
country but the implied aims of industrial civilization:' 13
That is to say, Orwell himself saw the future of tyranny
as a natural outcome of the ideas and realities of the past.
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Perhaps that is why his own novel of the future has so
much to say about the past, and why his own Grand Inquisitor takes such pride in his idea of progress.
1. From Czeslaw Milosz, The Captive Mind (London, 1953), p. 42. Reprinted
in George Orwell: The Critical Heritage, cd. Jeffrey Meyers (London, 1975),
p, 286,
2. The Republic of Plato, ed. Francis MacDonald Cornford (Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 115.
3. George Orwell, "Such, Such Were the Joys," The Collected Essays, Journalism
and Letters of George Orwell, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (New York,
1968). IV. p, 336,
4. Ibid, p. 338.
5. The Politics of Aristotle, cd. Ernest Barker (Oxford, 1981) p. 245. Subsequent page references arc to this edition. This standard edition was first
published in 1946, just as Orwell began thinking of his novel of the future.
6. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, ed. Irving Howe (New York, 1963),
p. 93. Subsequent page references are to this edition.
7. Herodotus, The Persian Wars, trans. George Rawlinson (New York, 1942),
p. 417,
8. Hannah Arendt, The Origins rif Totalitarianism (Cleveland, 1962), p. 433.
On page 426 Arendt writes that "the task of the totalitarian police is not
to discover crimes, but to be on hand when the government decides to
arrest a certain category of the population."
9. Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current (New York, 1980), pp. 66-67.
10. This passage from Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici has been reprinted
in Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry, ed. Alexander Witherspoon and Frank
Warnke (New York, 1963), p. 336.
ll. Orwell, "Pleasure Spots," Collected Essays, IV, p. 81.
12. See for example "The Prevention of Literature," Collected Essays, IV, pp.
59-72; the review of We, pp. 72-75; and the letter to Herbert Rogers,
pp. 102-103, all of which speculate on the course of contemporary society, and the relationship of present actualities-many of them
technological-to the future. This volume covers the years 1945-1949, the
last five years of Orwell's life.
13. Orwell, Collected Essays, IV, p. 75.
33
�Is Nature A Republic?
David Stephenson
propose first of all to talk about "energy:' The word
is so common and so current that it is difficult to
extricate ourselves from the conviction that the
conservation of energy comes close to being the
unquestionable foundation of all physics and even
of all nature. Recent decades have made us acutely aware
of the necessary connection between energy and economy,
energy and threat, energy and business. Even news
reports frequently imply that energy is something that
our comforts and lives depend on, and we save, spend,
or waste it with greater consequence than we do money.
It is hard to remember that such universal affirmation
of this law is relatively recent; that three centuries ago
"conservation of energy." was not a conscious part of
anybody's thinking. How can one imagin~ ignorance of
the now so readily acknowledged presumption that
everyone must pay to accomplish a task; that a quantitative equivalence between effort and accomplishment
exists and can be expressed by a mathematical equation?
To question this "work-energy equation" nowadays would
arouse universl astonishment and ridicule. It is quite de
rigueur to presurrie the existence of unknown quantities
just to balance that equation when it seems to fail in some
experiment. Yet when Leibniz announced the first version of this law its apparently frequent failure in practice understandably discouraged many of those otherwise inclined to support his doctrines. There is a historical
mystery here: how did such a profound revolution in consciousness take place between Leibniz's day and our own,
resulting in the universal adoption of his essential theory,
when the overwhelming evidence of daily experience
seems to directly contradict it?
I
Mr. Stephenson, a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis, delivered
this lecture at the Santa Fe campus in February 1983.
34
For we see the law apparently broken every day. Think
about it. Bodies skid to a stop, their energy of motion
vanishing into oblivion; the fire warms my hands without
thereby growing perceptibly colder; even the best bouncing ball fails to return quite to the hand that drops it;
clocks need rewinding; I wake up hungry from a sound
sleep; the table sustains a weight forever where my arm
would quickly grow tired. You tell me that I must look
more closely to discover the lost energy of these actions
departing in another form. But that demand really
amounts to assertion of a postulate, that, for example,
motion lost by friction is equivalent to the heat thereby
generated. There is no way of actually proving this
equivalence. The question of whether or not a law of conservation applies has been decided a priori. Might not
Aristotle's non-quantitative treatment of cause better correspond to what we see? Why should the fire lose heat
to what it warms any more than a teacher give up his
knowledge to a pupil in teaching him? And remember
that it is everyday experience that we are considering,
since we are seeking the reasons for the virtually universal
adoption of a law.
Conservational thinking has always persisted in some
form. Probably the oldest form derives from consideration of material things. Aristotle himself makes his four
elements mutually convertible but denies the possibility
of their emerging from nothing. Lucretius presents his
assurance that our bodily atoms will persist after death
as medicine to cure our fear of that event. But many
things are not conserved: knowledge, for example, or
disease, or perhaps even money. If I have a cold, it is
fortunately unnecessary to find someone else to give it
to in order to get rid of it. Money can be devalued or
invested, help to produce surplus value or can be gambled
away. Whatever knowledge you may gain from this lecture has nevertheless not left my side. On the other hand,
SPRING 1984
�conservation seems to be what we expect of whatever is
called "substance;' so our historical problem could be
restated: why and when did energy gain admission to
the category of substance?
If you are in doubt concerning the help offered by
such a metaphysical term, Leibniz will come to your aid
with a definition: "Substance is a being capable of action?'1 This definition even comprises an embryonic statement of the conservation law we seek. For consider a pendulum. Beginning at rest, it descends with increasing
velocity and then ascends and comes to rest again
momentarily before repeating and repeating the cycle of
motion and rest. Something, therefore, in the pendulum
even at rest is capable of the action that is manifest in
its subsequent motion. This substance, called "absolute"
or "living force" by Leibniz and later "energy"2 by others,
also appears to be transferable from body to body in an
elastic collision. In practice, however, some of this
substance, energy, always vanishes during any collision,
and it is quite possible to make the motion disappear entirely in what is called an "inelastic impact?' Fully aware
of the challenge to his theory of absolute force offered
by this experiment, Leibniz insists that despite appearances none of his precious substance is really lost:
it merely comes to be distributed insensibly among the
infinite infinitesimal parts of the bodies themselves after
such an inelastic collision. But this is an appeal to faith,
not evidence.
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
d _____ -"'
,_I
''-~'......
-
As pointed out later in the eighteenth century, the
theoretical justification for this faith immediately follows
if one makes another assumption, viz, that all interactions between bodies depend only on the distances between their particles, regarded as points. But even
Boscovich, whose universe is just such a sprinkling of
massy points separated by forces, and who thought in
other respects to have reconciled Newton and Leibniz,
refused to follow this hypothesis to its conclusion and rejected conservation of energy in the face of those vivid
violations exhibited by the inelastic impact that
characterizes our visible world.
Moreover, this example of inelastic impact may have
claims on us a priori, as it did on Newton, and on Maupertuis and others of Newton's successors during the succeeding century. For if we, like them, are true atomists- if
we commit ourselves to the belief that our material world
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
is assembled out of ultimately indivisible particles having some, though minute, extension- then these particles
must be absolutely hard: they cannot flex and change
shape as elasticity requires because they would then have
to have distinct parts. "If;' says Maupertuis, "in the majority of bodies the parts which compose them separate
or bend, this happens only because these bodies are heaps
of other bodies: simple bodies, primitive bodies, which
are the elements of all the others must be hard, inflexible, unalterable."3 Contact between such hard atoms,
therefore, could only follow the model of inelastic impact. Leibniz, in fact, only avoids this rock because he
denies the world an atomic foundation: matter is infinitely divisible.
Nevertheless, Maupertuis is not perfectly confident
of his atomic prejudices:
It appears, therefore, that one would be better grounded
in maintaining that all primitive bodies are hard, than
one would be in claiming that there are no hard bodies
whatever in nature. However, I do not know if the manner in which we know bodies permits us either the one
or the other assertion. 4
T
his doubt, together with a kind of natural piety,
led him to the formulation of one of the great
principles of physics, but one which does not depend on a special understanding of material constitution: the Principle of Least Action. ((When some change
in Nature happens, the Quantity of Action necessary for
this change is as small as possible." ((Quantity of Action"
he then defines to be the "product of the mass of the
bodies by their speed and by the space they travel:' 5 The
universality and unity of this principle obviously support and confirm Maupertuis's dedication to the discovery
of God's work in the world. For God, or Nature under
his dominion, thereby displays a kind of economy or even
parsimony. The Quantity of Action is not conserved, but
as little as possible appears at each natural event. The
relevance of final cause seems not to have vanished from
physics 6
With appropriate zeal Maupertuis seeks to derive
from this principle the known mathematical laws governing a variety of phenomena, including the refraction of
light, the equilibrium
of a balance or lever,
and both elastic and
inelastic impact. In
later, more capable
hands the Principle
emulates the fruitfulness
of Newton's Laws, in this
century proving remarkably
adaptable to Quantum
Theory and Relativity.
With great deference to
Maupertuis, his younger
B
contemporary, Euler, derived
35
�the path of a falling body from the principle, and
Lagrange and Hamilton soon afterwards based entire
systems of physics upon it. Maupertuis himself misapplied it. But in attempting to address the problem of impact he really invoked without realizing it the primitive
form of a totally different principle: the Principle of Least
Constraint.
To distinguish these two principles it should help to
compare them in their simplest manifestations:
1. Least Action involves the product oflength, velocity,
and mass. A ball thrown into the air describes a particular
arc ACB. The Principle of Least Action states that the
total action involved with this path is less than it would
be for any other under the same conditions. That is,
although the path is shorter for a flatter arc, e.g. ADB,
the velocity- determined by the height above the
ground' -will have to increase so much with respect to
corresponding points on the original arc that the sum
of the products of mass, velocity, and path segment for
the new path -which sum makes up the total actionwill exceed that for the original path ACB. Conversely
a longer path AEB, while decreasing the corresponding
velocities, more than makes up for this in the product
IfW~AC, W'~BC; U~BC, U'~AC.
IfW~AB, W'~O, U~BC, U'~AC.
Other supposititious values for U, U': BD, AD.
v.A
c
D
~
B
From the figure
EU2=Ac2+BC2 AD2+BD2
i.e., less than the supposititious EU2.
Example of two equal bodies with equal velocities AC, BC, and sticking to remain motionless at C thereafter (the actual case), or moving off together with velocity CD (a supposed alternative case). In
the first case velocities AC and BC would be lost upon impact, so
that these would represent U and U', the "deviations from free motion" caused by their meeting. The "constraint'' would according to
Carnot be represented by a quantity proportional to the squares of
these losses, i.e., to the rectangle on AB. On the other hand, the supposed alternative case would produce losses represented by AD and
DB, and "constraints" therefore proportional to the squares on these
lines, whose sum is clearly greater than this rectangle.
36
by the increased path length. Actual computation will
confirm the fact that the minimal path must be Galileds
parabola.
2. Least Constraint. A body, or (and this is the important case) a whole system of bodies linked together
rigidly, will move in such a way that the deviation in each
part from free motion is as small as possible. The
previously mentioned examples of inelastic impact satisfy
this principle in the following way: "free motion" in this
case would signifY that the bodies could be imagined as
not impeding one another, i.e., as penetrating one another
freely with velocities W, W', etc. Now the real nature
of the impact compelling the colliding bodies to each alter
its motion by amounts U, U ', etc. the principle determines this subsequent motion on the basis of collective
minimum for these deviations U. 8 One can easily
demonstrate in a Euclidean manner that the results of
the inelastic impact of equal balls we earlier saw are
precisely prescribed by this requirement alone.
However different these two principles appear, they
are yet more removed from the Newtonian- and to us
probably more familiar-world of push and pull, offorce
and resistance. For everything is by them determined
from a consideration of the whole array of what is possible, the actual motions we observe selected by Nature
according to their obedience to a universal principle involving some kind of economy. The whole procedure
resembles much more closely the planning and choice
we exercise consciously than does Newton's. Exactly what
is saved in the case of the second principle may not at
present be clear, but we will return to consider it later. 9
It was Lazare Carnot who first recognized the distinctness as well as the independent validity of the second principlel° Carnot is also largely responsible for
the discovery of a new quantity that is conserved in all
physical activity. He calls this quantity "moment-ofactivity" and identifies it with some very ordinary and
vulgar notions; of labor in particular and of wages; of
animal or human muscle power; of power drawn from
wind or water; of machines used to direct that power.
His practical interests in fact may provide the clue we
need to solve our original historical riddle of energy. For
our earlier dilemma can be resolved into two distinct
problems:
1. How can we account for the apparent loss of energy
in every physical activity? 2. How can such manifestly
different phenomena as heat, motion, and electric or
muscle power, all ultimately claimed to be different forms
of energy, be made to exhibit this essential kinship? The
questions are complementary. A reply to the second will
answer the fust. But this can only be done by the mediation of another concept, the concept of "work." Wind,
water, and fire can all drive engines whose work can be
quantitatively compared to what muscle can do. The conversion of motion into heat through friction can then,
at least theoretically, be restored to its original form by
letting that heat drive a suitable engine. Energy thereby
SPRING 1984
�becomes a substance taking various forms, but all of
which can exhibit the action we call ('work."
T
he name, Lazare Carnot, evokes very different
reactions in different circles. Scientists would
nowadays remember him, if at all, as an obscure
eighteenth century engineer preoccupied with machines
and their efficiency, and the author of ''Carnot's
Theorem;' which predicts that the more abrupt the
change the greater the amount of"living force" lost. Percussion of the parts in a machine makes it less efficient;
rapid acceleration- as in an automobile- wastes fuel. His
son, Sadi, is more famous, since he founded the science
of thermodynamics. To the politically or historically
minded, on the other hand, Lazare Carnot stirs up
memories of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Insulated from the first violent days of revolution
by prison walls, because he had been incarcerated after
presuming to propose marriage to his noble mistress, he
soon took charge of the new republic's military forces.
Although disorganized and discouraged by some military
defeats in the face of repeated attempts by other European nations to destroy the young republic and restore
royalty to France, the army under his leadership managed
to secure French borders and thereby save the republican
form of government from foreign invasion. As a member
of the Directorate and the Committee on Public Safety
he even survived Robespierre, without, so he later
claimed, condoning its bloody purges more than necessary.11 His association with Napoleon during the early
campaigns did not inspire him to accept more than a temporary post in the First Consul's government, and he even
dared to protest publically Napoleon's elevation to
emperor. Retiring to a private life of scientific and
engineering pursuits during the first decade of the nineteenth century, he did rejoin the army for the last
Napoleonic campaigns, earning thereby a final exile in
Germany, devoted primarily to writing memoirs defending his actions during the Terror. And in truth his greatest
passion seems always to have been the cause of republican
government.
His scientific works, though relatively few, all display
a unique marriage of the practical and the abstract. Consider, for example, his concept of a "machine." What he
calls a "machine in general" is any system of objects linked
together so that consecutive masses can neither approach
nor recede from one another: the links are rigid but the
machine as a whole need not be, since its parts may be
hinged even while they are linked by rigid connections.
Any ordinary machine, from a simple lever to the most
complicated factory engines satisfies this definition. But
so does a single rigid body, such as a baseball bat or a
hammer: their parts are rigidly connected. The curious
behavior of a top, gyroscope, or frisbee exhibits the unexpected effects of these linkages. Most animals- including
human beings- resemble machines, for their bones do
keep joints at fixed distances. 12 Most surprising of all,
perhaps: water and other practically incompressible fluids
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
are machines, as long as they remain in one continuous
or connected mass. For being incompressible, the fluid's
consecutive parts stay the same distance apart; they can
slide or rotate around one another but not approach one
another (imagine smooth sand in an hour glass). It is
in fact characteristic of Carnot's thinking that the agents
which operate machines are themselves in part machines,
especially since he ultimately can include elastic connections (like muscles), as well as rigid ones, within the same
theory.
Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and virtually all their successors agree on one subject: uniform rectilinear motion
is as natural as rest, so that any body will continue
whatever motion it has in a straight line if free to do so.
What happens, then, when moving bodies are linked
together to form a machine? Obviously their masses
mutually impede or assist one another. A lot of pushing
and shoving goes on, the resultant motion being a compromise, since each constituent body must depart in some
measure from its free motion. And this compromise continues to be worked out afresh each moment. The Law
of Least Constraint is an expression of this compromise.
By its means we can begin to understand why a spinning top does not fall over, the inertial motion of one
part counteracting the falling tendency of another. We
can also see how Galilee's experiments on inclined planes,
which he presumed to illuminate the motion of falling
bodies, could be corrected: the mutual constraint of the
parts of a rolling ball producing quite a different effect
from one that falls without rotating."
But it need not rest with the imagination alone to
demonstrate the effects of mutual constraint by the parts
of such "machines-in-general:' We can reduce these effects to experience: the experience of inelastic impact.
If one considers this experience, one can easily see that
before impact the bodies move freely (at least with respect
to one another); after impact their motion is constrained;
they are linked together as by rigid connections. Carnot's general conclusions about machines, therefore, can
be tested by experiment. Furthermore, the exact reverse
of inelastic impact is explosion, and one can view elastic
collision as the combination of these two phenomena:
inelastic impact followed by explosion. Thus elastic impact or connection may be regarded as a special case of
inelastic impact.
But whereas the Principle of Least Constraint seems
peculiarly well adapted to our understanding of machines, the equation of work and energy, or "momentof-activity" and "living force;' does not enlighten us so
obviously in this respect. After all, these machines all
seem necessarily to change the form of energy in ways
not entirely within our control, and any such change in
form can not be understood as a purely mechanical transformation. With this problem I arrive at the heart of my
thesis, one which I state with the more caution because
Carnot himself is not explicit about it, as far as I know.
It can be derived from his work by inference, but by inference only. I infer it primarily from the fact that the
37
�abrupt changes exemplified by inelastic collision are
primary for him, although he is not·'! confirmed atomist,
and so does not need to make this hypothesis 14
W
hat is crucial to Carnot's point- of view is his
refusal to get lost in the details of a problem.
He looks at phenomena grossly rather than
closely, and this "gross vision" is what I believe allows him
to ignore our ignorance of the inner mechanics of bodies
and machines._ If"a body meet a body;' the more intimate
consequences of this meeting seem to depend very much
on private matters beyond our ken. That is, for I am of
course thinking of mechanics, whether the bodies have
a continuous or atomic internal structure, whether they
or their parts are hard or soft, elastic or inelastic, it remains true that collision alters their motions. It is possible for Carnot to say something significant by consciously
ignoring the doubtful processes of impact, and confining
his attention to their relatively simple relationships before
and after impact. Motion is probably conveyed from one
body to all the parts of another through an incredibly
complex sequence of inner vibrations and interactions;
yet when this inward disquiet has subsided the bodies
do have some motion as wholes, and this latter motion
is the focus of his apparent interest. One could perhaps
see him as anticipating the modern quantum physicist's
tendency to imagine particles entering and leaving a
"sphere of ignorance;' within which they affect one
another in some mechanically indeterminate way. The
assumption of such a "sphere of ignorance" then permits
one to be relatively knowledgeable about what happens
outside that sphere, and the relationships between objects before and after entering it. Inelastic impact from
this point of view amounts merely to a succession of
events in which bodies at first moving independently of
one another are somehow-we need not say how-constrained to move off together.
What does this "gross vision" mean for energy? The
following dialog imagined between Carnot and Leibniz
should answer this question:
Carnot~'I observe rigid bodies and connections all around
me, and many degrees of absurpt and inelastic impact but
nothing so perfectly elastic as to entirely conserve your 'living force'?'
Leibniz~'But these bodies can not be perfectly inflexible,
for my reason demands that changes take place gradually,
according to Nature's great Law of Continuity. The transfer
of motion from one body to another takes time; viz., the
time during which those bodies remain in contact while
changing shape."
Carnot~'ln that case, as I have shown mathematically, no
'living force' would ever be lost!"
Leibniz (with evident satisfaction)~'Exactly!"
Carnot~'Nevertheless one ought to explain the appearance
of such a loss. It is after all manifest that 'living force' does
disappear from the scene of action in most, perhaps even
in all actions where bodies do not move freely but constrain
one another."
38
Leibniz~'I am content to find that you have confirmed my
expectations for the eternal survival of'absolute force; and
that the Principle of Continuity required by reason has in
fact entailed this survival. Look closely enough at an apparent discontinuity in Nature and you will discover continuity."
Carnot ~'Why should I not trust my observation that
changes do often happen abruptly, and that in fact the more
abrupt the more 'living force' lost?"
Leibniz ~'Your senses are not fine enough. They need to be
corrected by reason?'
Carnot~'But you are looking too closely! The trees are
obscuring the forest. Even if as you say motion and 'living
force' does survive in the microscopic motions of a body's
parts, it remains irretrievable for me. The gross picture remains the significant one. Perhaps it is true that 'living force'
is never lost, but it is always wasted, sometimes more and
sometimes less. That is, it is lost for all practical purposes."
At this point we might add two other characters to
our imagined dialog. Robert Mayer or Joule, or even
Count Rumford if present would no longer be able to
restrain his impatience ---='But you are talking about heat!
Could I not recover the 'living force; which you think
is permanently wasted, by applying the heat it generates
to run an engine?"
It is not Lazare Carnot, but his son Sadi who answers
this question. The answer is "No. There is no hope of
recovering all that 'living force'." Unfortunately
unavoidably abrupt changes in the temperature have the
same effect on a heat engine that the abrupt changes
characteristic of inelastic impact have on a purely
mechanical one: Loss, not of energy, but of usable energy.
This is an expression of the famous Second Law of Thermodynamics, of which therefore the elder Carnot's
theorem proves to be an adumbration.
This kind of a dialog somehow reminds me of Plato's
"Phaedo:' All of Socrates's assurances of immortality can
not entirely dispel the grief of his friends in the face of
his impending death. Nor should it. It is at least as true
that he will leave this world as that he will survive somewhere else. So with energy, whose loss and preservation
inevitably and paradoxically take place simultaneously."
R
eturning to our original political question, we can
now easily see that Maupertuis's principle implies a naturla monarchy; Carnot's republic. The
success of the Principle of Least Action compares most
easily with the government of a single intelligence, which
chooses the course and concourse of bodies from among
all possibilities according to the end desired and a single
prevailing principle of economy. The Principle of Least
Constraint, on the other hand, is a kind of law of
freedom. Every body or particle deviates as little as possible from its free flight, and it does so only in order to
accommodate the greatest possible compatible general
freedom for all the others. Nature thus resembles the most
perfectly democratic republic. 16 A presiding intelligence
SPRING 1984
�may have been necessary to organize such a scheme, but
not to take part in its normal daily progress by specific
decisions.
We might further extract from this latter principle
the suggestion that, because of the continual jostle and
readjustment of small motions, the most fruitful view of
Nature would be to concentrate on the overall net effect, i.e., to adopt what I have called Carnot's "gross vision:' The concept of"work" or "moment-of-activity" then
goes one step further by disregarding all difference in
the forms of energy in the interest of a reliable quantitative judgment. But·as we have seen, this same vision
that confirms the conservation of energy denies us the
means to fully exploit it. The full fruitfulness of energy
emphasized by its equivalence in "work" is ultimately
snatched from us.
Whether Carnot's political experience guided his
scientific research or his science his politics is hard to
decide, but one cannot escape the suggestion of mutual
influence. Carnot might even have considered the
resemblance between revolution and abrupt change, but,
unable to prevent the inevitable losses in either case,
sought to minimize themY If you think it was sang froid
rather than cold blood that enabled him to maintain his
position in the ruling Committee during the Terror, then
you probably base your admiration on our present
knowledge of the final outcome of his and others' connivance: that is the French Republic itself. As to the
details of his actions during this tumultuous period: don't
look too closely!
Carnot's Principle of Least Constraint bespeaks a kind
of natural republic; I do not know what political
analogues there might be for work and energy, or for
the joining of these concepts in which he played a major
part. The quantification of endeavor implied by them,
however, does emphasize by contrast all the human ventures that elude quantification. The importance of the
former magnifies the latter: against "work" we must
balance "play." A contemporary of Carnot, Friedrich
Schiller, expressed succinctly the importance of this: "Man
plays only when he is in the full sense of the word a man,
and he is only wholly Man when he is playing. 18 But that is
a subject worthy of another whole lecture.
1. Leibniz, "Principles of Nature and of Grace, Founded on Reason."
2. The man responsible for introducing "energy" as a technical term
with roughly the modern meaning (but with scope limited to simple mechanics) into English was Thomas Young (cf. his lecture
"On Collision": number 8 from'~ Course of Lectures on Natural
Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts;' vol. I, esp. p. 78; cf. also
vol. II, p. 52, §347). Though obviously deriving from Aristotle's, Evsj)ysm the word appeared more in literature than in scientific writing before the nineteenth century, and, with the exception of Jean Bernoulli's occasionally prophetic adoption of the
French "energie;' seems to have born the more figurative than
mathematically decipherable sense of "eagerness" and "assidu-
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
itY.' In the works of David Hume this literary term does approach
the scientific one.
3. Maupertuis, "Les lois du movement et du repos deduites d'un
principe meta physique;' reproduced in vol V of the collection
of Euler's works, "Leonhard Euleri Opera Omnia'' (Lausanne
1957), p. 294.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid. p.298.
6. This conclusion, however, may be qualified by the fact that, as
discovered by Hamilton, under certain circumstances there is
a maximum of action, and in general only an extreme, or, as he
calls it, "stationary" value of action is required.
7. Knowledge of energy relations may be seen to be implicit in this
statement, even though all that seems necessary is something
which determines velocity as a function of height alone.
8. Actually it is the same 1:MU 2 that is minimized for all masses
M, M', etc., and deviations, U, U', etc., the square serving to
make all quantities positive. Carnot's manipulation of these fictitious quatities, U and U', etc., derives directly from the
mechanics of d'Alembert, who used them largely to avoid what
he saw as the too metaphysical concept of "force." Carnot's own
impatience with metaphysics may also have its source here.
9. It is, however, a true minimum principle, unlike the first one.
10. The name "Principle of Least Constraint;' or "Prinzip der
kleinstel); Zwange;' comes from the mathematician Gauss (cf. his
paper, "Uber ein neues allgemeines Grundgetsetz der Mechanik;'
pp. 25-28 in "Werke," Bd. 5 (G6ttingen 1877). Whether or not
Gauss knew ofCarnot's work might be worth investigating. The
latter, however, explicitly recognized the beauty of this principle
even without such an appropriate name. After rigorously deriving the principle from Newton's laws, Gauss remarked on the
curious coincidence of its having the same mathematical form
as the important statistical law of least squares, of which he was
the author: was the same natural law appearing in two different
guises?
11. He did, for example, mercilessly extirpate such potential anarchists as Babeuf.
12. Carnot, however, carefully avoided the logical fallacies of
J.un:d.j3ucw; ei~ liAA.o yEvo<; and infinite regress involved in any
assumption that the will or desires were essentially mechanical.
Thus he says in his "Principes" (§73): ''Je rCpeterai d'abord, qu'il
ne s'agit point ici des causes premiCres qui font na'itre le mouvement dans les corps, mais seulement du mouvement dCj.3. produit et inherent a chacun d'eux."
13. The descent of a yoyo is the true limiting case of a body rolling
down in increasingly vertical plane.
14. I do not know of any statement by Carnot expressly concerning
atoms. However, the following assertion in his "Essai" (par.
XLVII) about fluids could hardly have been made by anyone
committed to a merely finite division of material in the world:
"On peux regarder un fluide comme l'assemlage d'une infinite
de corpuscules solides, detaches Jes uns des autres
~· His
definition of "fluid" in the "Principes" (§12) is a little more
cautious: "Les fluides sont ceux qui se trouvent divisCs en parties si fines, qu'elles echappent a tousles sens aides des meilleurcs
instrumens. Tels sont l'eau, l'air. Un fluide parfait seroit la limite
vers Iaquelle tendent tous ces fluidcs a mesure que Ia tenuitC des
particules est plus complCt. On ignore s'il existe un pareil fluide."
15. But lest I carry this analogy too far, I refuse to assert that just
as the engineer may see his task as preventing the loss of "living
force" as long as possible, so should Socrates seek to stay alive
at all costs.
16. Not necessarily a purely egalitarian republic: individual mass
is a factor in the calculation of constraint.
17. Consider, for example, Napoleon's opinion that Carnot was "easily deceived" simply because, as construed by Louis Madelin in
his "The French Revolution," he desired to bring order out of
chaos. (Heinemann English ed., p. 490)
18. Fifteenth letter of Friedrich Schiller's "On the Aesthetic Education of Man." (Ungar English ed., p. 80)
39
�Between Plato and Descartes The Mediaevel Transformation
Ontological Status of the Ideas
•
In
James Mensch
I
E
ven the most casual reader of philosophy senses
the abyss that separates Descartes from Plato.
In Descartes a concern for certainty overshadows and, in fact, transforms the original
Platonic conception of philosophy. Such a conception, as exemplified by the figure of Socrates, involves
fundamentally a love of wisdom. Wisdom- ao<pia- is
not the same as certainty. That which I can be certain
of does no I> necessarily make me wise (see Phaedo, 98 b ff.)
We can mark out the difference between Plato and
Descartes in terms of two constrasting pairs of terms: trust
and opinion for Plato, doubt and certainty for Descartes.
Plato describes our attitude to the visible realm as one
of trust -rr(cr~u; (see Republic, 511 e). Descartes begins his
Meditations by doubting his perceptions. For Plato, the
examination of opinion is a necessary first step in the
philosophical ascent to the highest things. He depicts
Socrates as enquiring into the opinions of the most
various sorts of men. There is in Socrates a certain trust
in the existence of "true" or "right" opinions. At times,
such opinions can become "hypotheses"; they can become
stepping stones leading to "what is free from hypothesis"
(Republic, 511 b). For Descartes, precisely the opposite attitude is assumed. Because of his lack of such trust, he
begins his Meditations by withdrawing from the company
of men and systematically doubting every opinion he has
hitherto accepted on trust. His position is summed up
by the statement: "... reason already persuades me that
James Mensch is author of a recently published book on The Question of Being in Husser/'s Logical Investigations. He is an alumnus of St.
John's College, Annapolis.
40
I ought no less carefully to withhold my assent from matters which are not entirely certain and indubitable than
from those which appear to me manifestly to be false .. :'
("Meditation I;' Philosophical works of Descartes, trans. E.
Haldane and G. Ross, New York, 1955, p. 145).
This lack of assent, of qualified trust, reveals the
transformation that philosophy undergoes in Descartes'
hands. It is a transformation of philosophy from a love
of wisdom to a love of certainty. Certainty, even if it concerns what is apparently trivial, becomes the philosopher's
goal. Here, we may observe that the certainty Descartes
pursues has an absolute, almost mathematical character.
His assent will only be given to matters "entirely certain
and indubitable." This is a sign that certainty has, indeed, become the object of Descartes' philosophical love.
What a philosopher loves and, hence, pursues must, in
Descartes' eyes, be something absolute; nothing less than
absolute certainty will satisfy Descartes.
How did this transformation occur? Our thesis is that
it is a result of a transformation in the minds of
philosophers of what it means for an idea or eloo<; to be.
More precisely put, it is the result of a transformation,
occurring in the Middle Ages, in the philosophical notion of the ontological status of the idea. Because of this
transformation, doubt replaces trust in our perceptions.
In the consequent shifting world of doubt, certainty
becomes the necessary object of both the beginnings and
final end of our philosophical enquiries.
II
B
efore we present the historical evidence for our
thesis, we must be clear on what is meant by our
term, ontological status. The term signifies "status
of being:' An entity can be said to have the status of a
merely possible being. Alternately, it can be said to have
SPRING 1984
�the status of an actual existent. Here, we must note that
the question of the content of a being-the question of
its essence or "whatness'!_ is a question distinct from that
of its ontological status. Whether something is, i.e., whether
it is actual or merely a possible existent- is not answered
by giving a concept delineating what the entity is. As
Thomas Aquinas puts this: "I can know what a man or
a phoenix is and still be ignorant whether it exists in reality" (De Ente et Essentia, ch. 4, ed. Roland-Gosselin, Kain,
Belgium, 1926, p. 34 ). Kant expresses the same point
by writing, '''Being' is obviously not a real predicate; that
is, it is not a concept of something which could be added
to the concept of a thing'' (Kitrik d. r. V, B 636). If it were
a real predicate, i.e., part of the concept of a thing, then
from knowing the what, I could know the whether- i.e.,
whether the concept refers to an actual or a merely possible existent. That this is not the case is shown by the fact
that there is not the least difference in content between
the thought of a possible existent and the conception that
arises from its actual presence. As Kant observes, the
thought of a hundred possible thalers contains the same
amount of coins as a hundred actual thalers (see Kritik
d. r. V, B 637). It is because of this that loans can be
repaid, or, more generally, that what we think of as merely
possible can be encountered and recognized in reality.
If being did make a conceptual difference, if it was
something "added to the concept of a thing," then when
I was actually repaid, I would reply, "This is not what
I had in mind when I thought of the possibility of
repayment:'
The distinction we have given has a technical name.
It is called "the distinction between being and essence."
"Essence;' as Aquinas says, "is what the definition of a
thing signifies" (De Ente et Essentia, ch. 2, ed. cit., p. 7).
It is the content of an idea, the idea, e.g., of a man or a
phoenix as delineated by its definition. Being, as distinct
from essence, refers to ontological status. Admitting this
distinction between being and essence, we must also admit that what is defined conceptually is not specified according to its mode of being. The question of its ontological status, the question concerning the actual or merely
possible being of what is defined, is not answered through
its definition.
This point applies directly to our thesis about the
ideas. It does so because the ideas, considered simply in
themselves, are the same as essences. An essence, as we
said, is the content of an idea. An idea, however, is just
its own content and nothing more. It is, we can say, a
pure conceptual unit. It is such by virtue of the fact that
it is, in itself, simply the conceptual content which a
definition delineates. Given the fact that idea and essence
denote the same thing, what we said about the essence
applies to the idea. The latter, too, is necessarily silent
on the question of being. Otherwise put: no examination of an idea as it is in itself- i.e., as a pure conceptual unit- can answer the question of actual versus possible being. This silence on the question of being, based
as it is on the very nature of the idea, is absolutely general.
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
It, thus, applies to the question of the idea's own ontological status. If we attempt to answer it by considering the conceptual content that is the idea, we are always
free to answer it in two possible ways. We are free to give
the idea the ontological status of a possibility or an
actuality.
III
T
he history of philosophy gives ample evidence
of this freedom. For the moderns, the idea has the
ontological status of a possibility. To illustrate
this, we shall take three prominent figures: Kant,
Whitehead and Husser!. According to Kant, every conception that the understanding itself grasps is grasped
under the aspect of possibility (see "Kritik d. U rtheilskraft;' Kanis Werke, Berlin, 1968, v, 402). For very
different reasons, Whitehead concurs. Ideas or essences
are "eternal objects?' But, as he says, "... the metaphysical
status of an eternal object is that of a possibility for an
actuality . . . actualization is a selection amongst
possibilities" (Science and the Modern World, New York, 1974,
p. 144 ). Husser!, who would not at all be found in
Whitehead's camp, agrees on this one point: possibility
and essentiality are the same. The reason he gives for
this is that the being of an idea is the being of an ideal
or pure possibility (see Logische Untersuchungen, 5th ed.,
Tuebingen, 1968, I, 129, 240, II/1, 115, II/2, 103). Such
examples could be multiplied. In modern times, the idea
is universally given the status of a possibility: an empirically grounded possibility for the empiricists, an ideal
or "puren possibility for the idealists. In neither case are
ideas considered to be actualities.
For Plato, however, this was just what the ideas or
dol] were when he introduced them into philosophical
discourse. He names them oUaia which is taken from the
participle of the verb to be, etV<ll. A corresponding root
is found in the word essence, in Latin, essentia. The root
esse means in Latin to be. To call something oUaia or essentia was to say that it actually is. It has what is signified
by the verb to be. The same point can be made by looking at the divided line (see Republic, 509 d-511 e). In a
proportion involving the ratio between reality and image, the ideas are at the top. They are supremely real.
They possess oucriu in the highest degree.
One of the ways to see why this is so is to look at
Parmenides' statement: TO yUp o.lYrO voEiv Eanv 'tE Ko.i
dvo.t. We can translate this as "the same thing exists for
thinking and being;' and take this to mean: "the same
thing can be thought as can be." 1 So understood, we have
a statement of logical equivalence: thinkability implies
being and being implies thinkability. Now, whether or
not this understanding agrees with Parmenides' original
intention, it does yield a notion that for Plato is crucial
for the status of the ideas. This is that thinkability and
being pertain to the same thing. More precisely expressed, that which makes it possible for a thing to be
also makes it possible for it to be thinkable. The com-
41
�mon ground of these possibilities is self-identity or selfsameness. This self-identity will turn out to be a mysterious quality. For the moment, hoWever, we may define
it as the quality of something remai11ing the same with
itself.
·
That such a quality is at the root of being is affirmed
by Plato when he writes that "the very being of to be"the (w-rit f} oi'Jaia -roU dvat- is to be "always in the same
manner in relation to the same things!' As Plato explains,
this is to be "unchanging" and, thus, to remain the same
with oneself. The ideas, "beauty itself, equality itself, and
or self-sameness. This self-identity is, we observe, what
allows us to take the divided line and see it as a hierarchy of beings with the ideas at the top. Levels of being
could not be ordered and ranked if there were not a single
standard of being by which to measure them. This, for
Plato, is the self-sameness which images, things, mathematical objects and ideas respectively possess to a more
and more perfect degree.
IV
every itself' are called "being'!...... 'tO Ov- and this, because
they "do not admit of any change whatsoever" (Phaedo,
78 d). Platds position follows from Parmenides' statement
and an analysis of what change means. Its fundamental
intuition is that change is always change of something.
This something is an underlying self-identity. The consequence is that real loss of self-identity is not change.
It is rather annihilation pure and simple of the individual.
Now, the presence of self-identity not only makes possible the persistent being in time of the individual, it also
makes possible the predication of an idea of this individual. If change negated all self-identity, then nothing
in our changing world could have any intelligible name
or sense. Let us take an example: a person proceeding
from a newborn baby to extreme old age. It is the
presence of some self-identical element in this process
that allows us to predicate the idea "human" of this individual. When the person dies, this is no longer possible. What answers to the concept "human" is no longer
there. The point is that self-identity is required both for
being and being thought. What is not self-identical cannot be thought and cannot be.
A number of consequences follow from this reasoning. The first is that the ability to recognize being and
the ability to predicate an idea of a thing always occur
together. They must, if they are both based on the apprehension of an underlying self-identity. Given that
predicating an idea of a thing is the same as the recognition of the thing as intelligible, "being" and "intelligibility"
must be understood as co-extensive terms. One cannot
ascribe the one without ascribing the other; whatever has
a share in being must also have a share in intelligibility.
Now, participation- !J.E'tEXEtV- means literally "having
a share in." It, thus, follows that participation must be
understood as participation in both being and intelligibility. We can put this in terms of the Platonic doctrine that
a thing is intelligible by virtue of its participating in its
idea. The idea itself is the conceptual expression of the
self-identity that Plato calls the oucriu of to be. Thus, one
can also say that a thing has being by virtue of its participating in its idea-i.e., participating in the self-identity
that the idea expresses in terms of an unchanging concept. From this it follows that participation demands a
single notion of being, one common to both the thing
and its idea. A thing could not possess its being by virtue of its participation in its idea if both did not exist
by virtue of the same oucriu of to be. This is self-identity
42
H
ow does the transformation between Plato and
the moderns occur? How do the ideas, from being understood as pure actualities-i.e., entities
capable of being called 16 ov- become for the moderns
expressions of possibility? From a philosophical standpoint, the answer to this question has already been indicated. Our paper's position is that self-identity is not
a sure criterion of being. In particular, it does not point
to the actual as opposed to the merely possible. The
reason for this is that, like any other conceptual content,
self-identity is part of the essential determination of a
thing. As forming part of a thing's essence, it is silent
on the question of the status of the being of a thing. Thus,
to return to Kant's example, we can say that a possible
entity-a hundred possible thalers-possess as much selfidentity as an actual identity. Granting this, we must admit that self-identity does not distinguish between the
actual and the possible. An argument for the actuality
of the ideas, which is based, like Plato's, on their selfidentity, is thUs bound to fail. Here, indeed, we can find
the underlying reason for the ambiguity which, as we
shall see, characterizes the use of the term "self identitY:'
The concept per se is not ambiguous, its meaning being
simply sameness with self. It becomes ambiguous when
we attempt to make it into a criterion of being, something which no concept is fitted to do.
For Plato, the attempt to make self-identity a standard of being arises in connection with his doctrine of participation. As we have seen, entities have being to the
point that they participate-or have a share-in selfidentity. How are we to understand the self-identity which
is to be shared in? We cannot understand it as simple
identity with self. That which shares with another its
identity with self would either absorb the other into its
own identity or else lose itself in the identity of the other.
Thus, if the ideas and things are related by virtue of their
sharing in self-identity, either the idea would absorb the
thing or vice versa. A similar difficulty arises when we
take self-identity as the quality of being one. Is the oneness
to be referred to the oneness of a thing or to the oneness
of the idea?
The Parmenides shows Platds awareness of the difficulty
we are pointing to. He has Parmenides ask Socrates
whether "... the whole idea is one and yet, being one,
is in each of the many" (Farm., 131 a, Jowett trans.).
Socrates agrees that this is his meaning and further agrees
SPRING 1984
�that things must participate either in the whole of an idea
or in a part of it. Both, however, seem to be impossible.
Participation by parts would make the ideas divisible by
parts. It would also make us say that we can predicate
"part" of an idea of a thing. Such notions are strictly
speaking unintelligible. Ideas, which are not material
things, are not materially divisible. But neither are they
conceptually divisible. A simple idea cannot be conceptually divided. As it has no parts, part of it cannot be
predicated of a thing. A complex idea, so divided, would
become a different idea. Here, the notion of the idea as
maintaining its self-identity by virtue of its unity
precludes all division. If, however, we say that the whole
of the idea is participated in, we still cannot maintain
the necessary oneness of the idea. If individuals participate in the whole of the idea, then, according to
Parrnenides, "one and the same thing will exist as a whole
at the same time in many different individuals and
therefore will be in a state of separation from itself' (Ibid.,
131 b). Self-separation seems the opposite of self-identity
when we understand this latter as the quality of being
one. To be as a whole in many is to be many rather than
being one.
As is obvious, at the basis of Parmenides' dialectic
is the ambiguity of the meaning of being one. There is
being one in the sense that an idea or concept is one;
there is also being one in the sense that an individual
thing is one. If, with Plato, we understand participation
in terms of a single notion of being, one common to both
the thing and the idea, then we are faced with the problem of trying to put together these two different ways of
being one. This, of course, is the famous problem of the
universals. It is: How can the idea or species be present
in the individuals, or how can the single individuals share
in the unity of the species? The endless debate on the
question is actually about the notion of being. Both sides
agree that the very being of to be is being one, but disagree on what this last means. If to be means to be one
thing, then the ideas, which only have conceptual unity,
are not. They are nothing but "common names" produced
by habit, circles of association, historical processes- the
list is endless. An illegitimate child who is not owned up
puts everybody under the suspicion of parentage. If we
reverse this and say that to be means to be a conceptual
unity, then the same fate befalls individual things. What
a thing is, its form or common nature, is what is. In itself,
in its own individual unity, the thing is not. Both solutions are obviously one-sided. For just as our senses convince us that there are individual things, so without conceptual unities we would have no specifically human mental life.
The debate points out a problem, but it does not per
se give a solution. When, in the Middle Ages, a solution
does arise, it occurs by virtue of a transformation of the
ontological status of the idea. The context of this solution is set by Aristotle. More specifically, it is set by his
denial that ideas or essences exist in themselves as opposed to being either in the mind or in objects (see
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Metaphysics, 991 b, 1-3, 1039 a, 24 ff.). For his medieval
followers, this denial of the self-subsistent idea or essence
does not solve the problem of the universals. The denial
leaves intact the two notions of being on which the problem revolves. The facts of predication show this. What
is predicated is the idea in the mind. Viewed in terms
of the activity of predication, the idea has the characteristic of universality. As engaged in the individual
object, however, the idea has the characteristic of
singularity. Thus, we do not predicate the "humanity"
of Socrates or Plato. The "humanity" of Socrates is part
of his individuality. It is an informing form that makes
him into a definite individual- i.e., into what Aristotle
calls a "primary substance." We do, however, predicate
the idea of humanity, which is present in our mind, of
both Socrates and Plato. It has the characteristic of
universality; that is, the character of one thing being applicable to many. How is this possible? How do we
recognize that the ·humanity of a sensibly perceived
singular is the same as the intellect's universal idea of
humanity?
his is the question Avicenna, and eleventh century Persian philosopher, asked himself. His
answer is that such recognition is possible only
by abstracting the idea or essence from both forms of
being one. The unity of a universal and the unity of an
individual must both be seen as accidental to the essence
considered in itself. Without such an understanding,
predication is impossible. Let us quote Avicenna on the
essence "animal":
T
'Animal' is the same thing whether it be sensible or a
concept in the mind. In itself, it is neither universal nor
singular. If it were in itself universal so that animality
were universal from the bare fact of being animality, the
consequence would be that no animal would be a
singular, but every animal would be a universal. If,
however, animal qua animal were singular, it would be
impossible for there to be more than one singular,
namely the very singular to which animality belongs,
and it would be impossible for any other singular to be
an animal (Logica, Venice, 1508, III, fol. 12 r, col. 1).
Avicenna is here arguing that we cannot explain predication by identifying the essence either with the universality of the concept or the singularity of the thing.
Predication requires both the thing and the concept, and
they must be brought together through an essence that
is recognizably present in each. If this is the case, then
Avicenna's conclusion apparently follows. It is that we
conceive something "accidental" to animality when
beyond its bare content we think of it as singular or
universal (see Ibid., see also Avicenna, Metaphysica, Venice,
1508, V, fol. 86 v, cols. 1-2).
Avicenna's position is in some sense a return to Plato;
but it is a return that transforms Platds original conception. Plato has Parmenides ask: "In the first place, I think,
43
�Socrates, that you, or anyone else who maintains the existence of absolute essences, will admit that they cannot
exist in us?" To which Socrates replies: "No, for then they
would not be absolute" (Parmenides, 133 c, trans. Jowett).
Now, it seems to be part of the logic :of the notions that
make up Platds thought they they are incapable of being absorbed in incompatible philosophical systems. They
have, in other words, a certain resistance to their being
misunderstood. This resistance is evident here. Attempting to follow Aristotle, Avicenna begins with the position that essences are either in the mind or in things.
But then he examines predication, and the logic of the
notion of an essence compels him to say that essences
cannot be identified either with being in the mind or being in things. In themselves, absolutely considered, they
are, as Avicenna shows in the passage quoted above, in
neither. Yet the very way in which Avicenna affirms this
exhibits the transformation he has wrought on Platds
essence. It is a transformation of the criterion of being
which underlies Plato's notion of participation.
The problem with this criterion in Avicenna's eyes
is its equation of being and being one. How can we
understand oneness with respect to the ideas? How can
an idea or essence be-that is, be one-in many individuals, each of which is also called one? Avicenna's
answer is to split the category of being by asserting that
to be does not necessarily mean to be one. Let us restate
this. If asked how the idea can be one and yet, being one,
be in each of the many individuals, Avicenna would reply
that it is precisely because unity is accidental to the being
of an idea that its being in the many does not prejudice
the idea's own inherent being. To make the idea one is
to make it present either in the mind or in things. It is
to make it either an idea in the mind which is predicable
of many or an individual which is a subject of predica·
tion but not itself predicable of another. Both forms of
being one are accidental to it as it is in itself. In itself,
it represents a form of being which is other than
predicable notion or physical object. Itself neither, it has
the possibility of being either. In other words, from the
point of view of mental notion or physical thing, it is just
this possibility of being either and nothing more. Its on·
tological status is simply that of a possibility.
The transformation that Avicenna has worked on
Platds original position can be indicated by noting the
following. For Plato, participation is based on a single
notion of being. As a consequence, participation in an
idea is also participation in being. For Avicenna, this is
not the case. The essence, insofar as it lacks unity, has
not the same being which an individual entity has. Thus,
participation in an essence does not mean participation
in actuality. How could it if the essence, instead of being supremely actual, represents only a possibility? In
fact, for Avicenna, the function of sharing being is taken
over by God, the only necessary being. Things cannot
become actual by participating in their essence, since
essence has, for Avicenna, no inherent status of actuality.
We need a further step to come to the modern no-
44
tion of an essence or idea. Once again it can be looked
upon -at least in a superficial way-as an attempt to
return to Plato. This return attempts to restore to the
essence some notion of unity.
hile Avicenna's influence was spreading through
the Arab world, the Latin West was independently developing a doctrine of the
transcendent properties of being. These are the properties of being irrespective of where it is found. There are
a number of these properties, but we need only mention one: unity. The doctrine taught that being and unity
are co-extensive properties. Where being is present, unity
is present. To the point that being is lacking, there is a
corresponding lack of unity. 2 When Avicenna entered the
West with his assertion that an essence had being but
not unity, only two alternatives seemed possible to those
who thought being and unity were co-extensive. They
could accept Avicenna's denial of the unity of an essence,
but reject his teaching on the proper being of an essence.
Alternately, they could accept his assertion that an essence
has a proper being, and reject his doctrine that unity
does not apply to essence as such. 3 The first course was
followed by Aquinas who writes that essence, considered
in itself, abstracts from "any being whatsoever" (De Ente
et Essentia, cap. 3, ed. cit., p. 26). In other words, lacking unity, it must, in itself, lack being. This is part of
what Aquinas means when he writes that essence and
being are "really distinct!' The famous defense of this
distinction is the treatise, On Being and Essence.
The second course was taken by Scotus. Scotus agrees
with Avicenna that essences have a proper being. He thus
argues against Aquinas's attempt to conceive of essence
apart from being (see Opus Oxoniense, lib. IV, d. 11, q.
3, n. 46, Vives ed., Paris, 1891-5). He also asserts that
essences do have a unity- not the unity of a mental idea
or a physical thing- but something slightly less than this
called minor unity. 4 This unity corresponds to Avicenna's
being of an essence. Such unity is demanded by the fact
that the essence in the individual perceived through sensation and the essence in the mind's universal notion is,
in fact, one and the same essence.
How does Scotus know that it is the same essence?
The answer can be drawn from the elements of Scotus's
position. The first of these is that essence in itself does
not express reality, this last being understood as a mental idea or extramental thing. It expresses only the
possibility of a reality. Its ontological status- i.e., the
status of its being- is that of a possibility (See Op. Ox.,
ed. cit., lib. I, d. 2, q. 1, n. 56). The second is that the
examination of this possibility is the examination of the
essences's "minor unity;" This means, for Scotus, the terms
which make up the definition of an essence must not be
contradictory. They must be compatible, that is, be
capable offorming a unity. The insight here is that without this capability, the essence defined by these terms cannot be instantiated as a unity either in the mind or in
W
SPRING 1984
�things. It cannot be so instantiated in the mind, for as
Scotus observes, contradictories cannot be thought of as
single notions (see Op. Ox., lib. I, d 2, q. 1 in Duns Scotus,
Philosophical Writings, ed. A. Wolter, London, 1963, p. 73).
This applies to analytical contradictions such as "p and
not-p:' It also applies to synthetic contradictions such as
the concept of a red tone. In such a case, the notions
are so "distant" from each other that neither determines
the other. If we leave the notion of figure out of account,
color and tonality can only be thought of as separate,
unrelated notions. The same criteria of compatibility apply to instantiation in things. To say "this one" in the sensible world implies that there is a subject of predication
there. It presupposes that the predicates we express are
unifiable in this subject. Otherwise, there would not be
one but two subjects of predication there.
A further element in Scotus's positiOn is that we never
leave the field of being when we talk about an essence.
There is a being of an essence; in fact, there is an existence of an essence. Essences themselves are only
possibles; but as Lychetus, Scotus's authorized commentator, remarks: "It is simply contradictory for any essence
to have its being of a possible and not to have its existence
of a being of a possible" (Op. Ox., ed. Vives, lib. II, d.
3, q. 1, n. 7). In other words, since essences have being,
they also have existence. For Scotus, this means that
degrees of existence follow upon degrees of essence (see
Op. Ox., ed. Vives, lib. II, d. 3, q. 3, n. 1). We can illustrate this by an example: the person of Socrates. We
start out with the most general essence we can think of,
that of thinghood or substance. We now begin to specify
this essence, idding successively the predicates, living,
animal, two-legged, rational, capable of laughter, in
Athens, engaged in dialectic, snub-nosed, etc. The
essence, as it is further specified, gradually narrows and
makes more definite its unity. The possibility corresponding to its unity becomes more defined. The possibility
of a rational animal living in Athens is not the possibility ofthinghood in general. Now, the ultimate determination is, of course, one of singularity, in this case, the
numerical singularity of an individual thing. When we reach
it, then according to Scotus, we have an existence corresponding to this grade of determination. We have the
actual existence of an individual man. This view can be
summed up by saying that all individual existents are
completely full essences. They are specified down to the
here and now of their being. Let us make a comparison.
If we say that such essential determinations must take
account of every element of a person's life and, in this,
also his relations to all other actual existents, we shall
be able to see the monads of Leibniz peeping over Scotus's
shoulder. Such monads also owe their actual existence
to the fullness of their essence (see Discourse an Metaphysics,
XIII).
H
ere, it would be helpful to mention Scotus's proof
for existence of God. It involves a redefinition
of Anselm's formula for God. In Scotus's ver-
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
sion, it runs: "God is that without contradition than which
a greater cannot be conceived without contradition" (Duns
Scotus, Phil. Wr., ed. cit., p. 73). The addition of the words,
"without contradition;' points to the fact that Scotus's attention is on the essence of God. Since essences are
possibles, to demonstrate an essence is to demonstrate
a possibility. But, as we said, the basis of essential
possibility is minor unity. This is the same as the absence
of self-contradition. Thus, according to Scotus, what one
has to first demonstrate is that the essence of God '!wn
cantradicit entitatt!....._ i.e., "does not contradict entityness."
This phrase is typical for Scotus. Less literally translated,
it means "does not contradict that which every entity must
be in order to be." This, for Scotus, is being compatible
with self. Every entity must have compatible attributes
if it is to be. Thus, the major part of Scotus's argumentation is directed towards showing that God, as Christians conceive him -as causally active, as intelligent, as
willing, as infinite and perfect, but especially as the first
or highest- is, in fact, a compatible essence. This means,
for example, demonstrating that the notion of causality
is compatible with that of a first cause. It means
demonstrating that the notion of perfection is compatible with the notion of a highest or first degree of perfec- .
tion (see Duns Scotus, Phil. Wr., ed. cit., pp. 39-45, 48-9).
All of these demonstrations, if we grant them, prove
that God is possible as an essence. But what about the
proof that he is an actual existent, that he is a numerical
singular? To demonstrate this, we have to establish that
he is unique. This is because the grade of actual existence
corresponds to that of an essence specified down to the
uniqueness and singularity of an actual individual. To
manage this step of the proof, Scotus points out that the
notion of a first in the order of causality-as well as in
the orders of perfection, will, intelligence, and so forthcan only involve the same unique singular. The notion
of two firsts, as he argues, is simply contradictory. It is,
for example, contradictory to conceive of more than one
being which, at first, is defined as the necessary and sufficient cause of the world's existence. If there were more
than one, neither cause, by itself, would be a sufficient
cause. The result of such arguments is the assertion that
if God is possible, he must necessarily be an actual existent. This follows because God's notion specifies in the
order of possibility a unique singular. His essence includes his actual existence, for it is an essence which is
only possible as that of unique existent.
There are a number of ways Scotus makes this point.
For example, he notes that a first cause is essentially possible only as an actual existent. It is, he argues contradictory to the notion of a first cause of existence, to receive
its actual existence from some other cause. Thus, if it
is, indeed, possible for a first cause to exist, it must actually exist of itself. The possibility of its existence, however, has already been demonstrated by Scotus's arguments showing that the essence of a unique first cause
is a compatible essence. As a consequence, we must say
that a first cause does, indeed, actually exist of itself. It
45
�is an actually existent entity (see Duns Scotus, Phil. Wr.,
ed. cit., p. 46). A similar argument, is made about God
as the measure of perfectiOn.
Whatever else we might think about this proof, we
should keep an essential point in mind. It only works
for God. In other words, since nothing else is first,
nothing else can be proved to be unique and, therefore,
actual by this method. We can express this by saying that
God is a deductive singular. From this notion as a first,
we deduce he can only be as an actual singular. All other
beings, like our example of Socrates, are singular
inductively. They are' singular by the inductive addition
of conceptual formal note to conceptual formal note, each
further conceptual determination working to further
specify the essence in question.
What happens when we say that such "notes" or
specific differences are infmite in number, that they comprehend the specification of the relations of our finite
being to every other finite being? If we believe this, then
Leibniz's God is capable of seeing in our essence the
necessity of our actual existence. But we, with our limited
understandings, are not. In other words, for us, every actual existent other than God is, in terms of its conceptual essence, essentially unprovable. The conclusion
follows from our adoption of Scotus's metaphysics. The
result of this metaphysics is ultimately to collapse being
and essence together. In Scotus's words, "It is simply false
that being is other than essence" (Op. Ox., ed. Vives, lib.
IV, d. 11, q. 3, n. 46). Granting this, the proof of a being is also the proof of an essence. Thus, if we say that
a finite being has an infinite number of specifying differences in its essence, then a proof of its actual being,
as based on the examination of its essence, is a proof
necessarily involving this infinity. It requires the
demonstration of the compatibility of an infinite number of formal notes. Such a demonstration is impossible
for a finite mind. What we are saying, then, is that in
terms of our limited, human conceptions of individual
beings, we never cross the boundary between possibility
and actuality. This is because we can never inductively
specify an entity down to this one thing, to an actually
existing unique singular. We mention this to point out
the transformation which Scotus has worked on the
original Parmenidean equation between conceivability
and actual being, vo&iv and dvat. The equation no
longer involves, as it did for Plato, the identification of
a limited number of underlying, self-identical elements.
v
L
et us now return to Descartes. In his Meditations)
Decartes doubts the world and then finds it necessary first to prove God in order to assure himself
of the existence, say, of his ink pot. Why begin with God
rather than the inkpot? The procedure is in some sense
intelligible if we take into account the philosophical world
into which Descartes was hom. As a number of historians
46
have pointed out, the decisive influence in this world was
ultimately that of Scotus. 5 The influence of Scotus can
be seen by comparing Descartes' proof for the existence
of God with Scotus's original. The former is actually a
truncated version of the latter. The reason why Descartes
must begin with God's existence is, thus, at least
historically clear. In the order of demonstration, God's
existence comes first, since it is, in fact, the only existence
which we can in this tradition demonstrate.
What about Cartesian doubt? There are, as we maintained at the beginning, two sides to this doubt: doubt
of perception and doubt of opinion. Both, we claim, can
be traced to the transformation in the ontological status
of the idea.
Let us consider, first, the value Descartes places on
opinion. As indicated above, the transformation implies
that every essential predication we can make about the
world only grasps its objects under the aspect of possibility. In other words, the subject of our discourse, insofar as our discourse is concerned, is only a possibility.
It is an essence which we can only incompletely specify.
For all our talk, in terms of our statements' essential content, the object we are talking about may or may not actually be. The implication is that our statements, considered in themselves, express what may be called mere
opinion. By this, we mean that they have no inherent
claim to be "true" or "right:' Because of this, their examination is not, as Plato thought, a necessary first step
for philosophical enquiry. Since they are, in their essential content, inherently capable of expressing an actual
reality, they must, as Descartes believes, be, one and all,
doubted.
What about a direct perception of the object? Plato,
as we said, associates the realm of the directly perceivable with the attitude of trust. Trust, as opposed to certitude, is all that we can have if we remain on the level
of direct (or sensuous) perception. On this level, we cannot confirm a perception except through a further perception, and so we have ultimately to trust our perceptions. Between this trust and the Cartesian doubt of
perception, there also lies the change in the status of the
idea. The idea, for Plato, is etymologically and philosophically tied to perception. The Platonic term for the
idea, ei8o<;, is taken from sicSm, which means '(to
perceive!' The philosophical link between the two appears
when we take the ideas we garner from our perceptions
of the world as the highest expressions of actuality. If we
take the ideas as supremely actual, we are inclined to
trust rather than to doubt our perceptions; for then we
say that our ideas are and that their images, the directly
perceivable things, also are. The relation here is that of
actuality to image as given by the divided line. For Plato,
given that the ideas are, the directly perceivable thingswhich, as images, are dependent on the ideas- must also
be.
This philosophical position is, of course, completely
undermined once we say that the ideas have the ontological status of possibilities, i.e., that they express the
SPRING 1984
�fact that what sensibly instantiates them may or may not
be. At this point, they cannot provide a philosophical basis
for a belief in the existence of sensible things. Trust, therefore, turns to doubt, and like Descar:tes we must turn
to the benevolence of God to assure us of the world we
once took for granted. A sign of the new character of
this doubt is the fact that this benevolence itself becomes
an object of proof rather than a matter of direct perception. In the absence of any proof to the contrary, it is,
for Descartes, possible that God may be an evil, deceiving genius. Here we may remark that the direct experience of God's benevolence is grace. That grace could
be considered a matter of demonstration is the surest sign
that the modern age has been entered. 6
Was this transition to modernity necessary? Was it
necessary for us, with Descartes, to enter an age in which
we attempt to demonstrate matters which we formerly
took on trust or faith? Given that the whole of the history
we have recounted turns on the failure to distinguish being and essence, we cannot say this. What we can say
is that the question of being, of that which, as Parmenides
says, "is and cannot not-be;' still remains open.
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Footnotes
1. Both translations are given in 77le Presocratic Philosophers, trans. and
ed., G. S. Kirk and]. E. Raven, Cambridge, England, 1966, p.
269. The first takes the infinitives voetv and d:vm as infinitives
of purpose.
2. This is the doctrine of the Book concerning Unity by the 12 c.
philosopher and translator, Gundissalinus. See Die dem Boethius
folschlich zugeschriebene Abhandlung des Dominicus Gudissalinus De unitate,
ed. P. Correns, MUnster i. W., 1891, p. 3.
3. See Joseph Owens, "Common Nature: A Point of Comparison
Between Thomistic and Scotistic Metaphysics;' Mediaeval Studies,
XIX (1957), 4.
4. See Owens, pp. 8-9.
5. As Gilson points out, Scotus influenced Descartes, not directly,
but through Suarez's work, the Metaphysicae Disputationes. See
Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd cd., Toronto, 1952,
pp. 106, 109.
6. By way of contrast, we may observe that for Aquinas grace is emphatically not a matter of demonstration. See the Summa Theologica,
I-II, q. 112, a.5.
47
�Looking Together in Athens:
The Dionysian Tragedy and Festival
Mera J. Flaumenhaft
L
ooking at The Bacchae, we do not see all that
Euripides once meant to show, for the text is
incomplete. How is it that, just as we come
to the most terrible parts, after Agave has ex-
hibited the dismembered corpse of her son
and invited the Chorus to eat of the feast, how is it that
just here so much of the text is lost to us? Scholars
speculate about torn manuscripts and they scour ancient
citations, hoping to recover missing lines. Editors labor
to piece together sections from a twelfth century play called Christus Patiens, parts of which are cribbed from The
Bacchae. But we who read the play, or watch it in the
theatre, realize, as we approach the end, that we can
hardly bear to look, hardly bear to hear. What The Bacchae shows is obscene; what it says is unspeakable. Nevertheless, we feel compelled to see what it shows, to say
what it means.
This essay is a suggestion about a kind of poetic
justice. Might the mangled corpse have resulted in a
mangled text because, once the situation in which it was
originally confronted was gone, there was no way to face
such things? Dionysus may be unapproachable outside
the Athenian theatre of Dionysus, and perhaps such spectacles should not be watched except in circumstances like
those for which they were intended. The restored text
has been brought to life in the theatre. Modern
technology broadcasts the Greek drama to our living
rooms and flies us to Athens in attempts to reproduce
the original context. But viewed alone at home, or
watched in the company of strangers, the play must have
A tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis, Mcra Flaumenhaft has
published articles about Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Homer. An
earlier version of this essay was delivered as a formal lecture in Annapolis on September 23, 1983.
48
an effect thoroughly different from the one it had in an
Athenian festival two thousand years ago.
The Bacchae, like other Greek tragedies, is about,
among other things, looking together. While raising questions about Dionysus and the ordered, everyday life he
disrupts, the play suggests further questions about the
place oflooking in civilized human life. How do human
beings look at the world around them, at each other, and
at themselves? Are there things that should never be
looked upon, or should be viewed only in certain circumstances? Do rulers and ruled look differently when
public policy is determined in different regimes? Is the
looking of spectators in a theatre related by nature to
Dionysus; and is a festival like the one which once surrounded the play essential to the proper effect of such
looking? Let us look together, first at Euripides' depiction of Dionysus in Thebes, and then at the festival which
celebrated Dionysus in Athens.
PART ONE:
The Dionysian Tragedy at Thebes
acchus abolishes boundaries. This god shows up
oblivious to the lines and limits which define
ordinary human life. "Having changed his form"
(morphen d'ameipsas) (4) from divine to human, he is
simultaneously god and beast, male and female, terrible and gentle. The geographical sweep of the Prologue
depicts his disregard for natural and conventional distinctions alike. Transcending mountains, rivers, and great
seas, he has moved over a hugh diverse continent and
made it one. Different races, languages, and even walled
fortresses present no barriers. The coming resembles an
itinerary for an army advancing from the east, but
Dionysus' advent is an easy flow. The liquid sounds (lipon
B
SPRING 1984
�de Lydon) (13) indicate the ease with which he has come.
Embraced by the already "mingled" (migasin) (18) Greeks
and barbarians in Asia Minor, he returns to the "streams
of Dirce and the waters of Ismenus-." His sudden appearances are not through doors or gates or passageways.
Liquid himself, he slips in.
For those touched by Dionysus, life ceases to be
measured, articulated experience in place and time. The
women who follow him are merely ''Asians." "Having
passed from" (ameipsasa) (66) their origins, they forget their
former distinct lives in their single-minded devotion to
Bromius. They exhort others to follow them, to be
"displaced" (ektopos) (69). The stung Theban women
resisted at first but, now, they too are "all mingled
together" (anamemeigmenai) (37). They have left enclosed
houses in a walled city to dwell on 'unroofed" rocks on
the open mountains. There the distinctions between
human beings and the world around them are muted.
The Bacchantes are not separated from the earth by walls,
floors, and shoes. They've exchanged their shuttle sticks
. for thyrsus sticks, and now weave with ivy vines and living snakes. They are compared to birds, colts, and fawns;
instead of woven cloth they wear animal skins. Their fire
is not an instrument of art or domination. It is not used
for cooking, for forging tools, or for warmth against the
snows of Cithaeron. Nor does it harm them. Rather, it
flows from their rods, like lightning, a visible charge from
the god who electrifies them. They throw themselves to
the earth and sweet liquids spring up- not in rivers,
springs, or wells, but wherever the earth is touched. The
god's bounty is so great that even storage containers are
unnecessary. When Bacchantes dance, the whole mountain ''bacchizes with'' (sunebacheu) (726) them. But this
mountain is not properly their "place:' They speak of
Crete, and yearn for Cypris, Paphos, and Pieria, as well.
Furthermore, their holy places are peculiar in that their
sense of the holy precludes place as it is ordinarily experienced by human beings. As a proseletyzing cult, Bacchism aims at universality. The god could be anywhere,
anywhere one is not confined by the constrictions and
constructions of civilized life. He'll move on when he's
done with Thebes. To worship Bacchus is to be in
touch-with earth, air, fire, water- but not with any particular place. He promises a literal u-topia: no house,
no city, no defined home on earth. The Theban counterparts of these uprooted women tear up trees by the roots.
The women who worship Bacchus "out of place" also
live outside articulated human time. Neither natural nor
conventional time punctuates their lives; they do not plan
or wait. Unconcerned with time of year, they tend no
crops or animals, and store no food or wine for the future.
Their plants are ivy, bryony, and fir, ever-greens whose
looks do not reflect seasonal cycles, but whose lavish
growth is a continual show of powerful life within. The
ivy and vines grow freely, ungoverned by a set form which
they must reach to be themselves. The Bacchantes live
apart from men, mingling without regard to age, and
their lives are unmarked by ceremonies of birth, growth,
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
or death. The fertility god of seasons makes his followers
barren. They leave their own infants and nurse young
animals. New devotees must be made in the streets of
the cities which generate them. The Bacchantes chant
the remembered story of Bacchus, but they have no story
of their own. They do not look back together upon their
own pasts or forward to their own futures. Once again,
being in touch makes them deeply out of touch as well.
Immersed in the present, they are at one moment fast
asleep on the ground and then fully awake and upright,
or, at one moment bloody from battle and immediately
after, clean and refreshed, with no memory even of re-.
cent experience. The ritual orgia ---!'works in service'~ of
this god require little time-consuming preparation. There
are no embroidered robes, no burnt offerings, no altar
or hearth, no statues, no organized feasts. In short, where
there is no ordinary sense of time, there can be no articulated festival time; where there are no days, there are
no holidays.
The Bacchic celebrants merge not only with the earth
and other living things around them, but with the god
himself. To revere Bacchus is to ''bacchize" (bakcheuo) or
to "bacchize oneself' (katabakchioomai). The verb does not
. take an accusative outside the subject. Instead of offering libations and food to a distant divinity, the followers
of Dionysus drink him and eat him raw, ignoring even
bodily boundaries to become one with him. Losing oneself in Dionysis is a reassertion of one's ties to the earth,
but, at the same time, it is an attempt to assimilate oneself
to the condition of the god. Dionysus needs no priest to
mediate between· himself and his followers, no prophet
to explain him: "the leader- exarchos- is Bromius" (140)
himself. Anyone at anytime can be in touch with the god.
hose who merge with the natural world and with
Dionysus do so while merging with others. It's
not surprising that the most willing followers of
Dionysus are women, who are, perhaps, by nature most
attached to and in touch with other human beings. To
"bacchize" is to "thiasize the soul" (thiaseuetai psychan) (75).
Like most Greek choruses, the women of the thiasos, the
Bacchic band, speak in the singular: "I rush'' (thoazo) (66)
and "I shall hymn" (hymneso) (72). But here the dramatic
convention acquires special meaning as they are made
one by their dress, slogans, and the dance. Individual
heartbeats merge in the drumbeat, and ecstatic music
moves them "outside themselves;' not to isolation, but to
thorough communion. Even Cadmus and Tiresias feel
it; they say they've forgotten they are old men. Feeling
the same things, they slip into the dual (194) and share
a line of iambic trimeter (189). They "clasp hands and
together make a pair" (xunapte kai xunorizou chera) (198);
in Greek, they ()oin the horizon." "Counting out no one"
(diarithmon dbuden) (209), the god "has made no distinctions" (ou gar dierech') (206). As we soon see, the priest
of Apollo and the founding father of Thebes never fully
lose themselves in Dionysus. But the maenads on the
mountain are thoroughly merged. In a vase painting
T
49
�Dionysus faces two women, but it i~ difficult to tell which
of the four bare feet and arms beJong to which. The
thiasos distinguishes itself from hostile outsiders; left
alone, it is a unit. The Messenger mentions three groups
and the individuals around whom they gather, but the
women don't attend much to the division. Within the
thiasos there is no opposition or competition, in deed or
in speech. Once again, articulation iS foreign to Dionysus.
In contrast, the cattlebreeders and shepherds distinguish
themselves from each other, as well as from an easytalking city-slicker, and from the mute domestic animals
whom they again distinguish as young and mature heifers
(737,739). Like most messengers in the tragedies, the
Messenger from Cithaeron has looked with others. He
speaks in the first person plural, reporting that the herders
argued about what they saw: they "matched common
reports with each other in strife" (715). But the Theban
rnaenads, like the Asian chorus, cried out "in one voice;'
literally, "with one mouth" (athroo stomati) (725). Later as
they attacked Pentheus, "all gave voice at once" (en de pas 1
homou boe) (1131). The homogeneous democracy of the
Bacchantes merges into an impetuous "throng:' Ochlos
(117, 1058, 1130) is a word often used in political contexts to describe a fickle mob, female or male, as opposed
to the aemos, male citizens who assemble to discuss their
own and the city's common business. Though the women
sing antiphonal chants of some sort, there are no "winged,
words among the Bacchantes. In Homer the word ameibO
is used for exchange between persons, exchange of speech
or private possessions -like the self-conscious talk and
trade between Diomedes and Glaucus in Iliad VI. In The
Bacchae it refers mostly to change of position or appearance. It signals not organized giving and receiving
among separate individuals, but the fluidity of anything
touched by Dionysus.
The communion of the thiasos precludes private as
well as public relations. Ordinarily, human love begins
in distinguishing the loved one from others. Later, lovers
or friends rightly feel that they have become "one:' Nevertheless, in love and friendship, the others like oneself also
remain somehow other. The Bacchantes mention loveEros or Aphrodite- only as symbols of peace and release.
Since they make no distinctions within the communion,
they do not recognize either permissible or desirable
behavior in its separate members. Their gentle closeness
is thus deficient love, just as their angry violence can only
be primitive justice. Unlike friends, they look neither at
nor with each other, and feel no profound admiration,
pity, or fear for other human beings; they are too much
in touch.
Finally, placeness, timeless, merging Bacchism is opposed to the human self-consciousness which develops
from standing up and looking at the world, for Dionysus
makes it very difficult to look. The maenads are characterized by constant motion, interrupted by falls to the
earth. Euripides repeatedly calls our attention to the way
in which the god confounds "up and down" (anO te kai
kato), 1 turning the world topsy-turvy, and transforming
50
the relation of vision to the other senses. In the Parodos
the women sing of their feet, hands, mouths, and hair.
Those who feel themselves to have come alive through
Dionysus evoke the contact senses: the feel of air, smell
of smoke, taste of liquids, and sound of drums. In a later
ode they sing of the "pale-bare foot" dancing in the "green
pleasures of a meadow" (863-67). The synaesthetic mingling of visual and tactile expresses wonderfully the
powerful beauty of their undifferentiating awe. Similarly,
when they sing of colors in the Parodos, the effect is
kaleidoscopic. For them, color permeates, is diffuse; it
does not define the contours or limits of things. They
prefer night and shadows to light and clear lines. A vase
painting depicts a dancing maenad with head thrown
back and eyes open, but glazed over. Others shut their
eyes. The dancer's freely moving body extends and crosses
the defmed vertical space he usually occupies. 2 Ordinarily,
eyes see only when they are lifted on an upright body,
away from the earth, and when they remain still long
enough to gaze steadily. Through them, an autonomous
individual takes in what is outside himself. But the Bacchantes "take in" the world in order to merge with it. By
changing the relative status of the senses, Dionysus makes
the world look different.
The Bacchae odes have been compared to Romantic
nature poetry or to landscape painting. But the Bacchic
attitude is very different from that of the poet who looks
at himself looking at the natural world. This looking requires separation from as well as kinship with, the ivy,
snakes, fawns, and foals which twine, slither, and leap
through a world with no horizon, a world in which they
have not stood up. Wordsworth's poems are about mortality, time, memory, place, and his own changing
perspective on nature and human life. He is a mature
self-conscious beholder who often looks with or addresses
his observations to another. And he speculates about his
kinship with and his distance from the world upon which
he looks:
For I have learned
to look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity ... (Tintem Abbey)
Immersed in the beauty of the land, the Bacchantes have
never seen a landscape. The latter, as the word suggests,
must be "shaped" by the seer-or painter-who frames
the scene with boundaries and a horizon. When a Bac-
chic woman throws down the frame of her upright loom
(istos), she abandons all frames and the orientation which
framing makes possible in human life.
One reason The Bacchae is so unsettling is that the
Chorus, which in most Greek plays is tied to the city,
here consists of unrelated foreigners; there is no community "point of view?' Agave thinks she has seen and
killed a lion (1175, 1238), and, with eyes rolling in her
head, she calls upon her son to come look. (1257). Instead of withdrawing in pity and fear, the women, for
SPRING 1984
�once, are eager to look: "I see and shall accept you as
a fellow reveller" (1172). Their response to her invitation
to eat expresses their revulsion, but they urge her to show
her trophies to the citizens. The rest of the play is Theban
business and the Chorus hardly reactli to the dissolution
of the city through which they have passed, but with
which they have never looked. Agave finally comes to a
standstill, away from her thiasos. Only then can Cadmus make her see that this is not a happy "spectacle" (opsin) (1232), that, indeed, it is "not the sort of thing to be
seeri' (oud'hoion t'idein) (1244). Dionysus affects human vision not only by preventing and distorting it, but by making those he touches unable to distinguish between what
should and should not be beheld.
entheus rejects the god. He speaks the language of
opposition, not surprising in the grandson of
Cadmus, who emerged from the barbarians to
overcome a monstrous dragon, and reaped civilized
Hellenes from these chthonic, even incestuous beginnings. Pentheus has detached himself from these beginnings. He makes distinctions; between old gods and new,
immortals and mortals, Greeks and foreigners, free men
and slaves, men and women, Thebes and countryside,
day and night, dignity and folly. He orders out the articulated divisions (781-83) of his male army against the
female thyrsus bearers who mingle on the mountain. Pentheus trusts in gates and walls, jails and chains. Like his
grandfather, he has a strong sense of his own. He must
defend "my" mother, "our" women- the Greek does not
require the possessive- against alien forces. He will not
be touched: "Do not put your hands on me, do not wipe
off folly on me" (343-344), he cries. When the two old
men who have clasped hands urge him to recognize the
levelling god, Pentheus draws the line. But although he
is so different from the Bacchantes, he too is characterized
by his disordered vision. In both his public and private
behavior, he is unable to look with other human beings.
King Pentheus is alarmed for the safety of his city.
Most monarchs are vigilant about erotic alliances within
their regimes, for the private friendships of those who
see alike may result in invisible conspiracies against a
king. There are no such friendships in Thebes and, as
we have seen, the thiasos is characterized by an undiscriminating, blind form of "friendship:' Though the
maenads are unlikely to oppose the ruler in any political
way, the presence of a communion of citizens who no
longer feel their primary tie to be the city does constitute
a real threat to ordered political life. But King Pentheus
deals with this threat tyrannically. Without father, mother,
or friends, he looks and acts alone. The maenads are too
much in touch to look with others; Pentheus, like most
tryants, is too out of touch. His grandfather has abdicated to him, and there is no council of advisors. He alone
will spy out and act against opposition. Even the feeble
chorus of elders which provides a sort of public perspective in some plays is absent here. And anyone- even
P
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
a professional seer-who offers another point of view is
suppressed.
Pentheus' public behavior is tyrannical in another
way. Most kings rule by their manifest presence, often
through public ceremonies or processions in which the
ruler exhibits himself to his subjects, or in which they
are reviewed by him. 3 Even without planned ceremonial
occasions, the well-being of the community requires the
visible presence of its different elements. Ruler and subjects might not look together as equals, but each is a
viewer recognized by the other. Pentheus rejects mutual
viewing just as he rejects mutual council: only he is to
be on view; the city will look to him for its well-being;
opposition must be hidden away in dark dungeons. He
scorns even to look upon those who disagree (252).
Not surprisingly, the vision of the friendless tyrant
is defective. His view of the women is based on what he's
heard. "I hear (kluo), he begins a long distorting description of their imagined behavior (216ff). He "knows" of
Tmolus by "hearsay" ( 462), and mistakes a bull for the
odd-looking Stranger who makes him want to hear more
about the maenads. The eyewitness report of the
Messenger from Cithaeron, in the central scene of the
central episode of the play, looks both back to Pentheus'
hearsay envisionings and forward to his disastrous firsthand view of the Maenads. "Having seen the sacred Bacchantes" (664), he says that Pentheus too would have seen
(737, 740) that the thiasos was a "wonder of good order
to see" (693). "Having seen these things;' Pentheus "would
have come with prayers" (712-13). Then he describes the
attack on the villagers. In a striking image he reminds
us of the way in which human eyes almost reflexively close
to avoid seeing what should not be exposed to view: the
garments of [bulls'] flesh were drawn apart more quickly
than you could close the lids over your royal eyes"
(7 46-4 7). The Messenger continued to watch this Dionysian dismemberment. The "terror" ( deinon), he says, was
a "sight to see" (theam'idein) (760).
From now on, Pentheus' concern shifts from his
public responsibility to his private needs. For, suppress
him as he will, Pentheus too yearns for Dionysus. No
longer satisfied with reports, he develops a great "desire"
(eros) (813) to see the maenads with his own eyes (811),
to become a "watcher" (theates) (829). He says he would
be sorry to see them drunk, but Dionysus remarks that,
all the same, he would see these "bitter things" with
pleasure (815). To look differently, Pentheus must look
different. He dons the "costume" (stoiC) (828) of a maenad
but, unlike the women, he is painfully self-conscious. His
posturing betrays the armour between himself and the
"effeminate form" (gynaikomorphe) (855) he has assumed;
it is both shared costume and protective disguise. He says
he has been "playing the Bacchant" (bakchiazon) (931). The
verb differs slightly from the one used by the Chorus
(bakcheuo); it suggests the difference between engaging
in one's own activity, and watching oneself assume the
customs of others. Pentheus' carefully delineated world
has begun to blur. Hallucinating, he sees two suns and
51
�a double Thebes. The Stranger, who at first seemed "not
unshapely" (amorphos) (453), now appears in other shapes.
The transformed king is led off in a peculiar private "procession" (pompe) of unacknowledged retainers who later
report what happened, and by the Stranger, "the leader
of our viewing (theoria) (104 7).
Unlike the maenads who fall to the earth, Pentheus
rises far above it, an isolated "spy" (kataskopos) (916, 156,
981) and a "spectator" (theates) (829) of the absorbed
women below. Once again, his looking is aberrant. Pentheus is a voyeur. In the private realm he wishes not to
do, but to view, everything. The sexual voyeur watches
actions which, by nature, should not concern anyone but
the actors. By ignoring the line between private and
public, he obliterates both realms. Other voyeurs who
stare unblinkingly at the corpses of the dead, or the grief
of the living, also see what in civilized life must be
obscene, off-stage. The voyeur may seek out spectacles
of bestiality, incest, necrophilia, cannibalism, and other
violations of the natural lines of human life. Pentheus
surely is titillated by the suggestion of such things among
the maenads. In collapsing the distinctions between
private and public, seen and obscene, human and animal,
the voyeur may appear to embrace Dionysus. But the
embrace is false. Although the Bacchantes, like animals,
do not properly look with others, they do look- in their
fashion- in the presence of others. As we have seen, the
voyeur lacks their unselfconscious innocence. His furtiveness reveals a deliberately violated sense of shame
which they do not have; he knows he should not be looking. We call him "bestial;' suggesting not nature, but
degeneration.
The voyeur's vicarious embrace of Dionysus is false
also because, though somehow moved by what he sees,
he is an isolate, outside communal, as well as private,
combinations. Pentheus wants to see -"the things he should
not see" (912), but his looking must be seen by no one;
he must not be touched. Even as he ignores boundaries,
he erects a frame around others like himself, reducing
their actions and passions to material for his viewing.
Pentheus' private spying, like his public violence, is tyrannicaJ4 Earlier, he speaks only of the maenads' physical
behavior; now too, he can see only what their bodies are
doing. He cannot share their spiritual joys or sorrows
or "thiasize the soul" with others; at the end he feels only
the "pain:' or ''grief' (penthos), of Pentheus. In a terrifying reversal, this solitary and too-distant onlooker is
drawn swiftly into the scene. Seen by those who do not
ordinarily look up, he is pulled down to the earth he
denies in himself. Earlier he anticipates being held by
his mother; now he reaches out to touch her cheek and
is ripped apart, his ribs "laid bare" (gymnounto) (1134) like
those of the animals the Messenger describes. The corpse,
dismembered and unburied, will be displayed for all to
see. The young man who would maintain distinctions
is almost eaten, reabsorbed, by his own mother, in a terrifying violation of human time and relations. His city
is shattered; its founder will be transformed into a snake
52
and will lead a mingled barbarian horde against the
Hellenes he once civilized. Exiled by Dionysus, he will
return to "ravage the oracle of Loxias:' that is, of Apollo
(1336).
Apollds priest had warned Pentheus to join him in
recognizing the new god. But like the god he already
serves, Tiresias remains somehow aloof, always looking
from afar. His rationalized arguments on behalf of
Dionysus seem alien to the spirit of the god of umnediated
mergings. He is a Theban, yet he has the distance to look
into Theban affairs and see more than those whose
primary allegiance is to the city. Like the Bacchantes,
he is in touch with a god; but he is somehow out of touch
with other human beings; unmarried and childless, he
has been male and female; he has looked upon copulating
snakes, and once he beheld the goddess Athena naked,
as she bathed. Unlike the followers of Dionysus, he
transcends the city in isolation. His blindness, though
related to his insight and foresight, precludes his looking together with others. He alone is not punished, but
it is clear that, Apollonian vision, as well as the looking
of shameless Bacchantes, and voyeur-king, is inadequate
when Dionysus shows himself in Thebes.'
PART TWO:
Tragedy and the City Dionysia at Athem
magine now another city, one which tries to provide
an entire community with something like the experience of those who lose themselves in Dionysus.
We are all familiar with revels which sanction temporary
release from daily life: medieval Festivals of Misrule,
Twelfth Night, Jewish Purim, Catholic Mardi Gras, and
camp topsy-turvy days. These are characterized by reversals or blurring of political and sexual hierarchies and
distinctions, by unusual masks and costumes or no
clothing at all, by dramatic role-playing, by wild dancing, or by the conspicuous consumption of intoxicating
beverages. The most important of the Athenian festivals
was called the City Dionysia. The name differentiates
it from rural festivals by attaching it to the physical city,
astu; the location is crucial. This festival was far more
than temporary entertainment; it was an important part
of the positive training of the Athenian people. 6 Let us
delay considering the dramatic highpoint of the festival
and speculate about how the arrangements which led up
to it address the unsettling questions The Bacchae raises
about Dionysus, looking, and the city. We shall also consider some modern counterparts.
Like other civic events, this annual festival is
characterized by its attention to shared time and place.
In late March summer agriculture and war do not demand the full attention of the citizens. The seas are
navigable again, and allies send ambassadors to bear
tribute and also to look at the first city. In the spring,
I
SPRING 1984
�the citizens are constantly aware of the distinctions between themselves and outsiders, as w~ll as between themselves and resident aliens and slaves 1within the city. As
we shall see, the community which assembles to celebrate
the god who obliterates boundaries' is conspicuously
divided into distinct groups throughout the festival.
As in most civic business in Athens, responsibility
and preparations are shared. Though inefficient, this arrangement insures continual participation in public life.
Like other projects whose parts are contributed piecemeal
by private citizens who order and pay for them, the
festival involves large numbers of people. Several months
before, the Archon Eponymous and his aids, none of
whom is required to have any special training in drama,
choose the poets who will enter the competitions. Actors
are assigned and a preliminary selection of judges is made
from among the tribes. The ten names of these ordinary
citizens-not drama critics-are put into sealed urns in
the Acropolis; tampering with them is a capital crime.
Also chosen long before the festival are the choregoi,
private citizens who provide the money to outfit and train
dithyrambic and dramatic choruses and flute players.
This duty is called a leitourgia, a work on behalf of the
leitos, or folk. Unlike the Bacchic orgia, the leitourgia is the
civic duty of an individual, freely assumed, or assigned,
by tribe or city. Other "liturgies" equip a warship or
finance a delegation to a pan-hellenic festival. This great
public giving allows an individual to exhibit his wealth,
but to do so in partnership with the city, which pays the
actors and endows poets' prizes. A liberal choregos spends
gladly; though compulsory, the leitourgia is not a tax. His
giving, like all noble action in a small homogeneous community, is meant to be seen. During the festival, the
choregos exhibits not only his chorus, but himself, dressed
in splendid robes, as a noble object for the contemplation of his fellow citizens. This office seems to speak to
Rousseau's warning in The Social Contract, against the
substitution of money for public service. In fulfilling his
civic responsibilities, the choregos offers, in Rousseau's
terms, both his "pocketbook and his person"; 7 he expends
himself. Compare him with modern "philanthropists;~
an interesting word -who, in their own way, often
privately, and even anonymously, endow museums, parks,
and theatres of their own choosing. At another extreme,
a manual for producers of community dramas warns
against a single patron because even fmancial dependence
on one person reduces the community, group, effort. a
The modern representative republic often seems either
to put all the responsibility into private hands, or to fear
private initiative. The ancient participatory democracy
requires the wealthy citizen to spend his wealth honorably,
and then displays him and his work as examples of civic
liberality- even magnificence- befitting a free man
among equals. 9
The Proagon, before the poets' contest (agon), takes
place one or two days before the festival. Here the public
is officially given the details of the program. In the
Odeum, a hall near the theatre, each poet stands with
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
his choregos, actors, flute players, and chorus, to announce the titles, and perhaps plot summaries, of the
plays. The civic meaning of the Proagon is clearer when
compared with our practices. It is not a review by an
outsider who discusses and perhaps recommends the play.
Nor is it a coming attraction in which potential spectators are enticed by samples; there will be only one performance. Rather, it is an occasion for the many citizens
who will be acting to display themselves in their own persons, as fellow citizens, to those who will be watching.
In the Proagon, no one wears masks or theatrical
costumes.
The last event before the festival period is the torchlit night procession commemorating the coming of
Dionysus to Athens. The god's image, removed earlier
from the temple in the theatre precinct, is carried back
from the northwest Eleutherae road to the theatre. The
procession is the first properly "Dionysian" event but it
differs strikingly from the various manifestations of the
god in The Bacchae. Here again we see how the City
Dionysia links orgia with leitourgia. Instead of lightning
appearances and the removal of the population to the
mountain, here a manmade statue of the god is deliberately carried within city walls, through gates and streets,
and placed in a building made for institutional worship.
It is escorted by armed epheboi, young men in training
to defend the city, but who are not yet full members. Like
the festival period, they are on the border between civic
and non-civic time. In The Republic, Socrates would forbid them to watch plays and would restrict their "spectacles" to the noble warfare of their elders. 10 In his Letter
to D'Alembert, Rousseau suggests that they attend community dances instead of the theatre. 11 Athens requires
the young men to be present at the theatre festival, but
carefully regulates their role.
The next day begins the period during which all ordinary business is suspended. There is no assembly during the festival, and no legal action may be taken.] ailed
prisoners are released on bail. The first official event, a
turbulent procession, the pompe; is not an occasion for
careful looking and distinguishing. Pressed together, or
even from the sidelines or a reviewing stand, one forms
not a view of the whole, but a fragmented, kaleidoscopic
impression. Though it is difficult to gaze steadily, one
is intensely aware of moving bodies, of arms, bellies,
noses, backsides, and ritual phalluses. 1 2 Citizens and
foreigners, old and young, men and women move to the
same throbbing rhythm. Many wear masks, and perhaps
costumes, which blend their identities with those of the
opposite sex or the god they celebrate. The arrangements
do, however, maintain some shape, some direction. Now
the physical forms of the city, which may have blurred
in the flickering torchlight the night before, are visible.
The procession winds through the streets, halting in the
agora, perhaps for choral dances at the altars of other
gods. The epheboi sacrifice a bull and present the choicest
parts to prominent city officials. Unlike the mingled Bacchantes of all ages, only unmarried girls take part in the
53
�pompe. A maiden of noble birth leads, carrying a golden
basket of offerings. Others bear wine, now mixed with
water, and food, now cooked with \fire, to be consumed
on the way. The abundance of Dionysus in Athens is en-
closed in pots, baskets, wineskins, lind other manmade
containers. The rich ride in chariots. Prepared costumes
identify other groups: citizens in white, metics in red,
and choregoi in their finery. However immersed in the
crowd they are, the celebrants enter the theatre of
Dionysus together, in public procession, as citizens of
Athens. They are one, but the one is an articulated community, not a thiasos.
The theatron-watching place-where the entire city
will spend the next few days, from dawn to dusk, is a
round space like both a natural dell, and a conventional
agora or an enclosure within a city wall. Most sit closely,
knee to knee, with nothing between them. Jean-Louis
Barrault remarks on the warmth and unity of "houses"
where there is only one armrest between seats:
The spectator is part of the others ... the audience is
a sort of synthesis of the whole community of the world,
of the promiscuity of all the others pressing one against
the other; a sort of human stirring shoulder to shoulder
... which releases ... a monstrous god, a sole personality.... The audience is a kind of enormous baby ...
all the adults lose their personality. 13
his might recall the Bacchantes. But it does not
describe with sufficient subtlety the Athenian
theatre, or the way in which "the monstrous god"
comes there. The congregation includes the free male
citizens, the Assembly, who often gather in a similar amphitheatre on a nearby hill; the festival gathering is not
the first time they form a community. They are uniformly
encouraged to attend- Pericles arranged for the city to
provide tickets for all- but they are not mingled indiscriminately. And, while they are joined on this occasion by many resident aliens and foreign visitors, the aim
is not a "synthesis of the ... world:' Rather, grown men,
epheboi, maybe women and children, metics, and
visitors, sit in separate sections, identifiable in their
colored robes. Citizens may sit by tribe. It is the city of
Athens that is foremost, and not the unarticulated "world."
It has been conjectured that the wooden bleachers, which
were later replaced with stone ones, were made from the
timbers of Persian ships that these men, or their fathers,
defeated at Salamis a few years before.1 4 Whatever the
facts, it is important to remember the occasions on which
they gathered together in the past.
Finally, there is another kind of seating~'front row"
stone thrones for polis officials, generals, and choregoi.
Unlike Bacchantes who sit close together and look at
nothing, or Pentheus, who sits alone and spies on
everything, these "distinguished" citizens sit together and
apart, viewing and on view. Most prominent, at the
center, sits the priest of Dionysus, city official and intermediary between the god and his celebrants. Gone
is the exarchos who whips up the moblike thiasos to
T
54
ecstatic identification with Dionysus. A statue of the god
who always looked alone in Thebes, now joins Athens
as a fellow spectator at his own festival.
Dionysus is present in his altar as well. The flame
which burns in the orchestra throughout the festival is
neither the useful fire with which men master nature,
nor the narthex fire which streams spontaneously from
the wands of dancing Bacchantes. The altar fire is for
looking at, 15 not by solitary individuals or private households, but by the whole city together.
The visual focus of the theatre is the round dancing
place (orchestra) of the chorus and the platform (skene)
where the actors perform. This platform usually
represents the outside of a palace. There is no drop curtain to separate audience from ·acting place. Unlike
modern theatregoers whom an implied "fourth wall" putS
in the position of voyeurs looking into a private place,
Athenian spectators, like the dramatic characters, observe
what is normally on view to the public.
But while attention is focused on the stage, it is not
exclusively so. The performance takes place in the
daytime, so the acting area is not a lit place in a dark
space. Daylight preserves distinction which break down
in the dark. Changing as the day passes, it keeps those
who concentrate on artificial stage time in touch with
natural time. Since the theatre is so large, the figures
on stage are small, distant, and undetailed. The well-lit
audience which sits almost circularly around them, is thus
as much to be seen as the performers on stage. A citizen
in the theatre of Dionysus is far more aware of himself
and his fellow spectators than are modern theatre or
movie goers, strangers who are absorbed by the illuminated action at one end of a dark rectangular room.
Television, which enables viewers to watch in common,
but in private, all the time, with no preparation or
cooperation before the viewing, seems the complete antithesis of the civic viewing we are considering. The
modern extended republic does its governing through
representatives, now also mostly seen at a distance, on
television. It is not surprising that those who stay home
to view Thanksgiving parades organized by private businesses will view anything else that is shown. Electronic
inventions have the potential to turn millions of viewers
into voyeurs, who see without being seen, and keep in
touch only by looking from afar. This technology may
produce extreme unity and homogeneity, but at the same
time, extreme isolation. Such isolation was less possible
in the Athenian arrangements for overseeing public policy
and viewing dramatic performances in full view of one's
fellow citizens.
Two more views are shared by the spectators in the
theatre. One is of the mountains surrounding the city.
Scenic shots in film versions of Greek tragedies are
beautiful, but tend to remind most of us that we are
foreigners. The landscape beheld by the Athenians is their
own. The second view is of what they have built upon
the land. Though they are outdoors, in touch with the
weather and the natural contour of the hill they sit on,
SPRING 1984
�they can still, as Pericles tells another congregation of
Athenians and strangers, feast their eyes on Athens. The
unsettling wonders they will behold in the plays are
framed by the solid citizens and solid foundations of the
city which makes the festival.
·
The Bacchae, these singers are native-born men and boys,
present and future citizens. They are released from their
required military training to be trained for the festival.
Their trainer, though not 'a, poet, must also be native to
the city. As worshippers of the god, they sing and dance,
bound into a circle, crowned with flowers and ivy, but
B
efore turning to performances, let us glance briefly
at some of our contemporary American festivals.
In the context of our present discussion, they have
a decidedly unci vic look. Popular theatre festivals sell tickets
long distance, mostly to non-residents, and import
famous actors who perform for audiences that have never
before assembled and never will again. They gather at
various Stratfords, for example, to "see shows." Our
diverse and tolerant republic is rich in the variety oflocal
ethnic festivals which are celebrated traditionally, often
with the help of quite different friends and neighbors.
But, in America, these festivities cannot be civic festivities,
and it is evident that in a prosperous, mobile, and cos-
mopolitan society such traditions tend to atrophy. National holidays like Thanksgiving, Independence Day,
and presidents' birthdays do not seem to have the same
intensity as local or ethnic celebrations. Another variety of contemporary festival self-consciously aims to bring
together a diverse urban community. A recent Chicago-
fest was run by a non-local business called "Festivals Incorporated." It offered food, crafts, entertainment, and
publicity for the incumbent mayor, but deteriorated into
racial wrangling. In Annapolis, a national beer company
underwrites an annual city festival heavily attended by
outsiders. It is advertised in the Washington Post among
other area {(Festivals, Festivals, and more Festivals;' from
which a private family might choose a spring outing.
Most of the pleasant fairs and festivals in hundreds of
American towns have a commercial basis; their most visible activity, amidst preparations, decorations, and enter-
they are unmasked. Far from losing their identities, they
remain distinguishable from each other and identifiable
by their fellow citizens. Nor are the spectators moved outside themselves by these hymns, since the singers are not
fictional personages with whom they identify. 16
The next day begins with a political display in which
the city exhibits itself for its own citizens and for outsiders. After the priest of Dionysus purifies the theatre
by sacrificing a pig and pouring libations, there are processions which, unlike the earlier parades, are entirely
for watching. Young Athenians march before the vast
assembly, carrying jars of silver talents, the year's tribute
from allied cities. Citizens and strangers are honored for
their services to Athens. The orphaned, but now grown,
sons of men who died in battle parade in full armour.
They have been educated by the city, which now displays
them, as they make the transition from wardship and
seat themselves, as fellow spectators, among the citizens.
Now at last is the gathered city prepared to look upon
what is alien, alien not only because the dramas depict
semi-divine heroes, and kings, and assertive women of
other cities at other times, but because, in them, civil-
ized people must confront anew what they have made
alien to themselves: their own buried monstrousness. The
great chorus in Anti'gone articulates a paradox about man:
the very thing that makes this anthropos wonderful makes
him terrible. To be deinos is to be tragic. Human beings
are articulating beings who rise up and distinguish
themselves from the world and from other beings in the
world. Only man is conscious of place, time, and mor-
tainment, is exchange of merchandise; the crafts displayed
for looking are for sale, as is the food.
tality, and only man distinguishes between what he will
do and look upon from what is forbidden. But tragedy
Our hunger for something more than commercial
fairs has taken an interesting form in the past few yearsfood, crafts and entertainment in a setting of medieval
and Renaissance exotica. For example, at Columbia,
Maryland, a "planned community" with a heterogeneous
population which works in other cities, a corporation
started in Minnesota hosts a "Renaissance Festival" to
reminds us that man is also the only being who essentially strives to ignore or overcome such limits. Like
voyeurs' peep-shows and everyone's dreams, 17 the
tragedies reveal rape, parricide, incest, cannibalism, defiled corpses; their subject is human hubris, the violation
celebrate another place at another time. The Washing-
and impure.
oflimits and the failure to articulate. In the theatre spectators must face what is mixed and mingled, mangled
ton Post ad announces that, "the sixteenth century is back
by popular demand!' Of course, the sixteenth century
fair was also primarily a commercial enterprise. Our
celebration of such things must be very different from
Little Italy's saints' feasts, and even more so from Athens'
Dionysia. Examples abound to demonstrate the differences between the festivals of cosmopolitan modernity
and those of the ancient polis. Let us now return to the
theatre in Athens.
In the first watched performances, choruses from each
tribe sing dithyrambic hymns, often about Dionysus. But
unlike the identically masked, rootless Asian women in
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
o understand the theatre of Dionysus in Athens
one might have to understand why Oedipus ends
his life in Athens. Repeatedly, the plays show us
a tragic protagonist from Thebes- or some place like
it- who brings his terrible and wonderful experiences
to the most civilized city in Hellas. Athens is not simply
providing a refuge for them. These extraordinary suf-
T
ferers are somehow gifts to insure the fertile, vital
humanity of the city that takes them in. Consider Thebes,
the paradigm tragic city. Cadmus comes from the east,
brings the alphabet, slays a dragon, and turns a violent,
55
�chthonic, incestuous settlement into a walled and orderly
city. Then Dionysus is engendered·there and, when he
1
returns, the women run for the mo untain. The young
king is killed and the city is shattered. After a few generations, another watchful king exposes a baby on the mountain to avoid predicted disasters. The baby, who grows
into a fully developed version of Pentheus, returns to subdue the raw-eating sphinx-monster that has attached itself
to this city. Answering all questions and requests himself,
standing above the earth and the city, taunting the gods,
this autonomous paradigm of all human beings kills his
father, sleeps with his mother, and generates his own siblings. Years later the blind, dependent untouchable comes
to Athens, to a sacred grove containing the threshold to
the underworld. Adopted by the city whose ways he must
now feel out, and recognizing the power of love, he now
gives not his power to dominate or control, but himself.
Theseus recognizes that to accept him is to worship
simultaneously (hama) the earth and the sky. It is not clear
whether Oedipus vanishes up or down, but at last he
leaves something which will pass down properly through
generations of Athenians. Thebes, the city of violent
beginnings, of vines and wines, of dragons, snakes, and
sphinxes, of maimed walkers on earth, and of the wild
mountain, has come home to Athens, the city of peaceful
beginnings, of the rooted olive tree, of skilled horsemen,
and the tamed sea. Athens is deepened by this presence."
The plays, then, are emissaries between the community and what it must usually exclude. Like Oedipus,
the tragic drama is a necessary pollutant, "terrible to see,
terrible to hear" (deinos men horan, deinos de kluein) ( Oed.
Col. 140-41). Like Oedipus, it is also a blessing to civilized
human beings, to reconcile them with their primitive,
yet ever present, origins- with the buried dragon's teeth.
But these deina, terrible things, are now "most terrible
to men, yet most gentle" ( deinotatos anthrOpoisi d'epiOtatos)
(861). Dionysus on the mountain makes one forget the
bitter things; in the theatre, he recalls them, so that
remembering and looking are sweeter than forgetting and
turning away.
Athens understood that to be fully human, deinos
anthropos must recognize both static, pure Apollo, and
dancing, drunken Dionysus- and to come to "see" in the
ways of both gods. Officially sanctioned Dionysian
festivals, and the arrangement by which the Delphic
shrine was given over to Dionysus for several months of
each year, both bear witness to this understanding. But
like Tiresias' arguments, other festivals -and even the
sharing at Delphi- fail to recognize Pionysus fully. The
difficulty is that they are all from the point of view of
Apollo. One measures off part of the year, contains it
within strict boundaries, and permits a weak version of
once powerful devotions. Meden agan-='nothing in excess':_we hear Apollo say; metron ariston-='measure is
best"- even as the revellers toss their heads and drink their
wine. The wisdom which says one must know oneself,
and that both Apollo and Dionysus are that self, is an
Apollonian wisdom. One temporarily forgets oneself,
56
under orders from the god of clarity, articulation, and
the distant view. The difficulty lies in the serial character
of these arrangements, the alternation of distance a~d participation, vision and touch. Pentheus' acting and looking are not Euripides' images of the theatrical experience.
For true actors and spectators experience simultaneously
both Dionysus and Apollo, just as Theseus worshiped
earth and sky hama, "at the same time."
The actor undoubtedly "identifies" with the alien
character he impersonates. But, behind his mask, he retains his self-conscious awareness of who he is. In the
Proagon he showed his own face; in the drama he shows
the mask of Pentheus or Dionysus. The mask may call
into question our fixed identities, may suggest Dionysian flux. But, we do not see one person transforming
his very face into that of another.
The Chorus is also simultaneously foreign and
familiar. In The Bacchae fifteen male citizens impersonate
the Asian women. They sing of wild, timeless, placeless
running, while executing dances which require the utmost attention to time, place, and direction. Though they
speak as one and wear the same mask, they move in rectangular formations, always aware of rank. They sing
of open spaces in the shadows and contact with the earth,
but dance in an enclosed space, in broad daylight, on
a hardened orchestra floor. They sing of experiences
which obviate speech in complex diction and matched
stanza?. They have committed to memory hymns to
amnesia.
The spectators, who behold the action on the stage,
are also simultaneously themselves and others. Only as
separate, autonomous souls can they feel pity and fear
for others like themselves, but clearly other. As democratic
equals, citizens-friends, they look both at and with each
other. And like friends who act for and see themselves
in each other, they see themselves in those they watch
on stage. Unlike the cave spectators in the Republic, they
are not in the dark; they can turn their heads. They are
aware, even as they feel the real joys and terrors of
Dionysus, that they watch a framed imitation, a whole
with carefully articulated parts. Looking together, they can
face what, if experienced firsthand or seen privately,
might destroy their humanity. The "spectacle" (apsis), contest, and actors, which Aristotle and some of his interpreters dismiss as unnecessary, allow for facing such
things with others. Essential to the moral and civic ends
of tragedy, they are the proper work of legislators,
teachers, and citizens, as well as of the costume maker. 19
et us' pause again to consider some recent American theatre "experiments;' of interest to us because
they so often invoked Dionysus, while differing
radically from the theatre which celebrated him in
Athens. The "new" theatre of the 60's took its cues from
Cezanne and Cubists; it sought kaleidoscopic, collage effects unbound by frame or linear, articulated forms.
Often looking to eastern models, it was self-consciously
"total;' multi-media, not just visual. The followers of
L
SPRING 1984
�Artaud and his "theatre of cruelty" agreed that Sophocles
is too "fixed;' that the theatre must move away from looking, language, and "masterpieces?~zo Athens brought
Dionysus from the mountains through the streets, into
the theatre. Some "new" groups took their performances
"to the streets'~ to Times Equare and Grand Central
Station- in order to dissolve barriers between imitation
and "life?' Others abandoned the "fourth wall" convention and the distinction between watcher and watched,
encouraging audiences to mingle with "actors" and to take
part in the ('action." Distinctions between what is publicly or privately viewable lost their meaning in such spectacles; nakedness was a trademark of the "new" theatre.
The explicit goal was to create a democratic communion
among all participants, most of whom had never come
together before. Paradoxically, this communion was to
coexist with different reactions from different spectators.
Everyone could do and feel his own thing, but together.
Theoretically, any reaction was as good as any other in
this "democratization of Dionysus;'2 1 but the celebrants
themselves have described violent conflicts. The deliberate
avoidance of hierarchy and "rigidity" was the goal of such
groups as the Living Theatre, The Orgy-Mystery Theatre, The Any Place Theatre, The Ontological-Hysterical
Theatre, and the James Joyce Liquid Memorial Theatre.
The name of Dionysus was often heard, even before The
Performance Group produced its famous Dionysus in 69,
in which actors, spectators, speeches, and sets maintained
their "fluid" character from "performance" to "performance:' The published text, in which the triumph of
Dionysus is unequivocal, is based on Arrowsmith's
translation of The Bacchae. It includes the ruminations
of the director and members of "the Group;' and closeup
photographs of their writhing, blood-stained, naked
bodies. It is, appropriately, not paginated. 22
The so-called "people's" theatre thrived in the 60's during the most intense opposition to American "participation in the war in Vietnam." But the "participatory" antiwar "happeniog" rarely explored broad questions of policy
and conscience. It was often meant to substitute for, not
speculate on, political action. The Athenians participated
in the decision to fight the Persians, and those who sat
together in the assembly fought together at Salamis.
When they produced The Persians, however-and later
plays as well- they remained spectators, and their judges
were looking for universal "masterpieces!' What is the relation between ordinary aCtion in Athens and festival and
theatrical action during the Dionysia?
In their workaday world the Athenians look together
at the same things, from differing perspectives, in order
to reconcile private interests in domestic policy. From
a single shared perspective they must also look together
to formulate foreign policy for the whole city. This too
is self-interest. Hindsight, present-sight, and foresight are
for the sake of action. In their leisure time, in the theatre,
they feel and judge, but not from self-ioterest. These plays
are also civic actions, but they are not for the sake of
further political action. Like assembly, lawcourts, and
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
war, the festival unifies the citizens. The plays at the heart
of the festival also make them one, not from competing,
but from looking, together. Just as festival competition
is somehow higher than the competitive excellence of
Athens at work, so also is play watching superior to play
production, because, in addition to prizes, glory, and a
beautiful product, it has looking as its end. Pythagoras
said that some people attend games in order to sell for
gain, others to compete for fame, but that the best come
to see. 23 In the shared time of the festival, and especially
of the play, human beings cease trying to control the
world and others in it. They do not merely merge or
dissolve, but, for a time, they pause from working,·
building, and fighting, to recall their relations to the
earth, to other living things, to each other, and to the
gods. Duriog the festival of Dionysus, looking for the sake
of lookiog is joined with dancing for the sake of the dance;
looking here means staying in touch. The thoughts which
accompany such looking are likely to transcend particular
interests, and also distinctions between people who belong
to the city and others outside it. Thus, to this assembly,
Athens invites its resident aliens and foreigners to behold
both Athens and what Athens beholds. Many, no doubt,
are mere sight seers. But for some citizens and some
strangers, this dancing, looking, and feeling together may
approach a communion which far transcends that of the
city and that of the Dionysian communicants. Does this
kind of looking require others- or very many others? Do
philosophic friends require civic festival times to direct
their attention to the things which transcend time? The
few who emerge from the cave in The Republic appear to
be solitary spectators. Perhaps they might read tragedies
in private. But for most at least, the Athenian theatron
is somewhere between the thiasos and theoria, and it aims
at making them fuller human beings than they would
be without it.
aviog made such high claims for the tragic highpoint of the City Dionysia, I hesitate to bring us
back to earth. But we must return, if we are to
be true to the spirit of the festival. Back to the city would
be more accurate, since, as we have seen, the earth and
the city, though in touch, are not to be confused. The
exact order of the festival events is disputed, but nearly
all the schedules proposed agree that satyr plays and comedies follow tragedies. Either at the end of each day, or
at the end of the festival, the spectators turn to different
sorts ofDionysiac representations. It is impossible to explore them fully here, but we can at least note that both
differ from tragedies in that they depict unbounded appetites, distortions, and monstrosities as humorous supplements to regulated everyday life. They, like processions and carnival merrymaking, can coexist with that
life, without threatening to shatter it. The comedy after
the tragedy helps to return the partially transported spectators to full citizenship, even as it mocks them. Contemporary subjects, Athenian settings, topical and personal allusions, and unmasked addresses to the audience
H
57
�as citizens, repeatedly break the dramatic illusion. The
awarding of prizes, crowning of victors, and processions
out of the theatre, return them t~, ordinary time and
place. The Assembly is the core of their non-festival life
and the appropriate settiog for the formal transition back
into that life.
The first business transacted by the Assembly on the
day after the Great Dionysia is festival business. Now
only the citizens gather in the theatre to consider religious
matters and complaints about the processions, contests,
officials and participants in the festival. 24 Such selfconscious e-merging from festival to everyday time is
strikingly missing from the mergings which are central
to the Dionysian experiences we have examined in The
Bacchae. And it rarely occurs after conventional theatre
and television shows- contained gaps in ordinary timeor after anti-establishment performances which deliberately blur the margins of the action. The conclusion of
Mardi Gras in New Orleans provides a last example. A
reporter writes that at midnight a bullhorn abruptly announces that the holiday is over: " 'You must clear the
streets for the street cleaners' . . . by morning the natives
say, 'You'll never know it happened: "25 Mardi Gras takes
over the city for a day; but like most of the festivals
discussed above, it is not primarily a civic event. Exclusive
"crewes" organize parades, crownings, and balls, and there
is much general merrymaking, but the city does not
gather as one. 26 Rather, it provides police protection and
garbage disposal. The ends of the Great Dionysia and
of the Mardi Gras are a telling contrast of ancient and
modern notions of the ends of government.
In The Bacchae the god says he will manifest himself
"so that the city of Cadmus may see (horaz)" (61). But Cadmus and his people somehow cannot "see" Dionysus and
survive. The city of Athens arranges to look together
upon Dionysus and those who have beheld him, and at
the same time to look upon those with whom they are
beholding Dionysus. In this remarkable arrangement it
is possible, at least, that citizens may truly drink and
dance, yet look and learn, and yet again, return to their
looms and to their assembly on the day after.
We who live in a world where women no longer labor
at looms, and free men may never set foot in assemblies,
cannot return to the Athenian polis. Nor would most of
us want to, knowing that the coherent public life we have
been examining was accompanied by rigid sexual distinctions, by extreme censorship, by slavery, poverty, and
almost continual warfare. As we buy our machine-made
clothing and elect our representatives, as we feast together
after watching the parade in the comfortable privacy of
our homes, as we choose our plays and movies, and even
our festivals, we thank whatever god we will for our
physical, political, religious, and iotellectual freedom. But
we too have paid a price, a price having something to
do with Dionysus and with civic community. Perhaps we
can avoid becoming intellectual voyeurs who restore the
texts of unspeakable things, stage what should not be
58
seen, and examine with unblinking curiosity the cares
of a distant time and place, by keeping always one eye
upon ourselves, and by asking what our souls and cities
can learn from the ones at which we have been looking.
Notes:
1. Ba"ha" 80, 96, 349, 552, 602, 741, 753.
2. See Erwin Straus, "Forms of Spatiality'' in Phenomenological
Psychology. (New York, 1966). I have learned much from the essays
in this book.
3. One might think of the progresses of the first Queen Elizabeth,
or the coronation of her namesake. See Edward Shils and Michael
Young, "The Meaning of the Coronation;' Sociological Review) 1,
No. 2,1953.
4. We might also remember Gyges whose injustice and tyranny are
related to his voyeurism. In the Republic (II) Gyges~or his
ancestor -looks on an oversized naked corpse in a hollow horse.
The ring he steals from tQe body enables him to be present among
people who cannot see him, and to do unjust acts with impunity. He soon commits adultery with the king's wife and takes
over the rule. In Herodotus (!.8-13) the ruler of Lydia insists that
Gyges look upon his naked wife. After this viewing, Gyges kills
the husband and becomes ruler. Leontius is another solitary
viewer of dead bodies in The Republic (VI). Although his anger
and desire are at odds, it is not clear that intellect and desire
are. Injustice and voyeurism are also related in the Biblical story
of the lustful elders who watch Susanna as she bathes. Their looking, as much a violation as their rape would have been, is related
to their being corrupt judges, violators of community. Turning
their eyes from heaven, they bear false witness, and are finally
exposed because they could not properly look together with
Others.
5. I have found the following books most useful in thinking about
The Bacchae: G.S. Kirk's translation (Cambridge, 1979); E.R.
Dodds' Text, Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, 1960); R.P.
Winnington-Ingram, Euripides and Dionysus (Cambridge, 1948);
Walter F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult (Bloomington, 1965).
Charles Segal's comprehensive study, Dionysiac Poetics and
Euripides' "Bacchae"(Princeton, 1982) appeared as I was finishing
the present essay. I have elminated some, but probably not all,
of the overlapping material. Segal's book is indispensible reading ·
for anyone interested in The Bacchae and Greek tragedy. I too
have learned much from many of the authors he cites: Rene
Girard, Arnold van Genneps, and others.
6. I have found the following books most useful in thinking about
the festival and about Athens: Alfred Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth (Oxford, 1961); H.W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians
(Cornell, 1977). AVV. Pickard-Cambridge, Ditlryramb) Tragedy and
Comedy (Oxford, 1927) and The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (Oxford, 1953). H.C. Baldry, The Greek Tragic Theatre (Norton, 1971)
is an easily available paperback introduction.
7. Jean:J acques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, III, xv.
8. George McCalmon and Christian Moe, Creating Histon'cal Drama:
A Guide for the Community and the Interested Individual (Carbondale,
Ill., 1965). p. 48.
9. Aristotle, Ethics, IV
10. Plato, Republic, VI.
11. Jean:Jacques Rousseau, Letter toM. D'Alembert on the Theatre, IX.
12. Mikhail Bakhtin's Rabelais and his WOrld (Cambridge, Mass., 1968)
contains the best discussions I know of such periods of festival
abandon.
13. Jean-Louis Barrault, "Best and worst of professions," in The Uses
of Drama, ed. John Hodgson (London, 1972), p. 24.
14. E. O'Neill, Jr., "Note on Phrynichus' Phoenissae and Aeschylus'
Persae," Classical Philology 37 (1942), 425-27.
SPRING 1984
�15. One is reminded of the Jewish injunction about Hanukkah
candles: they are to have no utilitarian purpose, but to be only
for looking. There is conjecture that Hanukkah customs
developed deliberately in response to rur'al Dionysiac rituals: Jews
no longer need hide in the mountains like beasts, wild running
is replaced by standing around an altar; inarticulate shouts by
psalms of praise, and flowing torches by crafted candelabras. See
Theodore H. Gaster, Festivals of the Jewish Year (New York, 1966),
p. 252.
16. A thoughtful discussion of the civic status of the dithyramb can
be found in William Mullen's Choreia: Pindar and Dance (Princeton,
1982). Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy consistently underemphasizes
the institutional and civic context of both dithyramb and tragedy.
17. What does the dreamer behold? Often timeless, placeless, topsyturvy, his dream is peopled with fluid personae who merge with
each other and their surroundings. It may resemble the shifting
life of the Bacchantes, who wake or sleep in an instant. Having
no memories or restrictions when awake, perhaps they sleep
without dreaming. The dreamer may experience what is unthinkable in wal<;ing life. Not only J ocasta has observed that, "in
dreams many a man has lain with his own mother." Like a play,
a dream is often watched; Homer's people "see" their dreams. The
dreamer may be a spectator of his own actions; he may be the
protagonist of the drama, or "play" all the characters. In such
dreams, the line between watcher and actor is blurred or even
disappears. Because a dream has no continuity of time or place
with waking life, and no frame or context in which it is "seen;'
the dreamer is usually thoroughly absorbed by it. But at the same
time, a mysterious "second sight" says it is im(y a dream:'
Dreamers who lose all awareness that they dream a contained
"imitation" really choke, or scream, or wake, when the dream
becomes too "real;' too traumatic. They might remind us of
theatre spectators who miscarry when they see the Furies, who
shoot the villain, or who run from the theatre in fear. There is
another sort of frame around the dream vision. Not prescribable,
reportable, or censurable, the sweet dreams and hideous
nightmares of civilized human beings are their own business.
We cannot dream together, and so dreams can have only the most
indirect, unpredictable influence upon the waking life of citizens
and city. Those legends in which men about to violate their
motherlands dream of violating their mothers suggest that our
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
dreams are not the realm in which to nurture viable community life. [For examples, see "Caesar" in Plutarch and Hippias
in Herodotus (VI. 107)] The waking tyrant does what other men
would only dream of doing. The dreams of good men may be better than those of ordinary ones, but no one can learn to be good
while asleep. Dreams, like voyeurism, offer a less disruptive form
of Bacchism, but they are still private, in Greek, 1'idiotic;'
experiences.
I believe that a similar story is to be found in Suppliants, Persians,
Oresteia, Philoctetes, and Medea.
Aristotle, Poetics, VI.
Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double (New York, 1958).
Daniel Bell, "Sensibility in the 60's;' Commentary, June, 1971, 73.
The Performance Group, Dionysus in 69. Ed. Richard Schechner
(New York, 1970).
Diogenes Laertius, Life of Pythagoras. The present discussion raises
questions about the looking we do at "sports events?' Consider
the funeral games in Iliad XXIII, their more civic counterpart
in Aeneid V, the Panathe:qaea games in Athens, and the ancient
Olympic games.
The single most important source of information about the
festival assembly is Demosthenes' speech Against Meidias. In 349
B.C. Demosthenes served as choregos for his tribe's dithyrambs.
Harrassed by Meidias before the f~,stival, and publicly assaulted
by him in the theatre, Demosthenes won a preliminary motion
against him in the theatre assembly. The surviving speech was
never delivered-an out-of-court settlement was reached-but
it conveys vividly attitudes about the festival and its civic role.
Washington Post, February 25, 1982, B 1.
In 1968 a group of newcomers to New Orleans, concerned about
the aristocratic exclusivity of Mardi Gras, added an event in
which everyone might participate. The new "Crewe;' Bacchus,
founded a night parade for the Sunday before the holiday. Sunday was chosen, in part, because it was also prime television time.
Floats were designed by a professional, and the event received
nationwide coverage. The first king of Bacchus was not a local
citizen leader, but an imported Hollywood star, the jewish Danny
Kaye! See Myron Tassin, Bacchus (New Orleans, 1975). For the
more traditional celebrations, see Duforn Huber, If Ever I Cease
to Love (New Orleans, 1970).
59
�Left and Right
Jacob Klein
I.
The typescript bearing the above title was
found stuck in the German proofs of Mr. Klein's
book Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of
Algebra. It is published by permission of Mrs.
Klein. She thinks that she recalls hearing of Adolf
Mueller as a young friend who sought out Mr.
Klein for conversation in the "Romanische Cafe;'
a meeting place for intellectuals on the Kurfuerstendamm in Berlin. This rather early essay,
probably not intended for publication, is
somewhat uncharacteristic from the perspective
of later writings, both in its matter which is the
establishment of a political typology, and its style,
which employs the abstract language of impersonal entities. Translated by Eva Brann and Beale
Ruhm von Oppen.
For Ad. Mueller
November 1934
The following observations disregard all concrete
political situations, groupings and programs whatsoever.
They start with the assumption that there exist two, constantly antagonistic, human attitudes, perhaps at all
times, but in any case in the Western cultural sphere
within the temporal limits of its development, most
especially since the Renaissance. These may be termed
the "left" and the "right."
60
I
n all "left" endeavors two basic motives are always
to be distinguished which do, however, perhaps go
back to one root. The first is the insight into the
"misera conditio humana;' the misery of human
existence ~'misery" understood in every sense. The consciousness of this misery has always been present, as far
back as we can see. That it is better not to be born, is
a saying of Sophocles. The lamentations of] ob can never
be stilled. Christian consciousness has made these lamentations the basis of a universal exegesis of human existence. The sinful creatureliness of all creation is the
Christian interpretation of this constantly experienced
fact. 'lThe misery of the creature" which everyone must
feel who can feel at all, the vanity of every wilful attempt
to ignore it, the sense of compassion with all alien misery
as with one's own, the contempt for pride, for glory, for
power in which "compassion" and with it the deepest
sources of human life are, as it were, "forgotten'~ these
are all basic elements of every "left" position. In modern
times they are always conditioned by Christian consciousness, even if it is no longer at all understood as such.
To this first motive is joined a second: the feeling for
"naturalness" on the one hand and for the "artificial;' for
"imagination;' for the "unnatural" on the other. Human
life always moves within certain conventions, mores,
valuatiops. All these are something "artificial" as contrasted to the factual course of life with its desires, instincts, its happiness and unhappiness. "Bare" life appears
here as the overwhelming phenomenon; all limits and
norms which human beings erect appear not only as
useless, but as fundamentally reprehensible. This view
was already vital to the school of the Greek sophists, who
were first to develop the great opposition of physis and
nomos, of nature and convention. It is characteristic of
SPRING 1984
�this view that "natural" life admits of no valuation, that
it is simply not possible to maintain an affirmative or
rejecting attitude in the face of the 'fundamental fact of
natural existence. This view is also the root of all modern
science, which, according to its own' self-interpret<ition
is and must be "value-free." But since this view must
necessarily place itself in opposition to whatever the
prevailing "moral" estimations happen to be, it immediately acquires a polemical sense. It must attack all
the prevailing norms and values; it must attack whatever
is "artificial" and "according to convention": Thus it must
itself affirm and deny; it must itself value the "natural"
positively) condemn the "unnatural:' But thus this view
·is confronted with a question insoluble in its own terms,
namely how valuation is itself at all possible. The ordinary
answer to this question (which may, however, appear in
many guises) is the denial of the originality of valuation
in general and the reduction of every valuation to certain "natural" givens or situations. The scientific expression of this attitude is positivism.
For the left consciousness of the present, that is, of
the last three centuries, the fusion of these two motives
is characteristic. If we abstract from all the superficial
appearances of this left consciousness and imagine the
"ideal" case of a left human being (such as does indeed
occur in real life), we may describe him as follows: He
is dominated by the urge to be absolutely truthful, not
to fool himself or others, to attach no importaoce to the
external, to pay the highest respect to all feelings which
are "genuine;' that is, those which come from the depths
of natural and creaturely life, to sacrifice himself for
these.- But this kind of person fulfills his highest
possibilities only in confrontation with the "other" world.
His indignation against contrary conduct, against the
subjection of all that is kind, genuine and truly felt can
intensify so as to become- rebellion, and unconditional
rebellion at that. This rebellion aims at the restoration
of that condition in which alone life appears worth
living- from the perspective of the "natural." If this
rebellion turns to violence, this violence is understood
as the self-sacrifice of one's own nature. The few genuine
anarchists who have existed in the world represent this
type at its purest.
II.
W
ith respect to the attitudes of the "right" two
basic motives, which however do not by any
means need to go together, can be likewise
distinguished. The first motive has at least this in common with the corresponding left, that it acknowledges
the "misera conditio humana:' But here it is no longer
a matter of"sympathy" or "compassion" with the human
race. Starting from "misery" as an unchangeable and incontrovertible fact, "right" consciousness seeks to give the
human being an inner support. This support is based
on the necessity of"control" [Zucht] and "discipline;' and
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
this necessity is in turn based on divine law. All conservatism which does not rely internally on divine law is
self-delusion ( cf. the phenomenon of the Wilhelminian
conservatives). The basic principles which are the standard for this discipline are in each case already contained
in the factually given living tradition. But the continuation of the tradition must never undermine the forces
which are at work within it: Thus preservation of the
tradition does not mean mere resistance to the powers
which are hostile to the tradition (the phenomenon of
reaction); rather such preservation must always go back
to these original forces, must always honor the commandments which are the final justification of the will to preservation, must in this sense be absolutely righteous [gerecht].
Whether such a "right" attitude is possible or not does
not depend on the "self2will of the human beings whose
attitude it is. Such an attitude can therefore never become
the demand of a party program. A "conservative party"
is merely a phenomenon of reaction; there are only conservative forces, never conservative "programs." A socalled "party of the right" therefore succumbs to the "left"
under all circumstances.
The second motive for the formation of a "right" attitude is the striving for power. This motive too has an
assumption in common with the "left": here, too, the
"natural" is acknowledged as the last court of appeaL
However, the right makes a selection within the "natural"
which is not only opposed by "left" consciousness, but
which appears to it as simply unintelligible. So little does
the "left" take this attitude of the "right" seriously that
it must necessarily succumb to the right when things
become serious. There is a whole series of classical
witnesses to this attitude. The first is Callicles in Platds
Gorgias. Everything that Machiavelli or Nietzsche later
had to say on this theme is expressed by Callicles with
unsurpassable clarity. For this attitude the proper fulfillment of the human being lies in the (!;randeur" of human
life. This grandeur is, for the most part, connected with
"glory;' but glory is, as it were, only the external aspect
of inner grandeur. This grandeur may also mean the actual "mastering" [Beherrschen] of human beingsalthough this mastering may not always assume the form
of external rule [Herrschaft]. What is aimed at here, in
the face of all "misery;' is the human possibility of insisting on wanting-to-have-more [a reference to the verb
pleonektein often used in the Gorgias] despite all obstacles,
despite every weakness, despite all will to life. It is a fundamental error of all left theories to wish to derive this
wanting-to-have-more from more ('original" instincts, such
as the nutritive instinct, the sexual instinct and the striving for "gratification" of all kinds. Indeed, one might say
that the consciousness of the left is simply determined
by the fact that it not only condemns power and the striving for power but does not take them seriously. For left
consciousness, "those in power" are from the outset carricatures, as are also all the attributes of power. For the
attitude which is the "right" in this sense it is a question
of realizing "grandeur;' not only at the expense of all sorts
61
�of weakness, but also at the expeqse of any private or
public disadvantaging of any number of human beings,
no matter how great.
Up to tbe seventeenth century this possibility was
always present as a real possibility. It was taken into account. . . . The tyrant was not only a reprehensible individual but also a danger to be constantly expected. The
present situation is determined by the fact that tyrants
in this sense are simply no longer possible. Today rule
[HerrschaftJ is never exercised for its own sake: It must
')ustify" itself; it must be based on the interests of a class,
a nation, a race. This rule no longer understands itself
as "autocratic'' [selbstherrlich] but bases itself on demands
which arise out of specific "conditions." It is demagogic
not only for tactical reasons, but demagogy is for it an
inner necessity. Therefore it must perish.
The "left" and "right" types which have been described
are surely seldom met with in this purity. The present
day situation is in general marked by the fact that the
"typical" forms of human existence become "mixed" with
one another in an imperspicuous way. This has already
been mentioned in discussing the second type of "right"
consciousness. But it holds no less for all the "political"
endeavors, narrowly understood, of the present. Here
Marxism has sketched out a general scheme for determining the "true" tendencies of the historical development amidst the tangle of "convictions;' "world views"
or- in Marxist terms -!'ideologies." Starting from the
undeniably great preponderance of economic interests
in our world, it distinguishes two powers of politicaleconomic life: the one originates in "property" which
wants to hold on to itself under all circumstances, the
second comes from the more or less distinct consciousness
of the "propertyless'!_ the overwhelming majority of all
the people of the globe -who "have nothing to lose but
their chains:' The idea which was decisive for the development of this view is the idea of justice [Gerechtigkeit].
The conceptual means by which this view is articulated
all come out of the arsenal of "left" consciousness.
However neither of these is necessarily attuned to the
other.
A
ccording to its own consciousness Marxism is
based on positivistic science, although the impulse decisive to its formation had at first nothing
to do. with the latter. Brought up in the atmosphere of
Hegelian thought, Marx saw through the enormous tension which exists between this "thought" and the factual
"being" of the enormous majority of human beings. He
therefore undertook- though, characteristically, using the
means of the Hegelian system- to turn this thinking "upside down," and in order to be able to justify his procedure he began by understanding the Hegelian system .
in its already inverted form. The Hegelian system was
a doctrine of the "spirit." In its concept this spirit was
determined as being devoid of any immediate reference
to the world; just so the spirit had once been conceived
62
by Descartes. In the face of this spirit all "nature" collapsed into something unessential and indifferent. The
innocent blooming of plants and the eternal paths of the
heavenly bodies appear as something infinitely inferior,
compared even to the confusions of human consciousness,
compared even to evil. For what is here enmeshed in confusion is still "spirit!' The opposite pole of spirit in the
Hegelian system is "contingent" .. "matter." It is indeed
determined by nothing but the fact that it is the opposite
of spirit and to that extent "inactual." The inversion of
the Hegelian system was accomplished by Marx in the
sense that he took as his foundation not "spirit" but "matter!' Now Marx understood this matter not at all as the
last basic element of all "nature" (thus far he remained
completely Hegelian), but rather as the defining concept
[Inbegriff] of human life on earth. This Marxian concept of matter is thus completely ('anthropological," exactly
as is true for Feuerbach.* The whole Hegelian "left" is
in this sense anthropologically oriented: It sees the
"material" or "real" human being with all his desires,
instincts and entanglements in a battle with nature and all
her forces which oppose his will to life (wherein the left
is, to be sure, in agreement with the innermost tendencies of positivistic science). But now a gradual transformation of this basic view took place.] oined in battle with
the ruling norms of the state, the law, religion, the
Hegelian left found its obvious ally in positivistic science,
and the anthropological materialism, whose nucleus had
been for Marx the critique of economic conditions,
slipped by reinterpretation into a scientific materialism.
(Correspondingly, "dialectic" was more and more given
up in favor of "causal inquiry": Kautsky's mode was
typical.* Lately a school has arisen in Russia which attempts to distinguish economic materialism much more
strongly from natural science.- Its chief representative,
in no way sufficient, is Deborin* who has already been
excluded from the Party.- In tbis connection the recently
published writings of the young Marx are very important.) That was the basis on which the "scientific.
character" of socialism was understood. Indignation
against "injustice" was reduced to completely value-free
matters of fact. Such indignation was interpreted as
[merelyJ the mode in which the "necessary" development
toward socialism makes its break-through. Every possible assertion concerning the ultimate goals of human life
was referred to a "time to come;' because impossible under
present circumstances. The realistic goal of world revolution which must result from the antagonisms within the
system of production is, for the time being, the only con*[Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872, studied under Hegel, attacked
Christianity in favor of a ''humanistic theology." Karl Kautsky,
1854-1938, friend of Marx, a founder of the German Social
Democratic Party, leading defender of Marxist orthodoxy, first against
pragmatic reformism and then against the radical Leninist left.
Abram Deborin, 1881-1963, leading Soviet theoretician, lost his posts
under Stalin for "Menshevizing idealism," the separation of philosophy
from practice.]
SPRING 1984
�crete and actualizable goal. Only after its actualization,
in the "realm of freedom;' does genuine human history
begin.
In this transfer of the ultimate perSpective into "time
to come" appears the tension betwee_n the "left" theory
of Marxism and its practices, which cannot so simply
be labelled "left:' Everything depends on how the idea
of justice is going to be understood i!l tbe coming development of Marxism. The idea of justice stands beyond tbe
opposition of left and right. [It is] its relationship to the
idea of power which decides whether it is to be assigned
to the left or tbe right camp. If one abstracts from all
their other motives, the present "fascist" endeavors of all
kinds are fighting about this relationship. Every possible reflection about this relationship, whether it come
from the left or from the right, must seek to take its bearings from tbe place where it once received a fundamental
treatment which has never since been surpassed- Plato.
On the "Frame" of Platds Timaeus
Jacob Klein
The following fragment of a letter by Jacob
Klein was evidently addressed to Leo Strauss.
It was written toward the end of his first year at
St. John's College. It was probably a draft, and
there is no evidence that it was ever sent. It is
published with Mrs. Klein's permission.'
August 14, 1939
Dear Friend,
T
his time I would like to pass on to you some of
the results of my Timaean brain-rackings, not
only for your enjoyment, but also to gain a certain clarity for myself. As things stand, you are probably
the only human being who will believe me. I believe that
I have understood something about the "frame" of the
Timaeus, and that would naturally mean more than the
mere "frame."-The first question in a reading is this: what
is the point of having the Atlantis the story bifore Timaeus'
speech? As is well known, some super-subtle people have
wanted to transfer it to the beginning of the Critias. What
is striking about the Atlantis story is the emphasis on
the "ancient," the primeval. The speaker is Critias. According to the [dramatic] date, this Critias cannot, in-
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
deed, be the "tyrant'';2 he is differently characterized; he
is too old, and even taking into account all the indifference to "chronology'' within the texts of the dialogues,
the tyrant just doesn't fit into the affair. But naturally,
one can't leave it at that. Supposing it were not the tyrant
Critias, why [not] another Critias who (a) is the grandfather of the tyrant and (b) has himself in turn a grandfather called Critias? And then the first question: if he
develops the "program" [27 A- B] according to which
Socrates is to be regaled with his "guest gifts;' then he
should properly be assigned the second speech, but in fact
he anticipates the most important thing in his account
as the first speaker. And the Critias itself remains a fragment . . . . Naturally it is possible that it is a natural,
unintentional fragment; why not? But still, it isn't quite
convincing, the less so since the Timaeus and the Critias
are certainly not Platds very last works. Besides, the Hermocrates is missing, which seemed to have been firmly promised in the Critias [108 A-D] and which is, so to speak,
a necessary consequence of the "program" that Critias
develops in the Timaeus. Though it isn't quite apparent
from this "program" [Tim. 27 A-B] what Hermocrates
is to talk about.
On the previous day Critias, Timaeus, and Hermocrates had been the guests of Socrates. Today Socrates
is their guest. Yesterday yet a "fourth" was there: today
he is ''sick:~ Critias is, then, the grandfather of the "well-
63
�known" Critias (and has himself a further Critias as
grandfather). Timaeus is unknown- I mean "historically''- but in any case he is from lower Italy. Hermocrates
is very well known to the Athenians (and therefore to
us): he whipped them in Sicily-a capable general. Why
this combination?
The answer is: the three represent- Cronos, Zeus,
and Ares. "Yesterday:' when Socrates spoke about the
Polity, 3 three "gods" were Socrates' guests; "today" Socrates
is the "gods"' guest and is "divinely" entertained. Cronos
is the eldest, as is well known; thus he has to precedeprecisely in time. He is the father of Zeus and Ares; as
"Critias" he is the host of the strangers Timaeus and Hermocrates. He is somber and loves the night. Therefore
"Critias" ponders the old story in the night [26 B]. He
belongs to the old, old time -like the story which he tells
and at the end of which Athens and Atlantis disappear
into the deep, as he himself did, according to the myth.
But according to a -demonstrably~'orphic" interpretation, Cronos is ever and again rejuvenated- there is ever
and again another "Critias!' And the tyrant Critias too
bears the features of c·ronos; the Critias of the Timaeus
is all possible Critiases in one. It is entirely appropriate
for him, as it is for the tyrant Critias, to speak about
"matters of state": the Critias of the Timaeus and of the
Critias tells of a "good old time;' of a period oflife which
is proverbially designated as "the life under Cronos?' Nor
should one forget that for the Greeks, Cronos is associated
with Chronos, although the etymology is actually incorrect. Timaeus' role as Zeus is a consequence of his role
in the dialogue itself: he is the "Father" of the All, "of
gods and of humans;' if only "in speech." [27 A]- he
depicts the construction and ~he "genesis" of the visible
cosmos. Hermocrates is nothing but a warrior. That he
is suited for the relevant conversations here is the opinion of "many!' The joke is that he never even gets his
turn "to speak?' These are three "gods" with whom
Socrates is together, three "rulers," who ''yesterday" allowed
themselves to be instructed about true rulership and who
"today" instruct him about very questionable things. And
comically enough, Cronos-Critias says in the Critias [107
A-B]: "For, Timaeus, it is easier to seem to speak adequately when saying something about gods to human be-
64
ings than about mortals to us." "We:' this means, are the immortals. (Cf. also Timaeus 27 C-D: the ambiguous word
{'llepomen0s" 4 ) Besides, mockery of the "gods" runs through
the whole dialogue.
However, Cronos, Zeus, and Ares are not only the
old "gods:' but much "truer" gods, namely the corresponding planets. In fact, according to the "astronomy" of the
Timaeus, Saturn, Zeus, and Mars themselves together with
the moon form one group of the planets, while the Sun,
Venus, and Mercury represent another (revolving with
the same velocity). But Selene is first of all "feminine"
and secondly not the name of a divinity at all. Hence
"the fourth" is "sick'~and with this the dialogue immediately begins. 5
So that is the "frame" of the Timaeus. I would like in
addition to refer to the alliteration of Cmnos-Critias which
is unlikely to be coincidental and to the connection of
Timaeus and time [honor].
What do you think of this? How does it fit in with
your "esotericism"?
1. Translated and annotated by Laurence Berns, Gisela Berns, Eva
Brann, and Robert Williamson.
2. For the identification of Critias see A E. Taylor, A Commentary
on Plato's Timaeus (Oxford 1928), pp. 23-25 and Warman Welliver,
Character, Plot and Thought in Plato's Timaeus-Critias (Leiden 1977),
pp. 50-57.
3. Politeia is the Greek title of Plato's Republic.
4. hepomenOs can mean either "consequently" or "accordingly." In the
passage cited Timaeus prays to the gods and goddesses that what
is said may be agreeable to them "and consequently [accordingly]
to us." The first meaning conveys merely that "we" derive our
pleasure from the gods' pleasure but the second implies that "we"
are the gods.
5. In several conversations of later years, Jacob Klein suggested an
alternative interpretation: the missing "fourth" may represent
Uranos, the father of Cronos and, according to some legends, the
oldest of the male gods, who was emasculated by his son. The
Greek word ouranos also means the all-embracing heavens. On this
interpretation, the absence of the "fourth" would suggest that the
promised sequence of speeches by Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates lacks from the outset something needed for a complete
account of the "AU:'
SPRING 1984
�Den 14. August 1939.
Lieber Freund,
desmal moechte ich Dir einige Ergebnisse meines
Timaios-Kopfzerbrechens mitteilen, nicht nur, urn Dich
zu erfreuen, sondern auch, urn mir selbst eine gewisse
Klarheit zu verschaffen. Wie die Dinge liegen, bist Du
wahrscheinlich der einzige Mensch, der mir glauben
wird. Ich glaube etwas ueber den "Rahmen" des Timaios
verstanden zu haben, und das wuerde natuerlich mehr
als der blosse "Rahmen" bedeuten.- Die erste Frage bei
der Lektuere ist die: was soli die Atlantis-Geschichte vor
der Timaios-Rede? Einige ganz schlaue Leute haben sie
bekanntlich an den Anfang des "Kritias" versetzen
wollen. Was an der Atlantis-Geschichte auffaellt, ist die
Betonung des "Alten;' des U r-Alten. Der Sprecher ist
Kritias. Der Zeit nach kann dieser Kritias in cler Tat
nicht cler "Tyrann" sein, er ist anders charakterisiert, ist
zu alt und, bei aller Gleichgueltigkeit gegen "Chronologie" innerhalb cler Dialog-Texte, cler "Tyrann" passt
ueberhaupt nicht in die Sache hinein. Aber dam it kann
man sich natuerlich nicht beruhigen. Angenommen, es
sei nicht der Tyrann Kritias, warum dann [nicht] ein
anclerer Kritias, der (a) Grossvater des Tyrannen ist, und
(b) selbst wiederum einen Grossvater Kritias hat? Und
dann die erste Frage: wenn er das "Programm" entwickelt, gemaess welchem Sokrates seine "Gastgeschenke" vorgesetzt bekommen soH, so kommt ihm die
zweite Rede zu, er nimmt aber faktisch clas Wichtigste
als Erster in seiner Erzaehlung vorweg. U nd der "Kritias"
selbst bleibt Fragment.... N atuerlich ist es moeglich,
class es ein "natuerliches", nicht beabsichtigtes Fragment
ist. Warum nicht? Aber immerhin, es leuchtet einem
nicht recht ein, zumal der Timaios und der Kritias
bestimmt nicht die allerletzten Werke Plato's sind.
Ausserdem fehlt der "Hermokrates:' der im "Kritias" fest
versprochen zu sein scheint (108 A-D) undja auch aus
dem von Kritias im "Timaios" entwickelten "Programm"
sich sozusagen mit Notwendigkeit ergibt. Allerdings ist
aus dem "Programm" (Tim. 27 A-B) nicht recht zu
ersehen, worueber Hermokrates sprechen soH. Am Tage
vorher waren Kritias, Timai()s und Hermokrates Gaeste
des Sokrates. Heute ist Sokrates bei ihnen zu Gast.
Gestern war noch ein "Vierter'' da, heute ist er "krank.'~
Kritias ist also der Grossvater des "bekannten" Kritias
(und hat selbst einen weiteren Kritias zum Grossvater).
Timaios ist unbekannt, ich meine ''historisch;' stammt
aber jedenfalls aus Unteritalien. Hermokrates ist den
Athenern ( und darum uns) sehr gut bekannt: er hat sie
in Sizilien verdroschen-ein tuechtiger Feldherr. Warum
diese Kcmbination?
Die Antwort ist: die drei vertreten- Kronos, Zeus und
Ares. "Gestern;' als Sokrates ueber die Politeia sprach,
waren die drei "Goetter" bei Sokrates zu Gast, "heute"
ist Sokrates bei den "Goettern" zu Gast und wird "goettlich" bewirtet. Kronos ist der Aelteste bekanntlich, er
muss also- gerade in der Zeit- vorangehen. Er ist der
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Vater von Jupiter und Ares, als "Kritias" der Wirt der
"Fremden" Timaios und Hermokrates. Er ist duester und
liebt die Nacht. Daher ueberlegt sich "Kritias" die alte
Geschichte in der Nacht (26 B). Er gehoert in die alte,
alte Zeit -wie die Geschichte, die er erzaehlt und an
deren Ende Athen und Atlantis in die Tiefe verschwinden -wie er selbst der Sage nach. Aber, lautnachweislicher-"orphischer" Interpretation, Kronos wird
immer wieder "verjuengt'~ es gibt immer wieder
"Kritias." Und auch der "Tyrann" Kritias traegt KronosZuege; der Kritias des "Timaios" ist aile moeglichen
"Kritiasse" in einem. Es kommt ihm durchaus zu -wie
dem Tyrannen Kritias- ueber "staatliche" Dinge zu
sprechen. Der Kritias des "Timaios" und des "Kritias"
berichtet ueber eine "gute, alte Zeit;' ueber eine LebensPeriode, die sprichwoertlich als 6 btl KpOvou Pio<;
bezeichnet wird. U nd nicht zu vergessen ist, class fuer
die Griechen- obgleich die Etymologie gar nicht
stimmt- Kronos mit Chronos zusammenhaengt.Timaios' Zeus-Rolle ergibt sich aus seiner Rolle im
Dialog selbst: er ist der "Vater" des Ails "Der Goetter
und der Menschen':.._wenn auch nur t0 A.Oy41 (27 A)-,
er schildert den Bau und die "Entstehung'' des sichtbaren
Kosmos.- Hermokrates ist nichts als Krieger. Dass er
sich fuer die hier in Frage kommenden Gespraeche
eignet, ist die Meinung 'Vieler'' (20 B). Der Witz ist der,
class er garnicht "zu Wort" kommt- Es sind drei "Goetter;' mit denen Scikrates zusammen ist, drei "Herrscher;'
die sich von Sokrates ueber wahre Herrschaft "gestern"
belehren lassen und ibn "heute" ueber sehr fragwuerdige Dinge belehren. Und ulkig genug sagt Kronos~
Kritias im "Kritias" (107 A/B): m:pi 9e&v ydp, d) TiJ.L(UE,
A.tyovtd TtnpO<; Uv9p6:mou<; 8oKeiv iKo.vOO<; A.tyew {JQ.ov
~
7tEpi Ov~<WV npo, ~~a,.
"Wir" sind naemlich die "Unsterblichen'' (vgl. auch Tim.
27 C/D: das zweideutige Wort btaJ.LtVm<;). Im uebrigen
zieht sich durch den ganzen Dialog die Verspottung der
"Goetter" durch.
Nun sind aber Kronos, Zeus und Ares nicht nur die
alten "Goetter;' sondern viel "wahrere" Goetter, naemlich
die entsprechenden Planeten. Und zwar bilden Saturn,
Jupiter und Mars gemaess cler "Astronomie" des
"Timaios" selbst zusammen mit dem Moncl eine Gruppe
der Planeten, waehrend Sonne, Venus und Merkur eine
andere (mit derselben Geschwindigkeit kreisende)
Gruppe darstellen. Aber Selene ist erstens einmal
"weiblich" und zweitens gar kein "Goetter"- N arne. Daher
ist "der Vierte" "krank':.._womit cler Dialog unmittelbar
beginnt.
Das ist also der "Rahmen" des Timaios. Ich moechte
auch noch auf die wahrscheinlich nicht zufaellige
Alliteration Kr onos-Kr itias hinweisen und auf den
Zusammenhang von Timaios und time.
Was haeltst Du davon? Wie passt das mit Deiner
"Esoterik" zusammen?
65
�OccAsiONAL DiscouRsEs
Spring 1984
The Roots of Modernity*
Eva Brann
T
he part of the title of this talk w.hich I asked
to have announced is "The Roots of
Modernity:' But there is a second part which
I wanted to tell you myself. The full title is:
"The Roots of Modernity in Perversions of
ChristianitY:'
The reason I wanted to tell you myself is that it is
a risky title, which might be easily misunderstood,
especially since "perversion" is strong language. So let
me begin by explaining to you what I intend and why
I chose to talk to you about such a subject.
I think you will recognize my first observation right
off; you might even think it hardly worth saying. It is
that we live in "the modern age." We never stop trying
to live up to that universally acknowledged fact: we are
continually modernizing our kitchens, our businesses and
our religions.
Now what is actually meant by "modern times?" The
term cannot just mean "contemporary" because all times
are con-temporary with themselves. Modern is a Latin
word which means ')ust now." Modern times are the times
which are in a special way "just now:' Modernity is justnowness, up-to-date-ness. Perhaps that doesn't seem like
a very powerful distinguishing characteristic, because,
again, what times are not just now for themselves? How
is our modern age distinguished from ancient times, or
from that in-between era we call the "middle" ages, all
in comparison with our present times?
Well, the first answer is very simple. We live
differently in our time from the way those who came
before us lived in theirs. For instance, when we speak
of something or even someone as being "up to date" we
are implying that what time it is, is significant, that time
marches, or races, on by itself, and we have the task of
keeping up with it. Our time is not a comfortable natural
niche within the cycle of centuries, but a fast sliding rug
being pulled out from under us.
* This talk was written in 1979 for delivery at Whitworth College,
a Presbyterian school in Spokane, Washington. I was somewhat reluctant to submit it for publication, being mindful of Curtis Wilson's
severe but just criticism of an apparently similar effort in the last
issue of the St. John's Review (''A Comment on Alexandre Koji':ve's
'The Christian Origins of Modem Science' "). However, I was persuaded that the differences were sufficient to take the chance. E.B.
66
Furthermore, we have a sense of the extraordinariness
of our times; we think they are critical and crucial, that
something enormous is about to be decided, or revealed.
You might say that we don't just have a sense of doom
or delivery, but that things are, in fact, that way. And
yet such a feeling of crisis has marked decades of every
century for the last half-millenium. Modernity itself is,
apparently, a way of charging the Now with special
significance.
To ask about the roots of modernity is to ask what
made. this state, this chronically hectic state, we are in
come about. By the roots of modernity I mean the true
beginnings, the origin of our way of being in time.
At this point you might think that I am talking of
history and that I am planning to lecture to you on the
various historical movements which led up to our day.
But not so. Such "movements'!_ be they the Protestant
Reformation or the Industrial Revolution- are themselves only the names given to the sum of events which
are in need of explanation. Let me give an example. Suppose I were to explain the resolve or habit some of you
live with of turning directly to Scripture for your
knowledge concerning faith, by saying that you are "products" of the Protestant Reformation. This historical explanation would sound as if I were saying something
significant, but in fact it would say nothing about ·the
inner reasons why a part of Christianity decided to return
directly to the Bible. And inner reasons, namely ideas,
are in the end the only satisfying explanation of the actions of human beings.
Next, in explaining my title, I have to tell you what
I mean here by Christianity. I do not refer to the faith
itself. Nor do I mean specific dogma, that is to say,
dogmatics. What I do mean are certain spiritual and intellectual modes, certain ways of approaching thought
and life and the world, which are perhaps more noticeable
even to a non-Christian than to someone who lives within
Christianity. I hope the examples I mean to give you will
clarify what I am saying.
And finally I want to define as carefully as possible
what I meall by a "perversion."
I do not mean something blatantly heretical or terrifically evil, which we moderns should cast out. For one
thing I am not myself a Christian, and it is not my
business to demand the purification of other people's
SPRING 1984
�faith. For another, I mean to show 1pat all of us, simply
by reason of living as moderns, have been deeply
penetrated by these perversions and that we could hardly
carry on without them. They are an unavoidable part
of our lives. When I say "unavoidable" I do not mean
that there is no possibility and no point in resisting them.
In my opinion there are no inevitable movements but
only human beings willing, and on occasion unwilling,
to go along. These perversions are unavoidable only in
the sense that once certain very potent trains of ideas
had been set into the world, they were bound to be carried beyond themselves, to be driven to their inherent
but unintended conclusion.
Perhaps, then, I should speak less dramatically and
say that it is the secularization of certain Christian notions that is at the root of modernity. Nevertheless, I do
want to hold on to the stronger word to describe this
development, and for the following reasons.
You all know what the sin of Satan is said to have
been. It was resistance to God and rebellion against his
creator, and its cause was pride, the sin of sins. Satanic
pride, any pride, is, theologically speaking, a perverse
will, literally a will that turns things awry. In particular
it overturns the relation of the creature to his creator.
Satan rebels because he cannot bear to be derivative and
subordinate, and least of all to be more remote from the
center of knowledge than Christ. He communicates that
terrible impatience to Eve in the Garden when he tempts
her with the fruit of knowledge and promises "Ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil,':..... in Latin, this is the
scientia boni et mali.
Now, as it happens, the men of the generation around
1600 Anno Domini- the generation which was most
pointedly responsible for modernity and in whose
writings it roots are to be most explicitly seen- these men
were also unspeakably proud. I am thinking of names
probably familiar to you: of Galileo Galilei, of Rene
Descartes and of Francis Bacon, an Italian, a Frenchman
and an Englishman. You need only glance at the engraving published as the frontispiece of the most accessible
translation of Descartes' works to see how haughty he
looks.
olletheless anyone who reads their books must
be struck with the sober and restrained character
of their writing. They keep claiming that they
are not revealing great mysteries or setting out momentous discoveries. They present themselves as merely having found a careful, universally accessible method, which,
once they have set it out, can be used by all mankind.
All that is needed is the willingness to throw off old prejudices and preoccupations, all that Bacon calls our
"idols;" we are to throw off the nonsense of the ages and
to apply sober human reason to clearly-defined problems.
In other words, these initiators of modernity are
preaching rebellion against the traditional wisdom, but
in measured, careful, sometimes even dull words, so dry
N
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
that students often get rather bored with reading them.
That is, they get bored partly with the measured dryness
with which this tremendous rebellion is announced,
partly because the Baconian-Cartesian revolution is so
much in our bones, has been so precisely the overwhelming success its authors expected it to be that we, its heirs,
hardly recognize the revolutionary character of its
original declarations of independence.
But the overweening pride of these first moderns was
not essentially in the fact that they were aware of opening a new age. That was too obvious to them and they
were of too superior a character to glory much in it. Their
pride was the pride of rebellion, though not, perhaps,
against God. Interpretations differ about their relations
to faith, and I think they worshipped God in their way,
or at least had a high opinion of him as the creator of
a rationally accessible world, and they co-opted him as
the guarantor of human rationality. Their rebellion is
rather against all intermediaries between themselves and
God and his nature. They want to be next to him and
like him. So they fall to being not creatures but creators.
Let me give you a few bits of evidence for this contention. First, they all had a cautiously sympathetic
respect for Satan.
For example, as you may know, both Galileo and
Descartes had trouble with the publication of their works.
Galileo had such trouble because he supported Copernicus in his view that the earth is not fixed at the center
of the universe, but travels around, a wanderer (which
is what the word planet literally means) in the world,
so that we human 'beings become cosmic travelers, able
to see the heavens from various perspectives. Now, the
authorities of the Catholic Church at that time, considered the fixed central place of the earth as crucial to
the character of the place God had chosen to become incarnate. But they were not so crude as to quarrel with
an alternative astronomical hypothesis, if it happened to
be mathematically satisfying. What they forbade Galileo
to assert in public was that this was the true reality and
not just a possible theory. In this they were in the best
tradition of ancient science. The astronomers had always
known that there were alternative mathematical hypotheses for explaining the heavenly motions, depending on
one's point of view. The Ptolemaic, geocentric system was
simply the one more in accord with the evidence of our
unaided sense- everyone can see the sun running
through the sky-and the system then and now most useful for navigation. What the Church required of Galileo
was that he should keep science hypothetical instead of
claiming that it revealed the reality of the heavens; this
earth's motion could be asserted hypothetically but not
as a fact. We all know that he pretended to yield, but
is said to have muttered: '1\.nd yet it moves?' By that stubharness he showed himself the archetypal scientist. I
mean, he made it possible for that word scientia which
means simply knowledge, as in the scientia boni et mali,
to come to be confined to such knowledge of reality as
67
�Galileo had, which is what we call science today. Among
such realities is the fact that the he~vens are full of real
matter which is indistinguishable fr,om and moves just
as do the stones on earth.
,
Now Galileo and also Descartes, who had similar
troubles with the theological faculty of the University of
Paris, the Sorbonne, did find a publisher in Holland. And
this Dutch publisher had a most revealing emblem which
includes a very serpent-like vine twining around a tree,
an apple tree, I imagine, whose fruit is the new scientia}
modern science. Of course, the serpent is Satan's shape
as he tempts human beings to knowledge beyond that
proper to a creature! "Ye shall be as gods , knowing good
and evil."
A few more examples. When Bacon first sets out those
procedures which are now smoothly familiar under the
name of the scientific method, he constructed a type of
experiment he slyly calls light-bringing or "luciferic" experiments. You all know that the angelic name of Satan
before his revolution in heaven and his fall was Lucifer,
or the Light-bearer. Again, some of you have probably
read Milton's Paradise Lost, and perhaps you can compare
Milton's Satan with Dante's. Dante's Satan is a horrible,
inhuman figure encased in ice in the lowest hell in Inferno. Milton's modern Satan has much grandeur. He
is in fact represented as an overwhelmingly proud, antique, even Homeric, hero. Or one last example: Dr.
Faustus, an evidently not altogether fictional scholar who
stands on the brink of modernity, has a real intimacy
with the devil. And in those old tales from which the
famous later treatments are taken Faust sells his soul to
him not only for the pleasures and the dominion of the
world, but also for the secrets of modern astronomy and
algebra.
Here let me repeat my caution: I am not saying that
these founders of modernity played silly and wicked
blasphemous games, but only that they still had the
theological learning and the grandeur of imagination to
know what their enterprize resembled.
ow let me give you three enlightening complementary facts. Bacon wrote a book, a kind of
scientific utopia called the New Atlantis, a place
which is an imaginary island lying off the shore of
America. The book is, in fact, the first description of a
scientific research complex. Bacon calls the group of people in charge of it "the College of the Six Days' Work:'
Furthermore, Galilee's work called the Two-New Sciences,
in which he sets out the beginning of modern physics,
is a dialogue taking place on a succession of days, possibly
six. And finally Descartes's Meditations, intended to
prepare the world for modern science, takes place in six
sessions. There is no question in my mind but that these
men were thinking of themselves as re-doing God's work
of the creation, as creating a new world or re-creating
the old one in an accessibly intelligible, illuminated form,
and as revealing what they had done in a new kind of
N
68
scripture. They were light-bringers, making us, their
heirs, like gods, knowing a source for re-making the
world, for better or worse, as new creators. Here, finally,
is the point I have been leading up to; you may find it
a little outrageous, but see whether you can deny it: We,
almost all of us, have so totally absorbed such an attitude
that we hardly notice what we are saying anymore. Let
me ask you when you have last said that you wanted to
"do something creative" with your life, or have been told
to "think creatively" or called someone you admired "so
creative:' In fact we are in the habit of referring to all
our more exciting activities as "creative:' But creativity
is a precise theological idea whose meaning we are partly forgetting, partly perverting to our modern use.
Creativity means the ability to bring something into being out of nothing, in Latin, "ex nihilo;' frOm the very
beginning, as God is implied in Genesis to have separated
the heavens and the earth out of a chaos of his own
creating.
Clearly we are quite incapable of such production.
For example, take a potter to whose work we may refer
as "very creative." But a potter has clay out of which the
pottery is fashioned and a wheel on which it is thrown.
The ancient Greeks referred to all such work as "making," for which the Greek word is poesis, and they used
that word particularly for that kind of making which is
done in words and which we still call poetry. Creative
poetry is therefore, strictly speaking, a contradiction in
terms, and yet that adjective has a revealing significance.
For a maker works on given material according to a
tradition and from a pattern. But a creator is free of all
those restrictive circumstances and bound above all by
the inner demands of self-expression. It makes for that
kind of production we peculiarly think of as "Art;' with
all its courage, cleverness, sophistication and emphasis
on the artist's individuality. The story of modern art is
the story of the triumph of rebellious creativity, of
creativity divorced from its proper, superhuman agent.
But artistic creativity is only a later outcome of the
original perversion of the notion, and indeed, a reaction
to it. The first, and still predominant application of the
notion of human creativity is the re-enactment of the sixdays' work I have already referred to. That is to say, it
is the science of nature and its application, called
technology, which appears to put humanity in control
of the creation.
Now modern science, it seems to me, has two separate
roots. One is Greek. The Greeks began the development
of those mathematical tools which characterize modern
science. They also distinguished and named the science
of physics. Physics is a Greek word derived from physis,
which means growth and movement and is usually
translated as "nature." But the natural science of the
Greeks was, I think, in its very essence, incapable of
mechanical application. It was pure theory.-Theory is
another Greek word which means "beholding;' "contemplation:' The Greek physicists looked on natural be-
SPRING 1984
�ings but they did not control nature. You will not be surprised when I say that I think this attitude has everything
to do with the fact that the greatest of them, Aristotle,
regarded the world not as having a beginning and an
end but as unmade and indestructible.
Something very different had to arise to induce the
frame of mind which made a technological science possible. It was not merely the notion of creation, for you
remember that when God asks Job in the Old Testament:
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the
earth?", Job has no answer.- He is overcome by his own
impotence in the face of God's power over nature. But
these moderns I have been speaking of, they do have an
answer. For example, when God goes on to ask; "Canst
thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee,
Here we are?" Of course, the modern answer is: Yes, we
were there; yes, we can. What has intervened?
What has intervened is, I think, the notion that God
can appear in human form and work miracles, that transubstantiations, that is, substantial transformations of
nature can take place: in sum, that the creation can be
controlled from within. Modern science takes, I believe,
some of its impulse and much of its pathos from a
secularized version of these notions.
There are dozens of other aspects of modernity which
have a similar origin in a secularized version of Christian notions. Because I cannot set them out carefully nOw,
let me just pour them out before you and then choose
that one which particularly bears on the just-nowness,
the peculiar "modernity" of our time for a brief final word.
Here is a mere list of such aspects. It will probably
be a little unintelligible; it is certainly incomplete; but
it might be suggestive. Modernity, then, has adopted from
Christianity:
• The search for certainty in philosophic matters,
• The notion of a total adherence to an idea ( cf. the
bookburning of Acts 19: 19, 20, Hume, Enquiry, last
para.),
• A burning interest in facts of existence and in their
ordinary or extraordinary standing,
• The concentration on the self and its expression,
• The emphasis on the will and its power,
• The fascination with freedom,
• The conversion of the antique noble virtues to virtues of benevolence (such as Jefferson explicitly
urged),
• The passion for equality,
• The notion of salvation through work (cf. Weber,
The Protestant Spirit),
• The overwhelming importance of the written word,
• The idea of historical change.
et me, by way of finishing off, dwell a little on the
last aspect. I cannot imagine that there is anyone
here who does not have one of two possible attitudes toward the past. You may think either that the
past is too much dead and gone to bother with in this
L
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
modern, fast-changing world. Or you may think that you
need to study the past to get some perspective on the present day and its uniqueness. But that means that whether
or not you are interested in the academic discipline called
history, you believe in History as a movement of time
in which essential and irreversible changes come about,
and many of you may also think that this movement is
toward something, either doom or fulfillment, that is either
progress or decline.
The ancient pagans, to be sure, also knew that every
present passes away, that kings die, empires crumble and
ancestors moulder in their tombs. They too kept chronicles of times past, to keep alive the memory of heroes
or to prove how ancient was their own descent, and they
certainly thought that the world might have its epochs
and its cycles. But, to my knowledge, they never, never,
thought of history as having an intelligible, purposeful
movement; they never thought that time contained moments of revelation, or bore a spirit, or had in it a beginning and an inevitable end. Hence they had none of our
preoccupation with the future as a shape coming toward
us. What we keep calling "tomorrow's world" was for them
simply the "not yet;' the nothing.
Now I think that this way of thinking of time was
prepared for us by the Christian notion of the irruption
into time of divinity, that is, by the Incarnation, and by
the promise of a Second Coming and a Day of judgment
and a New Kingdom. The secularization these ideas have
undergone has removed their precise theological
significance, and what we have retained is only a sense
of doom or of progress, according to our temperaments;
and a sense of the whirling advance of time. But that
sense of living in a Now which is both unique and
vanishing- that is exactly what is meant by modernity.
Let me conclude by repeating what I said in the
beginning. This is emphatically not a sermon but alecture, and so I am in no way urging some sort of purification of modernity. On the contrary, I hope to have shown
that modernity consists of such perversions of notions
drawn from Christianity, and that to be a modern means
to be deeply enmeshed in them.
But there is a conclusion to be drawn. It is that there
is no way to understand ourselves and our world without
some deep study of the J udaeo-Christian tradition. Let
me tell you a brief anecdote. Some of my colleagues-forthe-year at Whitman College were arguing over the current curriculum reform the college is undertaking and
the difficulties of finding a subject matter that all could
agree on as indispensable. One member of the group
finally asked: What would you all say if you were asked
what was the single most necessary study? Then a man
who has, I am sure, only the loosest religious affiliations
answered unhesitatingly: Theology. And no one was willing to deny his explanation that students need a framework in which to think about the nature and ends of their
life. My point today has been that they need the same
study to understand the nature and ends of their time.
69
�BooK REVIEW
The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response.
Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1983
viii+103 pp., $1.50 (paper)
Moral Clarity in the Nuclear Age
Michael Novak
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983
144 pp., $3.95 (paper)
Catholics and Nuclear War: A Commentary on "The Challenge of
Peace;' the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on War and Peace
Philip J. Murnion, ed.
New York: Crossroad, 1983
xxii+346 pp., $10.95 (paper)
The Bishops and the Bomb: Waging Peace in a Nuclear Age
Jim Castelli
Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1983
283 pp., $7.95 (paper)
very group today seems to have a The drafting process also found the comleft and a right -legislatures, school mittee members accommodating themboards, advisory commissions, even sdves not only to the Catholic just-war
committees of Roman Catholic bishops. tradition but also to new expressioJ;lS of
The Committee on War and Peace of the pacifism among their fellow bishops and
National Conference of Catholic Bishops to the strongly expressed views of the
(NCCB) was evidently planned that way. Reagan administration and the Vatican.
Archbishop John Roach, the NCCB The story of this consultative process, unpresident. who appointed the committee's precedented for an American bishops'
chairman, has said, "I wanted articulate conference, has been competently told by
people at the extremes:' For the left wing, religion reporter Jim Castelli in The
Archbishop (later Cardinal) Joseph Ber- Bishops and the Bomb. In tantalizing detail,
nardin of Chicago selected Auxiliary Castelli describes the special influence
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, a wielded by two advisers to the commitwell known pacifist and president of Pax tee: the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, director of
Christi U.S.A.; for the right wing, Aux- the bishops' Office of International Justice
iliary Bishop John O'Connor of the Mili- · and Peace, and Bruce Martin Russett, a
tary Ordinariate. The other members, Yale political science professor appointed
Bishop Daniel Reilly of Norwich, Conn., as the committee's principal consultant.
and Auxiliary Bishop George Fulcher of Hehir and to a lesser extent Russett were
Columbus, Ohio, were expected to be responsible for much of the precise
swing votes. Bernardin's skills at guiding language and subtle reasoning of the
this group to a consensus without visibly letter.
taking sides were unquestioned.
How the bishops' committee pulled
The bishop's committee worked from and hauled between the hawk and the
1981 to 1983, producing four drafts of a dove positions of O'Connor and Gumblebook-length pastoral letter on nuclear ton reveals some interesting aspects of the
weapons and U.S. defense policy entitled leftward drift of episcopal political views,
The Challenge of Peace. The drafts but the real significance of The Challenge
themselves, which culminated in the of- of Peace resides in the final text itselfficial version adopted by the NCCB in what it says, what it implies, how well it
May 1983, reflect major shifts of opinion argues its case, how it can be interpreted,
among the committee members, the how it will be used. The letter is signifibishops at large, and consultants to the cant both for the American Catholic comcommittee both invited and uninvited. munity and for the security of the nation.
E
70
The bishops' rhetoric rings clear and
strong: "as a people, we must refuse to
legitimate the idea of nuclear war . . .
our 'nd to nuclear war must, in the end,
be definitive and decisive" (Challenge, pars.
131, 138.) [These paragraph numbers are
used in all published texts of the letter;
the text is available in a low-priced edition from the U.S. Catholic Conference
and as an appendix to the Castelli and
Murnion books.] The bishops translate
their rhetoric into moral anathemas,
solemnly condemning the use of nuclear
weapons against population centers, retaliatory use of nuclear weapons "which
would indiscriminately take many wholly
innocent lives" and any "deliberate initiation of nuclear warfare, on however restricted a scale" (147-150). Although the
letter avoids a blanket condemnation of
any use of any nuclear weapon under any
circumstances, the bishops make no attempt to specify conditions under which
a nuclear weapon could be used morally.
If no moral wartime uses of nuclear
weapons can be foreseen, what moral
status can be attributed to a policy of
nuclear deterrence? The bishops' treat~
ment of deterrence mostly consists of expressions of concern and perplexity.
Deterrence, they write, is "currently the
most dangerous dimension of the nuclear
arms race" (162); it is a "moral and
political paradox" (167) as well as a "contemporary dilemma'' (174); and "any claim
SPRING 1984
�by any government that it is pursuing a
morally acceptable policy of deterrenc~
must be scrutinized with the greatest care"
(195).
ad the bishops been left to think
for themselves, they might well
have moved to a condemnation of
deterrence, as a goodly number of their
confreres wanted. But in June 1982 Pope
John Paul II sent a message to the Second
U.N. Special Session on Disarmament
containing a sentence on deterrence that
would once and for all determine the
American bishops' position: "In current
conditions;' the Pope wrote, "'deterrence'
based on balance, certainly not as an end
in itself but as a step on the way toward
a progressive disarmament, may still be
judged morally acceptable" (Challenge,
173). Taking this sentence as a papal
directive, the bishops simply adopted it
as their policy, interpreting it in American
terms, elaborating it in different language, without criticizing or altering it.
The effect on The Challenge of Peace was
seriously to soften the core of the letter
by substituting moral assertions on deterrence for moral analysis. The bishops'
own versions ofJohn Paul's statement on
deterrence include their "strictly conditioned moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence" (186) and their "lack of unequivocal
condemnation of deterrence" (192). The
strict conditions specify that deterrence
must be minimally sufficient and that
each new deterrent strategy and weapon
must be judged "in light of whether it will
render steps toward 'progressive disarm ament' more or less likely" (188).
The bishops' loyalty to the Pope's
every sentence prevented them not only
from developing their own moral analysis
of deterrence but also from uncovering a
serious deficiency in the papal statement
itself. John Paul evidently opposes deterrence if it is "an end in itself' but approves
of it "as a step on the way'' to disarmament. But in the real world of massive
Soviet threats and refractory U.S.-Soviet
negotiations, deterrence never is an end
in itself but definitely is a need in itself.
By itself it is not -and cannot be -a step
on the way toward disarmament. Deterrence is needed to deter the Soviet Union
from using its weapons. If the Soviets
decide not to negotiate, deterrence will be
needed; if a new treaty is signed, deterrence will still be needed; if George Kennan's dream of a 50 percent reduction in
nuclear weaponry is realized, deterrence
will still be needed. To be sure, disarmament is another need, but deterrence and
H
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
disarmament are different in kind. To tie
them together as the Pope did -with the
American bishops dutifully agreeingconfuses any argument about the morality or immorality of deterrence policies.
The moral category most in need of
study with respect to deterrence is the notion of intention. To a nuclear pacifist, the
intention of deterrence is analogous to the
plan of a murderer and is to be damned
accordingly. But since the goal of deterrence is to prevent war, not to wage war,
the moral question is not that easy to
answer. Michael Novak, in Moral Clarity
in the Nuclear Age (archly described by
Castelli as a "counterpastoral"), has
vigorously argued for moral approval of
deterrence:
It is clear that the complexities of
nuclear deterrence change the
meaning of intention and threat as
these words are usually used in
moral discourse. Those who intend
to prevent the usc of nuclear
weapons by maintaining a system
of deterrence in readiness for use do
intend to use such weapons, but only
in order not to use them, and do
threaten to use them, but only in
order to deter their use . . .
Clearly, it is a more moral choice
and occasions lesser evil to hold a
deterrent intention than it is to
allow nuclear attack. [Moral Clarity~
pp. 59, 61]
Moral Clarity ~·n the Nuclear Age is the
most cogent critique of the American
bishops' judgments yet to be published,
though it addresses itself mainly to the
issues rather than to the text of The
Challenge of Peace. The pastoral letter invites dialogue and criticism by claiming
that one of the major purposes of Catholic
teaching on war and peace is "to contribute to the public policy debate about
the morality of war" (16). From Novak,
in the book under review and in num~
erous articles, the bishops have been getting what they apparently want. In the
collection of essays, Catholics and Nuclear
JiVtzr, however, too much of the criticism
is mild and too many of the essaysists
follow the lead of the Rev. Theodore
Hesburgh, who in the book's foreward
writes, ''I believe [the pastoral letter] is the
-finest document that the American
Catholic hierarchy has ever produced"
(Catholics, p. vii). The writers in this
volume are mostly Catholics, about half
and half clerical and lay; well-known
names among them include the Rev.
Hehir and Prof. Russett, the Rev. Charles
E. Curran, James Finn, the Rev. David
Hollenbach, George F. Kennan, David J.
O'Brien, the Rev. Richard A. McCor~
mick, Peter Steinfels, Lester C. Thurow,
Gordon C. Zahn, et al.
nevitably when theologians take up
public policy, some bizzare opinions
emerge. For example, Sister Sandra
M. Schneiders, professor of New Testament and Spirituality at the Jesuit School
of Theology in Berkeley, locates a problem in connecting sacred scripture with
contemporary issues: "The problem is;'
she writes, "that we lack an adequate
hermeneutical theory" (Catholics, p. 91). As
to coping with nuclear weapons, Sister
Schneiders believes
I
it is not a theory of just war,
however morally sound, but the
gospel imperative to make peace
even at the cost of ultimate selfsacrifice that must guide our
response to the question of nuclear
arms. [p. 95]
To counter the Soviet Union's weapons,
Schneiders recommends for the United
States not an arsenal but "Christian defiance of death" (p. 103). For another example, Georgetown theologian Richard
McCormick brings his scholarly skills to
bear on the question of intention in
nuclear deterrence but gets helplessly tied
up in "ultimate intent;' ('instrumental intention," "comsummatory intention;' ('objective intentionality" and "inbuilt intentionality" (pp. 173-177 passim).
Catholics and Nuclear JiVtzr on the whole
is much better than these examples,
however. James Finn, editor of Freedom at
Issue, asks a central question:
Finally, we must ask whether [the
bishops'] recommendations, if they
become policy, would move us
'(toward a more stable system of national and international security"
(196), as the bishops intend, or
toward some less desirable and
more dangerous situation. [p. 133]
Finn finds serious flaws in the bishops'
analysis of deterrence, in their understanding of the facts of the "arms race"
and in their joining of the traditions of
just war and pacifism. His conclusion
about the bishops' letter should worry all
of us: "I believe their recommendations,
if pressed into operation, would weaken
the security of the United States and its
allies" (p. 145).
Another worthwhile essay in this book
comes from the M.I.T. economist Lester
71
�Thurow. Entitled "The Arms Race and
the Economic Order;' Thurow's piece
takes up the bishops' treatment of the interdependence of rich and poor nation,s:
The section of the bishops' pastoral
letter that is most directly relevant
to economics and the arms race is
entitled, "Interdependence: From
Fact to Policy" (III.B.3). Unfortunately, the section does not start
with "fact" and therefore does not
lead to "policy?' The essence of the
section is to be found in the second
half of the quotation from Vatican
II: "The arms race is one of the
greatest curses on the human race
and the harm that it inflicts upon
the poor is more than can be endured." The section essentially implies that poor countries are poor
(at least partially) because they have
been exploited by rich, militarily
powerful countries. [Catholics, p.
207.]
72
Of this claim -a claim that has become
the common coin -of today's politicalreligious rhetoric-Thurow says, "The
evidence for this assertion is lacking in the
bishops' letter and denied by historical
research'' (p. 207). He follows with his
own conclusion about the relationship of
arms to poverty: "There is no doubt that
the arms race hurts the poor, but the arms
race that impacts the poor is not that between the Soviet Union and the United
States but that among poor countries" (p.
208).
Serious criticism from the left comes
from the long-time pacifist Gordon Zahn,
who is disturbed by the bishops' reliance
on the just-war theory as their moral
framework but pleased with the bishops'
"recognition of evangelical pacifism as a
legitimate option for the Catholic"
(Catholics, p. 130). "It is time;' Zahn
believes, "to dismiss once and for all the
just-war formulations as irrelevant to the
realities of modern war" (p. 130).
Recognizing that the bishops are moving
to the left, Zahn gives them his partial approval, calling the letter "a slight turn in
the right direction" (p. 131).
The American Catholic bishops, to
their credit, have stimulated a new phase
in the forty-year-old national dialogue on
nuclear weapons. Whether their mixture
of religion and politics will be more
beneficial to the world than such mixtures
have been in past centuries remains to be
seen. So far one thing about The Challenge
of Peace is clear: the bishops, whatever they
have to teach, have a lot to learn about
nuclear weapons and U.S. defense policy.
Robert L. Spaeth
Robert L. Spaeth, former tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis, is dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences at St. John's University, Collegeville, Minn.,
and the author of No Easy Answers: Chn"stians Debate
Nuclear Armr, recently published by Winston Press,
Minneapolis.
SPRING 1984
�Cumulative Index,
April 1969-Winter 1984
The last cumulative index, marking eight years of publication, appeared
in the July 1977 issue of The College. This spring, after fifteen years as first
The College (Apr 69-Jul 79); then The College/The St. John's Review Gan and
Jul 80); and now The St. John's Review (since the Winter 81 issue), it seems
appropriate to bring the index up to date.
The following list, arranged alphabetically by author, includes all material
published from April 1969 through Winter 1984. Photocopies of specific articles are available at $.20 a page, minimum order $2.00; requests should be
addressed to the managing editor in Annapolis.
Aldanov, Mark
The Holdup at Tiflis on June 26, 1907:
the "Exes" (from The Suicides), (trans.
Joel Carmichael_) ... Winter/Spring 83
Alexander, Sidney
The Rainfall in the Pine Grove;
The Mannequins;
The Donkey Rides the Man
(poems) ..... Autumn/Winter 82-3
Allanbrook, Douglas
The Spanish Civil War ........ Apr 72
Three Preludes for the Piano ... Jan 73
Power and Grace ............. Jan 77
Truth~Telling and the Iliad . Summer 83
Allanbrook, Wye Jamison
Dance, Gesture, and The Marriage
of Figaro . . . ................ Apr
Don Giovanni, or the Triviality of
Seduction . . . . . . . . .
. ...... Jul
Mozart's Cherubino ........ Winter
Ardrey, Daniel
My Memoir of Our
Revolution . .
. Winter/Spring
Aron, Raymond
For Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan
Soviet Hegemonism:
Year 1
. . . . . . . Summer
Bacon, Helen
The Contemporary Reader and
Robert Frost . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
74
79
82
83
80
81
81
Barr, Stringfellow
Tribute to Robert M. Hutchins Oct 77
Bart, Robert S.
Hell: Paola and Francesca
Jul 71
Commencement Address,
Annapolis 1975 . .
Jul 75
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service . . . . . . . . . . .......... Jan 79
Barzun, Jacques
William James,
Moralist ...... Autumn/Winter 82-83
Baumann, Fred
R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography
(book review)
.... Jul 79
Affirmative Action and the Rights
of Man . . . . . . .
. .......... jul 80
Beall, James H.
Solstice on the First Watch; The
Horizon as the Last Ship Home
(poems) . . . . .
Summer 83
Bell, Charles G.
The Number of My Loves
(poem)
. . . .. .. .. ..
Jul 70
Two Sorts of Poetic Revision .... jul 73
Prodigal Father (narrative) ..... Jan 80
Five Translations (poems) ... Winter 82
Berns, Gisela
Schiller's Drama- Fulfillment of
History and Philosophy
in Poetry . . . .
. ..... Summer 82
Berns, Laurence
The College and the Underprivileged . . . . . .
Apr 69
Reasonable Politics and
Technology
Sep 70
Memorial to Leo Strauss . . . . Jan 74
Memorial for Simon Kaplan ... Jan 80
Blanton, Ted A.
High School Workshop . . . . . . . Jan 74
Memorial to Leo Strauss . . .
Jan 74
Blistein, Burton
Some Notes on the Lost Wax
Process
.. Apr 73
Blum, Etta
From The Hills as Waves
(poems) ............ .
Summer 81
Bolotin, David
On Sophocles' Ajax ...
..... Jul 80
Irwin's Plato's Moral Theory
(book review)
Winter 81
Bonfante, Guiliano
The Birth of a Literary
Language
. . . . . . . . . . . . Jan 80
Born, Timothy
Poisie, by Paul Valery
(translation)
..... Jul 73
Bosco, Joseph A.
Defeat in Vietnam, Norman
Podhoretz's Why ~ Were in Vietnam
(Review Essay) Autumn/Winter 82-83
Brann, Eva T. H.
A Reading of the Gettysburg
Address .................... Apr 69
The Venetian Phaedrus . .
. Jul 72
The Poet of the Odyssey . . . . . . Apr 74
Commencement Address,
Annapolis, 1974 ............. Jul 74
The Perfections of Jane Austen . Apr 75
Graduate Institute Commencement
Address, 1975
.. Jan 76
Concerning the Declaration of
Independence . . . . . . . . . .
J ul 76
On the Imag-ination ........... Jan 78
73
�Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan 79
For Bert Thoms . . . . . . . . . . . . Jul J9
Inner and Outer Freedom . . . . . Jul 79
Kant's Imperative . .
. ..... Jan ~0
"Plato's Theory of Ideas" . . . .
J ul 80
Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance" . . . . . . . . . . .
Summer 81
The Permanent Part of
Autumn 81
the College
Summer 83
Against Time
Winter 84
Intellect and Intuition
Bridgman, Laura
R. F. Christian, ed., Tolstoy's Letters.
(book review) . . . . . . . . .
. . Jul 79
Brown, Ford K.
Commencement Address,
Annapolis 1973
Jul 73
Bruell, Christopher
Summer 81
Thucydides and Perikles
Buchanan, Scott
The New Program at St. John's
College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct 72
Bulkley, Honor
At Home and Abroad: Letter from
Nicaragua and Guatemala . Winter 81
Cantor, Paul
The Ground of Nature: Shakespeare,
Language, and Politics
Summer 83
Carey, James
Aristotle's Account of the
Intelligibility of Being ..... Winter 84
Carmichael, Joel
The Lost Continent, The
Conundrum of Christian
Origins . . . . .
Autumn/Winter 82-3
Collins, Arthur
Kant's Empiricism ............ Jul 79
The Scientific Background of
Descartes' Dualism·
..... Winter 81
Objectivity and Philosophical
Conversation: Philosophy and the
Mirror of Nature, by Richard
Rorty (Review Essay) ...... Winter 82
The Unity of Leibniz's Thought on
Contingency, Possibility, and
Freedom
Autumn/Winter 82-3
Ambiguities in Kant's Treatment of
Space
.......... Winter/Spring 83
Collins, Linda
Going to See the Leaves
Autumn 81
(narrative)
....... .
A Nighttime Story
(narrative)
.. Autumn/Winter 82-3
Comber, Geoffrey
Conversations with Graduate Institute
Alumni
Apr 73
Comenetz, Michael
Chaos, Gauss, and Order
Jul 78
Darkey, William A.
In Memory of Mark Van
Doren
.........
Apr 73
Franz Plunder . . . . . .
. .. Jul 74
In Memoriam of John Gaw Meem
1895-1983 . . . . . .
. .... Winter 84
Dawson, Grace
A St. Johnnie on the Job
Apr 73
Market ....
Dean, John
Talking with ~i~tu;,es: "Les
Bandes Dessmees ..
. .Jul 79
74
Deane, Stephen
At Home and Abroad: Letter from
Moscow
............
Jul 80
de Grazia, Margreta
Nominal Autobiography in Shakespeare's
Sonnets
. . . . . . . . . . . . Summer 83
Dennison, George
Family Pages, Little Facts:
October (narrative) ....... Winter 81
Shawno (narrative)
Winter 82
Diamond, Martin
On The Study Of Politics In A
Liberal Education
Dec 71
Dorfman, Alan
Freud's "Dora''
... Jul 78
Doskow, George
Leven's Creator (book review) .... Jul 80
Drake, Stillman
Scientific Discovery, Logic,
and Luck . . . . . . .
. . . J ul 80
Dry, Murray
The Supreme Court and School
Desegregation: Brown vs. Board of
Education Reconsidered
Summer 83
Dulich, Jean (pseud.)
Letter from Vietnam
.. Winter 82
Fehl, Philipp P.
Life Beyond the Reach of
Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... Jan 80
Ferrero, Guglielmo and Mosca, Gaetano
Letters on
Legitimacy . . . .
Winter/Spring 83
Fisher, Howard
The Great Electrical
Philosopher . . . . . . . . .
Jul 79
Flaumenhaft, Harvey
Memorial for Simon Kaplan
Jan 80
Fontaine, John
Chameleons (poem) . .
Winter 84
Ginsburg, David
Ideals and Action: Commencement
Address, Santa Fe, 1974
Jul 74
Gold, Michael W.
A Preservationist Looks at
Housing . . .
. .. Jan 78
Goldsmith, William M.
An Open Letter to St. John's
Alumni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan 78
Goldwin, Robert A.
The First Annual Provocation
Address . . . . . . . . . .
. . . J ul 69
St. John's Asks John Locke Some
Questions . . .
Apr 71
Of Men and Angels: A Search for
Morality in the Constitution ... Jul 76
Gray, J. Glenn
The Sense of It All; Commencement
Address, Santa Fe 1977 ....... Jul 77
Griffin, Jonathan
Translation of Poetry (with Rim baud
translations)
.........
Apr 77
Guaspari, David
The Incompleteness Theory .. Autumn 81
Hadas, Rachel
Three Poems . .
Winter/Spring 83
Ham, Michael W.
Martin Duberman, Black Mountain
(book review) . . . . . . . .
Apr 73
Hazo, Robert G.
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service
........... Jan 79
Hilberg, Raul
At Home and Abroad: The Holocaust
Mission . . . . . . . Autumn/Winter 82-3
Himmelfarb, Gertrude
Adam Smith: Political Economy as
Moral Philosophy
Winter/Spring 83
Holmes, Stephen
Benjamin Constant on Ancient and
Modern Liberty .... Winter/Spring 83
Holt, Philip
Sophocles' Ajax and the Ajax
Summer 82
Myth
........ .
Hook, Sidney
Memories of John Dewey
Days ................ .
. Jan 80
Isaac, Rael Jean and Erich
The Media-Shield of the
Utopians . . . . . . . . . . Winter/Spring 83
Jacobsen, Bryce
"When is St. John's Going to
Resume Athletics?"
Apr 70
Jaffa, Harry V.
Inventing the Past . . . ... Autumn 81
Jenson, Kari
At Home and Abroad: Letter from
the Homefront: On
Marrying ...... Autumn/Winter 82-3
Jones, Gregory
On J ohnathan Schell's The Fate of the
Earth (Review Essay) . Winter/Spring 83
Josephs, Lawrence
Four Poems .............. Autumn 81
Io; Hephaestus (poems) .... Winter 82
Achilles; In Memoriam, John Downes
(poems) ....... Autumn/Winter 82-3
Kaplan, Simon
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service
.................. Jan 79
Kass, Amy Apfel
The Liberal Arts Movement: From
Ideas to Practice
Oct 73
Kieffer, John S.
Apr 69
A World I Never Made
lola Scofield, A Memorial
Jul 72
Klein, Jacob
Dec 69
The Problem of Freedom
A Giving of Accounts
Apr 70
(with Leo Strauss)
The Myth of Virgil's Aeneid
Dec 70
On Precision . . . .
Oct 71
Discussion As A Means Of Teaching
And Learning . . . . . . . . .
Dec 71
Speech, Its Strengths and Its
Weaknesses ....... .
Jul 73
Memorial to Leo Strauss
Jan 74
Plato's Phaedo ......... .
Jan 75
The Art of Questioning and the
Liberal Arts . . . . . . . . .
Jan 79
The Copernican Revolution .... Jan 79
On a Sixteenth Century
Algebraist
....... .
Jan 79
The World of Physics and the
Natural World (trans. and ed. D. R.
Lachterman) . . . .
Autumn 81
Kojeve, Alexandre
The Christian Origin of Modern Science
(trans. D. R. Lachterman) . Winter 84
Kuder, Samuel S.
Mathematics As A Liberal Art .. Jul 69
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service . . . . . . . . . . .
. .... Jan 79
SPRING 1984
�Laloy, Jean
John Paul II and the World of
Tomorrow
............. Jul 80,
Landau, Julie
Some Classical Poems of the T'ang
and Sung Dynasties . . . . . . . . . . J ul 79
Some Chinese Poems
Summer 82
Lazitch, Branko
Not Just Another Communist
Party: The Polish Communist
Party .......... Autumn/Winter 82-3
Lederer, Wolfgang
How Does One Cure A Soul? .. Apr 76
What Good and What Harm can
Psychoanalysis Do?
Winter 84
Le Gloannec, Anne-Marie
The Federal Republic of Germany:
Finlandization or
Germanization? ....... .
Winter 82
Levin, Michael
Autumn 81
"Sexism" is Meaningless
Liben, Meyer
Three (Short Stories) .....
Jul 80
The Streets on which Herman
Melville Was Born and Died
(narrative)
. . Winter 81
Not Quite Alone on the Telephone
Summer 81
(narrative) . .
New Year's Eve; Treasure Hunt;
Meetings, Recognitions
(narratives) . .
Autumn/Winter 82-3
Littleton, Michael S.
Prayers ....... .
Jul 70
Loewenberg, Robert
The Trivialization of the Holocaust
as an Aspect of Modern
Idolatry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Winter 82
That Graver Fire Bell: A
Reconsideration of the Debate over
Slavery from the Standpoint of
Lincoln
. . . . . . . . . . Summer 82
Marx's Sadism . . Autumn/Winter 82-3
Lund, Nelson
Guardian Politics in
The Deer Hunter . . . . . . . .
Winter 81
Sidney Hook, Philosophy and Public
Policy (book review)
Autumn 81
Macierowski, Edward M.
Truth and Rights ............. Jan 77
Mackey, Kimo
The Odyssey of the "Cresta"
Apr 75
Maschler, Chaninah
Gotthold Lessing: Ernst
and Falk, Conversations for
Freemasons
Autumn/Winter 82-3
Class Day Address 1983 ... Summer 83
McGrath, Hugh P.
An Address for the Rededication of
the Library
............... Dec 69
Michnik, Adam
Letter from a Polish
Prison . . . . .
Autumn/Winter 82-3
Mongardini, Carlo
Guglielmo Ferrero and
Legitimacy . . . . . . . . Winter/Spring 83
Montanelli, Indro
Kekkonen, the "Finlandizer"... Winter 82
Morrisey, Will
DeGaulle's Le fil de l'epie .... Winter 81
Mosca, Gaetano
(See Ferrero, Guglielmo)
ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Mullen, William
Nietzsche and the Classic ... Winter 82
N avrozov, Lev
One Day in the Life of the New York
Times and Prava in the World: Which
is more Informative? ..... Autumn 81
A Dead Man's Knowledge;
Varlam Shalamov, Graphite
(book review) . . . .
Winter 82
Updike and Roth: Are They Writers?
(Review Essay)
. . Summer 82
Neidorf, Robert A.
Biological Explanation
Apr 70
The Ontological Argument
Apr 72
Old Wars: Commencement Address,
Annapolis, 1972 ............. Jul 72
Statement of Educational Policy
and Program . . . . . . . . . .
. . jul 77
O'Flynn, Janet Christhilf
For Bert Thoms
. Jul 79
O'Grady, William
The Power of the Word in
Oedipus at Colonus . . . . . . . . .
Apr 77
About Jacob Klein's Books About Plato:
A Commentary on Plato's Meno and
Plato's Trilogy ................ Jan 79
Odysseus Among the Phaiakians jul 79
Ossorgin, Michael
"How Was the Seminar?"
Apr 69
Two Writings in the Sand; Santa Fe
Baccalaureate Address
Jul 74
Platt, Michael
Aristotle Gazing . . . . . ........ Jan 80
Prevost, Gary
Carrillo and the Communist Party in
Spain (book review)
.. Jan 80
Raditsa, Leo
Thucydides, Aristotle's Politics, and the
Significance of the Peloponnesian
War ........................ Jul 75
Words to the Class of 1977; Class Day
Address, Annapolis
........ J ul 77
For Bert Thoms
. . . . . . . . J ul 79
The Collapse of Democracy at Athens
and the Trial of Socrates ...... Jul 79
At Home and Abroad: Letter from
Budapest and Pees
... Jan 80
Eyes of His Own -and Words: George
Dennison, Oilers and Sweepers and Other
Stories (book review) . . . . . . . . . . J ul 80
Recent Events in the West .. Winter 81
Afghanistan Fights: The Struggle for
Afghanistan, by N arrey Peabody Newell
and Richard S. Newell (Review
Essay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Winter 82
Laos; Marie- Noele and Didier Sicard,
Au nom de Marx et de Bouddha, Revolution
au Laos; un peuple une culture
disparaissent ............... Winter 82
The Division of the West- and
Perception ......... Winter/Spring
Rangel, Carlos
The Latin-American Neurosis (trans.
Hugh P. McGrath, Leo
Raditsa) . . .
. . . . . . . . Winter
Roth, Robert
In the Audience (narrative) Summer
Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Bach's Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan
Profile of an Alumnus: David
Moss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Apr
83
81
81
75
76
Trial in Berlin . . . . . . .
Jan 77
German Resistance to Hitler: Elites and
Election
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . J ul 79
Student Rebellion and the Nazis: "The
White Rose" in Its Setting Winter 84
Sachs, Joe
Aristotle's Definition of Motion . Jan 76
An Outline of the Argument of
Aristotle's Metaphysics . . . . Summer 81
The Fury of Aeneas
Winter 82
Scofield, Richard
Dec 69
The Habit of Literature
Scolnicov, Samuel
Plato's Euthydemus
Jan 80
Simpson, Thomas K.
Faraday's Thoughts on Electromagnetism . . . .
Jul 70
Newton and the Liberal Arts ... Jan 76
"The Scientific Revolution Will Not
Take Place"
............ Jul 78
Prometheus Unbound
Jan 80
Slakey, Thomas J.
Sep 70
Personal Freedom
Toward Reading Thomas
Aquinas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer 82
Smith, ]. Winfree
The Teaching of Theology to
Undergraduates
Jul69
Commencement Address,
Annapolis, 1970
Jul 70
Aristotle's Ethics
Jan 73
Memorial to Leo Strauss
Jan 74
Commencement Address,
Annapolis, 1976
jul 76
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service . . . . .
. .... Jan 79
Memorial for Simon Kaplan ... jan 80
St. John's under Barr and
Buchanan
. . . . . . . . . . Summer 82
Smith, Brother Robert
Excerpts from the History of the Desert
Fathers
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Apr 76
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service . . . . . . . . . . .
. . Jan 79
Proof and Pascal . .
Winter 82
Sonnesyn, Patricia
For Bert Thoms .
Jul 79
Spaeth, Robert L.
An Interview with Barbara
Leonard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct 72
Alumni Profile: John Poundstone Jan 73
An Interview with Robert Bart Apr 73
An Interview with Alvin Fross and
Peter Weiss . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jul 73
Profile: Louis L. Snyder, '28 ... Jul 73
Sparrow, Edward G.
Apr 71
Logic and Reason
Noun and Verb . . . . .
. . Jul 71
A Reading of the Parable of the
Prodigal Son .......... .
Jul 78
Storing, Herbert J.
The Founders and Slavery ..... Jul 76
Strauss, Leo
A Giving of Accounts
(with Jacob Klein) . . .
. . Apr 70
What is a Liberal Education? .. Jan 74
An Unspoken Prologue to a Public
Lecture at St. John's
Jan 79
Tamny, Martin
Boyle, Galileo, and Manifest
Experience ......... .
Jan 80
75
�Thaw, Eugene V.
The Collection of Mr. and Mrs.
Eugene V. Thaw
Apr 76
Thompson, Homer A.
The Libraries of Ancient
Ath.ens
Winter
Tolbert, James M.
Remarks at Ford K. Brown Memorial
Service
Oct 7 7
Twenty Years in Retrospect
Sep 69
Twenty- Five Years in
Retrospect
Oct 74
Van Doren, Mark
How to Praise A World That May
Not Last
Dec 71
Venable, Bruce
Philosophy and Spirituality in
Plotinus
Autumn 81
Wasserman, Adam
V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
(book review) . .
Autumn 81
Webb, James
Mission over Hanoi (from A Country Such
as This) . .
Summer 83
Weigle, Mary Martha (Marta)
Brothers of Our Father Jesus-The
Penitentes of the Southwest .... Jul 75
Weigle, Richard D.
The Liberal Arts College: Anachronism
or Paradigm . .
. . . . . Sep 69
e1
76
Remarks at Ford K. Brown Memorial
Service
Oct 7 7
Report of the President
Sep 69, 70
Oct 71-80
Richard Daniel Weigle, Celebration
of an Anniversary . . . . . . . . . .. Jul 74
West, Thomas G.
Cicero's Teaching on Natural
Law . . . . . . . .
Summer 81
Williamson, Ray and Abigail
.... jul 74
Plastering Day
Wilson, Curtis A.
Reflection on the Idea of
Science
Dec 70
Apr 74
Jacob Klein at 75
Commencement Address,
Annapolis, 1977
Jul 77
Remarks at Ford K. Brown Memorial
Service
........ Oct 77
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service
... Jan 79
On the Discovery of Deductive
Science
Jan 80
Ancient Astronomy and Ptolemy's
"Crime" (book review) ........ Jan 80
Kepler and the Mode of Vision Jul 80
The Origins of Celestial Dynamics:
Kepler and Newton
Winter 81
Homo Loquens from a Biological
Standpoint
Summer 83
A Comment on Alexandre Kojfve's
"The Christian Origin of Modern
Science" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Winter 84 ·
Winiarski, Barbara Dvorak
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service
Jan 79
Zelenka, Robert S.
The Ruin; Hommage a Dietrich
Buxtehude (poem) ........... Jan 75
BlackWf!ter (poem)
Summer 83
Zuckerman, Elliott
The Magic Fire and the Magic
Flute
........
Dec 69
What is the Question? . . . . .
Apr 73
Remarks at Jacob Klein Memorial
Service
.................. Jan 79
Don Alfonso
(poem)
Autumn/Winter 82-3
Black and White;.Arriv.ll; Sixteen
Eighteen; With Orjan at the
Great Japan Exhibition
(poems) . . . . .
Winter/Spring 83
Beyond the First Hundred Years: Some
Remarks on the Significance of
TriStan
Winter 84
Cordelia (poem)
Winter 84
SPRING 1984
��The St. John's Review
St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland 21404
Non-profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Permit No. 66
Lutherville, Md.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em>
Description
An account of the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em><span> is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College. All manuscripts are subject to blind review. Address correspondence to </span><em>The St. John's Review</em><span>, St. John's College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 or via e-mail at </span><a class="obfuscated_link" href="mailto:review@sjc.edu"><span class="obfuscated_link_text">review@sjc.edu</span></a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> exemplifies, encourages, and enhances the disciplined reflection that is nurtured by the St. John's Program. It does so both through the character most in common among its contributors — their familiarity with the Program and their respect for it — and through the style and content of their contributions. As it represents the St. John's Program, The St. John's Review espouses no philosophical, religious, or political doctrine beyond a dedication to liberal learning, and its readers may expect to find diversity of thought represented in its pages.<br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> was first published in 1974. It merged with <em>The College </em>beginning with the July 1980 issue. From that date forward, the numbering of <em>The St. John's Review</em> continues that of <em>The College</em>. <br /><br />Click on <a title="The St. John's Review" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=13"><strong>Items in the The St. John's Review Collection</strong></a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
thestjohnsreview
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
76 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
The St. John's Review (formerly The College), Spring 1984
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984-04
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sterling, J. Walter
Parran, Jr., Thomas
Lord, Susan
Freis, S. Richard
Sachs, Joe
Stickney, Cary
Wilson, Curtis A.
Sachs, Joe
Allanbrook, Douglas
Brann, Eva T. H.
Berg, Gretchen
Berman, Ronald
Stephenson, David
Mensch, James
Flaumenhaft, Mera
Klein, Jacob
Spaeth, Robert L.
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXV, number 2 of The St. John's Review, formerly The College. Published in Spring 1984.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
The_St_Johns_Review_Vol_35_No_2_1984
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
St. John's Review
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c292c191a062a62a27723f1b738d29e2.pdf
a9a21659bd501500d25a0399ecf943f8
PDF Text
Text
l~ .J),.t~. .
t>F A
.fo.,,,."'' .. ""
. CA.
.f:J Jl, 1,.~~ 'I Jl...
t: ~.,. .1' l".n'1',...""'" A~A:;;
""d Jf•. 1, .,..
,VY.J
'f
vf..:J. If. la..r.tlj ,, .. t.M~ V
t.,lt.
~r,,. . .'...rn.A
. ;_,.f.;,..\. : ,, tHl
UMf£ D 5TAT£5
..JI.fl~~N/1
)'&
( %
.
yt.....L
1 ,.
J
.,J .l~rt
4
·;:, ~U•. 1/...vm a ~ re.rrd
Jf,(J
"""~ ~~Jl..~~
�Editor:
Leo Raditsa
Managing Editor:
Thomas Parran, Jr.
Editorial Assistant:
Janet Durholz
Consulting Editors:
Eva Brann,
Curtis A. Wilson.
Editor's Note
Unsolicited articles, stories, and poems are welcome,
but should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed
envelope in each instance. Reasoned comments are also
welcome.
Requests for subscriptions should be sent to The St.
John's Review, St. John's College, Annapolis, MD 21404.
Although there are currently no subscription fees, volun·
tary contributions toward production costs are gratefully
received.
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW (formerly THE COLLEGE) is pub·
lished by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College, Annapolis,
Maryland 21404. Edwin J. Delattre, President, Edward G. Spar·
row, Dean. Published thrice yearly, usually in autumn, winter
and summer.
Volume XXXIIl
AUTUMN 1981
Number 1
©1981, St. John's College. All rights reserved. Reproduction in
whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
ISSN 0277-4720
Cover: Superimposed on Thomas Jefferson's "Rough draft" of the Declaration of Independence (composed between June 11 and 28, 1776) upon
a Mathew B. Brady photograph of President Abraham Lincoln with
General George B. McClellan, October 4, 1862. This latter photograph
was taken at McClellan's headquarters near Sharpsburg, Maryland, about
two and one· half weeks after the Battle of Antietam.
Composition: Britton Composition Co.
Printing: The John D. Lucas Printing Co.
�~HESTJOHNSREVIEWAUTUMN81
3
Inventing the Past Henry V. jaffa
20
Four Poems Laurence Josephs
22
The World of Physics and the
"Natural" World jacob Klein
35
"Sexism" is Meaningless Michael Levin
41
Going to See the Leaves Linda Collins
46
One Day in the Life of the New
York Times and Pravda in the
World: Which is more informative?
Lev Navrozov
62
The Incompleteness Theory David Guaspari
72
Philosophy and Spirituality in
Plotinus Bruce Venable
81
OCCASIONAL DISCOURSES
The Permanent Part of the College Eva T. H. Brann
84
FIRST READINGS
Sidney Hook, Philosophy and Public Policy,
review by Nelson Lund
V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River, review
by Adam Wasserman.
1
�Abraham Lincoln, photograph by Mathew B. Brady,
probably taken in February 1860. From the Collections
of the Library of Congress.
2
AUTUMN 1981
�Inventing the Past
Garry Wills's Inventing America and the Pathology of
Ideological Scholarship
Harry V. Jaffa
And this too is denied even to God, to make that which has been not to have been.
Thomas Aquinas
Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence is a book that should never
have been' published, certainly not in its present
form. Its errors are so egregious that any intelligent graduate student-or undergraduate student-checking many
of its assertions against their alleged sources, would have
demanded, at the least, considerable revision.
It has been widely hailed as a great contribution to our
understanding of the American political tradition. There
have been "rave" reviews in the New York Times Book
Review, the New York Review of Books, the Saturday Review, the New Republic, the American Spectator, and National Review, to mention but a few of many. It has been
praised by S\lCh glittering eminences of the academy, and
of the historical profession, as David Brion Davis, Edmund
Morgan, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. These are men who
can, if they wish, split a hair at fifty paces. In this instance,
their critical faculties seem to have gone into a narcotic
G
ARRY WILLS'S
Henry Salvatori Research Professor of Political Philosophy at Clare·
mont Men's College and Claremont Graduate School, Harry V. Jaffa
has recently published The Conditions of Freedom (The John Hopkins
University Press 1975) and How to Think about the American Revolution
(Carolina Academic Press 1978) He is editor of, and contributor to, the
forthcoming Statesmanship: Essays in Honor or Sir Winston Spencer
Churchill (Carolina Academic Press 1981).
THE ST.JOHNSREVJEW
trance, proving the truth of the aphorism that ideology is
the opiate of the intellectuals. Among the reviewers hitherto, only Professor Kenneth Lynn, writing in Commentary, October, 1978, has seen Wills's book for what it is.
"Inventing America," he writes, udoes not help us to un~
derstand Thomas Jefferson, but its totally unearned acclaim tells us a good deal about modern intellectuals and
their terrible need for radical myths." The myth promoted by Inventing America "is that the Declaration is
not grounded in Lockean individualism, as we have been
accustomed to think, but is a communitarian manifesto
derived from the common-sense philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment. .. " By this myth, says Lynn, Wills
would have "transmogrified" a ~~new nation, conceived in
liberty ... into a new nation, conceived in communality,"
and thus have supplied "the history of the Republic with
as pink a dawn as possible."
I think that Professor Lynn is correct as far as he goes.
But he does not go far enough. Inventing America was received with virtually the same enthusiasm on the Right as
on the Left. The reviews in National Review and the
American Spectator were both written by current editors
of National Review, surely the most authoritative of conservative journals* (Ronald Reagan's message to the
*See Postscript
3
�Twentieth Anniversary banquet declared he had read
every issue from cover to cover.) But the current editors,
we must note, are apostolic successors to Wills himself,
who wrote for the journal for a number of years. His account of his days as an NR staffer may be found in
Confessions of a Conservative, published shortly after Inventing America. The title of the book is not meant in
irony. Wills thinks of himself as a Conservative still, and
somehow traces all his serious ideas to St. Augustine. At
the deepest level of Wills's being, there is indeed a kind of
Lutheran hatred (and Luther was an Augustinian Monk)
of classical rationalism. Lynn calls Wills "the leftist
(formerly rightist) writer." Yet there is more inner consistency between the two "Willses" than Lynn perceives.
That is because there is more inner consistency between
the Right and the Left than is commonly supposed.
where Inventing America "comes
from," to employ a popular neologism, one must read
an essay Wills published in 1964, entitled "The Convenient State." It was originally published in a volume
edited by the late Frank Meyer (an NR editor, and Wills's
close friend), called What is Conservatism? Later, it achieved
neo-canonical status, by. its inclusion in an anthology of
American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century,
edited by NR's Editor of Editors, William F. Buckley, Jr.
(It is only fair to add that an essay of mine, "On the Nature of Civil and Religious Liberty," was included in the
same volume. My essay, however, represented Conservative heresy; Wills's Conservative orthodoxy.) Frank Meyer
and I exchanged dialectical blows in the pages of NR in
1965, after Meyer published an article attacking Abraham
Lincoln as the enemy of American constitutionalism and
American freedom. (Meyer's own best known book is called
In Defense of Freedom.) Meyer in 1965 and Wills in 1964,
follow exactly the same line: Calhoun is their hero and
their authority, Lincoln the villain of American history. As
we shall see, both of them, in the decisive sense, follow a
pattern of thought which seems to have been worked out
for them by Willmoore Kendall. Kendall was a professor of
political science at Yale when Wills was a graduate student in classics there. For Wills, as for Meyer and Kendall,
there is no contradiction, nor even any paradox, in identifying the cause of constitutionalism and freedom with the
defense of chattel slavery. For all three, the defense of
freedom turns, in the decisive case, into the defense of
the freedom of_ slaveowners.
The main thesis of Wills's 1964 essay was that something called "rationalism" is the root of all political evil.
This attack on "reason" has been the stock-in-trade of
Conservatism since Rousseau's attack on the Enlightenment was fortified by Burke's polemics against the French
Revolution. Most present-day Conservatives would be
horrified to learn that they are disciples of Rousseau, yet
such is surely the case. For it was Rousseau who, in going
all the way back to the "state of nature" discovered that
T
4
O UNDERSTAND
man by nature was free, but not rational. The celebration
of freedom, divorced from reason, has a theoretical foundation in Rousseau which is nowhere else to be found.
The Rousseauan denigration of reason, and the elevation
of sentiment to take its place, is the core of nineteenth
century romanticism, both in its Left phases (e.g. anarchism, syndicalism, socialism, communism), and in its
Right phases (e.g. monarchism, clericalism, feudalism,
slavery). Romantic nationalism has been equally a phenomenon of the Right and of the Left. "Rationalism,"
Wills declared as a man of the Right, "leads to a sterile
paradox, to an ideal freedom that is a denial of freedom."
What such a remark means can be inferred only from the
use to which it is put. Here it clearly refers to the question
of slavery, and to the Civil War. Concerning slavery, heremarks, somewhat vaguely, "One cannot simply ask whether
a thing is just." Certainly, to ask whether slavery was just
was never sufficient, but it was always necessary. One
cannot distinguish a greater from a lesser evil, unless one
can distinguish evil from good. Wills concedes that "the
abolition of slavery [may have] been just," but insists nevertheless that the only politically relevant question was
"whether it [was] constitutional." For "what is meant by
constitutional government" Wills turns to that statesman
of the Old South, the spiritual Father of the Confederacy,
John C. Calhoun. According to Calhoun, we are told, constitutional gov·ernment means Hthe government in which
all the free forms of society-or as many as possible-retain their life and 'concur' in a political area of peaceful
cooperation and compromise." We can now better understand Wills's polemic against "rationalism," since among
the "free forms" which, by the foregoing statement,
ought to be retained, was the institution of chattel slavery.
It was not the slaves whose concurrence Calhoun's constitutional doctrine required, but only those who had an
interest in preserving, protecting, and defending slavery.
Calhoun provided the slaveholders a constitutional mechanism, in the supposed rights of nullification and secession, to veto any national (or federal) legislation that they
regarded as hostile to the interests of slavery. Calhoun's
constitutionalism, based upon supposed rights of the
states, was originally forged in the fires of the nullification
controversy, between 1828 and 1839. Later it was elaborated in two books, the Disquisition on Government, and
the Discourse on the Constitution. Calhoun's main dialectical adversary in 1830 was no one less than the Father of
the Constitution, James Madison, although his principal
political adversary was President Andrew Jackson, backed
in the Senate by Daniel Webster. It was as the heir of
Madison, Jackson, Webster (and others) that Lincoln compounded his constitutional doctrine. Lincoln's genius
proved itself less by its originality than by the ability to reduce a complex matter to its essentials, and to express
those essentials in profound and memorable prose. The
essence of a constitutional regime, according to Lincoln,
was that it was based upon the consent of the governed.
And the consent of the governed was required, because
AUTUMN 1981
�"all men are created equal." In 1964, Wills rejected Lincolnian constitutionalism because (like the Declaration) it
was rational. In 1978, he rejects it because it is based upon
an allegedly mistaken understanding of the Declaration.
In Inventing America, he will undercut what Lincoln has
made of the Declaration, by unleashing a barrage of fanciful scholarship designed to transform the Declaration's
lucid doctrine of self-evident truths into esoteric eighteenth century mysteries.
Wills's 1964 essay follows the conventional path of Confederate apologists since the Civil War (and Wills is a native of Atlanta). He tries to make it appear that, on the one
hand, Lincoln's war was an abolitionist crusade and, on
the other, that the South was defending, not slavery, but
constitutionalism. Nothing could be further from the
truth. As we shall presently see, however, Inventing America is less a book about Thomas jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, than it is a book against Abraham
Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address.
make the record straight, as against the
1964 Garry Wills and his preceptors of the Right, as
to what purposes were in conflict, that led to the Civil
War, or the War for the Union. (It was not a War between
the States.) First of all, there was no disagreement between Abraham Lincoln and the followers of John C. Calhoun that slavery was a lawful institution in some fifteen
of the States. Moreover, it was agreed that where slavery
was lawful, it was under the exclusive control of the
States, and that the federal government had no jurisdiction over it. In his inaugural address, Lincoln quoted from
a statement he had made many times before, in which he
said that he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where
it exists." He said that he believed that he had "no lawful
right to do so," and added that he "had no inclination to
do so." Lincoln's anti-slavery policy was comprehended
completely by his avowed purpose to have excluded slavery, by federal law, from the national territories, where it
had not already established itself. It is true that Lincoln
believed, as, indeed, his pro-slavery antagonists believed,
that slavery as an institution in the United States was
highly volatile, and that if its expansion were prevented,
its contraction would set in. And, it was further believed-on both sides-that if contraction once set in,
slavery would be, in Lincoln's words, "in course of ulti~
mate extinction."
Lincoln believed that, in the understanding of the
Founding Fathers, slavery was an evil. It was an evil condemned by the principles of the Declaration, which Lincoln called "the father of all moral principle among us." It
was an evil to which certain constitutional guarantees
were given, in the political arrangements of the Founding,
because at the time there did not appear to be any alternative arrangements which would not have been disruptive
L
ET US HERE
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
of the Union. Yet the Fathers showed their opposition to
its perpetuation in various ways: by the limit placed upon
the foreign slave tra-de, and by the prohibition upon slavery in the Northwest Territory, among others. They had
left the institution of slavery where, to repeat, "the public
mind might rest in the belief that it was in course of ultimate extinction." Such a belief, Lincoln held, was absolutely necessary, if the slavery question were not to agitate
the public mind, and threaten the perpetuity of the Union.
Yet the expectations of the Fathers had been upset: by
the invention of the cotton gin, by the progress of the factory system, by the enormous expansion of the cotton
economy, and with the latter, the expansion of the demand for slave labor. These changes culminated, in time,
in the most sinister change of all: that change in at least a
part of the public mind which, from regarding slavery as
at best a necessary evil, now began to look upon it as a positive good. With this, slavery sought expansion into new
lands: into the lands acquired from France in 1803 (the
Louisiana Purchase), and into the lands acquired from
Mexico as a result of the war that ended in 1848. To prevent this expansion of slavery, the Republican Party was
formed in 1854, and, in 1860, elected Abraham Lincoln to
be sixteenth President of the United States.
The great ante-bellum political question, the one that
dwarfed and absorbed all others, was the question of
whether slavery should be permitted in the territories of
the United States, while they were territories, and before
they became states. The dialectics of this dispute became
as complicated as any thirteenth century theological controversy. Yet in the end the legal and political questions
resolved themselves into moral questions, and the moral
questions into a question of both the meaning and the
authority of the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution itself was ambiguous-if not actually self-contradictory-as to whether Negro slaves were human persons
or chattels. In fact, the Constitution refers to slaves
(which are never explicitly mentioned before the Thirteenth Amendment) only as persons, even in the fugitive
slave clause. But by implication, it also refers to them as
chattels, since they were so regarded by the laws of the
states that the fugitive slave clause recognized. But the
logic of the idea of a chattel excludes that of personality,
while that of a person excludes that of chatteldom. The
Fifth Amendment of the Constitution forbade the United
States to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
except by due process of law. Did this forbid the United
States to deprive any citizen of a slave state of his Negro
chattel, when he entered the territory of Kansas? Or did it
forbid the United States to deprive any Negro person of
his liberty, when he entered that same territory? Since the
language of the Constitution was equally consistent with
two mutually exclusive interpretations, there was no way
to resolve the meaning of the Constitution, from the language of the Constitution alone. For Lincoln the question
was resolved by the Declaration of Independence, by the
proposition that all men are created equal. The right of
5
�persons to own property under the Constitution as under
any substance. Rather was he "the great artist of America's
the laws of nature and of nature's God," was derivative
romantic period." By his "democratic-oracular tone" he
from their right, as human beings, to life and to liberty.
Such an understanding of the Declaration alone gave life
and meaning to the Constitution. Wills, in "The Conve·
nient State," repudiates the Declaration. In Inventing
America, he denies that it has any such meaning as Lincoln found in it. In the course of denying that meaning,
he denies some of the most undeniable facts of American
history.
invested the Declaration with a meaning that the Gettysburg Address canonized, but which has nothing in com·
mon with the document drafted by Thomas Jefferson in
1776!
The Civil War was not, however, fought because of any
merely abstract moral judgment concerning the ethics of
treating human beings as chattels. It was fought because
eleven states of the Union "seceded," meaning that they
repudiated and took arms against the Constitution and
the laws of the United States. They did so because they
refused to accept the lawful election of a President who
believed that slavery ought to be excluded by law from
United States territories. (The President, by himself, had
no authority to accomplish that exclusion. Nor was there
a majority in Congress to pass such a law, before the representatives of the "seceding" states left Washington.)
Slavery was, in fact, abolished as a result of the Civil War.
This abolition was accomplished, in part, by the Emancipation Proclamation. It was consummated by the Thir-
11
*
*
*
in the free states of the antebellum United States, for public opinion to acquiesce
in the proposition that slavery was in itself neither good
nor evil, and that it was best to leave to the people of a territory the decision whether they should permit slavery as
one of their domestic institutions. This was the famous
doctrine of "popular sovereignty," advanced by Lincoln's
redoubtable opponent, Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas's
doctrine was both appealing and plausible, since it seemed
to rest upon and embody the very kernel of the idea of
popular self-government, that "the people shall be judge."
Here is how Lincoln-dealt with it. The following is from
Lincoln's Peoria speech, of October 1854:
I
T WAS NOT POSSIBLE,
The doctrine of self-government is right-absolutely and eternally right-but it has no just application as here attempted.
Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he
is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if
the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction
of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another
man, that is more than self-government-that is despotism. If
the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me
that "all men are created equal;" and that there can be no
moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of
another. [All emphasis is Lincoln's.]
I have quoted so much of classic Lincolniana here, to
bring before the reader an example of that reasoning that
Garry Wills dismisses and ridicules. For Lincoln, of
course, the article of his "ancient faith" was such, not be-
cause it was inherited, but because it was true. Inventing
America was written for no other reason than to obfuscate
and deny what Lincoln here affirmed. The Declaration,
Wills writes, "is written in the lost language of the Englightenment." "It is dark with unexamined lights." It embodies "the dry intellectual formulae of the eighteenth
century" which according to Wills "were traced in fine
acids of doubt, leaving them difficult to decipher across
the intervals of time and fashion." Wills does not think
that Lincoln-like Calhoun-was a political thinker of
6
teenth Amendment. The former was a war measure, aimed
at the property of the enemies of the United States, in
arms against the United States. But we cannot forget that
the destruction of property by the Proclamation had a
double effect, due to the peculiarity of the "peculiar institution" at which it was directed. By the laws governing
this institution, certain human beings were legally defined
as chattels. Interestingly, the root meanings of both "peculiar" and of "chattel" refer to "cattle." But some eightysix thousand of these human beings who had hitherto
been regarded by law as no more than cattle, enlisted and
fought in the Union armies, many of them sealing with
their blood their right to that freedom that the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed to be the universal
birthright of mankind. Nevertheless, the Civil War was
not, we repeat, an abolitionist crusade. It was a war to preserve the Union, to prove that there could not be a successful appeal, as Lincoln said, from ballots to bullets.
Emancipation and abolition became, in the course of the
war, and because of the war, indispensable constitutional
means to a constitutional end. Let us never forget this just
but tragic consummation of our history: that men who
had been called cattle proved their manhood in arms, and
provided indispensable help to save a Union which thereby
became theirs. They also vindicated the Declaration ofln·
dependence, by proving that human laws which rest upon
a denial of the laws of nature cannot long endure. The
Union endured, but only by repudiating that denial and
becoming a different Union. The original Union-or nation-embodied the Original Sin of human slavery. With·
out "a new birth of freedom" it must needs have perished
from the earth. It is this understanding of the Declaration
of Independence, in the light of what "fourscore and seven
years" had revealed as to its meaning, that is immortalized
by the Gettysburg Address, but that Inventing America
maliciously attacks.
AUTUMN 1981
�in 1964 that in a constitutional
regime "the free forms of society ... 'concur' in ...
peaceful cooperation and compromise," he was
using Calhounian Confederate code language, implying
the rightfulness and constitutionality of "secession." Con·
versely, he was implying the wrongfulness and unconstitutionality of Lincoln's executive action to preserve the
Constitution and the Union. But what was this vaunted
''right of secession"? Lincoln called it an "ingenious
sophism" according to which "any State of the Union
may, consistently with the national Constitution, and
therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the
Union without the consent of the Union or of any other
State." [Lincoln's emphasis.] But, Lincoln asked, if one
can reject the constitutional decision of a constitutional
majority, whenever one dislikes that decision, how can
there be any free government at all? Unanimity is impossible. Government that is both constitutional and popular
also becomes impossible, if the principle of "secession" is
once granted. With what right, Lincoln asked, can the
seceders deny the right of secession against themselves, if
a discontented minority should arise amongst them?
In 1848 Henry David Thoreau published his essay, "Civil
Disobedience." At the same time, Thoreau called for the
secession of Massachusetts from the Union. He adopted
the pattern of abolitionists generally, who declared that
there should be "No Union with slaveholders." Thus
Thoreau invoked an alleged right of secession against slavery, as Calhoun's followers would invoke it for the sake of
slavery. But Thoreau brushed aside any such notion as
that of the "concurrent majority" in Calhoun's sense.
Thoreau saw quite clearly that the argument of a minority
veto upon majority action, in any matter of interest that
could be called one of conscience, did not admit of any
stopping point, short of the minority of one. Thoreau declared frankly that, although he preferred "that government ... which governs least," he would not be satisfied
except with that government "which governs not at all."
Thoreau believed in the withering away of the state quite
W
HEN WILLS WROTE
as much as Karl Marx, and saw the best regime as an anar-
chist regime, also quite as much as Marx. But Lincoln, in
1861, showed by unrefutable logic that Calhoun's premises
led to Thoreau's conclusions. In short, despotism leads to
anarchy, as surely as anarchy leads to despotism. The
Garry Wills of 1964 defended despotism. In the later sixties and early seventies, Garry Wills joined those who
were protesting and demonstrating in behalf of their
Thoreauvian consciences, in behalf of those causes
which, in the name of conscience, would arrest the process of constitutional government. But the earlier Wills
and the later Wills are like two segments of the same circle. Each leads into the other: like anarchy and despotism.
I
*
*
*
differs from the later one, as John
C. Calhoun differs from Henry David Thoreau, so also
do the two "Willses" differ as George Fitzhugh and Karl
F THE EARLIER WILLS
THE ST.JOHNSREVIEW
Marx. Fitzhugh (1806-1881), after the death of Calhoun
in 1850, became the leading publicist and intellectual protagonist of the thesis that slavery was a positive good. Of
all the pro-slavery writers, none roused the anger of Abraham Lincoln more than he did. Yet Lincoln viewed Fitzhugh's argument with a certain grim satisfaction, since it
arrived at the conclusion that Lincoln always insisted followed from the pro-slavery premises: namely, that if slavery was a positive good for black men, then it must also be
good for white men. Calhoun had already argued that, in
the burgeoning conflict in the industrial North, between
capital and labor, the South, with its stability rooted in
chattel slavery, would be the force making for equilibrium
between the two great factions. Fitzhugh went a step farther: only by the enslavement of the white work force,
could the North achieve that equilibrium. By way of contrast, Lincoln declared, in March, 1860, "I am glad to
know there is a system of labor where the laborer can
strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system
prevailed all over the world."
It is a matter of the highest moment for students of the
political scene today, to understand that what is now called
Conservatism, and what is now called Liberalism (although
neither is properly so called), have their common ground
in the rejection of the principles of the American Founding, above all in the rejection of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. On both sides, there is a peculiar
hatred of Abraham Lincoln, because of the renewed vitality
he gave to the authority of the Declaration, in and through
the Gettysburg Address. The Liberalism of today-or,
more properly the Radical Liberalism of today-stems
largely from the Abolitionism of the ante-bellum North
(not to mention its successor in the Reconstruction era).
And the abolitionist critique of Northern free society, and
the critique by Fitzhugh and his pro-slavery coadjutors of
that same free society, were not only virtually identical,
but were hardly distinguishable from the Marxist critique
of capitalism.
Anyone today reading the pro-slavery literature of the
ante-bellum South, must be struck by the constant reference to Northern workers as ''wage slaves." Indeed, if
someone reading these tracts did not know where they
came from, and when, he might reasonably suppose that
they were written by Marxists of a later period, or even by
Bolsheviks. The general argument against Northern capitalism-which as we noted was shared with the Abolitionists-ran as follows. The "free workers" depended upon
the owners for their livelihood. But the owners employed
them only when they could make a profit from their labor.
There was no provision for the workers during the slack
periods of business; but neither was there provision for
them when they were too young, too old, too sick, too feeble, or too handicapped to be profitably employed. In
these respects, Fitzhugh (and all the other defenders of
slavery) argued, slavery, with its traditions of paternalism
and patriarchalism, with its ethics of responsibility for
masters no less than of obedience for slaves, was morally
7
�as well as economically superior. Thus Fitzhugh, at the
end of Cannibals All! (1857) addresses the Abolitionists as
follows. (In today's parlance, a Conservative addressing a
Radical Liberal, or Garry Wills, vintage 1964, addressing
Garry Wills, vintage 1978):
As we are a Brother Socialist, we have a right to prescribe for
the patient; and our Consulting Brethren, Messrs. Garrison,
Greeley, and others, should duly consider the value of our
opinion. Extremes meet-and we and the leading abolitionists
differ but a hairbreadth. We ... prescribe more of government;
they insist on No-Government. Yet their social institutions
would make excellently conducted Southern sugar and cotton farms, with a head to govern them. Add a Virginia overseer to Mr. Greeley's Phalansteries, and Mr. Greeley and we
would have little to quarrel about.
Extremes do indeed meet. "Phalansteries" were the Fourierist anticipation of the later and better known "communes" and "soviets." Nearly a century before Hayek's
Road to Serfdom, Fitzhugh saw with perfect clarity the inner identity of the slave system and a socialist system.
We noted earlier the denigration of reason, and the
elevation of sentiment, that characterized the radical
thought~equally of the Left and the Right-of the nineteenth century. Capitalism, Marx declared, reduces all
human relations to "the naked cash nexus." It is this
~~nakedness," this reducton of man to a "commodity"
which ((alienates" him, and leaves him feeling alone in a
world without meaning. It is Marxism's promise to restore
"community" (where all men will be "comrades"), that is
the source of that magnetism to which we have adverted.
No promise of wealth to mere "individuals" by a market
economy can possibly compete for long with this secularization of Christian eschatology. But Marx's communist
moral vision is itself adapted from the moral vision of the
ancien regime that we find in Edmund Burke. From the
standpoint of historical dialectics, it is true that the bourgeois regime is "progressive" compared with its predecessor_ That is because, in stripping away ''illusions," it
prepared the way for the revolution of the proletariat. Intrinsically, however, the ancien regime is more humanly
desirable, even to Marx, because these self-same illusions
made man at home in his world. Men are not as ''alien-
as if Conservatism is wedded to the
free market economy. But that is true only on the
surface. Garry Wills deserted Conservatism rather
than embrace the free market. Others embraced the free
market, rather than submit themselves to the authoritarianism of the Left. But Conservatives who embrace the
free market, not as Abraham Lincoln did, because it implements the moral principles of the Declaration of Inde-
T
ODAY IT SEEMS
pendence, but because it is "value free," are building their
politics on that same "House Divided" as the ante-bellum
Union. For a free market economy committed to nothing
but "consumer sovereignty" does not differ essentially
from a "popular sovereignty" that is free to choose slavery. Those who look backward to slavery, and those who
look forward to the dictatorship of the proletariat, will
always have the better of an argument founded upon
"ethical neutrality." Critics of Marxism in our time,
notably the patrons of the free market economy, constantly marvel at the survival of Marxism as an intellectual
force (notably in the minds of college professors of the
liberal arts). They marvel at the apparent immunity of
Marxism to the disastrous fate of every single one of
Marx's predictions, based upon his analysis of the dynamics of capitalism. And this, moreover, despite his
claim of "scientific" status for his analysis, and his staking
of his claim to that status upon the verification of these
same predictions. But the magnetic core of Marxism, the
source of the power of its attraction, consists not in its
economic analysis, or its economic claims, but in its moral
analysis, and in its moral claims. What follows is a representative passage from the Manifesto:
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put
an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to
his "natural superiors."
8
ated" under feudalism as they are under capitalism. For in
the ancien regime there is the illusion that, in being governed by his "natural superiors" the superiors and inferiors
are joined together in ucommunity," an organic relation-
ship in which the whole gives independent meaning to
each of its human parts. In the meaning that the proletarian whole gives to the lives of each of the comrades, it
resembles the feudal order. This is why R. H. Tawneyhimself a socialist-could remark, with profound insight,
that "the last of the Schoolmen was Karl Marx." Both feudalism and communism see themselves as bonded into a
community, which is denied to man in "the lonely crowd"
of the de-humanized bourgeois-capitalistic order.
Burke's romantic imagination dignified the morality of inequality, of the ancien regime.
Here, in truth, is the inspiration of Marx's moral
imagination. What follows are excerpts from the Reflections on the Revolution in France:
H
ERE IS HOW
It is now sixteen or seventeen years, since I saw the Queen of
France, then the Dauphiness ... and surely never lighted on
this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful
vision ...
Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men . .. I thought
ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards
to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the
age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and
calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever . ..
All the pleasing illusions . .. are to be dissolved by this conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of
AUTUMN 1981
�life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furn·
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another,
ished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the
heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to
cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature . .. are to be
example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence
but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by
when built.
exploded ...
On this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen is but a
woman ...
In another famous line, Burke also spoke of that "digni·
fied obedience, that subordination of the heart, which
kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted
freedom." Here was the very spiritual charter or gospel of
the Confederacy, in building a polity upon chattel slavery.
For make no mistake, it was this spiritual justification of
the ancien regime that became the ideology of the Holy
Alliance, and that served the cause of American slavery,
when it came across.the seas. For the "exalted freedom"
of the slaves was compared, to its disadvantage, with the
debased freedom of the "wage slaves" of the bourgeois
order. How these "superadded ideas" appeared to the
leader of the American Revolution, may be inferred from
what Washington wrote in 1783:
The foundation of our empire was not laid in the gloomy ages
of ignorance and superstition; but at an epoch when the
rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly
defined, than at any other period.
Everyone knows that Karl Marx called revealed religion
"the opiate of the people." But Marx's critique of Chris·
tianity, the very foundation of his system, also had its lum·
inous antecedent in Burke. Here is what Burke wrote, in
the Reflections, before Marx was born:
The body of the people ... must respect that property of
which they cannot partake. They must labor to obtain what
by labor can be obtained; and when they find, as they commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavor, they
must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of
eternal justice. Of this consolation, whoever deprives them,
deadens their industry, and strikes at the root of all acquisition as of all conservation.
To convert Burkean Conservatism into Revolutionary
Communism, all that was necessary was to declare that
the disproportion between labor's endeavor and labor's
success was the Hsurplus value" appropriated by the owning classes. To make the proletariat revolutionary, it was
necessary to deprive them of that meretricious consola·
tion in the "final proportions of eternal justice." Marx did
not state more clearly than Burke the utility of revealed
religion for maintaining a regime of unmerited privilege.
here to compare the proto-Marxism of
Burke, and the Marxism of Marx, with Abraham Lin·
coln. Here is how Lincoln teaches respect for private
property:
I
T IS DESIRABLE
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
Concerning the priority of labor to capital, Lincoln was as
emphatic as Marx:
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only
the fruit of labor; and could not exist if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the
higher consideration. (Nevertheless] Capital has its rights,
which are as worthy of protection as any other rights . ..
What the rights of Capital are, is seen in the following:
That men who are industrious and sober and honest in the
pursuit of their own interests should after a while accumulate
capital, and after that should be allowed to enjoy it in peace,
and . .. to use it to save themselves actual labor, and hire
other people to labor for them is right.
The common ground of Burke and Marx is the idea that
morality-whether illusory or real-is ineluctably grounded
in stratified and invincible class distinctions. For Burke,
this stratification follows the arbitrary lines of the feudal
regime. It requires, in the name of the myths of such a re·
gime, an unequal distribution of the rewards of life, along
the lines of class and caste. Yet the proletarian society of
the future-the classless society of Marx-is nothing but
a mirror image of that very same feudalism. For it is as
arbitrary in its commitment to an equal distribution of the
rewards of life, as the other is to an unequal distribution.
For arbitrary equality-that is to say, giving equal rewards
to unequal persons-is as unjust as unequal rewards to
equal persons. Both are equally unjust, for the same
reasons. The regime of the American Founding, however
imperfect the implementation of its principles, is in its
principles the perfectly just middle way between these
two extemes. As a regime of equal rights, it recognizes the
justice of unequal rewards. There is, said James Madison,
"a diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights
of property originate." "The protection of these faculties,"
he added, "is the first object of government." Because of
this equal protection of unequal faculties, wealth accumu·
lates and social classes become distinguishable. But neither
accumulations of wealth, nor social classes, are fixed in
any immutable pattern. As Lincoln declared, on one of
many similar occasons,
There is no permanent class of hired laborers among us.
Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer
of yesterday labors on his own account today, and will hire
others to labor for him tomorrow.
And again:
The progress by which the poor, honest, industrious and resolute man raises himself . .. is that progress that human nature
is entitled to [and} is that improvement in condition that is in-
9
�tended to be secured by those institutions under which we
live ...
It is this moral vindication of the "bourgeois" regime, as
the regime which is truly in accord with human nature,
that makes Abraham Lincoln, and his interpretation of
the Declaration of Independece, that "hard nut" that the
tyrannies of both Right and Left must crack, to establish
their sway and domination. It explains the extraordinary
efforts in Inventing America, of that symbol of the union
of Left and Right: Garry Wills.
I
NVENTING AMERICA begins in this way:
Americans like, at intervals, to play this dirty trick upon themselves: Pollsters are sent out to canvass men and women on
certain doctrines and to shame them when these are declared
-as usually happens-unacceptable. Shortly after, the results
are published: Americans have, once again, failed to subscribe
to some phrase or other from the Declaration of Independence. The late political scientist Willmoore Kendall called
this game ''discovering America.'' He meant to remind us that
running men out of town on a rail is at least as much an American tradition as declaring unalienable rights.
But Wills is not accurate even in this reference to Kendall.
The game Wills calls "discovering America" is called by
Kendall "Sam Stouffer discovers America," and may be
found described in pages 80 and 81 of The Conservative
Affirmation. It is Kendall's commentary on a book by
Stouffer published in the early fifties under the title of
Civil Liberties, Communism, and Conformity. It is one of
the "classic" liberal attacks on the reactionary public opinion of the so-called McCarthy era; and one should bear in
mind that Kendall was one of McCarthy's staunchest defenders. Hence Kendall's testimony is unusual, in this
context, for a guru of the Left to take as his authority!
Here is how Kendall actually described Stouffer's book:
Mr. Stouffer and his team of researchers asked a representative sample of Americans a number of questions calculated to
find out whether they would permit (a) a Communist, or (b)
an atheist, to (I) speak in their local community, or (2) teach
in their local high school, or (3) be represented, by means of a
book he had written, in their local public library. And consider: some two-thirds of the sample answered "Nothing
doing" right straight down the line . .. nor was there any evidence that they would have been much disturbed to learn
that the Supreme Court says that the Fourteenth Amend-
ment says they can't do anything legally to (e.g.) prevent the
Communist from speaking.
In the poll conducted by Stouffer there is, we see, literally
nothing about the Declaration of Independence. What
Kendall observes the American people saying "Nothing
doing" to-at the period in question-is what the Warren
Court (not the Declaration) was saying in interpreting the
First and Fourteenth Amendments. And on this point I
10
think the American people (thus polled) were right, and
the Court wrong. In 1964 I myself published an essay "On
the Nature of Civil and Religious Liberty" in which I
argued that precisely on the ground of the principles of
the Declaration, Communists and Nazis had no just claim
to the constitutional privileges of the First Amendment.
Moreover, I know of no such polls or studies, that Wills asserts exist, in which Americans have "failed to subscribe
to some phrase or other from the Declaration oflndependence."
In any event, it is not phrases that count, but ideas or
principles. These must be stated in terms intelligible to
the respondent. Perhaps the best known slogan of the
American Revolution was "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny." In accordance with it, the Declaration
denounced the King "For imposing taxes on us without
our Consent." The premise underlying these judgments is
that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Does Wills
think that Americans today do not agree with these judgments or their underlying premise? The Declaration says
that the just powers of government are derived from the
consent of the governed. Suppose a pollster, asking
whether the respondent thinks that any government that
governed him, might do so justly without his consent.
Does Wills believe that Americans today would answer
differently from those in 1776? Does he think that they
think that any government might justly levy taxes upon
them-or on anyone else-without the consent, given by
their elected representatives, of the ones taxed?
But perhaps Wills thinks that the arch mystery of the
Declaration is the great proposition, upon which Lincoln
so concentrated attention in the Gettysburg Address, that
all men are created equal. Certainly many are today puzzled by this doctrine. This is not, I think, because of its intrinsic difficulty, but because publicists like Wills have for
so long told them that it is a mere vague abstraction. But
let us re-phrase the proposition, in some of its applications. Suppose, in conducting a poll, one asked whether
the respondents thought it reasonable to divide all human
beings (men and women) into the superior and the inferior, the latter to be ruled by the former, and without their
consent? Or, to put the same queston slightly differently,
suppose one asked whether those· who made the laws
should live under them, or whether the government might
reasonably and justly exempt itself from the laws it made
for others. (One example might be whether the lawmakers
might exempt themselves from the payment of taxes; another might be whether the punishments for either civil
damage or criminal offenses might be different for those
in office, as compared with those out of office.) How
many today would reject Lincoln's simple maxim-interpreting the proposition that all men are created equalthat no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent?
All the foregoing questions a.re based upon that simplified Lockeanism that Jefferson thought was to be found
AUTUMN 1981
�in the American mind, no less than in the common sense
of the subject. One need not have ever heard of the
names of Hume or Hutcheson or Reid or Stewart-indeed
one need not have heard of John Locke-to know that the
power to tax is the power to destroy, and to draw all the
long series of inferences that follow from it. Wills wants to
turn the Declaration into an esoteric mystery, by convincing us that we do not know things that we know perfectly
welL He would have us think that eighteenth century
beliefs are necessarily different from twentieth century
beliefs, and that the veil between them can be pierced only by the magic of the cultural (or professorial) elite. This
is the priestcraft of our contemporary Dark Age.
I would like to make one
further comment on Kendall's assertion, endorsed by
Wills, that
T
O END THIS DISCUSSION,
the true American tradition is less that of our Fourth of July
orations and our constitutional law textbooks, with their
cluck-clucking over the so-called preferred freedoms, than,
quite simply, that of riding someone out of town on a rail.
Note that even here Kendall says something different
from what Wills represents him as saying. Kendall does
not mention unalienable rights. The closest he comes to it
is when he mentions Fourth of July orations. "Preferred
freedoms" refers almost certainly to the constitutional
doctrines of Mr. Justice Black, not to those of Thomas Jefferson, or of any other of the Founding Fathers. Yet Kendall here is in fact being squeamish, something certainly
unusual for KendalL Riding someone out of town on a rail
is a quasi-euphemism for lynching. Someone-perhaps a
specialist in Burlamaqui or Hutcheson-might not know
that riding on a rail was usually preceded by tarring and
feathering. And tarring frequently resulted in second (and
sometimes third) degree burns. Since the tar covered the
whole body, the minimum result was usually pneumonia.
Not many more survived a tarring and feathering than
survived a hanging. But it was a more protracted process,
and accompanied by terrible suffering. In the thirty-third
chapter of Huckleberry Finn we bid our farewell to the
Duke and the King. These bunco artists have by now forfeited all of our-and Huck's-sympathy, by betraying
Jim back into slavery. In their last appearance Huck sees
them being whooped along by the townsmen they had
cheated. Huck says he knew it was the Duke and the
King,
though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like
nothing in the world that was human . ..
Although he had loathed them before, and hates them
now, he says that
It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful
cruel to one another.
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
When Kendall or Wills tells us that lynching is as much an
American tradition as declaring that there are unalienable, or natural human rights, they are telling us no more
than that evil is as deeply engrained in the American tradition as good. This is a difficult proposition to contest. All
that I would contend is that the principles of the Declaration, which embody the principles of the rule oflaw, stand
in direct opposition to lynching, which is the denial or repudiation of lawfulness. And by a disposition of Providence, as poetical as it is historical, Abraham Lincoln's
first great speech-his Lyceum Address of 1838-was a
denunciation of the growing and dangerous habit of lawlessness, which he observed to be abroad in the land then.
In that speech, Lincoln warned that lynch law and free
government were enemies of each other, and that one
could not long survive in the presence of the other. Lynch
law, we repeat, was but one expression of the repudiation
of the Declaration of Independence. Slavery was another.
Slavery and lynch law went together. Kendall's (and
Wills's) tacit patronage of lynch law is but another aspect
of their tacit patronage of slavery.
According to Wills, Abraham Lincoln was "a great artist
of America's romantic period." This, however, is not in-
tended as a compliment. Rather is it intended as an a
priori explanation of how Lincoln was able to substitute a
fallacious myth of our origins as a nation for the truth
about those origins. Lincoln's artistry, he says, fit the antiscientific, biblical mood of mid-century, so that the "biblically shrouded" figure of "Fourscore and seven years . .. "
presumably evoked acceptance, as "eighty-seven" might
not. And Wills is not tender with Lincoln's character, in
regard to this alleged deception about the date of the
founding of the nation. "Useful falsehoods," he writes,
"are dangerous things, often costing us down the road."
The Gettysburg Address, beginning with its magisterial
invocation of the year 1776 as the point of our origin as a
nation, is a "falsehood," and even a "dangerous" one.
Wills has summoned up a strict standard of truthfulness,
by which he, no less than Abraham Lincoln, must then be
judged.
Wills's entire work, as we shall see, actually stands or
falls by this claim that 1776 is not, and cannot be regarded
as, the birth date of the nation. Lincoln, he says, "obviously gave some thought" to his "Fourscore and seven."
Indeed he did.
I pointed out, more
than a score of years ago, that the beginning of the Gettysburg Address marked as well the end of the long debate with Stephen A. Douglas. For Douglas had declared
that we existed as a nation only by virtue of the Constitution. Notwithstanding the fact that, in other respects,
Douglas was a Jacksonian Unionist, in this he echoes
Southern-and Calhounian-doctrine. It was axiomatic
for Jefferson Davis-and for all who voted for secession in
the winter and spring of 1860-1861-that the United
I
N CRISIS OF THE HOUSE DNIDED
11
�States could be regarded as a single nation, solely by virtue
of the Constitution. Each state, it was held, became part
of the Union or nation by virtue of the process of ratification. The ordinances of secession were regarded as-and
in some cases were actually called~acts of de-ratification.
And there can be no doubt that, were the Union or nation
created solely by the process by which the Constitution of
1787 was ratified, then it could lawfully have been uncreated by the same process. Willmoore Kendall, whom
Wills is obviously following, repeats this Confederate
dogma, saying that there was a "bakers dozen" of new nations resulting from the Declaration of Independence. By
this interpretation, in the Declaration of Independence
the thirteen colonies were not only declaring their independence of Great Britain, they were declaring their independence of each other.
Wills thinks that Lincoln would have had some ground
for treating 1777 as the year of birth of the nation, since in
that year the Articles of Confederation were adopted. But
best of all, as a proposed birth date, he thinks, is 1789, the
year in which the Constitution came into operation. For
this date, he says, Lincoln should have written "Four
score minus six years ago ... " With this ill-placed facetiousness Wills shows himself completely oblivious of the
great ante-bellum debate. He seems unconscious of the
existence of the masterful brief, legal, historical, and
philosophical, that Lincoln presented, notably in his inaugural address, and still more copiously, after Sumter, in
his message to Congress, in special session, July 4, 1861.
Lincoln's argument, as to the nature and origin of the
Union, is presented with Euclidean precision and classic
beauty. It is surpassed by nothing in Demosthenes, Cicero, or Burke.
Wills writes as if Lincoln had suddenly invented the notion that the nation had been born in 1776 as he com·
posed the Gettysburg Address, and that he relied upon
the mesmerizing influence of his vowels and consonants
(e.g. "by mere ripple and interplay of liquids") to secure
his deception. But Lincoln's audience in 1863 and thereafter, unlike Wills, knew very well that the Gettysburg Ad·
dress was but a moment in a dialectical process that had
been going on for more than a generation. Neither Lin·
coin nor the nation ever imagined that he was appealing
to their sentiment, apart from an argument, laid in fact
and reason. It would have been perfectly honorable for
Wills to have taken up the weapons of controversy against
Lincoln's side, as statemen and scholars have done since
the days of Calhoun, jefferson Davis, and Alexander
Stephens. But mere malicious sneering has no place in
such a debate.
Wills tells us, with easy assurance, that "there are some
fairly self-evident objections to that mode of calculating,"
viz., the mode expressed by "Four score and seven years
ago ... " What are these objections?
All thirteen colonies [writes Wills] subscribed to the Declaration with instructions to their delegates that this was not to
12
imply formation of a single nation. If anything, july 4, 1776,
produced twelve new nations (with a thirteenth coming in on
July 15)-conceived in liberty perhaps, but more dedicated to
the proposition that the colonies they severed from the
mother country were equal to each other than that their in-
habitants were equal. [Italics by Wills.]
We note that Wills does not say that the delegates were
not instructed to form a single nation. He says that they
were instructed not to form (or imply formation of) a single
nation. If Wills had said that the instructions for indepen·
dence were in some cases ambiguous, as to whether the
thirteen colonies were to form a single union, state, or na~
tion, he would have asserted what would certainly have
been plausible. But in positively asserting an unambiguous intention not to form a single nation, he is asserting
something for which there is not a shred of evidence.
Not many readers will take the trouble to look up the
colonial instructions to the delegates to the Continental
Congress, in the spring of 1776. Like most reviewers, they
will assume that someone with a prestigious professorship
at a major university, with a doctorate from Yale (all
things advertised on the dust jacket), will of course have
read documents carefully, and reported them faithfully.
Errors like Wills's, launched with such authority, spread
like plague germs in an epidemic. And although it takes
few words to put such errors in circulation, it takes painstaking effort, and detailed analysis, effectively to contradict them.
Turning now to the instructions, we note that they do
not contain the word "nation" at all. The word "union" is
its nearest equivalent. (We note also that in Lincoln's political vocabulary, the words "union" and "nation" were
virtually synonymous.) In the instructions, the word "confederation" is also used in a sense, at least quasi~synony~
mous with "union."
The important question we must ask, in examining the
language of the instructions for independence, is whether
the colonies were, in making a single and common declaration of independence, implying or assuming or declaring
that they did so as members of a common government.
And further, we would want to know whether they implied or stated that they expected their association in and
through the Congress to become a permanent one. An affirmative answer to these two questions is all that would
be needed to sustain Lincoln's thesis with respect to the
"Four score and seven years." Wills, we repeat, by assert~
ing that in july of 1776 thirteen nations or states came
into existence by virtue of the Declaration, asserts that
the thirteen were not merely declaring their independence of Great Britain, but their independence of each
other.
Rhode Island, by its General Assembly, on May 4, 1776,
instructed its delegates
to join with the delegates of the other United Colonies in
Congress . .. to consult and advise . .. upon the most proper
AUTUMN 1981
�measures for promoting and confirming the strictest union
and confederation . ..
such further compact and confederation . .. as shall be judged
necessary for securing the liberties of America . ..
Virginia's instructions-May 15th-called simply for such
measures as might be thought proper and necessary
Most extraordinary of all is the instruction of the House
of Representatives of New Hampshire. For in this case,
the instruction for independence and the instruction for
union, given separately in the other cases, were here com~
bined into one. New Hampshire instructed its (single)
delegate
for forming foreign alliances, and a confederation of the
colonies.
Here "confederation" is synonymous with "union and
confederation" in the Rhode Island instructions.
in reading these documents,
that we are witnessing a transformation in the use
and application of certain key terms. The word
"confederation," like the words "federal" or "confederal,"
was an old bottle into which new wine was being poured.
The American Revolution, and the American Founding,
produced a form of government unprecedented in the history of the world. In later years, James Madison called the
government of the United States a "nondescript," because there was still no word that properly expressed what
it actually was. In 1787, in the Federalist, Madison called
the government of the new Constitution, "partly national,
partly federal," although by the traditional understanding
of "federal" and ''national" such an expression would
have been a self-contradiction. As the late Martin Diamond
has pointed out, the expression "federal government"
would have been a solecism, prior to the emergence of the
American form of government. What had hitherto been
regarded as federal, could not properly be regarded as a
government, and what had hitherto been regarded as government, could not properly admit any distinct or separate sovereignty in any of its parts. In these instructions
we see an early application of "confederation" in a sense
consistent with what was later understood clearly in the
expression "federal government." It would be a mistake to
assume that the later meaning was clearly present to the
minds ofthe men of 1776. Yet it would be an equally great
mistake to fail to perceive, in 1776, the genesis of the later
meaning. Lincoln, one should remember, said that the nation had been born in 1776, he did not say it had already
matured.
W
E SHOULD BE AWARE,
Connecticut, on June 14, 1776, instructed its delegates
in Congress to
.
move and promote, as fast as may be convenient, a regular
and permanent plan of union and confederation of the
Colonies ...
New Jersey, on June 21st, called for
entering into a confederation for union and common
defense .. .
Maryland, on June 28th, in authorizing independence,
also authorized
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
to join with the other colonies in declaring the thirteen
United Colonies a free and independent state . ..
Concerning what might justly be called the burgeoning
national consciousness, consider the language with which
the Georgia Colonial Congress addressed its delegates in
the Continental Congress, in April of 1776. They exhorted their representatives that they
always keep in view the general utility, remembering that the
great and righteous cause in which we are engaged is not provincial, but continental. We therefore, gentlemen, shall rely
upon your patriotism, abilities, firmness, and integrity, to propose, join, and concur in all such meaSures as you shall think
calculated for the common good, and to oppose all such asappear destructive.
We see the coordination of "patriotism" with the "com~
mon good," and that this good is said to be "continental"
and not "provincial." Can anyone, reading these words,
think that in 1776 Georgia (any more than New Hampshire) was engaged in declaring its independence from its
sister colonies?
what could lie behind Wills's assertion
about these colonial instructions. It is certainly true
that the full implications of single statehood, or
union, or nationhood, were not visible in 1776. And it is
true that all of the colonies, while endorsing union in vary:
ing terms, nonetheless did so with reservation. For example, while calling for the formation of the "strictest
union," Rhode Island required that the greatest care be
taken
L
ET US ASK
to secure to this colony . .. its present established form, and all
powers of government, so far as it related to its internal police
and conduct of our own affairs, civil and religious.
Virginia, in like manner, asked that
the power of forming government for, and the regulating of
the internal concerns of, each colony, be left to the respective
Colonial Legislatures.
Pennsylvania required that there be reserved
to the people of this colony the sole and exclusive right of
regulating the internal government and police of the same.
13
�And New Hampshire, the same New Hampshire which
thought that the United Colonies should declare themselves a single "free and independent state," nonetheless
required that,
the regulation of our internal police be under the direction of
our own Assembly.
Could there be any clearer demonstration, than these
words by which New Hampshire reserved its right of internal or local government, that such reservations did not
constitute obstacles, in the minds of those making the reservations, to national unity?
These reservations of local or state autonomy represent,
in generic form, the great principle of American federalism. They reappeared, the year following the Declaration,
in the Articles of Confederation, in Article II, which reads
as follows.
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not
expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress
assembled.
The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution contains a
similar reservation of the "internal concerns" to the juris-
diction of the governments of the states-and to the people of the states-as is found in those colonial instructions
of the spring of 1776. It reads:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively,
o~
to the people.
The notable difference between these two articles is the
presence of the words Hsovereignty" and "expressly" in
the former. But John Quincy Adams, among others,
thought that the spirit of the Declaration (and of the instructions authorizing the Declaration) was stronger in
the Constitution than in the Articles. The Tenth Amendment, by not referring to the powers delegated as being
"expressly" delegated, opened the door to the great contest, begun by Hamilton and Jefferson, between liberalor broad-construction, and strict-or narrow-construction, a contest which continues until this very day. But
the ambiguity in the Constitution which permits two
schools of constitutional interpretation is not different
from the ambiguity in the original instructions for forming a union. If that ambiguity is regarded as militating
against the formation of a national union, then we are no
more a nation today than we were on July 4, 1776.
*
*
*
denies any credibility to
Lincoln's characterization, in the Gettysburg Address, of july 4, 1776, as the birth date of the nation. We have seen that his alleged grounds for this denial,
the colonial instructions to the delegates to the Continen-
W
14
lLLS, WE HAVE NOTED,
tal Congress in the spring of 1776, do not bear out what
he says about them. But Edmund Morgan, writing in The
New York Review of Books, August 17, 1978, in a generally
favorable notice of Inventing America, has pointed to a
very good test of single statehood in the Declaration itself.
For the Declaration reads, near the end, as follows:
That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free
and Independent States . .. and that as Free and Independent
States, they have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and do all other Acts
and Things which Independent States may of right do.
"Which of these free and independent states," asks Morgan, "undertook to do the acts and things Jefferson specified as characteristic of a state?"
It was Congress [Morgan continues] that levied war through
the Continental Army; it was Congress that concluded peace
through its appointed commissioners; and it was Congress
that contracted the alliance with France. Congress may not
have established commerce, but in the Association it had disestablished it, and in a resolution of the preceding April 6, it
had opened American ports to all the world except England.
In denying that there was "one nation" or anything like
it, resulting from the Declaration of Independence, Wills
makes the extraordinary assertion that the Declaration is
not a legal document of any kind. He calls it and the Gettysburg Address mere "war propaganda with no legal
force."
Now the Gettysburg Address was an occasional address
of the President of the United States. Its force, as such,
was moral rather than legal. Its chief feature, however,
was to reaffirm the principles of the Declaration, and to
reaffirm them in conjunction with another Presidential
act, namely, the Emancipation Proclamation. The latter
of course was a legal act, although its permanent force depended upon the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. The purpose of the Gettysburg Address was to help
to generate the political forces which would lead the nation from the Emancipation Proclamation-whose legal
effect was limited to what could be inferred from the war
powers of the Commander-in-Chief-to that permanent
abolition of chattel slavery that could only be accomplished by an amendment to the Constitution. It is that
fulfillment of the promise of equal human rights by the
Declaration, in the Thirteenth Amendment, that constitutes the "new birth of freedom" wished for by the Address. If Wills regards this as mere "war propaganda" then
he can have little regard for the abolition of slavery as an
event in American history.
To assert, as Wills does, that the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document, is simply amazing. It is
among the more stupendous reasons why we think that
Inventing America should have been shipped back to its
author in manuscript. Evidently Wills-and the readers of
his manuscript-have never held in their hands the StatAUTUMN 1981
�utes at Large of the United States, the Revised Statutes of
the United States, or the United States Code. The 1970
edition of the United States Code, which is before me as I
write, classifies the Declaration among the "Organic Laws
of the United States." Of these, the Declaration of Independence is the first. Second is the Articles of Confederation. Third is the Ordinance of 1787: The Northwest
Territorial Government. Fourth is the Constitution of the
United States and Amendments.
Let us recall that Wills preferred both the Articles and
the Constitution to the Declaration, as marking the beginning of American statehood or nationhood. But the Articles declares, in its preamble, that it was done "in the
second year of the Independence of America." Moreover,
the Constitution, in the form in which it left the Convention, over the signature of George Washington, dates
Itself
in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and
Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States
of America the Twelfth.
Both these notable documents-which Wills thinks Lincoln should have preferred to the Declaration-themselves
refer to the Declaration as the originating document of
the United States.
This dating of the union, at the end of Article VII of the
Constitution, has moreover a particular legal application.
Article VI reads, in its first paragraph, that
our State, and of that of the United States," they wrote,
the first of the "best guides" to this end was
the Declaration of Independence, as the fundamental act of
union of these States.
We see then that the Declaration was not regarded by Jefferson and Madison, as it is by Wills (and Kendall), as an
act whose sole effect was to separate thirteen colonies
from Great Britain. It was an act whereby the separation
from Great Britain was simultaneously accompanied by
union with each other. It was the accomplishment of
union that makes it the primitive organic law of the
United States. This is why all acts of the United States are
dated from the Declaration.
But the Declaration is more even than an organic law.
Its statement of principles remains that statement of the
principles of natural right and of natural law which is the
ground for asserting that the government of the United
States (and of each of the States) represents law and right,
and not mere force without law or right.
In 1844, for example, in a great speech in the House of
Representatives, john Quincy Adams declared that the
assertion of principles in the Declaration of Independence, beginning with the proposition that "we hold
these truths to be self-evident ... " constituted the "moral
foundation of the North American Revolution." It was, he
said, "the only foundation upon which the North American Revolution could be justified from the charge of
treason and rebellion."
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the
United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
From the foregoing, it is clear that there was a "United
States under the Confederation" before there was a
"United States under this Constitution." The fact that
the United States in its subsequent form (that of "a more
perfect Union") acknowledges the debts of the earlier
United States, shows that it remains the same moral person. But Article XII of the Articles of Confederation
accepts responsibility for the debts contracted by the
Congress before the adoption of the Articles, just as the
Constitution accepts the debts of the government of the
Confederation. In short, the United States is continuously
the United States, is continuously the same collective
identity, the same moral agent, from the moment that it
became independent, viz., since july 4, 1776.
In what sense then is the Declaration of Independence
a law of the United States; or, rather, in what sense is it
the first of the organic laws of the United States? The
United States Code does not say. In 1825, however,
Thomas jefferson and james Madison, both members of
the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, together prepared a list of books and documents to serve as
authorities for the instruction to be offered by the faculty
of law. On "the distinctive principles of government of
1HE ST.JOHNSREVIEW
But Wills hates the very idea that the United States was
born out of a dedication to liberty and justice. For him,
the belief that our political arrangements are in some particular sense in accordance with universal principles of
natural right, breeds only a sense of self-righteousness,
and makes us a danger to ourselves and to others. As an
example of the latter, he cites john F. Kennedy's alleged
willingness "to throw Communist devils out of Russia,
China, Cuba, or Vietnam." As an example of the former,
he cites "the House Un-American Activities Committee!"
In 1823, jefferson, writing to Madison on August 30th,
referred to a meeting that had taken place the previous
month as an anniversary assemblage of the nation on its
birthday. When Jefferson thus referred to july 4th as the
nation's birthday, Abraham Lincoln was fourteen years
old. By this time, such references to the Glorious Fourth
were traditional and customary. No one seemed to doubt
then that the principles that accompanied our beginnings
were as luminous as they were true. It was some years
later that men began to discover the "positive good" of
slavery, and to mutter that the so called self-evident truths
might after all be self-evident lies. Then was the foundation laid for Garry Will's discovery that the Declaration
was, after all, written in "the lost language of the
Enlightenment."
*
*
*
15
�ILLS CONTENDS that the major influence upon
Jefferson, and upon the writing of the Declaration, was not John Locke, but Francis Hutcheson.
Hutcheson was a Scottish philosopher, who wrote a generation or so after Locke. The dates of his books, as given
by Wills, are from 1725 to 1755. Locke died in 1704. Indeed, the principal explicit thesis of Inventing America is
that the Declaration is an Hutchesonian and not a
Lockean document. Wills's principal antagonist, within
these lists of controversy, is Carl Becker.. Becker's The
Declaration of Independence, published in 1922, has long
been regarded as a classic. And in certain respects, its authority-as Wills notes-has gone unchallenged. We
would note that Becker was himself an historicist and a
relativist, and as such took no more seriously than Wills
the Declaration's assertion (in Lincoln's words) "of an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times." However,
Wills cites one noted scholar after another, who has cited
Becker, assimilated Becker, built on Becker. "The secret
of this universal acclaim," writes Wills,
W
lies in the inability of any later student to challenge Becker's
basic thesis-that Jefferson found in John Locke "the ideas
which he put into the Declaration." [Wills's italics]
According to Wills, the thesis of a "Lockean orthodoxy ... coloring all men's thought in the middle of the
eighteenth century" is one which has not been challenged
by "any later student." That is to say, it has not been challenged by a single student prior to Wills.
Wills's bold cliallenge to Beckerian-and all later-orthodoxy, concerning the Lockean orthodoxy of the Amer·
ican Founding, comes to a climax in Chapter 18. This
chapter is prefaced by a paragraph from an influential
pamphlet essay by James Wilson, first published in 1774.
This passage from Wilson, says Wills, was used by Becker
"to establish the orthodox Lockean nature of Jefferson's
Declaration." Here it is, as it appears in Inventing America.
All men are, by nature, equal and free: no one has a right to
any authority over another without his consent: all lawful
government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it: such consent was given with a view to ensure and to
increase the happiness of the governed, above what they
could enjoy in an independent and unconnected state of nature. The consequence is, that the happiness of the society is
the first law of every government. [Wilson's italics.]
Next, we will repeat what Wills says about this passage
from Wilson's essay, and what he says about Becker's use
of it. We give this paragraph from page 250 of Inventing
America exactly as it appears there. If the reader finds the
paragraph confusing, he must ask the apology of Wills.
For Wills has the muddling and confusing habit of using
no footnotes, but incorporating all his reference notes in
parentheses within his text. As we shall presently see,
however, Wills does not only not use footnotes, he does
not know how to read them. Becker, says Wills,
16
calls the Wilson quote "a summary of Locke" (Declaration,
108), part of America's common heritage of ideas. But if the
idea was so common, why did Wilson give a particular source
for it, and only one? Here is his own footnote to the passage
(in his Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament of 1774): "The right to
sovereignty is that of commanding finally-but in order to
procure real felicity; for if this is not obtained, sovereignty
ceases to be a legitimate authority, 2 Burl., 32, 33." He is
quoting in summary Burlamaqui's Principes du droit politique,
1, v, 1; 6( ~Principes du droit nature!, 1, x, 2). Now Burlamaqui
was a disciple of Hutcheson's philosophy of moral sense
(Nature!, 2, iii, 1) and therefore he differed from Locke on
concepts of right (ibid., 1, v, 10) and property (1, iv, 8), of the
social contract (1, iv, 9) and the state of nature (2, iv, ll). If
Wilson meant to voice a Lockean view of government, as
Becker assumed, he clumsily chose the wrong source.
The unsuspecting reader, confronted by this witches'
brew of scholarship, is apt to think that Carl Becker must
certainly have been clumsy, and not James Wilson. And it
would certainly seem as if a whole generation-or
more-of scholars had followed Becker, "like sheep,
through the gates of error." It takes two or three readings
of this paragraph before one can accustom one's eyes to
the forest of parentheses, and then slowly begin to distinguish the sentences within. This, however, is what can be
seen at last. Wilson has quoted something in a footnote.
At the end of the quotation, and within the quotation
marks, he has given a source for that quotation. Wills calls
the quotation "a summary" of a certain chapter in a book
of Burlamaqui, which parallels another chapter in another
book of Burlamaqui. Having read with some care both
chapters in both books, I would call the quotation a paraphrase rather than a summary. But that is not important.
What is important is that Wilson does not present the
paraphrase or summary of Burlamaqui as a source for
what he himself has written. Wills's assertion 'that the passage from Burlamaqui is the "particular source" and the
"only" source for Wilson's alleged "summary of Locke" is
simply untrue. It is easier to see this if one has Wilson's essay before one, and if one sees the footnote separated
from the text at the bottom of the page. Let us suppose,
for example, that after saying that "all lawful government
is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it"
Wilson had appended this footnote: "Our authority is his
consent, Sh., 2 Hen. 6, 4, I, 316." Would this have meant
that Wilson had declared that the source of the idea expressed in the text was the second part of Shakespeare's
Henry VI? Would it have meant more than that Wilson
had found a felicitous expression of his thought in Shakespeare, and that such an expression lent a certain cogency
or weight to what Wilson had said?
Wills's assertion that this note gives the "only" source
of Wilson's thought, is all the more absurd because Wilson's essay has forty-eight separate footnotes. Some cite
Blackstone, some cite Bolingbroke, but the majority refer
to decisions of British courts, and opinions of British
AUTUMN 1981
�judges. As Becker rightly observes, the main point of Wilson's entire essay is to show the close approximation of
the principles of British constitutionalism to the principles of natural law. All of Wilson's footnotes are designed
to confirm his judgments, not to give sources for his ideas.
To repeat: the quotation in the footnote is a paraphrase of
Burlamaqui. The reference to Burlamaqui is simply to
give the source in Burlamaqui of the passages thus paraphrased. The reference then is to the source of the footnote, not to the source of the text. All that buckshot spray
of alleged differences between Burlamaqui and Hutcheson, on the one hand, and Locke on the other, is simply
pretentious nonsense. Wilson has throughout spoken in
his own name, not in that of either Locke or Burlamaqui.
That he has in the main followed Locke, as Becker says, is
not to be doubted on the basis of any evidence supplied
by Wills.
*
I
*
*
N HIS ANXIETY to re-write the intellectual history of the
American Founding, Wills goes to lengths of hyperbole
and exaggeration which are inconsistent with serious
scholarship. He says, for example, that there is "no demonstrable verbal echo of the Treatise [Locke's Second
Treatise of Government] in all of Jefferson's vast body of
writings." Against the many writers who have said that
the Declaration repeats not only arguments, but even the
phraseology of the Second Treatise, Wills airily asserts that
"no precise verbal parallels have been adduced."
Wills, however, thinks that verbal parallels to the Declaration abound in Hutcheson. Here, for example, is a passage from Hutcheson, adduced by Wills as an example of
the proximity of Hutcheson to the jefferson of the
Declaration:
Nor is it justifiable in a people to have recourse for any lighter
causes to violence and civil wars against their rulers, while the
public interests are tolerably secured and consulted. But
when it is evident that the public liberty and safety is not tol-
erably secured, and that more mischiefs, and these of a more
lasting kind, are like to arise from the continuance of any plan
of civil power than are to be feared from the violent efforts for
an alteration of it, then it becomes lawful, nay honorable, to
make such efforts and change the plan of government.
Here is the passage in the Declaration it is compared with:
Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are
more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed.
But here is what Locke, in the Second Treatise (para. 230)
had written:
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
For till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of
the Rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the
greater part, the People, who are more disposed to suffer,
than right themselves by Resistance, are not apt to stir.
Who cannot see that the words of Locke are much closer
to the words of jefferson than those of Hutcheson? The
phrases "disposed to suffer" and "right themselves" may
or may not be echoes, but they are key phrases, and they
are identical in Locke and Jefferson.
Here is another example of Hutcheson, provided by
Wills:
A good subject ought to bear patiently many injuries done
only to himself, rather than take arms against a prince in the
main good and useful to the state, provided the danger extends only to himself. But when the common rights of humanity are trampled upon, and what at first attempted
against one is made precedent against all the rest, then as the
governor is plainly perfidious to his trust, he has forfeited all
the power committed to him.
Here is the parallel passage in the Declaration. This is
from the Declaration in the draft originally reported, as
distinguished from that finally adopted:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, begun at a
distinguished period and pursuing invariably the same object,
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism it
is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government .. .
And here is Locke, in the parallel passage in the Second
Treatise.
But if a long train of abuses, Prevarications, and Artifices, all
tending the same way, make the design visible to the people,
and they cannot but feel, what they lie under, and see,
whither they are going; 'tis not to be wonder'd, that they
should then rouze theniselves, and endeavor to put the rule
into such hands, which may secure to them the ends fOr
which Government was first erected . ..
Once .again, we have, not echoes, but identical phrases
in jefferson and Locke. The "long train of abuses" has
been the phrase most cited by generations of
scholars-although Wills stubbornly denies that they have
ever "adduced" such parallels. Even more to the point, is
the key word "design," which occurs in both Locke and
jefferson, and which is peculiarly vital to the Declaration's
argument.
Edmund Morgan, in the review to which we have already referred, says flatly that the resemblances of Jefferson's language to Locke are closer than anything Wills has
found in any Scottish philosopher. But even more to the
point-and we will let Morgan make this point for us-is
that in the parallels between Hutcheson and Jefferson
cited by Wills, "the distance from Locke's political principles is not noticeable, indeed it is non-existent." Yet so insistent is Wills upon this very distance of jefferson from
Locke, that he asserts that: "There is no indication )effer-
17
�son read the Second Treatise carefully or with profit. Indeed, there is no direct proof he ever read it at all (though
I assume he did at some point.)" Wills is aware that Jefferson recommended the book to others but thinks that, like
many a professor puffing himself to students, "There
would be nothing dishonest about his general recommendation of the Treatise, made to others while he lacked any
close acquaintance with the text. .. " Yet in 1790, writing
to an intimate friend, Jefferson pronounced "Locke's little
book on government" to be "perfect as far as it goes."
Forty-five years later, near the end of his life, Jefferson
collaborated with Madison-as we have already noted-in
drawing up a list of books and documents for the faculty
of law at the University of Virginia. Again-and for the
last time-he turned to Locke, as he sought by university
education to preserve the principles of the Revolution. In
a resolution, prepared for, and adopted by the Board of
Visitors, it was affirmed to be
the opinion of this Board that as to the general principles of
liberty and the rights of man, in nature and in society, the
doctrines of Locke, in his "Essay concerning the true original
extent and end of civil government," [the full title of the Sec-
ond Treatise] and of Sidney in his "Discourses on government," may be considered as those generally approved by our
fellow citizens of this, and the United States ...
From this recommendation of Locke and Sidney for "general principles" Jefferson went on, as we have already
seen, to recommend the Declaration for the "distinctive
principles" of American government. The pairing of Locke
and Sidney was, as Wills notes, a traditional Whig custom.
I do not see how this detracts from the importance of
Locke. Wills says that the famous letter to Henry Lee is
the only place in which Jefferson ever links Locke and the
Declaration. In this resolution however, Locke and the
Declaration are again linked, and linked in the most authoritative manner. Coming at the end of Jefferson's life,
this resolution has a peculiar and final authority.
Among the many absurdities of Wills's work is that
Adam Smith, as a "moral sense" philosopher, becomes a
"communitarian." Thus the spiritual father of capitalism-or the system of natural freedom, as he called
it-becomes part of the anti-individualism which prepared the way for Marx and today's Left. Had Wills read
that notable book linking the Theory of Moral Sentiments
with The Wealth of Nations, Joseph Cropsey's Polity and
Economy: An Interpretation of the Principles of Adam
Smith, he would not have committed such an egregious
error. For he would have learned from Cropsey that the
Scottish school were emenders of Locke, rather than negators or opponents. All their thought moves within a circle previously defined by Locke, and before Locke, by
Hobbes. Indeed, the quotation from Burlamaqui, relating
the purposes of civil society to sovereignty, points back
from Locke towards Hobbes, rather than forward toward
the Scottish school.
18
An important book may still be written about Hutcheson, and the school he represents, and their influence
upon the American Founding Fathers. No responsible
scholar has ever claimed that the Declaration of Independence is purely (or merely) a Lockean document. The substitution of "pursuit of happiness" for "property" in the
famous enumeration of rights is a sufficient obstacle to
such a simplistic view. So is the appeal to the "dictates of
prudence." The ultimate authority for the meaning of the
intellectual virtue of prudence is Aristotle. For it was Aristotle who separated philosophic wisdom from practical
wisdom, sophia from phronesis, sapientia from prudentia.
T
a great deal in the Declaration that points backwards from Locke, towards the
ancients. In that famous letter to Henry Lee in 1825,
Jefferson wrote of the Declaration:
HERE IS ACCORDINGLY
All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of
the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed
essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle,
Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.
Wills attempts to brush this aside and to ridicule the reference to Aristotle, because elsewhere Jefferson depreciates
him. But Jefferson makes clear in the Lee letter that in
drafting the Declaration he was the agent of the Congress, and of the American people. What he wrote was not
intended as a personal statement, but "as an expression of
the American mind." That Jefferson listed two ancientsAristotle and Cicero-before two moderns-Locke and
Sidney-was not casual or accidental. Patrick Henry's
famous apostrophe began by noting that "Caesar had his
Brutus." The Senate, the Capitol, and many other symbols from the Founding period remind us of the power of
the example of ancient Rome, and of ancient freedom.
Perhaps Rome was more looked to than Greece. But Cicero himself looked to Athens to discover the principles of
Rome's greatness. Cicero was an "academic skeptic,"
who, although he wrote both a "Republic" and a "Laws,"
came closer in many respects to Aristotle than to Plato.
Wills ends his Prologue, his apology for writing his
book, with an appeal to the authority of Douglass Adair.
He cites an essay by Adair published in 1946, in which
Adair said, among other things, that
An exact knowledge of Jefferson's ideas . .. is still lacking ... We know relatively little about his ideas in the context
of the total civilization of which he was a part . ..
This, Wills thinks, authorizes his flat rejection of the
Lockeanism of orthodox scholarship. Certainly, Adair was
himself something of a rebel against orthodox scholarship.
He was also the author of what has often been referred to
as the most influential unpublished dissertation of our
time. Adair was restrained more by modesty and perfecAUTUMN 1981
�tionism, than by fear of the orthodox. Adair-who died in
1968-was my colleague and my friend, and a copy of his
1943 dissertation is before me. It is entitled The Intellec·
tual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. Its exceedingly
bold hypothesis is: that the most important source of Jef.
fersonian ideas on the connection between virtue, free~
dom, agrarianism, and republicanism, was to be found in
the Sixth Book of Aristotle's Politics. Adair's argument,
although brilliantly set forth, is not altogether persuasive.
But it adds plausibility to the notion of an Aristotelian in·
fluence on the Declaration-particularly since Jefferson
mentions that influence himself. When the Declaration
speaks of the people, instituting new government, such as
"to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness," he is appealing to a tradition of more than
two thousand years. For safety and happiness are the
alpha and omega of political life, according to a tradition
originating with Aristotle. Political life, Aristotle had writ.
ten, originates in the desire for life, that is, for self-preser.
vation. But it moves on a scale of dignity, from mere life,
to the good life. And the name for the good life is happi·
ness.
In his straining to credit everything Jeffersonian to
Hutcheson, Wills makes much of the fact that Hutcheson
coined the phrase, "the greatest happiness of the greatest
number." He is sure that this is what caused Jefferson to
write "pursuit of happiness" instead of property" or
~<estate," in the famous enumeration. He tells us confidently that from the teachings of the Scottish school
"public happiness" is "measurable'' and "is, indeed, the
test and justification of any government." That public
happiness is the test and justification of any government
is also the teaching of both the Nicomachean Ethics and
of the Politics. Such public happiness would not, how·
ever, be measurable in any mathematical sense. Happi·
ness, according to Aristotle, is the summum bonum. As
such it cannot be counted among good things, since it
11
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
represents the presence of all good things, in the propor·
lions that make them beneficial to their possessor. For ex·
ample, you cannot be made happier by becoming richer,
if you already have all the wealth that you can use well.
But where does Jefferson ever speak of measuring happi·
ness, in the mathematical or geometrical manner that
Wills imputes to Hutcheson? It bears repeating, that in
sketching the literary sources of the Declaration-or,
rather, of the American mind that the Declaration ex·
pressed-Jefferson names Aristotle first of all. Then, after
naming Cicero, he mentions Locke. But the name of
Francis Hutcheson, in connection with the Declaration of
Independence, is never mentioned at all.
POSTSCRIPT
The two reviewers in question were M. J. Sobran, for NR, and
Richard Brookhiser for the American Spectator. In a later article
in NR, "Saving the Declaration," (December 22, 1978) Mr. Sobran
wrote as follows.
The Declaration is a republican document, based squarely on
Locke's theory . .. Which brings me to a personally embarrassing
point. In his recent book, Inventing America, Garry Wills persuaded
me (NR, July 7), that the Declaration can be understood without
reference to Locke. He denied, in fact, that there are any distinct
echoes of Locke, either in the Declaration or in Jefferson's writings
generally. But a careful reading of the Second Treatise makes overwhelmingly clear that Wills is wrong. In diction, terms, turns of
phrase, structure, and of course destination, the resemblance is so
close that it is hard to feel that the Declaration is anything but a sustained allusion to Locke. [Emphasis by Mr. Sobran.]
The reader will, of course, have perceived that in our opinion
the Declaration is in fact much more than an allusion to Locke.
Without that allusion, however, nothing of substance in the Declaration comes to sight. I am pleased to be able to record that Mr.
Brookhiser has authorized me to declare his association with Mr.
Sobran's revised judgment of Inventing America. This is a most
hopeful sign, that for better reasons than mere success, the Right
may become the Center of American politics.
19
�Four Poems
Laurence Josephs
ELM TREE
LATE WINTER PoEM
My elm is dead. Its bark
Peels off in shrugs, aghast
Bendings. Though some birds
Still bud there like leaves,
They sing through its bones
Resentfully, and none will nest.
For Frederick Caldwell II
A fairground edge-of-town,
A wreck stripped for the next
Stop, it shows only absence
Down to the last pennant
Where before the summer sky
Gorgeously intervened.
There has been some snow, I see,
Enough just to receive
The traced pawprints
Of small animals, to and from
The birdfeeder
Where they have mined
A first course of fallen
Seeds left by the birds.
Next spring will hear it
Shrieking in the chain-saw's
Mad embrace, as if
Gargantuan insects
Rubbed mutant wings, until,
Mire in the chimney
And released, all sickness
Burned away, its pale insubstant
Ghost against a pewter sky
Once more will branch
In air, blooming high over the house.
Up early I catch a cold
World almost a part
Of the moon, as if
It had dropped from that
Somehow and hardened.
Let me open the door! 0 let
Me open the window and lean out
Into this mask of silent air!
Has nothing really human
Happened here since last night
Before the snow began to come down?
In the road are tire-tracks:
Tracks of snow pushed aszde
To look like sculptured wavesThe wake of someone rushing past my house
As I slept and dreamed.
Professor of English at Skidmore College, Laurence Josephs has published three collections of poems, Cold Water Morning (Skidmore College 1964), The Skidmore Poems (Skidmore College 1975) and Six Elegies
(The Greenfield Review Press 1972).
20
AUTUMN 1981
�THE PoRCH
UNFINISHED SELF-PORTRAIT AND SEASCAPE
(Late August Mternoon)
Seeing in the glass their life
Losing color- as you saw that last,
Sad summer- painters will make us
Their mirror. Now I am your mirror,
Father, today looking your sickness
Back into your eyes; knowing
Nothing to disguise it in paint or words.
The breeze is transparent
Ribbons coming untied between the trees.
Far back, tin-voiced
Hawks parade the air, not flying,
But afloat, cruciform, at leisure
Just lower than the cloud.
Somewhere closed in all this
I am lying-a book interrupted
By a forgotten bookmark
Beneath which the page is a slightly
Differing color: a pale
Stripe no one could ever have painted;
Almost a whisper of color, unnameableAnd I hear your voice, unrolling too,
Like the ribboned breeze:
~ou are saying that summers were always
Ltke thts; always, always the same
As this: that there was even the same
Thunder waiting somewhere near the tall
Glasses of tea the ice had made
Weep through the tea -colored glass
And run down the sides like tears.
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
On the easel where an unfinished
Seascape began to grow from canvas,
I see reflected the start
Of a world losing itself in your skill
That was not skillful enough.
Now it will never flow, that ocean,
Though in my eyes its sketchy tide
Stops, starts, subsides; changing
No course as we knew it could not
When you put aside the last brush.
Horizons show beginning
Is the end; endings begin.
And even God, I think, knew this
Ceding the sea nothing but depth
And that restlessness
From which life came crawling up
On a shore unwilling,
As it always is, to support life.
21
�The World of Physics
and The "Natural" World
Jacob Klein
I
It can scarcely be denied that at the present time physics
and philosophy, two sciences of recognized durability,
each handed down in a continuous tradition, are estranged
from one another; they oppose one another more or less
uncomprehendingly. By the nineteenth century a real and
hence effective mutual understanding between philosophers and physicists concerning the methods, presuppositions, and the meaning of physical research had already
become basically impossible; this remained true even
when both parties, with great goodwill and great earnestness, tried to reach a clear understanding of these issues.
When, in the second half of the last century, physicists
themselves adopted certain basic philosophical positions,
the Neo-Kantian or Machian, for instance, this scarcely affected their genuine scientific work. They did their work
independently of any philosophical question; they conquered more and more territory and were not distracted
from their course by difficulties appearing from time to
time in the interpretation of the formal mathematical apparatus (as in the case of Maxwell's Theory) or in regard to
the validity of ultimate physical principles (as in the case
of the second law of thermodynamics).
In this respect the situation has now changed in an essential way. To be sure, mathematical physics, in conformity with the basic attitude it has never abandoned, is still
content today with what can be established experimentally
and can be given an exact mathematical formulation; it refuses to follow philosophy into the region of what is neither experimentally nor mathematically confirmable and
hence is almost always controversial. Nonetheless, physics
now sees itself faced by questions in its own fundamental
work which have always been taken to fall within the domain of philosophy. In its own right physics raises questions about space and time, causality and substance,
about the limits of possible knowledge and the epistemic
sense of scientific statements and experimental results.
Consequently, it now considers turning to "philosophy"
as a reliable and valid court of appeal, if not for solutions
to these questions, then at least for advice or for new
points of view. The unsatisfactory relation between mathematical physics and philosophy has consequently become
more acute than it usually was in the 19th century. The
particular philosophical tendencies involved are a secondary matter. More importantly, it is clear that no agreement
about the meaning of the most fundamental concepts
which both physics and philosophy employ can be achieved,
e.g., the meaning of the concepts Space," "Time,"
11
('Causal Law,'' ''Experience,'' ''Intuition.''
texts.
Sometimes it seems as if two languages were being spoken, languages that sound the same and yet are totally different. Physicists and philosophers assess this situation
differently only insofar as the physicists are inclined-not
always, certainly, but for the most part-to regard the language of philosophy as unscientific, while the philosophers
-not always, to be sure, but frequently enough-suspect
themselves of something like bad conscience in such debates, simply because they think they are incapable of getting to the bottom of the physical concepts amidst the
formalistic thicket of differential equations, tensor calculus,
or group-theory. This bad conscience is understandable.
For, no matter how philosophy expresses itself philosophi-
22
AUTUMN 1981
Delivered as a lecture to the Physikalische Institut of the University of
Marburg on February 3, 1932, this paper is the only completed work
which one of Jacob Klein's literary executors, David R. Lachterman,
found among his papers after his death in 1978. The first half, roughly
of the paper is in typescript, the second in manuscript with marginal ad:
ditions, not always easily fitted into the text. The transcriber and translator, David R. Lachterman, has completed several elliptical references to
�cally, no matter what "standpoint" it might adopt, it cannot possibly pass by the problem of the World. And does
not physics, most of all, have to do with the world around
us? Don't the formulae of physics give an answer to the
question of the "true world," however "truth" might here
be understood? Even when philosophy believes it cannot
accept the answer physics gives, even when it regards it as
basically unsuccessful, it still has to reckon with it in some
fashion, even if only to refute it. Above all philosophy
must try to understand this answer. Even if philosophy
concerns itself exclusively with things falling within that
other hemisphere of science, the so-called "Geisteswissenschaften," it should never forget, even for an instant,
that mathematical physics is at the foundation of our
mental and spiritual life, that we see the world and ourselves in this world at first quite ingenuously as mathematical physics has taught us to see it, that the direction, the
very manner of our questioning is fixed in advance by
mathematical physics, and that even a critical attitude towards mathematical physics does not free us from its dominion. The idea of science intrinsic to mathematical
physics determines the basic fact of our contemporary
life, namely, our "scientific consciousness."
Mathematical physics and philosophy are nowadays
split apart and at odds with one another; they depend on
one another, even while time and again they are forced to
acknowledge their mutual incomprehension. What is to
be done in this situation? We must first of all try to find a
common ground, a basis of shared questions, such that
our questions are not in danger of missing their target
from the start. Is there any common ground? Where
should we try to find it? If we cannot glimpse it anywhere
in the present, then we have to consider whether we can
find it in the past.
Let us remember that there was an age that did not
know this hard and fast division between philosophy and
physics. Let us recall the title of Newton's work: Philosophiae natura/is principia mathematica. For Galileo the
true philosophy coincides with the true science of the
structure of this world. Likewise, Descrates' entire physics
is contained in his Principia philosophiae. The philosophia
naturalis of the seventeenth century is scientia naturalis,
science pure and simple, the heir to the legacy of medieval
and ancient science. The seventeenth century claimed
that the foundations it gave to this scientia were identical
with the foundations of all human knowing. Leibniz was
the first to open a gap between physics and metaphysics,
between the sciences of nature and of philosophy; however, Leibniz himself also exhibited their essential unity
in an especially impressive way. In the middle of the eighteenth century the paths of the new science of nature and
the new philosophy parted, even though their common
origin could never be forgotten. Furthermore, the contemporary tense division just noted between physics and
philosophy has its roots in precisely this history of the two
disciplines, a history which leads them from an original
unity to an increasing mutual estrangement.
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
Accordingly, we must try to gain purchase on that common ground by going back to the initial situation, the situation of science in the seventeenth century; from this we
might possibly gain a measure of enlightenment concerning present-day difficulties, even if we simply come to understand the nature of these difficulties better. We should
not forget that all of the basic concepts of contemporary
science were given their now·authoritative stamp in the
seventeenth century. This holds especially true of the
basic concepts of physics, at least of "classical" physics, to
speak in the idiom of modern-day physics. However great
the changes modern-day physics is about to make, or has
already made in its foundations, no one will deny that it
stands squarely on the shoulders of classical physics and,
thus, of seventeenth century physics.
Reflection on the historical foundations of physics is
not an utterly wayward and irrelevant beginning, since
physics itself, even in its most recent phase, has been
forced again and again to look back to the past in order to
recognize the limited character of many of its basic concepts. Thus, the designation "classical physics," used to
refer to the physics of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and
nineteenth centuries, arises from the debate between
quantum mechanics and relativity-theory and the basic
concepts of Galilean and Newtonian mechanics. In their
own day, the debates between the mechanistic and the
energistic conceptions within physics led to the historical
investigations of Mach and Duhem. What we have to do,
in my judgment, is make this turn to historical origins
even more radical. Not only is this demanded by the issue
itself, it is most intimately connected with the basic presuppositions of our knowledge of the world.
II
Let us begin by picturing the general situation of science in the seventeenth century: A new science, desirous
above all of being a science of Nature and moreover a
"natural" science, opposed an already extant science. The
conceptual edifice of this new science was built up in continuous debate with the traditional and dominant science
of the Scholastics. The new concepts were worked out
and fortified in combat with the concepts of the old science. As has been emphasized time and again, the founders of this new science, men like Galileo, Slevin, Kepler,
Descartes, were moved by an original impulse quite alien
to the erudite science of the Scholastics. Their scientific
interests were inspired by problems of practical mechanics and practical optics, by problems of architecture,
machine construction, painting, and the newly-discovered
art of optical instruments. An open and unprejudiced eye
for the things of this world took the place of sterile booklearning.1 However, it is no less true that the conceptual
interpretation of these new insights was linked in every
case with the old, traditional concepts. The claim to communicate true science, true knowledge, necessarily took
23
�its bearings from the firmly-established edifice of traditional science. At all events, such a claim presupposes the
fact of "science"; it also presupposes the most general
foundations of the theoretical attitude which the Greeks
displayed and bequeathed to later centuries. The battle
between the new and the old science was fought on the
ground and in the name of the one, uniquely true science.
One or the other had to triumph; they could not subsist
side by side. This explains the great bitterness of the battle which lived on in the memory of succeeding generations, a bitterness immediately evident even today in the
difficulty we have when we try to distance ourselves from
the interpretation the victors -gave both of the battle and
of the enemy they vanquished.
_
What especially characterizes this battle is not only the
common goal marked out by those most general presuppositions, viz., the one, unique science, but, over and above
this, a definite uniformity of the weapons with which the
battle was fought. However different their viewpoints,
however antithetical the contents designated by their
concepts might be, the antagonists are very largely in accord as to the way in which these contents are to be interpreted, the way in which the concepts intend what is
meant by them whenever they are employed, in short, the
conceptual framework or intentionality [Begrifflichkeit] in
which their antithetical opinions are expressed. This accord has all too often been overlooked. The only issue is:
Which of them handled these weapons more suitably,
which of them filled in the conceptuality common to both
with contents genuinely in harmony with it? No doubt,
the outcome gives the victory to the new science. When it
mocks at the physics of the Scholastics, the physics of
"substantial forms/' the new science is striking primarily
at the unquestioning attitude of the old science, the Scholasticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an
attitude which made this old science unable to detect the
tension between the contents of its concepts and the use it
made of these. Such an unquestioning understanding of
oneself always exhibits a failure to comprehend one's own
presuppositions and thus a failure really to grasp what one
pretends to know. This is the danger to which science is
always exposed; this is the danger to which Scholastic science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries succumbed
as no other science had done before.
To penetrate to the foundations of the new science
and, in this way, to the foundations of mathematical physics, we have to keep this general situation of science in the
seventeenth century constantly in mind. It determines in
the most basic way the horizon of this new science, as well
as its methods, its general structure. It determines, above
all, the intentionality of its concepts as such.
There is a long-standing controversy over how the experiential bases of physics fit together with its specific
conceptuality. The very possibility of distinguishing "experimental" from "theoretical physics," a distinction
which surely rests on nothing more than a didactic, or
technical, division of labor, illustrates the problem. The
24
reciprocity of experiment and theory, of observation and
hypothesis, the relation of universal constants to the
mathematical formalism-all of these issues point again
and again to the two antithetical tendencies pervading
modern physical science and giving it its characteristic
stamp. This controversy, familiar to us from the nineteenth century, fundamentally concerns the preeminence
of one or the other of these two tendencies. Nowadays,
depending on the side one takes, one speaks of Empiricism or Apriorism; physicists themselves customarily side
with the so-called empiricists and confuse apriorism with
a kind of capriciously speculative philosophy. The good
name of Kant has been made to bear the burden of furnishing ever-new fuel for this controversy. I am not going
to take sides in this controversy. The controversy itself
first grows from the soil of the new science and must be
clarified by turning back to its origins in the seventeenth
century. What is primarily at stake is an understanding of
the particular intentionality, the particular character of
the concepts with whose aid the mathematical physics
which arose in the seventeenth century erected the new
and immense theoretical structure of human experience
over the next two centuries.
This intentionality is that of contemporary Scholasticism. The Scholastics believed that by using it they were
faithfully administering the legacy of knowledge handed
down to them by tradition. They believed that they were
reproducing ancient doctrine, especially ancient cosmology, in exactly the same way as it was understood and
taught by the Greeks, that is, by Aristotle. They identified
their own concepts with those of the ancients. The new
science, moreover, followed them in this matter. It, too,
interpreted ancient cosmology along the lines of contemporary scholastic science. It was, however, certainly not
content with this. Rather, it called upon the things themselves in order to rebuke the untenable doctrines of this
Scholastic science, with its seemingly unquestioning certitude. In doing so, it exposed the incongruity between
Scholastic intentionality and the contents the traditional
concepts were intended to refer to. Furthermore, it went
back to the sources of Greek science, neglected by Scholastic science; these sources, too, were interpreted in
terms of the intentionality it shared with Scholastic science. And this interpretation of the legacy of ancient
teachings, involving a characteristic modification of every
ancient concept, is the basis of the whole concept-formation of the new science.
As a result, the special character of these new concepts
can be brought to light in one of two ways. First, we can
contrast the Scholastic science of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with genuine Aristotelianism. If we do
so, a direct path leads from the lengthy and little-read
compendia of Cremonini,Z Francesco Piccolomini,3 Buonamico,4 Zabarella, 5 Toletus,6 Benedictus Pereirus/ Alessandro Piccolomini,8 etc., and, above all, of Suarez, as well
as from the humanistically-influenced interpretation of
Aristotle (e.g., in Faber Stapulensis and Petrus Ramus),
AU!1JMN 1981
�back to the Nominalism of fourteenth century. As
Duhem has shown, initiatives leading to the modern sci·
ence of Nature are present everywhere in fourteenth cen·
tury Nominalism. Secondly, we can confront Aristotle
himself as well as the other sources of Greek science, most
importantly Plato, Democritus, Euclid, Archimedes, Apol·
Ianius, Pappus, and Diophantus, with the interpretation
given them by Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Fermat, Vieta,
et al. In what follows I want to discuss only this second
path, selecting just a few characteristic examples. None·
theless, before I begin I must make a more general remark.
Since the pioneering works of Hultsch and Tannery on
the history of ancient mathematics, the relation between
ancient and modern mathematics has increasingly be·
come the focus of historical investigation as well as the
theme of reflection in the philosophy of history. Two general lines of interpretation can be distinguished here.
One-the prevailing view-sees in the history of science a
continuous forward progress interrupted, at most, by periods of stagnation. On this view, forward progress takes
place with "logical necessity";' accordingly, writing the
history of a mathematical theorem or of a physical principle basically means analyzing its logic 10 The usual presentations, especially of the history of mathematics, picture a
rectilinear course; all of its accidents and irregularities disappear behind the logical straightness of the whole path.
The second interpretation emphasizes that the different stages along this path are incomparable. For example,
it sees in Greek mathematics a science totally distinct from
modern mathematics. It denies that a continuous development from the one to the other took place at all. Both
interpretations, however, start from the present-day condition of science. The first measures ancient by the standard of modern science and pursues the individual threads
leading back from the valid theorems of contemporary science to the anticipatory steps taken towards them in antiquity. Time and again it sees contemporary science in
ancient science; it seeks in ancient science only the seeds
of now-mature fruits. The second interpretation strives to
bring into relief, not what is common, but what divides
ancient and modern science. It, too, however, interprets
the otherness of ancient mathematics, for example, in
terms of the results of contemporary science. Consequently, it recognizes only a counter-image of itself in ancient science, a counter-image which still stands on its
own conceptual level.
Both interpretations fail to do justice to the true state of
the case. There can be no doubt that the science of the
seventeenth century represents a direct continuation of
ancient science. On the other hand, neither can we deny
their differences, differences not only in maturity, but,
above all, in their basic initiatives, in their whole disposition (habitus). The difficulty is precisely to avoid interpreting their differences and their affinity one-sidedly in
terms of the new science. The new science itself did exactly that, in order to prove that its own procedure was
the only correct one. The contemporary tendency to subTHE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
stitute admiration or tolerance of ancient cosmology for
condemnation contributes little to our understanding of
that cosmology. The issues at stake cannot be divorced
from the specific conceptual framework within which
they are interpreted. Conversely, these issues cannot even
be seen within a conceptual framework unsuited to them;
at best, they can only be imperfectly described. The best
example comes from modern physics itself: the discussion
of modern physical theories is ensnared in great difficulties when physicists and non-physicists alike try to ignore
the mathematical apparatus of physics and present the results of research in a "commonsense" manner!
We need to approach ancient science on a basis appropriate to it, a basis provided by that science itself. Only on
this basis can we measure the transformation ancient science underwent in the seventeenth century. A transformation unique and unparalleled in the history of man!
Our modern ''scientific consciousness" first arose as a re-
sult of this transformation. This modern consciousness is
to be understood not simply as a linear continuation of ancient h<UT~I'~> but as the result of a fundamental conceptual shift which took place in the modern era, a shift we
can nowadays scarcely grasp.
I want to try to grasp the nature of this conceptual shift
more precisely, that is, to determine more precisely the
character of the new concepts in contrast with the old.
III
The unambiguous and explicit preference for quantitative over qualitative determinations in the new science
sets it distinctively apart from the old. There cannot be
any difference of opinion on this point. How often have
those lines from Galileo's II Saggiatore (1623) been cited,
that pilosophy is written in mathematical language in the
great open book of the Universe! To be able to read it one
has first to understand this language, one has to know the
script, the letters in which it is written. These letters are
((triangles, circles, and other geometrical Figures"; without their aid we cannot understand even a single word of
that language. II In the second chapter of Kepler's Mysterium cosmographicum this idea finds its most pointed formulation:
God wanted quantity to make its appearance in reality before
anything else, so that the relation between the curved and the
straight might exist (Quantitatem Deus . .. ante omnia existere
voluit, ut esset curvi ad rectum comparatio.) Hence, He first
selected the curved and the straight in order to spread a
reflection of the splendor of the divine creator over the world
(ad adumbrandam in mundo divinitatem Conditoris); for this
purpose the 'quantities' were necessary, namely, figure (fig~
ura), number (numerus) and extension (amplituda or extensio).
For this reason He created the body which embraces all these
determinations. 12
25
�These words point immediately back to Nicholas of Cusa,
whom Kepler explicitly mentions, and anticipate Descartes'
later theory. However, they are also directly connected
with the whole Platonic-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic
tradition and, above all, with Plato's own Timaeus. This
tradition had always remained alive. For example, in
Roger Bacon's Opus Maius (1266-68) we can find statements such as these: "Mathematics is the gateway and
key to all other sciences." "Anyone who does not know it
cannot understand either the other sciences or the things
of this world" (Qui ignorat earn, non potest scire caeteras
scientias nee res huius mundi.) HLogic, too, depends on
mathematics. Nothing of great significance in the other
sciences can be understood without mathematics." (Nihil
in eis potest sciri magnificum sine mathematica.)" What
distinguishes Kepler's and Galileo's words from such statements in the earlier Platonic tradition? There clearly must
be a distinction here, one that shows itself in the quite different influence, that is, the entirely different role played
by mathematics in ancient and modern science. Is the distinction merely that Kepler and Galileo spoke from a firsthand, living experience of things, while the earlier authors
were attached only to traditional texts? Or, did the two
traditions understand something different by "quantity,"
by "mathematical science?"
To answer this question, I have chosen examples relevant to the foundation of analytical geometry and algebra.
Both analytical geometry and algebra stand in the closest
relation to one another from the outset, although algebra
asserted its primacy within this relation. Both belong to
the foundations of mathematical physics. Vieta took the
decisive step in the realm of algebra, basing himself both
indirectly and immediately on Diophantus. Fermat and
Descartes, who, as is well-known, count as the founders of
analytical geometry, rely directly on Diophantus and
Apollonius, as well as on Pappus. In both cases, then, we
can confront the old and the new concepts by paying attention to the way Diophantus and Apollonius were received and construed. In both cases, what is at issue is
nothing less than the creation of a formal mathematical
language, without which mathematical physics is inconceivable. I shall begin by considering Apollonius' relation
to Fermat and Descartes.
IV
A. Two works by Apollonius particularly captured the
interest of sixteenth and seventeenth century mathematicians: (I) the first four books of his Treatise on Conic Sections, available in the original Greek since the fifteenth
century and since 1566 in the first usable Latin translation
made by Fredericus Commandinus; (2) his "Plane Loci"
in two books. Only fragments of the latter are preserved in
the Mathematical Collection of Pappus, the Latin translation of which-also by Commandinus-appeared in 1588.
These works-along with those of Diophantus, Archi-
26
medes, and Euclid-are among the basic books of seventeenth century mathematical science. Fermat, for example,
undertook to reconstruct the "Plane Loci" on the basis of
the fragments in Pappus and in the light of the Conic Sections. In an introduction added later, the Isagoge ad locos
pianos et solidos, and an appendix, Fermat sketched the
basic features of analytical geometry. Among other things,
he shows that every equation of the first and second degree in two unknowns can be coordinated with a plane
geometrical locus, that is, a straight~line or a curve, if one
represents the two unknowns as (orthogonal) coordinates,
as we would say today. Among the infinitely many possible curves of this kind are the circle, the parabola, the
ellipse, and the hyperbola, that is, the conic sections Apollonius treats in his major work. Independently of Fermat,
Descartes, by solving a locus-problem posed by Pappus
which goes back to Apollonius, arrived at the definitive
conception of this procedure now familiar to us from ana-
lytical geometry. In doing so, Descartes took up again a
line of thought that had occupied him in his youth. Nonetheless, since the studies of Moritz Cantor, Fermat has
rightly been considered the genuine founder of analytical
geometry, since his Isagoge had certainly already been
written when Descartes' Geometrie appeared (1637). Strikingly, neither Fermat nor Descartes unleashed one of
those struggles over priority so common in the seventeenth century. Fermat made Descartes acquainted with
his own works in analytical geometry after the Geometrie
had appeared; nonetheless, neither of them placed any
value on claiming priority for himself. This is all the more
astonishing since they did embroil the entire Republic of
Letters in the most unpleasant disputes over much flimsier points, as Gaston Milhaud has emphasized.l4 The
only explanation must be that neither Descartes nor Fermat believed he had advanced beyond Apollonius on any
essential points. What we take to be the enormous achievement of Descartes and Fermat they themselves believed
they had learned in essence from Apollonius or Pappus.
Fermat finds fault with Apollonius only because he did
not present matters "generally enough" (non satis generaliter).15 He says very cautiously that his general procedure
for constructing geometrical loci "was perhaps not known
to Apollonius" (ab Apollonio fortasse ignorabatur). 1 And
'
Descartes is quite convinced that the Ancients-he expressly names Pappus along with Diophantus-deliberately erased the traces of their true knowledge out of a
kind of perverted cunning (perniciosa quadam astutia) and
divulged to us, not their own art, but only a few of their resultsP I want to examine this matter more closely.
When Apollonius considers a conic-section, e.g., the ellipse in Book I, Theorem 13 of the Treatise on Conic Sections,18 he begins by passing a plane through the axis of a
cone and then lets the cone be intersected by another
plane in such a way that the desired figure, an ellipse in
this case, emerges on the surface of the cone; the line of
intersection of these two planes forms the diameter of the
ellipse (see Fig. 1).
AUTUMN 1981
�A
day we call the parameter of the ellipse and in Apollonius
is called bpO{a, because it is perpendicular to the diameter
and hence is "straight.") If, now, a perpendicular to ED is
drawn at M, and Pis connected with D, then the segment
PD cuts the perpendicular from M at point X, which determines segment MX. The segments EM and FM thus
stand in a ratio that can be exactly determined geometrically and this holds true of any point F on the ellipse. In
other words, this ratio is characteristic of ~he entire ellipse
and, consequently, of any ellipse as such. Apollonius calls
the segments EM and FM, respectively, ~ &7roTEJ'VOJ'€v~
(the line "cut off' by the diameter of the chord) and ~
TE7a"fl'{vw• xaT~'YI'€v~ (hl ri)v &&J'ETPov) the line "drawn
down" to the diameter in a determinate way (that is, not
in an arbitrary, but in an "ordered" way)-in Latin translation, abscissa and ordinatim applicata, or for short, ordinata.l9 Apollonius uses these segments, the Habscissa" and
the "ordinate/' in every individual case, in order to define
Figure 1
An auxiliary line is drawn from the vertex A which meets
the plane of the base of the cone at point K; AK is parallel
to the diameter ED. From an arbitrary point F on the ellipse a straight line FM is drawn to the diameter in a determinate manner, namely, in such a way that the chord
FF' is bisected by point M. Consequently, FF' becomesas we say today-a conjugate chord to the diameter ED.
(Compare Figure 2.)
F
MF
l.
=
EM-MX
Figure 2
It is then proved that the square on FM equals the rectangle made up of EM and a segment MX (in modern notation: FM2 ~ EM•MX), where the segment MX is defined
as follows: on a perpendicular line dropped to E the segment EP is drawn, which stands in the same ratio to the
diameter ED as the rectangle BK, CK to the square on
AK (in modern notation: EP:ED ~BK·CK:AK 2 ). (Compare Fig. 1). The straight-line EP corresponds to what toTHE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
the general properties, the basic "planimetric properties,"
characteristic of different conic-sections.
What distinguishes these segments from our "co-ordinates" employed for the first time by Fermat and Descartes? First of all, the axes to which they are referred,
viz., in the present instance, the diameter ED and the tangent to the conic atE, "do not constitute a system of lines
on their own, but like other auxiliary geometrical lines
make their appearance only in connection with the conic
section; they are brought into existence by the theorem to
be proved in each instance."20 This procedure, which for
the Greeks themselves belonged to "Analysis," has been
called "geometrical algebra." This expression, first used
by Zeuthen21 and now widely current, is quite felicitous
insofar as it hints at both the affinity as well as the difference between the Greek and the modern procedure.
The term, however, does not indicate that the procedure
can only be carried out on different conceptual levels in
these two different cases. In each case Apollonius has in
view the particular ellipse, which is cut out on the surface
of a particular cone by two particular intersecting lines.
The representation in the drawing gives a true 'image'
[Abbild] of this cone, these intersecting lines and this ellipse. There are infinitely many possible cones, sections,
and ellipses. The procedure specified is applicable to all of
them-its generality consists in this-but to this generality of procedure there does not correspond the generality
of the object. There is no "general object" for the drawing
ing to represent in a merely symbolic way [symbolisch ].
There are infinitely many possible, more or less good, images of the one ellipse represented here. And there are, in
turn, infinitely many such ellipses which can be exhibited
or 4 'imaged." The characteristic of the f.U:t.O'Yip.&nxa, math-
ematical objects in the Greek sense, is precisely that they
can be grasped by the senses only in images, while they
themselves, in their unalterable constitution, are accessi-
ble only to the discursive intellect; however, there are infinitely many of these objects. 22 What the phrase "there
are" is supposed to mean here, how the mode of being of
27
�mathematical objects is to be understood, is one of the
great disputes in Greek philosophy. No one disputes,
however, that mathematical science as such has to do
with these "pure" figures or formations [Gebilde] whose
nature is accessible to the intellect alone. The lines drawn
in any particular diagram and their ratios belong to this
"pure" ellipse which is exhibited by them. To be sure, in
the case of every individual ellipse-thanks to the generality of the procedure-such "abscissas" and "ordinates"
can always be singled out, but each time line-segments belonging to the particular ellipse in question are intended.
This is not due to the imperfection of Greek mathematics,
its defective means of presentation, or its inadequate
capacity for generalization, but is rather entailed by the
specific intentionality of Greek science. Its concepts in
each instance intend the individual objects themselves;
they are-to speak in Scholastic language-intentiones
primae ["first intentions"]-that is, concepts which refer
immediately to individual objects. This is in harmony
with the means of presentation which Greek science employs. The lines drawn in the figure exhibit the object,
they "image" it. Consequently, the mode of presentation
of Greek mathematics-with a single exception which we
shall come to later-is never merely representative [stellvertretend], never symbolic, but is always the presentation
of an image [abbildlich], and in this way first-intentional.
For this reason, the designation "geometrical algebra,"
which perhaps takes its bearings too much from the exceptional case we shall discuss later, does not really do
justice to the facts of the case.
In contrast to analysis in our own sense, Greek analysis
does not merely have a different style of presentation, but
embodies a fundamentally different relation between the
style of presentation and what is presented. What, in fact,
do the lines which Descartes and Fermat employ as abscissas and ordinates signify? What do the curves which
they draw mean? In the second part of his Discourse on
Method, Descartes gives us exhaustive information on this
point-" In these curves he intends to exhibit only relations or proportions (nihil aliud quam relationes sive proportiones~4 and to do so in the greatest possible generality
(et quidem maxime genera/iter sumptas). 25 The exhibition
of these relations in line-segments is only the simplest and
clearest illustration for the senses and the imagination, so
long as it is a matter of a single relation. In order to survey
many such relations together and to be able to keep them
conveniently in memory, they have to be simultaneously
represented [representiert] by appropriate signs of ciphers,
namely, by letters. Illustration by lines and representation
by letters are thus merely two modes of the very same
symbolic style of presentation. Lines and letters both are
here simply the most suitable bearers of the general relations and proportions being considered; they are merely
"les sujets qui serviraient a m'en rendre la connaissance
plus aisee. "26 The ellipse inscribed within coordinate-axes
(as we employ them today, using the method worked out
by Descartes and Fermat) (Fig. 3)
28
Figure 3
is thus no longer an image of the "pure" ellipse, the Ellipse-Itself. The coordinate-axes drawn are no longer images
of a pair of straight lines applicable to the "pure" ellipse,
but merely symbolize the generally possible use of such a
pair. The abscissa and the ordinate of a point when actually drawn no longer exhibit particular line-segments in
the manner of images, but "illustrate" the general procedure of Apollonius; in other words they stand immediately
only for the general concepts of "abscissa" and ('ordinate"
resulting from that procedure and not for the line-segments directly intended by these concepts in each individual instance. Accordingly, the modern concepts of "abscissa" and ''ordinate" are intentiones securidae [''second
intentions"], concepts which refer directly to other concepts, to intentiones primae, and only indirectly to objects.
In the language of mathematics this means: They are concepts of the "Variable n." For this reason the abscissa and
ordinate axes can be detached from the realm of objects.
All the curves investigated with their help are from now
on nothing but symbolic exhibitions of various possible
relations, or of the different "functional" relations, between two (or more) variables.
All this, however, is only one side of the matter (the side
emphasized principally by the Neo-Kantians and viewed
by them as the only essential aspect). It is no less essential
that these symbolic curves were understood as the images
of the curves exhibited by the Ancients. For example, the
ellipse inscribed within coordinate-axes was regarded as
the very same ellipse treated by Apollonius. Precisely this
assumption led Fermat and Descartes to believe that they
were not proceeding any differently than Apollonius had.
Although, in fact, there has been a shift in conceptual-levels, Fermat thinks that he has simply interpreted many of
Apollonius' theorems more generally (generalius), 27 that
his procedure merely opened up a "general path" to the
construction of geometrical loci (generalis ad locos via)" in
exactly the sense in which Apollonius says that Book One
of his Conic Sections treats things more generally or uniAUTUMN 1981
�versally ("a86)..ov p,&AAov~ 9 than his predecessors had
done. (And not even this is certain for Fermat, if we reflect on his word fortasse ["perhaps"].) What Fermat and
Descartes call "generalization" is in reality a complex conceptual process ascending from intentio prima to intentio
secunda while, at the same time, identifying these. Only in
this way can we understand what Descartes means when
he characterizes his analytical procedure as a unification
of the geometrical analysis of the Ancients with algebra.
This unification is brought about through a symbolic in·
terpretation and exhibiton of geometrical forms, on the
one hand, and of arithmetical ratios, on the other. Both
kinds of "quantities" are viewed together with regard to
their common 1 "general" quantitative character and ex~
hibited in this generality. Consequently, the modern analytical procedure has to do immediately only with "general
quantities." However, these "general quantities," on the
whole, can only be sensibly exhibited because their generality at the same time is understood as variability, that is,
because these magnitudes are thought of from the start as
"alterable." (And, indeed, this holds true as much of the
magnitudes posited as 'constant' as it does of genuine
variables.) The <(being" of "general magnitudes" consists
here only in their peculiar ability to take on all, or all admissible, values one after the other. This is exactly what
gives all of them the capacity to replace particular line-seg·
ments or particular numerical values. Their symbolic exhibition corresponds to what Kant understands by a
schema. Kant says:
This representation of a universal procedure of imagination
in providing an image for a concept [i.e., assigning to a first intention the image belonging to it], I entitle the schema of this
concept. 30
The schema can be directly transformed into an image
[Abbild], if the segments and ratios of segments, of which
it consists, assume numerically determinate lengths and
values. The possibility of identifying prima and secunda
intentio is, therefore, based on this, that the schema is or·
dinarily understood as a schema already transformed into
an image. Schematic imageability [Abbildlichkeit] is thus
the element which allows us to illustrate the generalization of Arithmetic into Algebra, or, in other words, to
"unite" geometry and algebra.
Only in this way can we come to understand that Des·
cartes' concept of extensio identifies the extendedness of
extension with extension itself. Our present-day concept
of space can be traced directly back to this. Present-day
Mathematics and Physics designate as "Euclidean Space"
the domain of symbolic exhibition by means of line-segments, a domain which is defined by a coordinate system,
a relational system [Bezugssystem], as we say nowadays.
"Euclidean Space" is by no means the domain of the fig·
ures and structures studied by Euclid and the rest of
Greek mathematics. It is rather only the symbolic illustration of the general character of the extendedness of those
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
structures. Once this symbolic domain is identified with
corporeal extension itself, it enters into Newtonian physics as "absolute space." At the present time it is being criticized by Relativity Theory, which has been steered by
the question of "In variance" into trying to break through
these symbolic bounds, while continuing to use this very
symbolism.
B. The founding of analytical geometry by Descartes
and Fermat is also conditioned by the immediately preceding development of algebra and the language of algebraic formulae. Vieta, as I have said, provided the decisive
impetus here. I want to consider now, as a further example of this conceptual shift, Vieta's relation to traditional
algebra.
The science of algebra, in the form in which Vieta encountered it in the sixteenth century, namely, in the form
of a doctrine of equations, was received in the West from
the thirteenth century on as an Arabic science. This Arabic science was, in all probability, nourished essentially by
two Ancient sources. We can identify one of these straightaway, viz., the Arithmetic of Diophantus; the other can
only be indirectly inferred. (Tannery believed that he
could recognize it in a lost work by a contemporary of Diophantus, sc., Anatolius.) In any case, Diophantus is by far
the most important source, as the very name "Algebra" indicates: the word ''Algebra" (a 'nomen barbaricum/ as
Descartes says) is in Arabic nothing more than the first
half of a formulaic expression for the basic rule for solving
equations that Diophantus sets out at the beginning of
Book I of his Arithmetica.l 1
The doctrine of equations had made great progress in
the West, before people began, in the second half of the
sixteenth century, to take up Diophantus' work itself.
Modern algebra and modern formalism grew out of
Vieta's direct occupation with Diophantus; later writers
merely elaborated and refined his work. Here, then, in
Vieta's reception of Diophantus, we encounter one of
those nodal-points of development, a point where the new
science arose from the confrontation of two distinct conceptual planes.
The surviving six books of Diophantus' Arithmetic*
teach how to solve problems of reckoning which today are
familiar to us as determinate and indeterminate equations
of the 1st and 2nd degree. Diophantus, in giving these solutions, uses, in addition to other signs, a series of abbreviations for the unknowns and their powers. In every case it
is only a matter of a simple abbreviation; this is above all
the case with the sign for the unknown, which is nothing
other than an abbreviation of the word &p,Op,6<. Heath has
conclusively explained this point. Diophantus' "epochal
*[Readers of the Review may be interested to know that the "lost" books
of Diophantus' Arithmetica have now been discovered in an Arabic
translation. See J. Sesiano, The Arabic Text of Books IV to VII of Diophantus' 'ApdJp.rtnx& . .. edited, with translation and commentary (Ph.D.
Diss., Brown Univ. 1975).]
29
�invention" (to use Hultsch's phrase)32 consists in his having introduced this sign into the logistical procedure of solution, that is, he reckons or calculates with the unknown.
Apart from the unknown or unknowns and their powers
he admits only formations that correspond to rational
numbers, i.e.~ to integers and fractions. In modern termi·
nology, only numerical coefficients appear. What does an
equation look like in Diophantus? Let us look at a very
simple example which I shall write in its simplest form:
That is, lxptfJp.ol OUo p.ov&OES rPt'i:~ '[(JO'i Elalv 1.wv&cn brrci.
Or, in English, "Two numbers [lxP<OI'ot] and three units
are equal to seven units." The sign s is a ligature for
&p,OI'6s; the sign IV! (or tt=J is an abbreviation for l'ov&s or
l'ov&!i<S (the plural is also written 1'"). The corresponding
equation in Vieta, which for the sake of simplicity I shall
write in modern form, since this does not basically deviate
from his, is: 2x + 3 ~ 7. Is this merely a technically more
convenient form of writing? Do the two equations say entirely the same thing, if we disregard the mode of writing?
To answer this question we have to look a little more
closely at the Greek manner of writing. (It is of no importance here whether Diophantus wrote in exactly this way;
the extant manuscripts reproduce what is essential.) What
is particularly surprising is the addition of the sign for
l'ovali<S. Scholars have tried to explain this as intended to
discriminate with sufficient clarity the numerical signs
which specify the number [Anzah~ of dptOI'o(, i.e., the
number of the unknowns (thus, in our case, the sign /3),
from the signs for the purely numerical magnitudes (in
our case the sign)'). If the sign M did not stand between /3
and)', then the expression could be read: 2 C,p,OI'o( and 3
C,p,OI'o( together make 7. Regardless of the fact that in a
great many instances confusion is not possible at all, this
interpretation fails to recognize the fundamental importance of the monad, or the monads, for Greek arithmetic.
Hence, it also misjudges the Greek concept of dptOI'ot,
the Greek "number-" concept in general. 'Apt01'6s does
not mean "Zahl," [number in general) but 11 Anzahl/' viz.,
a definite number of definite things: 'II'Els &pt01'6s nvos
ian. ("Every number is a number of something." 33 ) In
daily life we frequently have to do with numbers of visible
and tangible objects, each of which is in each case just
one. However, the very possibility of counting, where we
utter the same words again and again, viz., "two,"
~<three," "four," etc., while referring to different things at
different times, points to objects of a quite different sort,
namely, to incorporeal, "pure," ones, to "pure" monads.
The Greek science of arithmetic is occupied with these
monads. For this reason the well-known definition of
&pdJp.Os in Euclid runs as follows: ro €x p.ovciOwv
av'Yx•ii'Evov 'll't./i/Oos (Euclid 7, Def. 2), "a multitude composed of monads, of unities." What it means that there are
such monads, the question of the mode of being of these
30
pure monads, is the great issue in Greek philosophy, as I
have already mentioned. Indeed, the case of the monad is
one of the ultimate issues which divide Plato from Aristotle. It is not a matter of controversy, however, that only
these pure monads as such can be the object of scientific
arithmetic. According as one interprets the mode of being
of these pure monads there can or cannot exist a scientific
doctrine of reckoning, a logistic, alongside arithmetic, the
doctrine of pure numbers and pure numerical relations.
Diophantine arithmetic is in this sense a scientific logistic
and stands to arithmetic in much the way the metrics of
Heron of Alexandria stand to theoretical geometry. 34 It focuses upon the field of pure monads. Every single number
which it treats is a number of such monads. Its mode of
writing is accommodated to this fact. Even the unknown,
the dptOwfs which has to be reckoned, is a definite
number of monads, although still unknown at first and
"indeterminate" in this sense alone. All the signs used by
this logistic refer immediately to the enumerated objects
in question here.
How does the new science interpret this situation? In
his work "In artem analyticen Isagoge" published in 1591
Vieta introduces the fundamental distinction between a
''logistica numerosa" and a "logistica speciosa." The former is a doctrine of numerical equations; the second re-
places numerical values with general "symbols," as Vieta
himself says, that is, with letters. (We can, in this context,
disregard the fact that Vieta, in accordance with his "Law
of Homogeneity," has these symbols apparently refer to
geometrical formations.) Logistica speciosa gives Vieta the
capacity, not only of writing an expression such as
ax+ b ~ c (in a much more detailed form, with which we
are not concerned here)-initiatives in this direction can
be found prior to Vieta-but also of calculating with this
expression. With this step, he becomes the first creator of
the algebraic formula.
How are we to understand this step from 2x to ax, from
the numerical coefficient (the term "coefficient" stems
from Vieta himself) to the literal coefficient? Could Diophantus have taken basically the same step? The answer
to this depends directly on how we interpret the numerical sign "2." For Vieta the replacement of "2" by "a" is
possible because the concept of "two" no longer refers, as
it did for Diophantus, directly to an object, viz., to two
pure monads, but in itself already has a umore general"
character. "Two" no longer means in Vieta "two definite
things," but the general concept of twoness in general. In
other words, in Vieta the concept of two has the character
of an intentio secunda. It no longer means or intends a determinate number of things, but the general number-character of this one number, while the symbol "a" represents
the general numerical character of each and every number. In this sense the sign "a" represents "more" than the
sign "2." The symbolic relation between the sign and what
it designates is, however, the same in both cases. The replacement of "2" by "a" is in fact only "logically required
here." However, in this case as wel1, this
uz" is identified
AUTUMN 1981
�with the sign employed by Diophantus-and this is the
decisive thing. The concept of two ness is at the same time
understood as referring to two entities. (Modern set theory
first tries to separate these two constituents, to clarify
what "at the same time" means.) In any case, Vieta, as the
result of this identification, understands Diophantus' logistic as a logistica numerosa which "logically" presupposes the "more general" logistica speciosa. Thus, Vieta
says in paragraph 14 of his Isagoge that Diophantus practiced the art of solving equations most cleverly. He continues: "Earn vera tanquam per numeros non etiam per species,
quibus tamen usus est, institutam exhibuit." ("However,
he exhibited it [this art] as if it were based on numbers and
not also on species [that is, the literal-signs,] although he
nonetheless made use of these species.")35 Diophantus
kept silent about the latter, in Vieta's opinion, only so as
to make his acuity and his skill shine more brightly, since
the numerical solution-procedure is indeed much more
difficult than the convenient literal-reckoning. The relation between Fermat and Apollonius finds its exact counterpart here: Vieta sees in literal-reckoning only a more
convenient, because more general, path to the solution of
the problems posed. He can do this because he interprets
the numbers with which Diophantus dealt from a higher
conceptual level, because, in other words, he identifies
the concept of number with the number itself, in short he
understands Anzahl [counting-number] as Zahl [number
in general]. Our contemporary concept of number [Zahlbegriffj has its roots in this interpretation of the Ancient
c,p,ep.6s.
We can now understand how important it is that
Bachet, who in 1621 (hence, after Vieta) published the
first usable edition and Latin translation of Diophantus,
abandons the current rendering of the sign for the p.ovas.
"Who," he says, "does not immediately think of six units
when he hears the number 6 named?" ("Ecquis enim cum
audit numerum sex non statim cogitat sex unitates?") "Why
is it also necessary to say 'six units,' when it is enough to
1
say 'six'?" ("Quid ergo necesse est sex unitates dicere, cum
sufficiat dicere, sex?'')l 6 This discrepancy-felt to be selfevident-between cogitare (thinking) and dicere (saying
and also writing) expresses the general shift in the meaning of the concept from intentio prima to intentio secunda,
together with their simultaneous identification. Consequently, there is no longer anything to prevent Vieta's
logistica speciosa from becoming a part of geometrical
analysis; this is exactly what Fermat and Descartes explicitly did. The unification of these two disciplines is basically complete in Vieta' s ars analytica. Modern analysis is,
therefore, not a direct combination of Ancient geometrical analysis with the Ancient theory of equations, but the
unification of both on the basis of a transformed intentionality. The same shift in meaning can be established in
a whole series of concepts. For instance, the mathematical term OVvafus, 'power' in ancient mathematics, means
only the square of a magnitude, while we speak as well of
the third, the fourth power, etc. We do not encounter this
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
relation in the mathematical domain alone. It also holds
between the modern concept of 'method' and the Greek
term p.€8ooos, between our 'theory' and Greek B<wPia. In
two cases, those of substance and causality, this shift in
meaning was of the greatest importance for the construction of the new science. I cannot discuss these now. I
want simply to remark that the relation here is more complicated, inasmuch as these concepts-like all concepts
belonging to 1rpwr~ qn"Aoao<ria, the Ancient ontological
fundamental-science-themselves already have the character of intentiones secundae; this is why the new science
considered itself the sole legitimate heir of ancient philosophy, why, in other words, mathematical physics can in a
certain sense replace ancient ontology for us. I want now,
by way of conclusion, to turn to the exception I mentioned earlier and thereby compare one of the bases of ancient cosmology with the fundaments of the modern
study of nature.
C. I said that what is peculiar to the conceptual intention of ancient science-and especially of Greek mathematics-is that its concepts refer immediately to definite
objects. This obviously does not hold true of the 5th book
of Euclid's Elements which goes back to Plato's friend
Eudoxus. This book contains the so-called general theory
of proportions, that is, it treats ratios and proportions of
p.ey€8~, magnitudes in general. Accordingly, it does not
treat the ratios of particular magnitudes, geometrical
forms for instance, or numbers or bodily masses or time-
segments, but ratios "in themselves," the wholly undetermined bearers of which are symbolized [symbolisch . .. versinnbildlicht] by straight lines. The fifth book of Euclid, in
fact, contains a "geometrical algebra." The exceptional
character of this branch of Greek mathematics brings it
into immediate proximity to Greek ontology. It is not surprising, therefore, that it had an exemplary, although diverse, significance for both Plato and Aristotle.
This xcxOO>..ov 7rPcx'YJ.UXTEia,31 this scientia generaliS or
universalis, took on an even greater importance for the
new science, if that is possible. A direct path leads from
the fifth Book of Euclid and the late Platonic dialogues,
through the preface of Proclus' Commentary on Book
One of Euclid, and the Latin translation of that work by
Barozzi in 1560, to Kepler's astronomical researches, to
Descartes' and Wallis' mathesis universalis, to Leibniz's
universal characteristic and finally to modern symbolic
logics, on the one hand, and, on the other, to Galileo's mechanical investigations and to the conception of natural
laws in general. (The latter connection has not been sufficiently emphasized up to now.) The close relation between
the general theory of proportions and the new science is
established from the start by their kindred conceptual
basis.
What is important, however, is the very different ways
in which ancient cosmology and seventeenth century
physics made use of the concept of proportion. I want to
31
�try to define this difference by using the example of seventeenth century interpretations of Plato's Timaeus. In
that dialogue, the mathematician, the "Pythagorean" Timaeus, gives a genetic presentation of the construction of
the world. (In this context, and only in this, can we disregard the fact that this presentation does not claim to be a
valid €7na7'1/p:q, a true science, but claims only to give an
Elxws !LiiOos, an image approximating the truth as closely
as possible.)l 8 A chaotic state of the world-matter precedes
the origin of the world: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth are in
disharmonious and disordered motion, they pass freely
into one another, they are at first nothing but 7fA~!L!LEAws
xed drrixrws xtvoVp,€vcx.39 The divine demiurge brings
them from this condition of dis-order into the condition of
order, of nXtts-: Els r&~w . .. if'YCX'YfV Ex rfjs lna~t&s. 40 How
does he bring about this condition of order? By producing
a self-maintaining equilibrium among the world-materials,
so that their restless passage into one another yields to
well-balanced rest, turns into ~<Jx{rx. 'Avrx>-.o-y{rx, proportion, is best suited for this purpose, in the first place, because it knits together a firm connection, a firm bond, a
liE<JjLos,' 1 among the world-materials, a bond which proves
to be unbreakable throughout almost all internal changes
in these materials, that is, throughout the overwhelming
majority of possible permutations of the elements within
this proportion; secondly, because the proportion is a
bond which, among all possible bonds, is itself most of all
bound to what it binds together, that is, it binds itself
most intimately with what is bound together so as to form
a unitary whole: atnOv n xal: nl ~vvOoVp..EVa ~n p.&Aurra
€'v 7fotfi.42 Proportion has both of these features by virtue
of its incorporeality. Thus, its incorporeality, by virtue of
which it institutes wholeness and brings about order,
makes it akin to what we call "soul," >fvx~- Indeed, it is difficult to say whether the Timaeus allows us to draw any
distinction at all between >fvx~ and d.vrx>-.o-yfrx. All of the
world-materials together from now on form a structured
whole, because their quantity, the size of their respective
bulk (cf. rxptOjLGJv o-yxwv-3lc), remains in a fixed ratio
throughout all changes or at least comes very close to this
fixed ratio: as Fire is to Air, so Air to Water, and as Air is to
Water, so Water to Earth. Just as a single, living, "besouled"
organism maintains itself as a whole throughout the constant changes of its bodily materials, so, too, the entire visible world maintains itself, thanks to this proportion
among its materials, as this one, perfect whole (t'v OX.ov
TEAEov).43 And that means: as this living whole. It is only
through this proportion that a "world" arises at all, that is,
an ordered condition of the world-materials, which we call
that it continues to produce itself anew, renews itself
again and again as what it already is within the texture of
the world-order. Thereby it helps this world-order, this
Ta~ts, to be continuously maintained. The being of every
natural thing, therefore, is determined by the world-order
as such, the Td.~ts of the world, the >fvx~ Tov xo<JjLOV [soul
of the world) and, finally, by the d.vrx>-.o-y{rx. Td~ts is thus
the basic concept of ancient cosmology, not only Plato's,
but also Aristotle's, in the version transmitted to the
Christian centuries 45 But Ta~ts, order, essentially means
in every case a definite order, an ordering according to a
definite point of view, in conformity with which each individual thing is assigned its place, its location, its n57fos.
Order always means well-ordering. For this reason ancient
cosmology, as topology, is not possible without the question of this ultimate ordering point of view, without the
question of d-yrxOov, the Good. And ancient cosmology
reaches its fulfillment in the doctrine of the different
T61fot [places). This doctrine also investigates the ratios
and proportions in which the celestial bodies appear arranged in their spheres.
How did the new science receive this ancient doctrine
of nx~ts and rxvrx>-.o-y{rx, of ordo and proportio? In his Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo takes his
bearings continuously from the two basic books of traditional cosmology, Aristotle's De caelo and Plato's Timaeus;
in battling against Aristotle he relies again and again on
Plato. The entire construction of Galileo' s dialogue is in a
certain sense determined by the construction of the Timaeus. Like the Timaeus, Galileo, too, bases all further
cosmological explanations on the thesis that the world has
an order. Its parts are coordinated in the most perfect
manner ("con sommo e perfettissimo ordine tra di lora dispaste.") In this way the best distribution ("l'ottima distribuzione e collocazione") of the heavenly bodies, the stars
and the planets arises. However, what is important here is
how Galileo understands the Platonic principle that the
divine demiurge brought the world-material from disorder
to order. He thinks that Plato meant the following: each of
the different planets has a different orbital velocity within
the present order of the world. In order to reach these
velocities, they must, from the instant of their creation,
have passed through all the grades of lesser velocity. The
creator let them fall close to the mid-point of the world in
rectilinear motion, so that the uniform acceleration
pecu~
liar to falling-motion (free fall) could bring them gradually
to their present velocity, at the moment when they reached
the place assigned to them. Only then did He set them rotating, so that they proceeded from the non-uniform recti-
a cosmos. K6aJLoS thus means a self-maintaining condition
linear motion to the henceforth uniform circular motion
of m'~" (order). This condition is the basis of life, life that
maintains itself, produces itself time and again. For life
alone creates itself ad infinitum. Hence the world, precisely as an ordered world, is a self-sufficing animal, a tWov
rxvmpxn. 44 Its own being, as well as the being of its parts,
in which they persist until today. Non-uniform rectilinear
motion along the vertical corresponds, for Galileo, to the
state of disorder, rxmUrx, of which Plato speaks, while uni-
is cpVat.s, that is, Hnatural" being. The natural being of
every entity existing "by nature" is determined by the fact
32
form circular motion, that is, motion along the horizontal
line (for "horizontal" originally means the direction of the
circle of the horizon) corresponds to the present state of
order. With this interpretation, Galileo intends above all
AUTUMN 1981
�to defend the Platonic principle against Aristotle's criti-
new science, it is a "law." Accordingly, the new science in
cisms in De caelo.46
terprets ""'~"' ordo, as law, and construes the order of the
world as the lawfulness of the world. The shift in the meaning of the concept of ordo has its concrete basis here in
the possibility of transferring proportion from the ratios
among the quantities of the relevant elementary-bodies,
or from the ratios of their correlative positions, to the state
of motion of these bodies. This shift, however, eliminates
the order of the elementary-bodies, their r&~"' in the
sense of well-ordering. For the lawfulness of their motion,
the regular sequence of their states of motion, can be constructed only on the basis of their complete equality in
rank, their lack of ordering in the strict sense, that is, their
complete indifference to the place they occupy. The new
science now understands just this lawfulness in the course
of motion, in the temporal sequence of states of motion,
as the order of the world. The order of things moves up
one story higher, so to speak, when the temporal dimension is added. At the same time, however, the disorder of
the elementary-bodies, on which the lawfulness of the
It is not crucial here that Galileo's interpretation finds
no support in Plato's text What is significant is the direction in which he looks for the distinction between order
and disorder: not in the ratio or absence of ratio among
the quantities of the basic materials, not in the correlative
positions of the celestial bodies (although these do appear,
in accordance with the construction of the Timaeus, as
the genuine theme of his inquiry), but in the differences
in the states of motion as such. The bodies themselves are
not subject to comparison (comparatio, as Cicero in his
translation of the Timaeus says for proportion as well), only
a mode of being of these bodies, namely, their motion.
The application of proportion in Galileo's mechanical
works is also consonant with this. The connection with
the Greeks' general theory of proportions is immediate
here, thanks to the direct reception of Euclid and Archimedes, as well as indirectly, by way of a qualitative doctrine of geometrical ratios stemming from the 14th century
Nominalist school.47 What we today call Galileo's laws of
free-fall are intended by Galileo himself as EudoxianEuclidean proportions. In the Discorsi (Third day, Second
Book, Theorem II, Proportio II) a proportion is derived
with Euclidean means which we today would write as:
Both types of magnitude (S and T) are symbolized by
straight lines, in accordance with Book Five of Euclid.
The decisive difference from the cosmological proportion
in the Timaeus is that time becomes one of the elements
of the proportion. What I have said about Galileo also
holds true of Kepler, whose lifework, in his own opinion,
consists in the restoration of the Platonic doctrine of
order and proportion. The relation between the square of
the periods of the planets and the cubes of the great axes
of their orbits, familiar to us as Kepler's Third Law, is once
again conceived as a Euclidean proportion, of the form
ti:ti=d:ri,
or, as it has to be written to conform with Kepler's own
wording in Book One of the Harmonice mundi:
11
world is based, is now understood as Drder." Let us hear
Descartes: In chapter 46 of the Third Part of his Principia
he sets out the basic assumptions of his physics. In the
next chapter Descartes refers to his earlier attempt to
derive the present state of the world by assuming an original chaos. He says: "Even if, perhaps, this very same order
of things, which we encounter now (idem ille ordo qui iam
est in rebus) can be derived from chaos with the help of
laws of nature (ex chao per leges naturae deduci potest),
something I once undertook to show [sc. in Le Monde],
nonetheless I now assume that all the elementary parts of
matter were originally completely equivalent to one
another both in their magnitude and their motion ... because chaotic confusion (confusio) seems to be less fitting
to the highest perfection of God, the creator of things,
than proportion or order (proportio vel ordo) and also can
be less distinctly known by us, and because no proportion
and no order is simpler and more accessible to knowledge
than the one which consists in universal equality." It was
only later, through the work of Boltzmann and then of
Planck, that this "hypothesis of elementary disorder," as it
was called, was made explicit in statistical terms. Its importance for physics is clear from the fact that Planck called
the essence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics the
"Principle of Elementary Disorder."48
The world of mathematical physics built upon this presupposition, the world of natural processes occurring in
accordance with law, determines the concept of nature in
Taken together with the other two proportions which we
today call Kepler's First and Second Laws, it determines
the cosmic order in which we live. In these Galilean and
Keplerian proportions the concept of law, of the lex naturae, becomes visible for the first time. (Although neither
Galileo nor Kepler uses this word as a technical term; it is
first given a fixed sense by Descartes.)
The relation of the new to the old intentionality here
becomes immediately comprehensible. For Greek cosmol-
concept of nX~L>; T&~t.s is now understood as lex, that is, as
ogy, &va'Ao"({a is the expression of rtx~~~, of order; for the
order over time. The ascent from prima intentio to secunda
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
the new science generally. "Nature" means for it a system
of laws, means-to speak with Kant-"the conformity to
law of appearances in space and time." All the concepts in
this formula (as I have tried to show for "space" and "law")
can only be understood by contrast with the corresponding concepts of ancient science. Above all, the concept of
conformity to law signifies a modification of the ancient
33
�intentio is initiated here by the insertion of the time-dimension.49
How, then, does the new science, on the basis of its intentionality, interpret ancient cosmology? How does it interpret the "natural" world of the Ancients, the world of
r&hs? It interprets it as the qualitative world in contrast to
the "true" world, in contrast to the quantitative world. It
understands the "naturalness" of this qualitative world in
terms of the "naturalness" of the ''true," "lawful" world.
Eddington, in the introduction to his recent book, speaks
in a characteristic way of these two worlds: "There are duplicates of every object about me-two tables, two chairs,
two pens." The one table, the commonplace table, has extension, color, it does not fall apart under me, I can use it
for writing. The other table is the "scientific" table. "It
consists," Eddington says, "mostly of emptiness. Sparsely
scattered,in that emptiness are numerous electrical charges
rushing about with great speed."SO
Translated by David R. Lachterman
1. Leo Olschki has forcefully emphasized this point in his important
work Geschichte der neusprachlichen wissenschaftlichen Literatur, I-III
(Heidelberg 1919-1927).
2. Disputatio de coelo, 1613.
3. Librorum ad scientiam de natura attinentium pars prima, 1596.
4. De motu, 1591.
5. De rebus naturalibus libri XXX, 1589.
6. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in octo libros Aristotelis de physica auscultatione, 1574.
7. De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis et affectionibus,
1562.
8. De certitudine mathematicarum, 1547.
9. Compare, e.g., Leon Brunschvicq, Les €tapes de la philosophie mathimatique, Paris 1912, 105.
10. See Pierre Duhem, La thiorie physique, son objet et sa structure,
Paris 1906, 444 [English translation, The Aim and Structure of Physical
Theory, trans. P. P. Wiener, Princeton 1954.}
11. Galileo Galilei, Opere, Edizione nazionale, 6, 232.
12. Kepler, Opera, ed. Frisch, I, 122 f.
13. Pars IV, Dist. 1, Cap. I & II.
14. Descartes savant, Paris 1921, 124-148.
15. Oeuvres de Fermat (ed. Tannery and Henry), I, 91.
16. Oeuvres de Fermat, 99.
17. Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Rule IV, Oeuvres, ed. Adam & Tan·
nery, X, 376.
18. Opera, ed. Heiberg, I, 48 ff.
34
19. See also Apollonius, ed. Heiberg, I, 6, DeF. 4. (The term "abscissa"
was first used in the 18th century; cf. Tropfke, Geschichte der ElementarMathematik (2nd ed., Leipzig 1921-24), VI, 116 f.)
20. Moritz Cantor, Vorlesungen tiber Geschichte der Mathematik (3rd.
ed., Leipzig 1907), I, 337.
21. Zeuthen [The author may have had in mind H. G, Zeuthen, Geschichte der Mathematik in Altertum und Mittelalter (Copenhagen 1896),
ch. IV: "Die geometrische Algebra," 44-53. Translator's Note.]
22. See Plato, Republic VI, 510 D-E and Aristotle, Metaphysics, #6,
987bl5 ff.
23. Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Adam & Tannery, VI, 19-20.
24. Oeuvres de Descartes, 551 (Latin text).
25. Oeuvres de Descartes.
26. Oeuvres de Descartes, 20.
27. Oeuvres de Fermat, 93.
28. Oeuvres de Fermat.
29. Ed. Heiberg, I, 4.
30. Critique of Pure Reason, B 179.
31. [The full Arabic phrase is "al-jabr wa'l-muqabalah." For a contemporary discussion of the meanings of "jabr" and "muqabalah" see G. A.
Saliba, "The Meaning of al-jabr wa'l-muqabalah," Centaurus 17 (1972),
189-204. Translator's Note.]
32. F. Hultsch, Article: "Diophant," in: Pauly Wissowa Realenzyklopii.die,
Paragraph 9.
33. Alexander of Aphrodisias, In Aristotelis Metaphysica Commentaria,
ed. M. Hayduck, 85.5-6. See also Aristotle, Physics IV 4, 224a2 ff.
34. Compare Heron, Metrica {ed. Sch6ne), I, 6 ff.
35. [Vieta's Isagoge has been translated by]. Winfree Smith as an appendix to Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of
Algebra (Cambridge, Mass., 1968). The passage cited occurs on page 345.
Translator's Note.]
36. 1621-edition, 4.
37. See, for Aristotle, Metaphysics 6 1, 1026a23-27; K4, l061b17 ff; M2,
1077a9-12; M3, 1077bl7-20; Posterior Analytics A5, 74al7-25; A24,
85a38-bl. Compare also Marinus on Apollonius [i.e. the mention of a
now-lost "General Treatise" (xa86Aou 7rPa'YJ.tO'Tda) in Euclidis Opera,
ed. Heiberg-Menge, VI, 234 Translator's Note.]
38. Timaeus 29D
39. Timaeus 30A
40. Timaeus
41. Timaeus 31C
42. Timaeus
43. Timaeus 33A-B
44. Timaeus 33D; 37D
45. See Aristotle, Metaphysics M3, 1078a36-b6 and compare the title of
Ptolemy's work: h ativm~n (sc. TWv E 1rAavw~-tfvwv The Ordering-Together of the Five Planets.) For this title, see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. "Astronomie."
46. r2, 300b 16 11.
47. Compare P. Duhem. [The author most probably had in mind
Etudes sur Leonard de Vinci (Paris 1905-1913)-Translator's Note.]
48. Max Planck, Die Einheit des physikalischen Weltbildes, Leipzig 1909.
49. M. Planck, Das Weltbild der Physik (Leipzig 1931, 2d. ed.).
50. Sir Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, New York
1929, ix-x.
AUTUMN 1981
�"Sexism" is Meaningless
Michael Levin
W
HEN MY WIFE AND I PLAY TWENTY QUESTIONS,
and my wife must guess a woman, she will often
ask "Is this woman famous for whom she married?" Many would label her or her question "sexist." Indeed, few words have figured as prominently as "sexism"
in contemporary public discourse. Such currency would
ordinarily suggest that this epithet means something, but
in the present instance this impression is mistaken.
Beyond carrying a negativ·e expressive force, like "Grrrr"
11
or "Goddammit," Sexism" is empty. 1
What "sexism" is supposed to mean is clea~ enough.
"Dr. Smith has a roving eye, and his attractive wife is a notorious flirt" is called "sexist" because it implies that interest in the opposite sex is worse in married women than in
married men, and that appearance matters more for
that will serve my son will not serve my daughter. I base
these convictions on a belief in a difference between men
and women. Call these convictions "sexist" if you wish,
but please tell me what precisely is wrong, unreasonable,
or even controversial about them. The discomfort of
women in milieus demanding aggression has been confirmed by experience countless times. If noticing this is
sexism, there is nothing wrong with it. "Sexism" cannot
be used to label the factual judgement that the sexes dif.
fer in certain specific ways and at the same time retain its
automatic pejorative force.
Unfortunately, words are not always used as they should
be. "Exploit" means "to use another without his
consent," but contractual wages are nevertheless de-
is a man's book" is "sex-
nounced in some quarters as "exploitative." The point of
such tendentious misusage is, of course, to get your inter~
ist" because it implies that men more than women enjoy
adventure stories. My wife is a sexist because she believes
that fame often comes to women from their liaisons with
men, and-more egregious-she isn't indignant about it.
"Sexism," then, is typically used to describe either the
view that there are general, innate psychological differences between the sexes, or that gender is in and of itself
important.' Since the first view is simply a factual belief
supported by a vast body of evidence, and the second
view, however objectionable, is held by almost no-one,
neither view is worth attacking. But one thing is clear:
locutor to call wage labor "exploitation" and then to let
the negative connotations of that word impel him to denounce wage labor itself. If you succeed, you have boxed
him into a substantive moral position by word magic.
Once recognized, this trap is easy to elude. Anyone who
approves of wage labor ought to say: "I'll call wage labor
'exploitation,' if you insist on using words that way. But I
see nothing wrong with what you call 'exploitation'." The
same maneuver avoids the feminist's provocation. If, as it
often is, "sexism" is deployed simply to descredit belief in
gender differences, anyone who accepts these differences
those whose active vacabulary includes "sexism" (femi-
can treat "sexism" as a neutral name for this belief. With a
nists, for short) take it to describe something that is both
objectionable and widely held, and hence worth-in fact
requiring-regular and vehement attack.
This relentless tagging of "sexism" on to what it does
not fit suggests, to put it charitably, that feminists are confused about what their subject is and about what they
want to say about it. The word Sexism" simply encapsulates and obscures this confusion.
Take the view that there are innate gender differences.
I doubt that my daughter will become a quarterback. I expect her to develop habits different than those of my son
-and I hope so as well, because I believe that the habits
little gumption he can preface his conversations with feminists with this caveat, and continue to judge his belief on
its factual merits.
Sometimes the trick of illicitly transferring an epithet is
managed by constantly stressing some similarity between
its central cases and vaguely peripheral ones. A polemicist
may seduce his audience into calling wage labor "slavery"
by focusing on what wage labor does share with slavery.
(Both may involve working up a sweat.) To transfer an epithet to new cases ad libitum is harder, the clearer and more
stable its central cases are; easier, the fewer its antecedently
clear cases. At the limit of this process are neologisms, like
"sexism," which come into the world with only negative
connotations and nearly unlimited denotative potential.
"Exploitation" derives its force from the recognizable
badness of its central cases; abusing it consists in exporting it too far from these cases. One might suppose that
women than for men.
"Kon~Tiki
11
Professor of Philosophy at The City College of New York, Michael
Levin has recently published Metaphysics and the Mind-Body Problem
(Oxford University Press 1979). He has contributed to Measure, Commentary, Newsweek, and numerous philosophical journals.
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
35
�"sexism" has acquired its force similarly, by describing
something obviously bad. This would imply that "sexism"
does have some legitimate meaning, however much that
legitimate meaning has been abused.
Not every word, however, functions like "exploitation":
some have only the force of disapprobation. Consider the
communist practice of endlessly reviling enemies as
"bourgeois" and 1'revanchist." These words have lost a11
mooring in the descriptive uses they once had. Nonetheless, their repetition induces confusion and guilt in the
victims of public hate sessions simply because they convey so much hate.
Words used as vehicles for anger will acquire negative
force, whatever the source of the anger. Neologisms like
"sexism," trailing clouds of rage at their birth, are of this
sort. The very ugliness of "sexism" itself supports this account of its genesis, for it you want to endow a word with
a negative force, it is helpful to make the word itself repellent. Calling housework "shitwork," and using the grating
sound "sexism" for those rare cases to which ''misogyny"
might have applied, plays on the human tendency to attribute the qualities of words to things, and, by the animosity implicit in flaunting ugliness, communicates the
rancor behind the word. (Orwell noted that avoidable ugliness is a sure sign of political cant.) Calling my belief in
gender differences "sexist" invites me to perceive my belief as ugly because its name is ugly and comes prepackaged with ugly emotions.
that men and women differ
''sexist" makes for sheer confusion, what of using
"sexist" to describe the idea that gender is intrinsically
important? Obnoxious as this idea may be, it is virtually
without adherents. Suttee and purdah are not features of
Western culture. Despite the frequency and vigor with
which feminists publicly identify their enemy as the doctrine that IDen are inherently superior," 3 its followers
could hold a public meeting in a telephone booth.
That the feminists' enemy here is merely nominal becomes clear with the reflection that "better" means nothing at all apart from some specification of abilities or relevant context. Mr. A cannot simply be better than Miss B.
Of course, we do speak of one person being morally better
than another, and by this we do perhaps intend a judgement of overall value. The feminist's point can hardly be,
however, that women are morally as good as men. Not
only does no one deny this, feminists themselves are constantly deploring the ''stereotype" that woman's "role" is
to civilize the naturally amoral and anarchic impulses of
the male.
"Better," then, must mean "better at this or that particular task," and men are so obviously better at some things
than women that this "doctrine," rather than being the
object of scorn, should pass unchallenged. If "sexism," for
example, means the idea that men can hurl projectiles farther than women, it once again becomes impossible to un-
I
F CALLING THE BELIEF
11
36
derstand why "sexism" is used with such heat. Is "sexism"
the view that men surpass women at some highly valued
activity, like abstract reasoning, while women are better at
other activities like child-rearing-which, outside feminist
circles, are valued as highly as anything men do? If so,
then the view in question once again becomes a factual
hypothesis, indeed a hypothesis which is rather obvious to
the unaided and scientifically aided eye. In any case, we
are back to interpreting "sexism" as a name for a group of
factual beliefs and, as I have already stressed, calling a factual hypothesis by an invidious name is sheer confusion.
The readiness of feminists to attack what no one defends- "men are better than women" -may be explained
by the observation that traits can be significant in two different ways. A trait can be important in itself: intelligence,
for example, is necessary for a variety of tasks and is valued in its own right. This is why employers may permissibly hire the brightest applicants, and why most people
enjoy witty companions.
But many traits not significant in themselves are closely
associated with some which are. People may and do heed
such derivatively significant traits because they confirm
the presence of what actually matters. Illiteracy is not intrinsically bad, but it usually implies deeper incompetence. We permit an employer to ignore illiterates who
want to be laser technicians because an illiterate is unlikely to know much about lasers. Similarly, strength is
what counts for being a fireman, but size and weight are
sufficiently reliable signs of strength to serve as proxies in
deciding who gets to be a fireman. Since we can be pretty
sure of the results beforehand, it is a waste of time to let a
5 foot, 100-pounder try to drag a 120 pound weight up a
flight of stairs.
Values and institutions commonly deplored as "sexist"
because they appear to appeal to the intrinsic importance
of gender really rest on the idea that gender is highly correlated with traits whose significance is not at issue. Take
two examples. Those opposed to drafting women do not
argue that women are women, but that women are less aggressive and less tolerant of the stress of combat than
men. (They also understand that an army is meant to defend its country, not to serve as an equal opportunity employer or a crucible for social experiments.) The pivotal
objection to conscripting women has nothing to do with
any inherent "inferiority" of femaleness, everything to do
with the ability of women to fight.
Take even the "double standard" which judges female
promiscuity more harshly than male. Despite appear·
ances, this difference in attitude is not based on the belief
that there is something intrinsically worse about female
promiscuity. Even the unanalyzed "gut" double standard
that most people still feel rests on a belief about the different psychologies of the sexes. Most people believe that
men can divorce their sexual feelings from their emotional
commitments more easily than women, and hence can
more easily satisfy their sexual appetites without risking
rejection and unhappiness. People thus believe, or sense,
AUTIJMN 1981
�that there is more likely to be something wrong with a promiscuous woman than a promiscuous man. We expectand I know of no statistical or impressionistic evidence
against this-that willingness to have sex with many partners is more likely to be associated with compulsivity and
other personality disorders in women than men. It is this
belief, however inarticulate, that underlies the double
standard, and even feminists must agree that if it is true
the double standard is more than caprice.
I believe that a dispassionate overview would confirm
what these two examples illustrate: almost all views labelled "sexist" because implying the intrinsic importance
of gender amount to factual beliefs about the sexes.4
T
of dubious relevance so certain to be raised at this point that it must be heard. It
runs that judging people on the basis of what is usually true is unfair to the unusual. What of that unusually
strong midget who could pass the fireman's test? What if
there is a female tougher than most Marines who, because
women ar~arred from combat, will never get a chance to
win the Medal of Honor? It must be replied, first, that expectations must be based on what is generally, even if not
universally, true. A sure way to fail to get what you want is
to base your plans on expectation of the exceptional. If
ninety percent of the apples in an orchard are green, it is
sheer irrationality to expect the next apple you pick to be
red. Second, legally mandated discrimination on the basis
of derivatively significant traits is relatively rare. All that
most people want is the legal right to use their own discretion. What is wrong with much "anti-discrimination" legislation is that it forbids attending to what may prove
relevant. (The whole matter is exacerbated in this country
by the alacrity with which the federal government has
overruled local jurisdiction on such matters.) Third, and
most important, it is perniciously utopian to demand that
exceptional cases have a right to be recognized. It is not
unfair, although it is perhaps unfortunate, that a potential
female Audie Murphy goes unrecognized. No one promised her she would be appreciated, no agreement has been
breached if she is not. Nobody promised you at birth that
you would enter the field best suited to your talents, but
this hardly violates some mythical right to self-actualization.
HERE IS A COMPLAINT
B
the impatient feminist might be keen to remind me that there is a middle ground. "Sexism,"
she might say, is prejudice against women and their
abilities. According to her, prejudice is a much subtler
matter than dislike of a morally irrelevant trait like gender
or race: it is the irrational retention of unflattering beliefs
about those who have the trait. A racial bigot need not believe that Negroes are "inferior" to whites: his bigotry
consists in believing on patently insufficient grounds that
Y NOW
Negroes are lazier than
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
~bites.
Prejudice, moreover, in-
valves self-deception. A bigot may believe he has an open
mind-even though he loses his temper whenever anyone
tries to change it. Finally, prejudicial underestimation typically serves unhealthy needs: it bolsters feelings of worth
by representing the Other as inferior, or forestalls guilt by
projecting illicit desires onto the Other. Perhaps, then,
"sexism" should be taken to mean the belief, held with
irrational tenacity, that on the whole men and women differ significantly.
The trouble with this new gambit is that anyone who
claims much of past and current society to be "sexist" in
this new sense must deny that there is good evidence that
men differ significantly from women, and maintain that
people would not change their minds if presented with a
disproof of sex differences. This is not an easy position to
hold.
The most ardent feminist must admit that all the available evidence favors difference. Women differ physically
from men, and act differently. Anyone who has had anything to do with little children observes that these behavioral differences appear before "socialization" takes
hold. Every little boy notices that his little girl friends'
homework is neater than his own, and that they are not so
willing as he is to fight over points of honor. Everyone
sees that fathers are usually sterner than mothers. Anyone
familiar with the artistic and literary classics of other cultures finds that they represent men and women just about
as ours do.
The feminist may deplore these facts, and she may
believe that an environmentalist hypothesis will someday
explain them, but she cannot deny them. Even she must
admit that belief in male/female difference is perfectly
reasonable. People think of the typical physicist as male
simply because almost all physicists have been male. "Liberated" movies and novels which ostentatiously present
female detectives, etc. are so jarring precisely because
their self-conscious implausibility destroys the suspension
of disbelief. My wife asks her question because many
women have derived fame from the fame of their husbands or lovers. To pretend this is not so is to refuse to
face facts and to handicap oneself at such practical tasks
as winning at twenty questions.
Even if the apparent differences between men and
women are the result of conditioning-a hypothesis that
can only be invoked after the innateness hypothesis has
been refuted and some other hypothesis, however ad hoc,
must be invoked-classifying traits as "masculine" and
"feminine" is too well founded to be called prejudice.
Even if there is a shortage of brilliant female composers
because a conspiracy barred women from conservatories,
it is not "sexist prejudice" to expect the next Mozart to be
male.
For all its contribution to modern science, the work of
Copernicus managed to convince the learned world of a
great falsehood: that things are usually not what they
seem. Descartes was only the first of many thinkers who,
shaken by the discovery that the sun's motion is merely
37
�apparent, resolved to regard his senses as liars until
proven truthful, his ordinary beliefs guilty until proven
innocent.
In fact, the instance of Copernicus and the others
stressed by such champions of scientific revolution as
Kuhn and Feyerabend are rare and anomalous. Most
things do turn out, under critical scrutiny, to be as they
seem. Bread really nourishes, water does extinguish fire,
appeasement encourages bullies, and on and on. What
science tells us is why and how these things are so, not
that they are illusions.
I stress this because the falsehood that most scientific
discoveries undo common sense is, I suspect, one of the
main supports of the currently rampant scepticism about
sex differences. Because common experience points over·
whelmingly to important intrinsic differences between
the sexes, it is inferred that the job of science, in this case
social science, is to explain these differences away. What
the history of science should lead one to expect is that, on
the contrary, deeper inquiry will explain the gender differ·
ences revealed by ordinary experience.
But the acid test of the "prejudice" theory is whether
society would abandon belief in gender differences in the
face of evidence to the contrary. This question must be
carefully distinguished from several others. Since the
belief at issue concerns general tendencies, ignoring ex·
ceptions is not prejudice. One can consistently believe
that men are better at mathematics than women while ad·
miring the work of Emmy Noether. Furthermore, a belief
may be important without being irrationally fixed, and
serve a need which is profound but healthy. A belief may
thus be painful to surrender without being a prejudice.
For instance, a man finds it important that his wife's per·
sonality complement rather than copy his own. He meets
enough duplicates of himself in the impersonal world of
work to want something else at home. The suggestion
that the complementarity he prizes is an artifact will natu·
rally disturb him. 5 But this does not mean that his belief
channels guilt or fortifies a weak ego, or that he is wrong
to demand convincing arguments before he accepts the
suggestion.
Nor is the irritation felt by many men at the (alleged) in·
flux of women into "non-traditional" fields evidence that
belief in sex differences is held with prejudicial tenacity.
This outrage is directed against coercion, not against a
challenge to faith. It is provoked by the pressure-group
agitation, lawsuits, and doctrinaire federal fiats that force
women on them. Changes that no one would mind or take
much note of had they occurred through necessity or
social evolution (like the influx of women into factories
during World War II, or the replacement of men by wo·
men as telephone operators earlier in this century) are bit·
terly resented when imposed by ideologues.
Feminists might want to cite, as proof of "sexist prejudice," those famous experiments in which graders gave
the same test a higher grade when told that the testee was
"Norman" than when told the testee was "Norma." (I will
38
not here go into the serious issues that can be taken with
the design and replicability of these experiments, or the
ways in which they have been reported.) Even this evidence is equivocal. If a professor has found over many
years that females write inferior philosophy examinations,
it is reasonable for him to anticipate that the next female
philosophy examination will be inferior. His expectation
will, of course, influence his perception, but this influence amounts to prejudice only if there is no "feedback
loop" by which a run of good female tests can correct his
expectation. A baseball scout used to minor-league incompetence can reasonably attribute a B-league shutout to
atrocious hitting rather than good pitching. His attitude
toward the winning pitcher is prejudice only if he continues to denigrate the pitcher's fastball after it has been
clocked at 97 mph. To return to those grading experiments-there is, however, no evidence that teachers persist in anticipating poorer Norma performances after a
string of good Norma tests. (It is in any case worth remembering in this connection that the tests which provide the
chief quantitative evidence for differences in male/female
aptitudes are standardized and computer graded.)
The performance of women in the military hardly challenges the belief that women cannot do some jobs that
men can, since women have been accommodated by lowered standards. Barriers on obstacle courses, for example,
have literally been lowered so females can get over them.
It is an open secret that universities have compromised
their standards to accomodate "affirmative action" and
live in dread of lawsuits filed by females denied tenure. As
a result, it is impossible to gauge the performance of
women against the standards of scholarship men have had
to meet. Such assessment is made especially difficult by
the great number of academic women who specialize in
"women's studies" and cognate made-up subjects in other
disciplines, subjects in which expertise is the ability to
perpetuate the anger that created them. Throughout
1979 the New York Times chronicled the troubles of the
First Women's Bank, floundering despite a Federal law
mandating assistance to firms with a "substantial"
number of female managers. This law makes it impossible
to tell if women can do as well as men in the realm of
finance.
The closer one looks the harder it becomes to evaluate
the acid test. There is no way of saying how men might
react to evidence against sex differences, because there
isn't any such evidence. The anthropological uevidence" is
fanciful or worse.6 The most recent psychological and
neurological research supports the view that women are
more verbal than men, men more at home with spatial abstractions, and so on.? Indeed, these studies are so decisive
that feminists have lately started to shift the focus of the
debate by trying to minimize rather than, as in the 1960's,
denying gender differences. For instance, Drs. Macoby
and Jacklin insist that of the thousands of variables they
studied, men and women differ "only" in four: verbal ability, spatial visualization, mathematical ability, and aggresAliTUMN 1981
�siveness. This is like saying that the difference between
me and Pavarotti is insignificant because he and I differ
"only" with respect to girth and the ability to sing.
Others who are at least willing to face the scientific
facts 8 stress that intra-gender variations far exceed the difference between gender means: e.g. men average about 6"
taller than women, but the tallest man is about 4' taller
than the shortest man. This is so, but it hardly shows that
inter-gender differences are trivial. Even though Wilt
Chamberlain is much, much bigger than I am, I remain
much bigger than most women.
There is, then, not a shred of support for the view that
the ordinary attitudes of ordinary people toward the sexes
are prejudice, and hence more reason to doubt that "sexism" is the name of anything in heaven or earth.
B
EFORE ADOPTING A STUDIED incomprehension toward those who find "sexism" richly informative, let
us recur to our reflections about words as vehicles
for negative emotions. One can make a kind of sense of
Hsexism" in three stages. First, take "sexism" as the fern·
inist uses it to refer to the conviction that men and
Nomen differ. Second, take her to believe that many people subscribe to this conviction and are in this sense "sexists." Third, to explain why "sexism" is a term of abuse,
attribute to the feminist rage at the existence of these differences and people's acknowledgement of them. The
feminist's usage now becomes quite coherent: "sexism"
denotes a fact of nature while expressing outrage at this
fact and its universal recognition.
If this is the real meaning of "sexism," it is a very mis·
chievous word. Its negative charge invites us not to believe-to insist that it is bad to believe-what can be
shown to be so. Insofar as "sexism" refers to sex differ·
ences themselves, "sexism" invites a negative response to
a fact of nature, a response as inappropriate as annoyance
at the law of gravity.
Only two obstacles impede attributing this array of beliefs and resentments to the feminist. (1) She herself is unlikely to agree that this is what she means by "sexism,"
and would probably repudiate it angrily. (2) Rage at the
workings of D?ture is a peculiar and perverse emotion;
such alientation is rare and should not be imputed to anyone without good grounds.
As for (I), people often deceive themselves about what
they are doing with words and about the feelings that lie
behind the ready use of a phrase. Such blind willingness
to let language do the work of thought is a hallmark of
ideological rhetoric. There is no other way to explain, for
example, the evident sincerity of politicians who call the
forced transfer of income "compassion."
As for (2), it is not hard to understand this particular
form of alienation. Modern society rationalizes tasks,
thereby making them less expressive. Male and female impulses remain to be expressed, but it is no longer easy to
tell by inspection what is a "male" activity and what is
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
"female." Warming a TV dinner is not especially nurturant, nor does riding a bus to work satisfy the urge to
dominate. Western industrial society tends to separate
people from a sense of their own gender and hence their
own identity.' Combine this phenomenon with the radical
egalitarianism and environmentalism of the last half-century,
and widespread gender confusion becomes inevitable 10
A woman who is ill at ease with her essential identity,
who has lost the sense of the values peculiar to her sex
and to herself as a member of her sex, cannot very well admit this to herself. No ego can support such self-hate,
such loss of meaning. But the emotion is there, and the
ego must do something with it. Freud first identified the
process by which the psyche resolves such tensions: the
ego can recognize an unacceptable emotion by projecting
it onto someone else. By calling her self-hate the hatred of
others, and confirming the attribution by endlessly reviling
her imaginary enemies, the feminist can transform a sense
of worthlessness into a sense of moral superiority.
Taking this to be the real function of "sexism" explains
more than how usexism" has acquired such emotional
freight while failing to attach itself to a recognizable object. It connects as well with the larger distrust of human
sexuality that is becoming increasingly evident in the soidisant "women's movement," a distrust fully compatible
with its ritual paeans to sexual activity and to abortion as a
right coequal with free speech. In addressing the fear that
further obliteration of sex roles in the interest of "nonsexist"
childrearing will increase the incidence of homosexuality,
Letty Pogrebin writes "Homophobia, not homosexuality,
is the disease of our times/' and uour fear of lesbianism
for ourselves and our daughters may really be fear of selfhood and freedom." 11
Res ipsa loquitur.
F "SEXISM" IS SO CONFUSED, why worry about it? Since
words that mark no salient fact or distinction usually
fall into disuse, it would seem that "sexism" is destined
to go the way of the names of the humours. Unfortunately,
the situation is complicated by the immense power of
"sexism" to intimidate. No one knows what the label
means, but everyone-especially politicians-knows he is
in for trouble if the label is pinned on him. People have
learned to avoid at all costs doing or saying anything that
attracts it. Feminists have thus perfected a tool for stigmatizing beliefs that they do not like but which they cannot
discredit on rational grounds. The self-evident beliefs
most people hold about human nature have been called
"sexist" so often and so angrily that continuing to hold
them now carries a heavy price. People would rather surrender them than endure the anger and internalized misgivings that holding them provokes. Feminists are not
likely to surrender lightly so apt a tool as "sexism."
A parable and a precedent may serve to suggest the
I
39
�harm done by the persistence of "sexism" in public discourse.
L Suppose an influential group of people began referring to the belief that automobiles should move in
traffic lanes as "stupidism" (or "traffickism"), a word
they always used with rage. They denounced as "stupidist" anyone who thought that if traffic were not
uniform, driving would be too dangerous. Anyone
who requested clarification about why all vehicular
institutions to date were "stupidist" was met with redoubled anger. Through repetition, "stupidism"
would doubtless come to be regarded as more than a
device for expressing rage at the way traffic works.
Eventually, ordinary people-and especially politicians-would start to worry about being called "stupidists." To avoid the imputation of stupidism, they
would, doubtless, begin to agree that traffic should
follow no fixed lanes. They would agree that to say
or even think otherwise was stupidist prejudice. Proponents of "automobile liberation" who gained control of highway policy would denounce the desire to
test the tenets of automobile liberation as the profoundest form of stupidism of all.
I leave to the reader's imagination what a day on the
road would be like.
2. In Nazi Germany, the theory of relativity was called
"Jewish physics." This meant nothing except,
perhaps, the uninteresting fact that the theory of
relativity was invented by a Jew. Enough people
used this phrase, however, and used it vituperatively
enough until-unbelievably, it seems to us-German scientists actually began to disregard the theory
of relativity on the grounds that it was Jewish
physics.
So don't be puzzled when I say words like "sexism" and
"Jewish physics" can mean nothing at all, yet do immense
harm by creating aversion to reasonable beliefs. Happily,
this conditioning can be resisted. My wife usually wins at
twenty questions_IZ
1. The 1980 Report of the President's Advisory Committee for Women
uses "sexism" freely but without explanation. The word occurs most frequently in the subsections ominously headed "Federal Initiatives."
2. The suffix "ism" suggests, often falsely, belief in a doctrine. Socialism is indeed belief in the virtues of a command economy, but "capitalism" -i.e. the practice of anyone who distinguishes what is his from
what is someone else's-typically involves no beliefs at all about economic organization. So here: "sexism" sounds like a doctrine, and "sexists" its followers. Typically, however, practices labelled "sexist" -such
as the use of the generic pronoun "he" -involve no beliefs at all about
the sexes or anything else on the part of those who follow them. Calling
your opponent an "ist" is a good tactic, since most people are sceptical
40
of worldviews and you can thus create an unearned initial distrust for
what you want to attack. I suspect that feminists avoid the word "misogyny" because it carries no connotations of system.
3. See e.g. Iris Mitgang in Commentary, March 1981, 2.
4. Judith Finn made a comparable point simply and well when testifying
before the Senate in connection with the claim that "sexism" and "sex
discrimination" are responsible for pay differences between men and
women:
"Since pay differences are almost completely caused by differences
in jobs rather than the failure to obtain equal pay for equal work,
understanding the earnings gap requires an explanation of the
reasons why women, on the average, hold lower-paying jobs than
men. Women have different job-related attributes and different
amounts of these attributes than men." [Testimony before the U.S.
Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, April 21, 1981;
(my emphasis)]
5. See Bruno Bettleheim, "Notes on the Sexual Revolution," in Surviving New York 1979.
6. For the anthropological material on male dominance, see Steven
Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy, 2nd ed., London 1977. Martin
Whyte has lately offered the Semang (HRAF, AN7) as a matriarchy in
The Status of Women in Pre-Industrial Societies, Princeton 1978. Goldberg replies in " 'Exceptions' to the Universality of Male Dominance,"
to appear.
7. Even avowed feminists concede important psychological differences:
see e.g. E. Macoby and C. Jacklin, The Psychology of Sex Differences,
Stanfmd 1974.
8. Not all scientists are. The Newsweek of May 18, 1981, carried that
magazine's millionth cover story on "the sexes," which concludes, after
much divagation and vague talk about man's ability to "transcend his
genes," that the latest research demonstrates gender differences built in
by hormones. The editors, perhaps trying to defuse the issue, quote the
geneticist Richard Lewontin to the effect that the whole question is
"garbage from old barroom debates," as if that renders the question
meaningless. Egalitarian fundamentalists are also fond of citing silly
nineteenth century phrenological theories, as if that undercuts modern
research.
9. Edward Levine and his associates have explored this topic in a series
of papers in the Israel Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines (1966,
1971, 1972, 1974), Adolescent Psychiatry (1977) and The American Journal
of Psychiatry (1977).
l 0. This hypothesis predicts parallel if not similar effects among men,
and such effects are appearing. For instance, homosexuality among
black males is increasing sharply, just as urbanization, welfare, AFDC,
and other boons of modern life destroy the black family.
11. Growing Up Free, New York 1980.
12. In an essay entitled "Research on IQ, Race and Delinquency" (in
Taboos in Criminology, ed. E. Sagarin, London 1980, 37-66), Robert
Gordon has occasion to ponder the word "racism" as it is used nowadays of scientists like Arthur Jensen. He concludes that this epithet does
no work whatever: "Clearly, if a scientist reports or hypothesizes ... a
non-trivial difference, perhaps genetic in origin, between racial groups .. .
we have added nothing to the content of discourse by describing him in
addition as a 'racist.' Employed in this way, the term is simply redun·
dant. ... But 'racist' is used in a second sense .... In this sense, use of
the term 'racist' conveys something in addition to the first sense that is
not easily communicated by other means, something plainly unscientific
and gratuitously invidious." Just replace "racism" by "sexism" here and
you have in a nutshell what I have taken many pains to say. The point
itself is obvious to Gordon, to me, and I daresay to anyone who reflects
on the issue for a single moment. Unfortunately, explaining the obvious
involves lessons more complicated than what the lesson is intended to
convey.
AUTUMN 1981
�Going To See The Leaves
Linda Collins
to go to Vermont to see the
leaves, and to invite their son and his wife to go with
them. They could stay, she said, in a really nice inn,
and go for walks, and on Saturday, if it was warm, they
could find a meadow to picnic in with a view of the moun-
I
T WAS MRS. CHILD'S IDEA,
tains.
She had suggested the plan rather tentatively: there
would be a lot of driving, and it would be sure to be quite
expensive, putting up all four. Besides, she was hesitant
about making outright proposals. She preferred to agree
to the suggestions made by others.
HAnd on Sunday," she said, "there is a concert we
might want to go to. And start home from there."
But Thomas agreed at once. He said, "Yes, let's."
Elizabeth felt that he had agreed too quickly, there was
no chance now for her to explain why it was a good idea,
no chance for them to talk about Luke and his wife,
Sarah. Thomas said, "Yes, let's," in a voice that sounded
as though he was putting his newspaper up before his
face. Yes, they should go, Elizabeth needed something.
Elizabeth did want something. It had been at one time
Thomas who used to say, "Let's take Lukie out West." He
had suggested a trip to Kenya, to the Serengeti. One of
his partners had gone there and advised him to go soon
while the animals were still thriving and before Luke was
too old to want to travel with his parents. Thomas's partner
had said it would be the experience of a lifetime. But Elizabeth hadn't wanted to go and so they had stayed home
and gone to the seaside for a week when Luke came home
from camp. But recently Elizabeth thought about places
to go, where, she didn't quite know, while Thomas now
wanted to stay at home in the evening and on long weekends, as well as on his month's vacation.
Thomas did not know what made him agree so quickly
to Elizabeth's suggestion. Still, the proposal struck him as
one that would accomplish something that should be accomplished, touched his underlying understanding of
things, for even to himself his "Yes, let's" sounded too
quickly after his wife's, "Dear?"
HOMAS DROVE, although Luke had offered to drive.
After New Haven, they started north. A blue light,
soft and even, spread from one part of the sky to the
other. It was hot.
Thomas drove, looking straight ahead. Sarah sat behind
Elizabeth, looking out the window. Her hair blew across
T
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
her mouth. She pushed it away with the back of her hand.
Luke turned this way and that, trying to find space for his
long legs. His mother saw his profile and the full, sculptured curve of his lips. He ran his big fingers through his
blond hair which sprang up again after his fingers had
passed.
Elizabeth said: "We used to sing on drives."
Luke began: "Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the belly in
the barn."
Sarah: "But the doctor said t'wouldn't do her any harm."
The two young people sang out with their loud strong
voices. They heard themselves. Their voices shook their
chests and vibrated in their throats. Sarah tried to outsing
Luke, she sent her voice from her diaphragm, a soldier in
her cause. Luke heard the challenge but would have none
of it. He had no doubt he could wrestle her to the ground,
pin her, outsing her, but she would not accept this. Thomas
sang with them, then fell silent. Elizabeth hummed.
They passed a clump of low red bushes on the grassy
divider. Elizabeth said she hoped they had not come too
early, that the leaves would have reached the height of
their color.
They drove past the domes and cylinders of Hartford.
There were many cars on the highway with out-of-state
plates.
"I wonder how many of these cars are going to see the
leaves," said Elizabeth. She had a strong response to the
idea of people being brought together; the periodicity of
things moved her, and the discovery of community in unexpected places.
Sarah opened her camera case. She loaded three cameras.
"There," she said.
"Black and white?" said Elizabeth, looking over her
shoulder. "For the leaves? Why black and white?"
"She takes a dim view of color," said Luke.
"Oh, Luke," said Sarah. "I want to try to do something
with the leaves. With the light. I don't want just to gawk
at the color."
"You know, in Japan, people swarm to the hillsides to
see the leaves," said Elizabeth, while to herself she said
that Sarah was not being rude to her, only eager about her
work.
Linda Collins's stories have appeared in The Hudson Review and other
magazines.
41
�"Well, so do we. That's just what we're doing, isn't it?
How is it different?" Luke pressed Sarah and his mother
both.
"Nobody calls them 'leafies' in japan," said Sarah.
"How do you know?" asked Luke. "How do you know
there aren't just as many scoffers in japan as here?''
"Peering out from behind screens and saying 'See the
reafies' to one another." Sarah took up Luke's scenmio
with a certain excitement. She tried to adorn it, expand it,
but Luke let it go, turned to the window, and Sarah's
voice trailed off.
Thomas said nothing. He was the driver. He was the
person behind the wheel, taking his wife where she
wanted to go, ferrying the young people. It brought a sort
of peace to him. He had, when he was young, harbored
the idea of some outcome for himself. It had been unclear
to him what it would be, but that it would be, had seemed
unquestionable. For most of his life, he had taken courage
from the thought that a task awaited him. Thomas was still
strong, still smooth muscled and fit. Recently, the thought
had come to him that perhaps the rest of his life would be
no different from the way things were now, that he would
not be called upon. Recently, he had found he could no
longer contemplate his wife in an erotic fashion. Nothing
was said about this. He meant to speak about it, but it
seemed unspeakable. He could not raise the subject. He
was not sure whether the reason was that he feared to
hurt her or that he hesitated to embarrass himself. Sometimes he wished for old age when the issue would be, he
thought, dead.
Soon they would pass Deerfield, where Thomas had
spent his years from thirteen to seventeen. As the little
school buildings came into view, Elizabeth, as she always
did, turned her head to look at them across the fields.
They seemed far away and very small. There Thomas had
played ice hockey and read Ethan Frome. In the early
morning, in all seasons, thick white fog had sat in the low
places in the valley. In spring, limp yellow strings had blossomed on the birch trees. When his parents came to visit,
they took him out to lunch in Greenfield. His father asked
him how things were going. His mother told him what his
cousins and aunts were doing. He felt very small, very
young. It seemed at each visit that he and his parents
were growing farther apart. He no longer cried when they
left. He knew it was untenable to love them.
"How come you didn't send Luke to Deerfield?" asked
Sarah.
"Thomas hated Deerfield. They snapped towels at
him." Elizabeth was always outraged that his parents had
sent him off so young and tender.
But I didn't hate it, Thomas was thinking. That he had
been lonely as a child had seemed only ordinary. He had
merely waited for the end of childhood.
In school, he had walked from building to building. He
had seen, as the morning fog lifted, the color of the leaves,
which had grown stronger during the night. No child remarked to another on the color or observed aloud that the
42
trees, which had been green when school started, were
now orange, or red. The children noticed the leaves but
said nothing.
In the autumn, he had run cross-country; in winter, he
wrestled. He grew, he felt himself to be merely the container of his strength. Who could tell how much stronger
he might become? Running through tunnels of copper
leaves, he thought of nothing but persisting. In winter
afternoons in the wrestling room, he heard the thunder of
the basketball team overhead. In january, the daylight was
gone by the time he got to the gym. Under yellow lightbulbs in their metal cages, he lifted weights and practiced
his moves. On Saturday, all honed and pure, he struggled
with another youth. His veins swelled. He scarcely saw his
opponent. It,was all in terms of something else. If I win
this match, then ... what? His thoughts carried him far,
but something lay beyond them. There was something
more than the trophy to be gained.
In the rear-view mirror Thomas caught his son's glance.
Father and son seldom spoke to one another, but each
sometimes intercepted the other's gaze. Now Thomas
swung out into the passing lane and pressed the accelerator to the floor, causing Elizabeth to sway forward against
her seat belt, and the maps to slide along the top of the
dashboard. Exhaust fumes entered the car as he passed
first one trailer truck, then another, and pulled back into
his lane.
"Thomas, my goodness," said Elizabeth.
As they crossed into Vermont, the color in the trees
intensified.
"Oh, look," said Elizabeth, as they left the Connecticut
Valley and started up into the orange hills, "this really is
the peak. We came at the right time."
I
N THE MORNING, Thomas and Luke got up first. They
met in the hall, testing the locks of the doors they were
closing upon their wives who had not yet risen. Sunlight blazed at a little window at the end of the hall.
Thomas waited for Luke to reach him. He felt a shy excitement which he was scornful of, but nonetheless he
wondered what he could offer Luke that might please
him. Luke approached, bending a little under the low ceiling of the hallway, and together they went down the uneven, carpeted stairs to the dining room.
In the morning light, between butterings and bites and
swallows, Thomas examined his son. He felt able to look
at Luke in a way he could not in his wife's presence. He
was anxious to make his observations acutely and quickly,
before Elizabeth should appear. Luke's skin was fresh, he
looked rested, but what Thomas had thought he had detected yesterday was true, his hair was beginning to
recede. Thomas reached up to touch his own hairline, but
he blurred the gesture by stroking his head where the hair
was still thick.
How old is Luke? he thought. Is he twenty-five or
AUTUMN 1981
�already twenty-six?· Thomas hoped he was only twentyfive.
Luke held his fork with the tines down and pressed a
neatly cut, five-layered mound of pancake into the maple
syrup which had pooled at the outer edge of his plate.
When the syrup had all disappeared into the pancake, he
leaned over his plate and brought the forkful to his
mouth. It was winking with syrup. When he had finished,
he drank the last of his milk, tilting the glass, and then
turned to his coffee.
"Good?" said Thomas. "Did you enjoy your breakfast?"
"Listen, Daddy," said Luke. "I know that you are worried about me. And Mommy is, too. I know that. But
don't. Or do. I know you can't help it. I will be all right."
The morning sun moved in the sky just enough to brilliantly strike the water glasses and the restaurant silver on
the table, flinging blades of light on the walls. The table
cloth was too white to look at. For that moment Thomas
felt that Luke was the father and he was the son. He
wanted to say something to Luke that would be true. At
the £arne time he wanted to say something that would
make him be the father again. He raised his eyes from the
quivering light and saw that Elizabeth and Sarah were
standing in the doorway of the dining room.
~~There you arel" said Elizabeth.
Thomas and Luke stood up. Elizabeth wore a white cardigan over a blouse with little lavender dots, and a blue
denim skirt. She was wearing pink lipstick. Her "There
you are!" had sounded so loud in the dining room that she
was surprised. She crossed quickly from the dim hall to
the bright square of sunlight where Thomas and Luke
were standing, letting herself smile only when she had
reached them. Sarah followed. She wore an olive shirt
with many pockets. When she moved her head, her long
straight hair parted in places, and Luke could see the little
turquoise earrings his parents had given her. She seldom
wore jewelry and he was glad she had put them on.
"How lucky we are!" said Elizabeth and smoothed her
skirt under her as she bent to sit down on the chair
Thomas was holding. "What a beautiful day it is!"
Luke winced at the eagerness and timidity with which
his mother, dressed like a child, had crossed the room.
Both his mother and father had blue eyes. To Luke, it
seemed that they both peered at him as if to see what was
inside his head. Their look seemed to try to exact something from him, some agreement; for instance, as now,
that it was indeed a beautiful day, and since all were
agreed on that, all of one mind, some further harmony
was bound to follow. The mild questioning look of his
mother and father peering at him made him say: "Let's
get this show on the road," but when he realized that his
mother and Sarah had not even ordered yet, he sat back,
abashed.
Thomas ordered Granola for Sarah and muffins for
Elizabeth. While they ate, the men drank more coffee,
and together they agreed on a plan for the day.
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
FTER LUNCH, it took a while to get comfortable.
They shook the crumbs off the two blankets and
·spread them out again to rest on, but they had picnicked in a mown field and the ground was stubbly. Finally, they moved the blankets to the far edge of the field
under the trees where the grass was soft. Thomas was reluctant to leave the car so far out of sight, but Luke said
he wanted to take a nap and Sarah had her tripod and
filters ready and was eager to get to work. For a while, as
they carried the blankets across the field, sending up
showers of crickets with each step, it seemed they were
making too much fuss. Elizabeth tried not to seem to be
arranging things. She knew there could be a reaction
against her for being too managing, too motherly, but she
was willing, right now, to risk it. What had they driven all
this way for, if not for this? Nonetheless, as they walked,
she hung back, not to be first. Thomas took the lead, and
Luke walked with him. The sun shone through the rims
of their ears. Sarah noticed this and said to Elizabeth:
''The sun is shining through their ears." Elizabeth was offended that this young woman should speak so familiarly
about her son's ears, her husband's.
"I think Luke might go back to school next semester,"
said Sarah in a soft voice. Elizabeth knew she was anxious
lest Luke hear them talking about him.
When the blankets were smoothed out, Luke stretched
himself out on the plaid one and folded his arms over his
chest.
"Night," he said from under closed eyes.
Sarah looked at him, the length of him on the blanket,
occupying it fully.
''I'm going to take some wide-angle shots," she said,
with a lift of her chin, and she picked up her tripod and
bag and stalked off down the field.
And so, wheh Elizabeth and Thomas lay down on their
blanket, having carefully made room for one another, the
family was together, mother, father, and son.
After a bit, Luke opened his eyes and turned his head
towards his mother. She was lying on her back with her
eyes closed. The afternoon sun struck her full in the face.
A lavender vein moved stepwise across her eyelid. The lid
was rose-colored; the edge of the lid looked moist and it
trembled slightly. Her yellow-gray hair lay in flattened
coils under the weight of her head. Above her upper lip
fine hairs shone in the light, and from the red cave of her
nostril long yellow hairs emerged. Luke touched his own
nostril and felt the stiff hairs that stuck out of his nose. He
raised himself on one elbow and looked beyond his
mother. His father lay beside her. Briefly, he saw them
both up close, enormous, as though in a fever, or through
a lens. Their faces were magnified in his eyes, for a second
they occupied the entire landscape.
With a guilty heart, he sat up straight and felt in his buttoned-down shirt pocket for a marijuana cigarette. At the
sound of the match striking, both his parents opened their
eyes. As he inhaled the smoke, his father said, "Do you
have to do that, Lukie?" and he said, "Yes, Daddy, I do."
A
43
�He sat with his knees up, one arm around them, holding
his cigarette with his free hand. His parents sat up and
began to brush bits of grass off their sweaters. Leaves, the
color of apricots, with an occasional speck of light green,
were falling from the tree above.
"There's Sarah," said Elizabeth.
Sarah was at the lower end of the meadow. It was diffi·
cult to tell how far away she was. She looked tiny and
there was nothing to measure her by.
Elizabeth stood up and waved, but the sun was behind
her. "Saaa-rah." She gave a sort of yodel. Sarah turned in
their direction but Luke knew that all she could see was
the afternoon sun. They watched her walking up the
slope with her awkward, determined stride. She could as
well have been an utter stranger.
Luke gently tapped his cigarette on a rock in the wall
behind him. When he was quite sure it was out, he pinched
the end, and folded the remains in a bit of paper which he
carefully returned to his shirt pocket. Then he stood up
and in long strides ran the length of the field to Sarah who
was standing at the edge of the woods in a drift of leaves.
She watched him running towards her. The opening and
closing of his legs gave her the impression he was running
in slow motion and she started to reach for her camera,
but he got to her too soon, before she was ready. She
hadn't got the lens cap off when he grabbed her and held
his arms around her. "Oh, Sarah, don't leave me," he said.
She felt his heart leaping like an animal in a cage, she
smelled his sweat and felt the moisture on his neck and
face.
"I wasn't going to leave you," she said, but she felt, as
usual, a certain confusion, an apprehension. Why had he
lain down in the field in front of his mother and father
and taken up the whole blanket? Didn't that mean she
should leave him? How could they be going to lead their
whole lives together? Where was comfort to come from,
where was happiness? From passion? Perhaps, but it was
unreliable. Who was this man, this blond man? How had
she come to lie down with a stranger?
The sun was veiled, as a thin skin of clouds rose in the
west. As the light in the sky paled, the radiance of the
leaves increased. Something solemn and important was
happening in the woods. A chill crept over the meadow.
Luke's lips nuzzled Sarah's neck. His knee pressed between her legs. She saw the small figures of Elizabeth and
Thomas leave the far edge of the field and move toward
them over the stubble. Luke inserted his hand under the
waist of her jeans in the back and reached down to feel
her buttocks, thin and clenched.
"Luke," said Sarah, twisting about, "don't. Don't do
that."
Luke began to laugh. He wanted to wrestle with her, to
push her down in the leaves. The smell of the woods rode
upon the cooling air which poured into the meadow, carrying with it the smell of moss, of mushrooms, of rot, of
black mud, of rotting stumps and the rotting bodies of
small animals, of chipmunks, rats, mice, squirrels, of
44
everything that dies in the woods. The smell of decaying
leaves and decomposition was delicious, it appeared suddenly and turned thoughts to the secrets that lie in the
forest. Luke pressed against Sarah.
~~Later," said Sarah.
"I would like to go into the woods with you now," said
Luke.
He pressed his knee against the hard double seam of
her blue jeans. She stepped back and let herself fall to the
ground. The wind blew a hard gust. Above, the ash tree
let loose a shower of leaves, yellow, the color of dark mustard. They lay in the leaves, laughing.
"OK," said Sarah, in a soft voice, as Luke's parents,
smiling uneasily, drew near, "later."
Elizabeth slept and
woke, hearing the wind and the tap of branches
against the window of the unfamiliar room. She lay
in bed and thought about the leaves and their drying
stems and the trees they dance upon as they try to leave.
She thought about how hard it is for them to leave. The
tree sends juices, the leaf clings; the wind blows and the
leaf turns, spins, bends back upon its stem.
She went to the window and stood looking out. Her
bare feet on the wooden floor made her feel like a girl.
The room was cold. She heard the wind and saw that the
leaves were still falling in the dark. It was a grave matter
that all the leaves were falling, but she was very glad she
had come to see them.
T
T
HE WIND BLEW ALL NIGHT LONG.
in what had been a Congregationalist church, square and white, which had
been renovated to accommodate its new function.
Moulded stackable seats replaced the pews, and recording
equipment stuck out of the pulpit. On the floor, wires
trailed.
It took most of the first movement for Elizabeth to
begin to concentrate. She had to remind herself to pay at·
tention to the sound which drummed or gurgled in her
head, memorably, she thought, but no sooner had the first
bit opened into its development than it was gone. And she
couldn't get it back. She criticized herself, but at the same
time wondered if she was alone in this failing, or whether
there were others like herself who were confused.
The cellist plucked a loose strand from his bow and
poised himself to plunge in again. The cello was pale,
almost yellow; the viola was red. The two violins were similar in color, but one glittered, the smaller one. The second violinist was a woman who wore a long dress of bright
green. The dress was sleeveless and the woman's arms
were white. Elizabeth thought it was no doubt a C<Jnvenience for her not to have sleeves. A loose sleeve would
get in the way, and a tight-fitting sleeve would pull under
the arms, or at the elbow. And yet the young woman was
HE CONCERT WAS PLAYED
AUTUMN 1981
�exposed, and her arms seemed very private, with everyone looking on. Of the four players she was the only
woman. She was neither pretty nor ugly. From time to
time, as she played, she gave her head a shake, and her
smooth brown hair crested and fell back into place. The
first violinist played, and she waited, holding her violin
upright on her thigh. When he had played for several mea·
sures, she raised her violin and held it under her chin, let·
ting the bow hang loose from her right hand, watching the
other players, and nodding her head, until, with a sudden
deliberate movement, she lifted the bow and began to
play vigorously. Her thin arm went rapidly up and down.
The four leaned toward one another as they played. The
music was loud and strong. Then the three others plucked
their instruments and the woman in green played alone.
Afternoon light fell in stripes upon the listeners. In the
darkness between the stripes, motes of dust floated. Eliza·
beth held her breath. Something wonderful was happen·
ing. The music rose from the platform and spread to fill
the space above. The sound resonated upon whatever it
touched, the beams in the ceiling, the planked floor, the
walls. The first violinist and the woman in green were
playing sweetly and loudly to one another, while the
others sustained them with arpeggios. As he finished
drawing his bow and with a subtle gesture of his wrist was
preparing to return it, she was drawing hers to its tip. Her
head was bent down so her chin touched her chest, and
her arms were spread wide apart. Her face was hidden.
Only the top of her bowed head could be seen. The
sounds she was pulling from her instrument were the
sounds of tearing, the sound of something long being torn
in two. The cello and viola fell silent and then the first via·
linist stopped playing as though to honor the last of her
long trembling notes. Elizabeth thought: Then there is no
happiness. A rush of courage filled her completely, and
she thought, I can bear it, now that I know.
From above a peculiar noise distressed her. She realized
it had been pressing upon her for some time and she had
been resisting it, as though holding a door shut against a
great force, but now she gave way. She looked up. On a
ledge under one of the high windows, birds were sitting.
One fluttered out, circled and landed. The others chirped
and shrilled. It was a shocking breach. Could the players
hear? Elizabeth would have liked to do something to save
the situation, but that was ludicrous. What could she do?
Nothing, she thought, but sit there and wait it out. Dis·
tracted, she waited for the quartet to finish.
When the concert was over and the players had come
back several times to bow to the audience, which was
standing to applaud, Elizabeth turned around to look up
at the eaves. The birds had disappeared, but she thought
she saw straw sticking out from one of the high joists. The
glare of the lights caught a feather which was floating
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
down in an uneven way, impelled by whatever drafts
reigned up there.
Luke followed her gla:rrce. He put his arm around her.
"Did they bother you, the birds?" he said.
Love for him weakened her. She wanted to sit down.
She did not want Thomas to see how moved she was, or
Luke either.
"Sparrows, were they?" she asked, turning her face
away slightly to hide her eyes.
"Passer domesticus," he said, evoking thus the days
when he and she had walked together, noting the particulars of the world. She had carried with her her bird book
and little jars in which to bring home beetles or whatever
special things they should find. In this manner she had
felt she was molding him into the kind of man she dreamed
for him to become.
In the parking lot, they saw the cellist set his instrument
carefully in the back seat of his car. They said how glad
they were that they had already checked out of the inn,
that they could start home at once. Thomas agreed that
Luke should drive, and so he and Elizabeth sat in the
back.
Thomas reached for Elizabeth's hand.
"I am glad we came," he said.
"Oh, wonderful," said Sarah. "Thank you so much.
Thank you both."
Thomas fell asleep holding Elizabeth's hand. When she
saw that he was deeply asleep, she gently withdrew her
hand. Darkness gathered quickly. As the light sank out of
the air, the sky became dark blue. Sarah and Luke murmured together in the front seat, laughing occasionally.
Then they fell silent. Sarah leaned her head on the headrest. Soon she too was asleep. Elizabeth looked at the red
taillights extending far ahead and the sweep of the lights
of the northbound cars approaching. By the dim light of
the dashboard she could see the line of Luke's cheek and
his brow when he turned his head to look in the side
mirror.
"Mom?" said Luke softly. "Why don't you go to sleep,
too? I'm going to drive very carefully."
"I wasn't worrying," said Elizabeth, quite truthfully,
but nonetheless she too then fell asleep.
Although they had agreed to stop for a bite to eat somewhere near the halfway point, Luke did not stop at all. He
drove peacefully, absorbed in the task of not driving too
fast, or too slowly, in deciding whom to pass and whom to
let pass, checking the fuel gauge and the mileage. No one
woke until he stopped for the toll at the bridge. Both his
parents woke then, and after a minute Sarah, too raised
her head.
"Where are we?" she said.
"Almost home," said Luke. "You were asleep almost
the whole way."
45
�One Day in the Life of the New York Times
and Pravda in the World:
Which is more informative?
Lev Navrozov
To inform is not the raison d'etre of Pravda, for Pravda is.
no source of news for Soviet decision-makers. The latter
have for their daily information a multi-tier system of
their own "closed" (secret) newspapers like White Tass,
just as they have their own "closed" statistics, or their
own "closed" book publishing. The goal of Pravda, as well
as all uopen" media intended for non~decision·makers, is
to assure the Soviet expendable majority (which is to do or
die, not to ask why) as well as all vassals, allies, and supporters all over the globe that they are on the right (winning) side of history.
In contrast, the Western media must be informative, for
the entire population of the Western democracies makes
decisions, if only by voting, in foreign policy, strategy, and
defense, and the New York Times is the main source of
In 1971 Lev Navrozov left Russia for the United States with all of his
son, and mother (his father had been killed in action in the
Second World War). Trained both in the exact sciences (at Moscow Energy Institute) and in languages, he graduated in 1953 from the Institute
of Foreign Languages, Referents' Faculty-a facility, organized on the
specific orders of Stalin, to produce "outstanding experts whose knowledge of Western languages and cultures would not be inferior to that of
well-educated natives of the relevant countries." In Russia he translated
Dostoevsky's The Poor People and Notes from the Deadhouse and Alex·
ander Herzen into English. In 1975 he published The Education of Lev
Navrozov (Harper and Row), a work he had written in English in Russia.
Among his most important articles are: "The Soviet Britannica" (Midstream,
February 1980); "Liberty and Radio Liberty" (Midstream, January 1981);
"What the CIA Knows about Russia" (Commentary, November 1978);
and a series of reviews of recent novels in Chronicles of Culture. In 1979
he founded The Center for the Survival of Western Democracies. This
article is taken from a forthcoming book, What the New York Times
Knows about the World.
family~wife,
46
daily international news for top American decision-makers, including the President of the United States.
In short, for Pravda to be informative is a gratuitous luxury, while in the case of the New York Times, information
is a matter of life and death for the United States and the
entire non·totalitarian world. But is ~<international news"
more informative in the New York Times than in Pravda?
The top New York Times editors seem to be confident
that it is ridiculous even to compare the two newspapers.
Pravda is free to be informative only within its propaganda assignment. The New York Times is free to be as in·
formative as it wishes. Does it not follow therefrom that
the New York Times is as informative as a newspaper can
possibly be?
Who can compare the international news of the New
York Times whose Sunday edition averaged 558 pages per
issue and weighed seven pounds way back in 1967, with
that of Pravda which still consists of six pages?
In a book of generous self-appreciation written by fortyeight Timesmen," one of the contributors, Max Frankel,
says that at some point in his sojourn in Moscow as a New
York Times correspondent, he could compose a Pravda text
in advance, without seeing it, With 80 percent accuracy":
11
11
WORLD SERIES ... TASS ... NEW YORK ... The peaceloving peoples' valiant struggle for progress throughout the
world is being obscured in the American monopoly press this
month by a great hullabaloo over what American sport finan·
ciers arrogantly call a world championship. Not only the
heroic sportsmen of the Great Socialist Camp but even
America's poorer allies are barred from the games ... 1
We will see if Mr. Frankel's composition is good even as
a parody. Alas, the fact that Pravda is a sensitive and
AU1UMN 1981
�powerful totalitarian tool in an evil cause does not mean
that it consists, as Mr. Frankel assures us, of moronic gobbledygook, in contrast to the New York Times, "by every
objective criterion the most thorough, most complete,
most responsible newspaper that time, money, talent, and
technology in the second half of the twentieth century
had been able to produce," to quote Harrison Salisbury's
Without Fear or Favor.
Unfortunately, utotalitarian" and "evil" does not mean
"stupid" or "funny." Nor should it be forgotten that freedom means in particular the freedom to ascend to the infinite heights of genius as well as the freedom to descend to
the incredible depths of ignorance, stupidity, or general
personality degradation, as is exemplified by Walter
Durante of the New York Times who is now recognized,
even by Harrison Salisbury, to have been perhaps the
worst non-Communist falsifier of information on Russia
in the twenties and thirties.
So let us turn to Pravda and the New York Times as they
are, not as the "top Timesmen" assume them to be. As a
sample for comparison I take the issues of both newspapers dated February 18, 1975, a date I picked at random as
I scanned the New York Times for Cambodia-related
reports and articles.
In its "News Summary and Index" the New York Times
lists five news items as the "major events of the day." The
first of them the newspaper summarizes as follows:
International
Secretary of State Kissinger and Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet Fareign Minister, completed their talks in Geneva still in
disagreement over the Middle East. After five hours of discus-
sion on the Middle East, Mr. Gromyko told newsmen that
"there were questions on which our positions did not exactly
coincide." Mr. Kissinger said he concurred with that.
The relevant Pravda article is entitled "Joint Communique on the Talks Between A. A. Gromyko and H. Kissinger" and is the text of the official document so named.
The Pravda text is worth reading for seven words near the
end of the following paragraph:
Special attention in the talks between A. A. Gromyko and
H. Kissinger has been paid to the Middle East. Both sides
continue to be concerned about the situation there which remains dangerous. They have confirmed their determination
to do their best for the solution of the key problems of a just
and durable peace in this area on the basis of Resolution 338
of the United Nations Security Council, with due account of
the legitimate interests of all peoples in this area, including
the Palestinian people . ..
The sole purpose of the "talks" and the "Joint Communique" lay for the Soviet side in these seven words, "the legitimate interests of. .. the Palestinian people," which
were to be officially and publicly endorsed by the United
States Government.
The question is: why did the New York Times leave out
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
these seven words in all relevant texts of the issue under
review?
My explanation, based on my studies of the New York
Times in the last sixty years, is that the New York Times
has always tended to conceal unpleasantly dangerous
"sharp angles" of the outside world and show it far more
benign, safe, and peaceful than it really is.
Here in 1975 there still flourished detente, that is, the
unilateral fantasy that the Soviet war-regime is a peaceful,
cooperative if essentially Russian and hence outlandish
society. And suddenly this American recognition of the
"legitimate interests of the Palestinian people" (read: the
establishment of "Arafat's Cuba" at the heart of Israel).
So the Soviet rulers were pushing their global strategic interests just as before-and much more successfully owing
to the American fantasy called "detente"?
This could upset some Americans, especially Jews, and
in the ensuing panic, paranoia, hysteria, they might (God
forbid!) question the meaning of detente itself!
It is true that the tendency of the New York Times to
conceal "sharp angles" becomes strong if the (future)
tyrant and his (future) tyranny can be connected with
"Left-wing" words like ''revolutionary," "progressive,"
"independence," "national liberation," as opposed to
"Right-wing" words like "reactionary," ~<colonialism,"
"imperialism/' "fascism." However, if the tyrant and his
tyranny are dangerous enough, the New York Times
seems to be anxious to play down the danger, no matter
whether it can be connected with Left- or Right-wing
words.
The New York Times was ruthless to Lon Nol's government in Cambodia since whatever its "ineptitude" and
"corruption" were according to the New York Times, even
the latter never suggested that Cambodia under this government was dangerous to any country on earth.
But the more dangerous the regime is the more determined the New York Times seems to be to conceal the
danger, just as some individuals conceal unpleasant news
from everyone around them and even from themselves,
and speak especially well of those who are powerful and
nasty.
Certainly Hitler and his regime could be much more
readily connected with words like "reactionary" or "fascism" than the government of Lon Nol of Cambodia, "inept" and ''corrupt" as it was, according to the New York
Times. But what was the coverage of Hitler and his regime
by the New York Times?
This digression into the past will not be time wasted.
"If the international Jewish financiers (read: the United
States, Britain, and France) go to war with Germany," Hitler stated in the official translation of his speech of January 30, 1939, "the result will be the annihilation of the
Jewish race in Europe." That is, Hitler officially declared
that he regarded the Jews of Germany and any country he
would occupy as hostages whom he would kill off if the
Western democracies tried to interfere with his conquests.
47
�The intention was clear already in 1938 as Dr. Goebbels's Angriff commented on Kristallnacht, the Nazi's ostentatious pogrom of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany on November 10:
For every suffering, every crime and every injury that this
criminal [the Jewry] inflicts on a German anywhere, every in~
dividual jew will be held responsible. All that Judah wants is
war with us, and it can have this war according to its own
moral law: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
"Excerpts" from Hitler's speech of January 30, 1939, occupy pages 6 and 7 of the New York Times. But on the
front page we find an article headlined "Hitler's Advice to
U s. "
I had to read the article twice to get rid of the notion
that the New York Times was being sardonic. No, it was
dead serious. It presented Hitler's speech as Hitler's advice
to the Americans. I reproduce the article in full, down to
the last full stop:
"Hitler's Advice to Us"
Berlin, jan. 30-That part of Chancellor Adolf Hitler's
speech dealing specifically with German-American relations
reads textually as follows:
"Our relations with the United States are suffering from a
campaign of defamation carried on to serve obvious political
and financial interests which, under the pretense that Germany threatens American independence, are endeavoring to
mobilize the hatred of an entire continent against the European States that are nationally governed.
"We all believe, however, that this does not reflect the will
of the millions of American citizens who, despite all that is
said to the contrary by the gigantic Jewish capitalistic propa·
ganda through press, radio and films, cannot fail to realize
that there is not one word of truth in all these assertions.
"Germany wishes to live in peace and on friendly terms
with all countries, including America. Germany refrains from
any intervention in American affairs and likewise decisively
repudiates any American intervention in German affairs.
"The question, for instance, whether Germany maintains
economic relations and does business with the countries of
South and Central America concerns nobody but them and
ourselves. Germany, anyway, is a great and sovereign country
and is not subject to the supervision of American politicians.
"Quite apart from that, however, I feel that all States today
have so many domestic problems to solve that it would be a
piece of good fortune for the nations if responsible statesmen
would confine their attention to their own problems."
There is a story about a class at an American school
writing an essay on poverty, and one girl stating: "That
family was very poor, and their butler was poor, too." The
girl differentiated between wealth and poverty, but the
scale of differentiation was very narrow: the wealthy employ rich butlers, while the poor poor ones. The New York
Times differentiated between good and eviL Stalin's regime was good, and Hitler's eviL But the scale of differentiation was very narrow. From the article entitled "Hitler's
48
Advice to Us" it was clear that Hitler referred to "gigantic
Jewish capitalistic propaganda" and so he was an evil
man. But no more evil than Henry Ford I and other such
reactionaries who used the word "Jewish" in this sense.
And despite this evilness, the German Chancellor's
speech is presented by the New York Times as advice,
good and sensible: he is obviously for peace (the conjecture that Hitler may be for world conquest seems in the
context as outrageous as the conjecture that some poor
family may not employ even a poor butler).
But what about Hitler's warning that the "Jewish race"
in Europe would be annihilated? Surely this was the only
news in Hitler's endless verbiage. And surely this on/y
news was the news of the century, certainly so in New
York where so many Jews lived. The New York Times
tucked away this news of the century into the middle of a
paragraph, lost in the full-page expanses of Hitler's speech
far from the front page. I wonder how many scholars
found it. I have never seen it quoted or recalled anywhere.
On page 6, the New York Times printed within a frame
inside Hitler's speech a summary of the speech as a whole.
The summary is attributed to the Associated Press and entitled "Hitler's Salient Points":
BERLIN, jan. 30.-Following are important quotations from
Chancellor Adolf Hitler's Reichstag speech tonight, as contained in the official translation.
There are four salient points. In point I, subtitled "Colonies," Hitler speaks reasonably and peacefully about the
European colonial powers, though he tactfully mentions
no country. Do usome nations" imagine that ' God has
permitted" them to "acquire the world by force and to defend this robbery with moralizing theories"? The Chancellor suggests a peaceful solution "on the ground of
equity and therefore, also, of common sense."
In point 2, subtitled "Support of Italy," Hitler says, no
less reasonably and peacefully, that Germany will side
with Italy if the latter is attacked.
In point 3, subtitled "Need for Exports," Hitler explains~not only reasonably and peacefully, but indeed in
the tone of a pathetic plea-that the "German nation
must live; that means export or die." "We have to export
in order to buy foodstuffs."
And in point 4, subtitled "Foreign 'Agitators'," Hitler is
again made to present a well-justified plaint: when British
agitators rail at Germany this is considered part of their sacred rights, but when Germany defends herself against
their attacks, this is regarded as an encroachment on these
sacred rights of theirs.
So the forthcoming annihilation of the "Jewish race" in
Europe is not even a salient point of Hitler's speech.
In other words, part of the American media, including
the New York Times, had been seeing the totalitarian regime of Germany as a projection of their own American
middle-class experience. According to this projection, international peace is something like peace in an American
middle-class environment. If you have failed to make a
1
AUTUMN 1981
�deal, do not blame the other side: you have been insufficiently understanding, attentive, accomodating. What on
earth are you trying to say? That Herr Hitler does not
want peace like all of us? Chancellor Adolf Hitler is human, isn't he? Of course, he is a Right-wing reactionary.
So what? What about Henry Ford I? Study the interests of
Germany, especially in trade, try to see its side of the case
(you must admit that its grievances are just), negotiate,
resolve conflicts, settle issues, work out problems, and
sign an agreement to your mutual advantage.
Of course, the highest triumph of this kind was the Munich Agreement of 1938. On October I, 1938, the New
York Times announced it in its banner headline as: "AntiWar Pact."
Prime Minister Wildly Cheered by Relieved LondonersKing Welcomes Him at Palace
By Ferdinand Kuhn, Jr.
London, Sept 30-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had
a hero's welcome on this rainy Autumn evening when he
came back to London, bringing the four-power agreement
and the Anglo-American declaration reaffirming "the desire
of our two peoples never to go to war with one another
again."
"For the second time in our history," he told a wildly cheering crowd in Downing Street, "a British Prime Minister has
returned from Germany bringing peace with honor."
Mr. Chamberlain was comparing himself proudly to Disraeli, who came home amid similar enthusiasm after the Ber-
lin Congress of 1878.
A cynical outsider might have said that part of Czechoslovakia has just been given away to Hitler in exchange for
a piece of paper. The purpose of every conqueror is not
fighting, but conquest The fact that Hitler was taking
over part of Czechoslovakia without a single shot fired
and could and would conquer the rest in the same way
meant that he had won a war without any resistance (the
greatest triumph of every conqueror), not that he desired
~<never
to go to war."
There had been nothing like it here since grateful crowds
surged around David Lloyd George during the victory celebrations of 1918. London usually hides its emotions, and all
this exuberance was more astonishing than a ticker tape parade on Broadway.
Women Almost Hysterical
It had more than a trace of the hysterical about it. Most of
Mr. Chamberlain's welcomers seemed to be women, who
probably had not read the terms of the Munich agreement
but who remembered the last war and all it meant to them.
They flocked from little suburban homes to watch the
Prime Minister pass in his car along the Great West Road
leading into London. They stood outside Buckingham Palace
in pouring rain with newspapers over their hats waiting for
him to arrive for a welcome by King George and Queen
Elizabeth.
The crowd set up such tremendous cheers that Mr. and
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
Mrs. Chamberlain had to appear with the King and Queen
on the
again.
flood~lit
palace balcony as if this were coronation time
And here is a New York Times report from Munich itself:
"Britain and Germany Agree" by Frederick T. Birchall. Munich, Germany, Sept. 30- The whole aspect of European relations has been changed by developments today following
the signature of the four-power agreement over Czechoslovakia in the early hours of this morning.
However, something far more important happened:
The Czechs have consented to the agreement, but far transcending their acceptance in importance to the world at large
are the results of an intimate conversation between Chancel-
lor Adolf Hitler and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in
Herr Hitler's private apartments just before the departure of
the British delegation.
What is the Czech consent to the agreement (that is,
Hitler's conquest of Czechoslovakia) compared in importance to the world at large with an intimate (yes, intimate)
conversation in Herr Hitler's private (yes, private) apartments?
These results were made known in the following joint communique issued after the conversation:
We, the German Fuehrer and Chancellor and the
British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today
and are agreed in recognizing the question of Anglo-German relations as of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe.
We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic of the desire of
our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.
We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be
the method adopted to deal with any other questions that
may concern our two countries, and we are determined to
continue our efforts to remove probable sources of difference and thus contribute to assure the peace of Europe.
Never has a simpler document been issued in history with
consequences more far-reaching or more pregnant with hope.
If the two men who issued it stick to their resolves the peace
of Europe seems assured for a generation at least.
It is to Czechoslovakia that the New York Times devoted about one-tenth of its editorial space:
Czechoslovakia as it stood before the end of last week was
itself the product of a series of major surgical operations made
in 1919 by the framers of the Treaty of Versaille's. As the
world knows, the results of those surgical operations were far
from uniformly happy. The city of Vienna, which had been
the financial heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, became
in many ways a shadow of its former self. The German industries in Bohemia, in becoming part of the new Czechoslovak
State, were torn from most of their previous market in the old
Austria-Hungary. It is partly for this reason that they have suf~
49
�fered so severely that many factories in that district have been
shut down and abandoned, often throwing whole communities into unemployment.
made unmistakably clear to the dictators, who have hitherto
relied upon the threat of force for the achievement of their
ends, that there is a limit beyond which the democracies of
the world will not go. Whatever Hitler may have thought be·
So what was happening to Czechoslovakia was good?
No: there is a serious but.
But if the new territorial amputating and grafting process that
is now going on partly corrects some maladjustments, it is
more likely to create new and more serious ones.
In other words, the New York Times sees Hitler's con·
quest of Czechoslovakia as a split or merger of a corpora·
tion, a mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages.
The message of the editorial is to demonstrate that as
far as the still remaining part of Czechoslovakia is con·
cerned, the new split-and-merger gives it on balance more
disadvantages than advantages. True, it might have been
different:
In a world dominated by pacific sentiments and free trade,
changes in political frontiers might have only a minor economic significance. Trade relations would continue largely in
their accustomed channels, subject to those adjustments
made necessary only by changes in currency, in legal codes,
contract forms and courts, and in the incidence of taxes.
Alas, trade relations are not to continue in their accus·
tamed channels:
But the world today is dominated more than it has been for
generations by nationalism and the doctrines of protection
and self-containment. That is why the amputation of sections
of Czechoslovakia is likely to have so serious an economic effect on the part that remains.
On the editorial page the New York Times published
"Opinions on the Munich Agreement": five letters in all.
The first letter says:
The gains from the Munich settlement for the forces of law
and order are substantial and far outweigh the sacrifices.
The greatest gain of all is that the democracies set out to
enforce peace and succeeded. British and French arms
backed by American moral support brought home to Hitler
that there is a law which he could not defy with impunity-the law of nations, which though trampled underfoot
in China, still has vitality in EurOpe.
The second letter seems to continue the first:
Despite the scramble for settlement on the part of the democracies and their leaders allowing their powerful countries
to be humbled, I think that the Four-Power Pact preserving
the peace of Europe is the greatest tribute to the democratic
form of government.
The third letter assures the good New Yorkers that the
Munich surrender has
50
fore, he knows now that Britain and France are not afraid to
fight and that there are issues for which, if need be, they will
fight.
The fourth letter states that the relevant countries
have been spared untold agonies of slaughter and have saved
billions of dollars by the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia. It is right
that millions in these countries now pray and offer up thanks
for peace ...
And the fifth and last letter deserves to be quoted in
full:
To the Editor of the New York Times:
While it was good politics in Munich for Mr. Chamberlain
and Mr. Daladier not to underscore the important fact that
Hitler retreated shamelessly from the position he took up before the four-power meeting, it is deplorable that the newspapers and the public, instead of emphasizing this outstanding
defeat of Hitler's, concentrate on bewailing what Czechoslovakia lost.
If one thing has been proved beyond doubt at the Munich
conference it was Hitler's realization that threat of force for
power politics does not work anymore, and that the council
table has to replace his former methods.
Obviously, if a threat of force is of no use to Germany's future then Hitler is played out, as there are Germans with
greater competence available to settle its affairs by discussion.
Therefore, for the good of Germany and the rest of the world,
it is Hitler's defeat and not Czechoslovakia's loss that should
be emphasized and advertised.
Alexander Gross
New York York, Oct. 1, 1938
And here four months after this triumph, Chancellor
Adolf Hitler declared like an unreal movie gangster that
the Jews of Europe were his hostages, whom he would kill
off if the United States and other countries came to the
rescue of the rest of Czechoslovakia, which Hitler meant
to occupy in six weeks, or Poland, which he was to invade
late in the year.
Now we can return to February 18, 1975-to these
seven words about the legitimate interests of the Palestin·
ian people which Henry Kissinger duly signed in 1975 on
behalf of the United States government, but the New
York Times deleted.
My Britannica (1970) calls pre-1948 Israel Palestine. The
Arabs who live on the territory or have fled (though the
government of Israel invited them to return, according to
my Britannica) were first called the Palestinian Arabs, to
distinguish them from the Iraqi Arabs, for example. Later
the word "Arabs" was dropped (for brevity?) and they be·
came the Palestinians or the Palestinian people. Now,
surely Palestine must belong to the Palestinians?
AUTUMN 1981
�But there is something called Israel in the area? In reply
to this supposition, the Palestine Liberation Organization
drew in 1968 its "Palestinian National Charter":
The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of
the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage
of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and
inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of
the United Nations, particularly the right of self-determination.2
Still, what is Israel? "Israel is the instrument of the
Zionist movement," answers the Charter. But what is,
then, the Zionist movement?
Zionism is a political movement organically associated with
international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist
and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods.
On October 28, 1974, twenty Arab heads of government meeting at Rabat named the PLO with Arafat as its
leader "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." The Palestinian Arabs have not elected any
sole legitimate representative, you will say. But who
elected Stalin, the co-founder of the United Nations, to be
the sole legitimate representative there of more than 100
expansion in the Middle East, that the Soviet rulers had
repeatedly tried to crack by means of wars by proxy, and
only an unpredictable counter-attack of Israeli armor had
saved Israel in 1973.
How does one know that Arafat's ~~sovereign state" may
be like Castro's Cuba? But how did one know that Castro's Cuba would be a Castro's Cuba? The New York
Times argued that it would not be: Arafat's "sovereign
state" will be small. But Castro's Cuba was even smaller
compared with both Americas, Africa, and Asia, and yet
look at what it has been doing. There is no harm for the
Soviet rulers to try out Arafat: this is only one move by
one piece on the global chessboard. If the move does not
destroy Israel, some other moves will. If Israel destroys
Arafat, not vice versa, there is no end of spare Arafats in
this world. And if the war spreads to the entire Middle
East, its oil fields will become the first casualty, which will
be of immense benefit to Soviet global strategy, and the
Soviet invasion of the Middle East will be far easier too.
Later, the Soviet rulers will restore oil production in their
Middle East-possibly with Western aid.
On November 22, 1974, the United Nations Resolution
3236 "legitimized the interests of the Palestinian people,"
that is, Arafat's armed group. The Soviet rulers (the "Soviet people"?) voted for it with eighty-eight other "nations" or "peoples," including the Byelorussians or the
Czechs who also figure as (sovereign) "nations" or "peo-
cow a "permanent representation" (a Russian term mean-
ples" because their sole legitimate representative Stalin
wanted it that way. Most democracies, including Britain,
abstained, while a few, including the United States, voted
against. In his speech of explanation of the negative vote,
the United States delegate said that the United States favored the Security Council Resolution 338 of 1973. The
resolution does not mention any Palestinian people, let
alone their interests: it called upon the countries which attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur war and Israel which
saved herself by accident to cease fire in twelve hours and
begin to negotiate.
Pravda's text of the joint document to which Henry Kissinger agreed on behalf of the United States Government
refers to "Resolution 338 ... with due account of the legitimate interests of. .. the Palestinian people." The word
"legitimate" leaves no doubt as to the meaning: "self-determination and sovereign state of the Palestinian
people" in Palestine, as the United Nations resolved. By
having signed the "Joint Communique" the United States
recast its vote in the United Nations, as it were, which
constituted the only news the "talks" and the "Joint Communique" contained and the New York Times extirpated.
This example does not mean that Pravda is truthful by
definition, while the New York Times is mendacious by
nature (as Pravda would assert). The information on the
ing both embassy and consulate). The "legitimate" (in
American side's agreement to "Palestinian sovereignty"
Russian synonymous with "legal" or "law-bound") inter-
that appeared in Pravda showed the Soviet readers that at
the height of so-called detente early in 1975, the Soviet re·
gime was expanding as victoriously as before: the establishment of an "Arab Cuba" at the heart of Israel could
nations of Russia? Arafat is a terrorist? American periodi-
cals I have happened to read at this writing, from the frivolous Time magazine to the sedate Foreign Affairs, explain
that Prime Minister Begin of Israel was once a terrorist
too. True, the PLO killed from June 1967 to September
1979 350 Arabs who disagreed with the PLO, including
Sheik Hashem Khozander, the Imam of Gazda. 3 On the
other hand, I have never heard that Begin ever touched
even the most Arab hair on the most anti-Israeli head in
the pro-Soviet Communist Party of Israel. But the fact
that Lenin killed those who disagreed with him as well,
and George Washington did not, is evidently an irrelevant
minor difference.
In unison with what was or has since become the pre·
vailing view of the American media, not to mention the
media of West-European countries, on July 30, 1974, a
"top-level Palestinian delegation," headed by Arafat was
officially received by Boris Ponomaryov, "head of the International Section of the Central Committee of the Com·
munist Party of the Soviet Union," and in August it was
announced by Pravda that the PLO was to open in Mas·
ests of the "Palestinian people" had thus come to mean
the creation of an "Arab Cuba" to be established at the
heart of Israel, this little hard nut of resistance to Soviet
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
51
�well mean the destruction of Israel, while the refusal of Israel to have an "Arab Cuba" at its heart would lead to the
"international isolation" of Israel, which would also be
helpful in the achievement of the same goaL
In general, the veracity of Pravda has been improving in
proportion to the growth of the Soviet rulers' global
might When Pravda said on March 6, 1919: "The Soviets
have won throughout the world," and added on the next
day: "The comrades present in this hall" (of the 1st Congress of the International) "will see the establishment of
the World Federative Soviet Republic," that was wildly
untrue. Such a statement today would not be so wildly untrue. Pravda does not now need to make such explicit, extravagant, or premature statements to keep the Soviet
population as well as Soviet allies, vassals, and supporters,
assured as to the "imminent victory of our cause all over
the world." Many Soviet inhabitants, whether they identify themselves with the regime or oppose it, now believe
in the "ultimate victory" of the Soviet regime without any
assurance on the part of Pravda. Because the Soviet regime has matched and surpassed American strategic
power only in the 1970s, it is obvious to them that the Soviet global game of chess has merely begun, and as in
every game of chess, the moves are tryouts, advances, re~
treats, detours, exchanges. Many Soviet inhabitants understand, for example, that the Soviet rulers keep Eastern
Europe on a loose leash just to demonstrate to their
potential vassals in France, Italy, or elsewhere that the latter will enjoy some latitude when they come to power in
their countries-if they behave, of course. Since the Soviet rulers are after the whole globe, they play with their
Eastern European pieces.
was this kind of truth-a truth in keeping with Pravda's
propaganda goaL
Inversely, the New York Times censored out the news
which could prompt some readers to question the view of
the Times that the foreign policy or strategy called detente was working to the advantage of all concerned and,
above all, the United States.
But surely this is a generally expected behavior of an individual or a social group in a democracy. The prosecutor
in a court of justice censors out the defendant's innocence, while the counsel for defense the defendant's guilt
Why should not the New York Times censor out what contradicts its view? The trouble is that the New York Times
has no adequate opposition source or adequate competitor as regards international daily news for American decision-makers. It is the prosecutor (or the counsel for
defense) without the counsel for defense (or, respectively,
the prosecutor). The evidence in the twenty years or so,
beginning with Castro's seizure of Cuba, indicates that
what the New York Times censors out usually remains
censored out in the process of decision-making in American foreign policy, strategy, and defense.
The rest of the New York Times article is sheer verbiage. In contrast to Pravda, it is not a documentary text,
but its own report, which the Times would define as "incisive news analysis" and Soviet decision-makers as Philis-
tine prattle. Whatever it is, it would be misleading in its
own way even if the New York Times had not extirpated
the only grain of news the official text contained.
In this first high-level Soviet-American meeting since Vladi-
What makes Soviet world' conquest so plausible to
vostok and the chill caused by the Soviet abrogation of the
1972 trade agreement, the atmosphere was described as
many Soviet inhabitants is not "Soviet gains" in Europe,
somewhat more formal and slightly more abrasive than in pre-
Africa, the Caribbean, or the Middle East What impresses them is the very fact that the democracies have
been allowing and even helping the Soviet regime to grow
from a militarily backward parochial country in the 1930s
to the global military mammoth of today. Just think what
will happen tomorrow! In 195 3 the Soviet regime still produced 38 million tons of steel a year as against the lO 1 million tons of the United States. In 1978 the Soviet regime
produced 151 million tons of steel, used mainly for military purposes, while the United States produced 124 million, put mainly to civilian uses. What will stop the Soviet
global military mammoth from continuing to outgrow the
democracies? If, having invested in defense since 1947
several trillion dollars, the United States does not yet
know how to defend the Middle East, for example, these
Soviet inhabitants conjecture that the United States will
know how to do it less and less.
In other words, today Pravda can often afford the truth
and thus gain credibility without sowing any doubt as to
vious sessions, but on the whole "joviaL''
The article is a projection of American middle-class life
all over again thirty-six years later-only this time not
onto the totalitarian regime of Germany but of Russia.
The incidental difference is that while the rulers of Germany were, in the columns of the New York Times,
American Right-wing corporation presidents, the rulers of
Russia are American progressive corporation presidents,
the ''imminent victory of our cause all over the world."
pleasant, warm, and forward-looking.
It will be recalled that the "Soviet abrogation of the
1972 trade agreement" the article mentions occurred as a
result of the Jackson-Vanik amendment in Congress
which tried to "attach political strings to Soviet-American
trade and interfere in Soviet domestic affairs," as Pravda
put it. Many top American decision-makers, including
President Ford (whom Pravda quotes on the subject in the
issue under review), agreed that the "Soviet Union" had
a good reason for being offended. And yet the "atmosphere" of the Soviet-American talks was on the whole
The news that the United States government agreed as of
February 18, 1975, to "Palestinian sovereignty," and thus
reneged on its United Nations vote of four months earlier,
dents, the Soviet rulers bear no grudge: Russia, Inc. is future-oriented, optimistic, positive-it looks forward to
52
"jovial." Like up·and·coming American corporation presi·
AUTUMN 1981
�agreements on world peace, international cooperation,
and everything else-in particular in the Middle East, and
this is why the Soviet side is so eager to convene the Geneva conference on the Middle East:
On the Middle East, the Russians have pressed for an early
reconvening of the Geneva conference so that they can play a
more active role. They are co-chairmen with the Americans.
The fact that the Soviet rulers (the "Russians") prepared two wars by proxy to destroy Israel and have been
penetrating the Moslem countries by all expedient means
short of the overall invasion of the entire Moslem world,
does not exist because the Soviet war-civilization and its
rulers do not exist: there is instead Russia, Inc. with its
presidents and lawyers, and naturally, they want to play a
more active role in the establishment of peace in the Middle East-in order to trade with the Middle East, travel
there and enjoy peace in general. What other earthly purposes can a human have?
The United States would prefer to see the Geneva conference reconvened while there was momentum for further
political progress and not as a last-ditch effort to prevent a
Middle East war.
Of course, Russia, Inc. is eager to prevent a Middle East
war. Still greater is its desire to add to the "momentum for
further political progress."
During the discussions, Mr. Gromyko raised the possibility
of an accord to limit arms to the Middle East. But this was in
the context of what would be in the final settlement, not as a
measure to be adopted now.
Actually, "Mr. Gromyko," that is, the Soviet rulers,
meant that the United States would "limit arms to the
Middle East" while the Soviet regime would send them to
their allies, guerrillas, and subversives in the Middle East
so secretly that no intelligence agency of the West would
know (not that it takes any special top secrecy to achieve
this). Anyway, we learn that Mr. Kissinger "dined tonight
at Admiralty House with [British] Prime Minister Harold
Wilson and Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, who just
returned from Moscow."
They compared notes on Soviet relations. The British leaders were the first Westerners to see Mr. Brezhnev since he be·
came ill in December.
Mr. Kissinger reportedly learned from Mr. Gromyko that
Mr. Brezhnev had been suffering from influenza and was
now in "fine health" although he would, by doctors' orders,
perhaps take two more weeks of rest.
A jovial meeting cif corporation presidents and lawyers:
Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Gromyko represent different firms,
of course, but they always swap tidbits of inside info.
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
Joking with Mr. Gromyko, Mr. Kissinger said he could not
compete with "the oratorical skill" of his colleague . ..
Obviously, no meeting of corporation lawyers is complete without their joking with one another, and since the
entire description is phoney, jokes may be contrived too.
The United States discerned Soviet flexibility on extending
the agreed 150-kiloton limit on nuclear explosions to peaceful
applications.
Yes, flexibility is what also distinguishes Russia, Inc. in
negotiations. In fact, the third part of the New York Times
article is subtitled "A Russian Concession." According to
the Times, it is the Soviet side, not the American one,
which made a concession during these talks. What concession is that?
Having read the two relevant paragraphs of the article,
we learn that the Soviet side agreed that the "Geneva
conference . .. should resume its work at an early date/'
not "as soon as possible," the expression on which the Soviet side had allegedly insisted before. (Is "as soon as possible" necessarily earlier than "at an early date"?) In the
Pravda text of the communique in Russian (which is as
valid as the English text of the document) the expression
is "at the nearest time." So the Russian concession" that
the New York Times espied was lost anyway in the equally
valid Russian text.
While the Soviet side is flexible and makes concessions-as a future-oriented, optimistic, positive corporation should-this is more than can be said about the
American side:
11
Later, on the way to London aboard Mr. Kissinger's plane,
newsmen were told that Mr. Gromyko had urged the immediate reconvening of the Geneva conference on the Middle
East and had accused the United States of bad faith in excluding the Soviet Union from the Middle East diplomacy.
There is no mention, of course, that Gromyko merely
repeated the standard charge Soviet propaganda has been
making: the Soviet side is so eager to negotiate, to be flexible, to make concessions, but the egotistic American side
does not give the Soviet side half a chance in the Middle
East.
To be sure, corporation lawyers rarely agree as soon as
they meet. On the other hand, all issues can be finally resolved. After all, every issue between two corporations
can be reduced to money: who pays whom how much.
And each side will finally decide that it is worth its while
to pay the required sum, settle the issue, and recoup elsewhere the money lost.
The two sides still disagreed on some aspects of the European security conference, but the Americans believe the issues can be resolved.
All that is necessary is good will and legal expertise:
53
�After their talks in the Hotel Intercontinental in Geneva,
Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Kissinger came down to the lobby to
speak with newsmen. Mr. Gromyko said that "on many of the
questions we touched, our positions were close or coincide.''
For Stalin's man, Gromyko, who survived Stalin and
Beria and Malenkov and Khrushchev, to impersonate for
Western consumption a jovial HMr. Gromyko, Russia,
Inc." is about as difficult as for Al Capone or the Godfather to trick school children.
The last sentence of the article adds to the picture of
Hdynamism and genius" of Mr. Kissinger, America, Inc.:
The Secretary will be in Zurich for luncheon with the Shah
of Iran, who is vacationing in Switzerland.
While negotiating on the Middle East (and getting a
concession from the Soviet side), on the European security conference, and even on the extension of the
!50-kiloton limit on nuclear explosions to peaceful applications, he is taking care at the same time of AmericanIranian relations right on the spot, in Switzerland. No
wonder the relations between the United States and Iran
are so good at this writing, what with the American hostages and the rest.
Pravda did not print a word of this verbiage. Why
should Pravda mislead its readers in this way? On the contrary, Pravda readers must know that the enemy made a
concession on "the Palestinian question" because Soviet
might cows the enemy, and this is what detente is about:
Western concessions, servility, self-disarmament, retreat,
surrender, hoping to placate the globally winning Soviet
regime. As for that Philistine prattle, let the Western Philistines consume it-the more the better.
What does Pravda regard as the most important international news of the day? Britain's signing of several extensive Soviet-British documents, each of which Pravda
printed in full. Those who were interested (and I prefer to
read documents rather than their interpretation by the
New York Times) could glean from them some grains of
news.
From "The Soviet-British Protocol on Consultations"
we learn that the Soviet war mammoth and the British
midget are "determined to contribute to the deepening of
the process of relaxation of international tension [the official Soviet Russian-language definition of the word 'detente'] and to render it [the process] irreversible."
The last word is the key. The natural resources of Britain are small compared with those of the United States,
not to mention Russia (the territory of Britain accounts
for l percent of that of Russia proper, excluding Soviet
vassals). When Henry Kissinger launched his detente, the
United States preserved at least the economic ability to
reverse its policy of transfer of American science and
technology to the Soviet military if the Soviet regime
openly invaded Afganistan, for example (at that time a
wild conjecture, of course). But not Britain. "The Soviet-
54
British Protocol" was aimed at making the "process of detente" irreversible for Britain. The definition of this goal
comes up again in "The Joint Soviet-British Statement"
(just as do the "legitimate interests of the Arab people of
Palestine," though Britain had abstained from the United
Nations vote four months earlier). "Irreversible detente":
the impoverished Britain would henceforth be like a hungry little fish on a big strong hook inside the bait of Soviet
imports and exports. The Soviet turn-off of British-Soviet
trade if Britain misbehaved would lead to such deprivations and dislocations that the Government would receive
a vote of non-confidence, not to mention the British trade
unions' wrath. To bite the bait of Soviet trade, Britain offered the Soviet rulers $2.4 billion in trade credits extended over five years: the little hungry fish paid for at
least part of its bait.
In the Soviet strategists' view, Britain is the most resistant country in Europe: it is the only European country
that takes defense at least as seriously (if this may be
called serious) as the United States: British and American
military spending account for almost the same percentage
of their respective GNP's, though the living standards in
Britain are lower than in the United States.
At this writing, I was interested to see how this most resistant country of Europe had reacted to the Soviet open
invasion of Afghanistan. The latest Facts on File carries an
item of three paragraphs entitled "United Kingdom Retaliates against Soviets.''4 The first paragraph can send a chill
down the Soviet decision-makers' spine. Is the little fish
off its big hook?
Great Britain Jan. 26 announced a series of retaliatory measures against the Soviet Union for its invasion of Afghanistan.
The second paragraph will move to laughter even the
most humorless Soviet bureaucrat:
Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington told Parliament that
the government had canceled scheduled visits to London by a
Soviet minister and deputy minister, a performance by the
Soviet Army Chorus, and such ceremonial military contacts
as a planned exchange of naval ships.
The third paragraph announces that the five-year-credit
agreement expires in February (that is right: five years
have passed since February 18, 1975, the date of the New
York Times and Pravda we sampled). Will Britain stop at
least her financing of her transfer of science and technology to the Soviet global war-machine? Oh, no. It will continue to do so Hon a case-by-case basis."
I picked up the British newspapers and learned that two
days later, on January 28, Mrs. Thatcher said in Parliament with awesome gravity:
We have announced [see above] the measures that we shall
be taking with regard to the Soviet Union . ..
AUTUMN 1981
�In addition Mrs. Thatcher said she wanted Britain to
boycott the Olympics (an awesome retaliation in itself).
Alas, the spirit (of Mrs. Thatcher) is willing, but the flesh
(of the hungry little fish) is weak, and many British sportsmen will not inflict on the Soviet regime even the griev·
ous damage of staying home.
One section of "The Joint Soviet-British Statement" as
published by Pravda of February 18, 1975, is subtitled "Bilateral Relations." Here we learn about
the cooperation between British firms and Soviet organizations and enterprises in the field of reclamation of natural resources, including oil, aircraft building . ...
Let us pause here. So British and Soviet aircraft builders will cooperate bilaterally? The Soviet regime has been
producing at least twice as many helicopters and twice as
many combat planes as the United States, even according
to what the United States Department of Defense can observe or detect. Is Britain still dissatisfied? Perhaps Britain
wants to help the Soviet regime to realize its target of pro·
ducing one long-range bomber a day? Are there too few
Soviet transportation planes to carry troops and/or material to any point of the globe?
The documents Pravda published demonstrate how
British science and technology are put at the disposal of
Soviet military growth. Britain had expelled !05 Soviet
agents. But even 10,005 Soviet agents in Britain would
hardly be able to pass so much military-industrial information to the Soviet military. Yet, as of 1975 this all-out mass
espionage was to be called henceforth bilateral cooperation and include all possible forms of transfer of British
.;cience and technology.
Once upon a time Britain acquired colonies in order to
import raw materials from them in exchange for her scientifically or technologically sophisticated merchandise and
thus support her huge population on a small island. On
February 18, 1975, in order to achieve the same economic
goal, Britain made a major step toward becoming a Soviet
colony in economic reverse: that is, a colony which would
supply the Metropolis with her science and engineering in
exchange for raw materials and thus support her huge
population on a small island. In other words, just as Gambia was once a "raw-materials appendage of Britain" (as
Soviet propaganda puts it), so Britain began to move towards becoming a "science and technology appendage" of
the Soviet global military machine, and this is the news
Pravda of February 18, 1975, reported by publishing the
relevant documents.
The New York Times, which had printed the voluminous verbiage of the "Pentagon Papers," did not find an
inch of space for these documents. Instead, the New York
Times printed again a report of its own, from Moscow
"special to the New York Times." As nearly all "reports
from Moscow," the text could well have been written on
the New York premises of the New York Times. It is based
on the same American middle-class projection: the news is
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
that America, Inc. has been outpaced by Britain, Inc.
which landed a huge hunk of trade with Russia, Inc.:
The announcement of the British credits tended to bolster
Moscow's contention that it could find trading partners elsewhere in the West. In renouncing the 1972 trade agreement
with the United States last month, the Russians expressed
particular annoyance over the low credit ceiling, which is in
addition to about $600-million of loans already outstanding.
The United States does not want to sell on credit what
the Soviet rulers want? Then Britain will:
The credits, which Mr. Wilson said would be less than
£!-billion ($2.4-billion) are part of a broader program for
economic cooperation that was signed today. Mr. Wilson
characterized it as possibly "the biggest breakthrough in Anglo-Soviet trade that I have known."
Trade, cooperation, good relations:
The warm tone on which the British visit ended showed
that relations between the two countries had emerged from
the chill into which they were thrust after London expelled
105 Soviet diplomats on espionage charges in 1971. The
Kremlin accepted an invitation for Mr. Brezhnev, Mr. Kosygin, and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko to visit Britain.
But why does the Soviet global military mammoth keep
spies in little Britain by the hundred (or by the thousand)?
Because it fears Britain's invasion of Russia? Or because,
on the contrary, Britain is for the Soviet rulers just another Czechoslovakia, or Afghanistan, or indeed, Ukraine?
In terms of the middle-class projection, the only New York
Times answer is that Russia, Inc. kept those 105 spies in
Britain, Inc. in order to improve trade relations between
the two corporations.
Before Henry Kissinger's detente there was a practically
universal embargo on strategic trade with the Soviet re·
gime. After the embargo was repealed, each ally of the
United States began to reason that if it refrained from a
trade deal accelerating Soviet military growth, another
country would seize the opportunity. Henry Kissinger destroyed-possibly forever-whatever economic unity existed among the allies of the United States as against the
Soviet regime. If Hl'nry Kissinger were in charge of for·
eign policy in Russia, for that alone he would have been
put on trial and shot. But since he is on the other side, he
shines at this writing, as ever, and the Soviet rulers cer·
tainly owe him a monument for the destruction of a world
economic alliance against their war~regime.
Anyway, the state of world trade after the undoing of
the embargo on trade with the Soviet regime fits well the
misperception of the New York Times: the world as just so
many corporations vying with each other to sell Russia,
Inc. whatever it wants and on terms it chooses:
Mr. Wilson defended the decision to offer the low-interest
credits at a time when Britain has been hit by recession, while
55
�the Soviet Union has been increasing its foreign currency
holdings with greater oil profits. Moscow has already concluded deals for cash with other Western countries, notably
West Germany.
Or look at France, Inc. Only America, Inc. falls behind,
punishing itself:
The British credit falls short of the $2.5-billion extended by
France in a trade agreement signed last December. However,
it is seven times more than the $300-million limit set by the
United States Congress on Export-Import Bank loans to the
Soviet Union in a four-year period.
Let us now proceed to the third of the five "major [in·
ternational] events of the day" according to the New York
Times.
"World crude-oil prices have begun to sag noticeably
under the impact of reduced consumption by the indus·
trialized nations." No figure for this "noticeable sag." Is it
l, 2, 3 percent? Of what importance was this "sag" if the
OPEC countries had been raising the prices 100, 200, 300
percent? The New York Times ascribes this "sag" to "re·
duced consumption" because this tends to support the
view that the newspaper has been advocating throughout
the 1970s. In his lengthy article (February I, 1980) to
which the New York Times referred editorially with approval and which was put on the Congressional Record
twice in the same month, George Kennan says: "If the
Persian Gulf is really vital to our security, it is surely we
who by our unrestrained greed for oil have made it so."
One wonders whether it is America's greed for the fifteen raw materials without which the American economy
cannot function that has made the rest of the outside
world so vital to American security. Must the United
States overcome its greed for these fifteen critical raw materials and let the rest of the world go Soviet?
The "greatest real threats to our security in the area remain what they have been all along," Mr. Kennan says after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Predictably, the
Soviet invasion is not one of these threats. They are: "our
self-created dependence on Arab oil and our involvement
in a wholly unstable Israeli-Arab relationship." Not the Soviet involvement in this relationship, to be sure.
Let us assume that the United States has overcome its
greed for oil, and so has no need of the Middle East,
which duly becomes Soviet. As a result, the Soviet regime
will have additional hundreds of billions of dollars annually from oil alone, which means as many dollars for Soviet
global military power. Where will the United States take
additional hundreds of billions of dollars annually to invest in defense in order to counter the Soviet investment?
In other words, on February 18, 1975, the New York
Times front-paged an accidental annual or monthly crudeoil price fluctuation to support its view (which is as frivolous as it is lethal) and give it thereby the front-page
weight of a "major event of the day." Naturally, Pravda (or
1
56
1
any other newspaper in the world) did not mention it because it was not an event, whether major or minor.
The fourth "major [international] event of the day" according to the New York Times is another failure of the
Cambodian Government in its war against the "communist insurgents." Here the view of the New York Times
and that of Pravda (that is, Pravda's owners, of course) coincide in the sense that both newspapers assure their
readers that the Cambodian Government is doomed and
the sooner it will fall the better.
The reports on Cambodia in both newspapers are
wrapped in unmitigated gloom (for the Cambodian Government) except one paragraph describing the American
airlift. In Pravda this paragraph is as follows:
Washington, 17. (TASS). The United States has started an
airlift to supply the Phnom Penh regime with additional military material and ammunition. According to the Washington
Post, the first of those transportation planes, DC-8s, which
belonged to American Airlines and which the Pentagon has
chartered, has arrived in the capital of Cambodia.
The corresponding paragraph of the New York Times is:
With the Mekong blockaded, the Americans have expanded their supply airlift from Thailand. The airlift,
technically being handled by civilian contractors but actually
run from beginning to end by the American military, is mostly
devoted to ammunition so food and fuel are increasingly
scarce.
Food and fuel increasingly scarce? But the next para·
graph says that "rice and fuel stocks, if stretched carefully,
can last well over a month and even two months or more."
Does the New Yark Times expect the airlift to carry food
and fuel to the city three, four, or more months in advance? Does New Yark have food and fuel stocks for
three, four, or more months?
The differences between this paragraph of Pravda and
that of the New York Times can be outlined as follows:
Pravda
The New York Times
With Cambodia's defeat made
to seem imminent, Pravda emphasizes American involvement to show that even the
United States is so weak that
it can no longer defend any
country. Whether the planes
belong to American Airlines or
the Pentagon is immaterial.
Both are ultimately at one and
against us.
At the same time, Pravda
does not want to assure its
readers in advance that the
American airlift is ineffective
The New York Times emphasizes the wily wickedness of
the American military: they
have hired civilian contractors
for the airlift, a loophole in the
struggle led by the New York
Times against the American
aid to Cambodia.
The New York Times wants
to assure its readers that anything would be futile: that the
airlift is "mostly devoted to
ammunition," instead of carryAUTUMN 1981
�or futile: no one can predict its
outcome, and Pravda does not
want to commit itself and later
look foolish. Our side is winning, but temporary setbacks
are always possible.
ing also food and fuel to replenish the city's stocks three,
four, or more months in advance. The Cambodian Government is bound to lose, the
American aid must be stopped.
The fifth and last "major [international] event of the
day" according to the New York Times is the theft of pictures at the Municipal Museum in Milan. I am sure that
for a large part of the Western media (such as the other
two major newspapers of New Yark) this was the most important international news of the day or the only such
news worth reporting. Pravda ignored it.
Pravda was called by a Western newspaper the most
boring newspaper in the world. It is true in the sense that
Pravda feels no more obliged to be entertaining than does
the American Congressional Record or a CIA report. But,
having treated the theft as a major international event of
the day, does not the New York Times try to relieve its
boredom not by interesting information, which is so hard
to obtain, but in the same easy way the New York Post
does? Does not the New York Times mix the boredom of
Pravda (minus some of Pravda's grains of information) and
the entertainment of the New York Post?
So much for what the New York Times regards as the
five major international events of the day. Let us now take
a couple of international news items of the New York
Times which are not major events, according to the New
York Times.
On page 8 we find that in the "new winter-spring campaign" in South Vietnam the Vietcong forces, "with large
numbers of fresh North Vietnamese regulars," had "scored
their biggest gains in the Mekong area since the 60s."
This is no major international event. True, some read-
ers of the New York Times could still remember that on
January 27, 1973, the Paris peace agreement on Vietnam
had been signed after years of negotiations. So the Soviet
rulers, who were behind both the war in Vietnam and the
peace agreement in Paris, had treated the United States
But what about vast Soviet help (which is not even
mentioned)? If such exists, it is evidently part of the natural balance of forces. The Soviet rulers are part of the
nature in any country: it is the United States which is extraneous, foreign, aggressive everywhere. A truly minor
event this war is, a reassertion of the natural balance of
forces, a play of nature, as one might say. Who can compare this event to the theft of pictures in Milan or the
noticeable sag of crude-oil prices allegedly as the result of
reduced consumption!
As for Pravda's coverage of this war, here Pravda proves
that it is a totalitarian newspaper. The New York Times
can blot out or distort an event reported by the rest of the
media. But it cannot ignore it forever if the rest of the media persists. Now, according to Pravda, the war does not
exist. Of course, Pravda readers know about it from foreign radios. But Pravda does not risk the report: what if an
American Senator's aide finds such a report in Pravda?
Here you are (he will say): Pravda admits that North Vietnam's perfidious all-out invasion is fully on.
Pravda ran a three-paragraph item entitled "Repulsing
the Violators of the [Paris Peace] Agreement" only about
a month later, on March 14, 1975, after the Soviet rulers
had understood beyond all doubt (if only from the New
York Times' reports and editorials) that the top American
decision-makers regarded the Soviet perfidious all-out attack by proxy on an American ally as something having
nothing to do either with the United States or the Soviet
rulers.
Recently [days, weeks, months ago?] the Saigon administration has extended provocations aimed to undermine the Paris
agreement on Vietnam.
Fortunately, in South Vietnam there already exists the
legitimate government of South Vietnam: the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (the PRG of RSV). The PRG of RSV will not allow
the "Saigon administration" to violate the Paris peace
agreement.
11
Government as so many fools and used the peace" agree-
ment to prepare and launch an open all-out attack and
win the war. The impression the article creates, however,
is that this attack, brazen, perfidious, contemptuous of
the United States, is some remote war of two obscure
tribes neither of which has anything to do with the
United States, not to mention those jovial corporation
presidents and lawyers of Russia, Inc.
Besides, South Vietnam is not really endangered, according to the article. "So far most of the Communist
gains have come in the more peripheral parts of the
delta."
Some Vietnamese and Westerners therefore believe that
what is happening is a reassertion of the natural balance of
forces, which had been artificially extended in the Government's favor by vast American help.
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
In response to the appeal of the PRG of RSV, the People's
Armed Forces of Liberation of South Vietnam are repulsing
with determination the violators of the Paris agreement.
Then for two weeks Pravda is silent again. On March 28,
1975, Pravda runs a report entitled "Situation in South
Vietnam." What is the situation? The same as before.
True, Pravda now says openly, the Provisional Government of the Republic of South Vietnam governs most of
South Vietnam, and surely South Vietnam must be gov·
erned by its government, not the "reactionary Thieu
clique, stubbornly violating the Paris agreement on Vietnam," as Pravda puts it, quoting the newspaper Nyan Zan
which the "legitimate" government of South Vietnam
publishes.
Pravda does not lie when the truth is to the Soviet rul-
57
�ers' advantage. But when Pravda is called upon to lie, it
lies with the same limitless insolence, professional skill,
and almost inhuman hypocrisy with which it lied on the
6th of November of 1917 when Lenin's troops attacked
the democratic institutions of Russia, while Pravda an·
nounced that we were being attacked.
The other report of the New York Times which it does
not list as a major international event of the day, but which
is remarkable in its own way, is an especially serene lOQQ.
word fantasy by Flora Lewis entitled "Security Talks
Moving to Finale." Since many Soviet decision*makers
are male chauvinists, they would classify this report as a
starry·eyed housewife's chatter rather than (male) Philis·
tine prattle.
There has been a great deal of difficulty over the wording
of the agreements. For example, a Soviet draft used "important" where a Western draft said "essential."
So this is the stumbling block. Otherwise the Confer·
ence on European Security and Cooperation, working on
what was later called the "Helsinki agreements," ushering
in a new era in the history of mankind, is "moving to finale." Take the third section of its epoch·making agree·
ments, for example:
The third section, on human contacts and exchange of information, caused problems last year, but has now been advanced to the point where only a few details are in dispute.
What details?
There was an argument over whether a clause on information should provide for "public access" or "access by the
public."
tution named after Patrice Lumumba, a "hero of African
liberation," has young people from eighty·nine countries.
This is where future Walter Ulbrichts or Fidel Castros
study and are studied in vivo, to be selected in order to be
trained, introduced to their fellows·in·arms, and helped to
come to power in their respective countries: the most am-
bitious and lucrative profession of today, Soviet satrap.
This is the breeding ground for the young personnel of
the Soviet global political infra·structure. This is where
the Soviet global empire is built.
A grand meeting in honor of the 15th anniversary of the
Friendship-of-Peoples University named after Patrice Lu-
mumba, with the awarding of the [Friendship·of.Peoples] Or·
der to commemorate the event, was held on February 17 in
the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.
The Pravda article is heavy, oppressive, monumental, as
befits the builders of the totalitarian world empire. But it
is informative compared with Flora Lewis's daydreams,
for example.
Elected unanimously as the Presidium of Honor was the
Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union, with Comrade L. I. Brezhnev, General
Secretary of the Central Committee, at the head.
This is a university that enrolls young people of eighty·
nine countries. Foreign diplomats and correspondents are
present at the ceremony. Yet even before it begins, these
future doctors, engineers, scientists (and/or subversives,
guerrilla fighters, "revolutionary leaders") of eighty·nine
countries elect unanimously the Soviet Politburo as grand
supranational sovereign over them all, while the present
governments of their eighty.nine countries are not so
much as mentioned.
So in the Soviet regime there will be "public access" or
"access by the public" (the problem is only to decide which)
to exchange of information, not to mention human contacts. The conference is,
The speaker is B. N. Ponomaryov, that same "man in
charge of the globe" who legitimized in the person of Ara·
fat the "interests of the Palestinian people":
as one delegate described it, the only way "to transform detente from just a matter of states to something for individuals,
with human meaning."
Great Lenin was the first man to enunciate and champion
the right of the people of the colonies to self-determination
and national sovereignty. Our country fought for many years
to realize this principle. The debacle of the colonial empires
was the triumph of Lenin's great idea.
As of February 18, 1975, Flora Lewis is still living in a de·
tente which is just a "matter of states" (the invasion of the
state known as South Vietnam, in violation of an agree·
ment, being a remote irrelevant reassertion of the natural
balance of forces). But new agreements (also signed by
Henry Kissinger?) are to "transform detente from just a
matter of states to something for individuals, with human
meaning." As a Soviet lady journalist jeered off the record
on a similar occasion: uOne feels like singing, laughing,
dancing.''
Let us turn back to Pravda. "True to Lenin's Behest:
Patrice Lumumba Friendship·of·Peoples University is
Awarded Friendship·of·Peoples Order." The Soviet insti-
58
What next?
In their struggle for their economic independence, the developing countries are more and more determined to nationalize the property of foreign corporations [the Soviet regime's
property and personnel in these countries being sacred, of
course] and to take other measures assuring their sovereign
right to dispose of their national resources, as well as to con·
duct joint coordinated practical activity in defense of their in·
terests.
HThis course of events," Ponomaryov remarks with
grim satisfaction, "is obviously not to the taste of imperial·
AUTUMN 1981
�ism" (that is, any group which resists Soviet global expansion).
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics challenged them all,
liberated mankind, and saved civilization.
The imperialist powers do their utmost to arrest the progressive changes in these countries and keep these developing
states within the orbit of capitalism.
Our ideological enemies have set afloat the slanderous
myth of "superpowers." Of course, the Soviet Union is a
mighty power. But its might has not been created at the expense of exploitation of other peoples. It has been produced
by our people's labor.
The imperialist powers will fail. Bear in mind growing
Soviet global military might:
However, the international balance of forces has tipped
drastically and continues to change in favor of socialism and
progress [both of which the Soviet Politburo incarnates]. Under these conditions, the imperialists' possibilities to impose
their will on other nations become more and more limited.
The sub text of the message cannot be clearer. Young
people of eighty-nine countries! Do you see what is happening in Vietnam? Our side is winning after the United
States has paid with more than $100 billion and more
than 50,000 American lives to defend its ally against our
side. You will win in your country if you are with us. And
if you are against us, you will lose, as the South Vietnamese who defended South Vietnam are now losing, and the
United States makes believe that this has nothing to do
with them or with us.
We are on the eve of a great day, the thirtieth anniversary
of the victory over Hitlerism. It is common knowledge that
the Soviet Union sustained the he_aviest losses in this war and
made the decisive contribution to the rout of Hitler's Germany, to the liberation of the peoples of Europe from fascism, and to the rescue of world civilization.
How is this relevant to the eighty-nine countries today?
The lessons of World War II remind us of the need to maintain vigilance constantly and wage an uncompromising struggle against the aggressive plans of imperialist reaction trying
to impede the process of relaxation of tension [the official Soviet definition of detente].
Without naming the United States, the speaker makes
it clear that the United States has become a superpower
by exploiting the poor of the world.
In other words, Ponomaryov is propounding what may
be called "global Marxism." According to Marx, the rich
in each country have become rich at the expense of the
poor (who are poor as a result). The poor must rise in arms
and expropriate the rich. "The expropriators are expropriated!" said the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Obviously,
the same can be applied on the global scale to the rich
(countries) versus the poor (countries). There are dozens
of millions of "haves" in the United States, and hundreds
of millions of "have-nots" in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Why not sick these "masses of the underprivileged"
on the "handful of the rich"? It was done successfully in
Russia, Bavaria, Hungary way back in 1918. Why cannot it
be done globally-with the aid of the Soviet global armed
forces?
Ponomaryov's speech may be summed up by the following statement of his: "Domestic national policy of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union has found its extention on the international arena." If, indeed, the Soviet
regime was able to subjugate in the early 1920s the Moslem nations of Central Asia, it can absorb those of the
Middle East, for geographically and historically the Middle East is an extention of now-Soviet Central Asia. If the
Czechs or Eastern Germans fell under Soviet sway with
no more resistance than the Ukrainians or Estonians did,
the same strategic techniques can successfully be applied
to West Germans or North Americans. Ponomaryov is a
universalist: he believes that human nature is basically the
same everywhere-in Moscow, Kiev, Prague, Berlin, or
In other words, on one side, the side of goodness, is the
New York.
Soviet Union, detente, peace, progress, socialism, those
Neither the ceremony nor Ponomaryov's speech are re-
Western capitalists who sell the Soviet rulers strategically
important merchandise on credit, the young people of
eighty-nine countries, world civilization. On the other
side, the side of evil, is Hitlerism, Hitler's Germany, fas-
ported in the New York Times: The Soviet building of a
global totalitarian empire is screened out by the newspaper.
The other news of Pravda and the New York Times reduces to minor items which can be listed as follows for
brief comparison:
cism, all who are against detente, reactionaries, war, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism.
To someone like the philosopher Sidney Hook, this
Manichaean dichotomy may seem absurd. But to many
young people of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and indeed,
Europe and the United States, it may look like an ade·
quate general picture of history today. Some of them may
even believe that the capitalist United States and the
colonialist British Empire were at one with the reactionary Nazi Germany, while the freedom-loving progressive
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
The New Yark Times
"Syria Bids Arabs Bar A Limited Peace." "Syria" is against
Israeli-Egyptian rapproche·
Pravda
"Syria's Stand." The item
shorter, but no less perfunctory, superficial, empty.
ment.
59
�4
"Makarios Requests U.N.
Council to Meet." "The Cyprus Government of President
Makarios called tonight for an
urgent session of the Security
Council .... Nicosia is believed
interested in the Soviet proposal that the whole Cyprus
situation be taken up at a large
conference." The report does
not cite a word of the Makarios statement.
Statement by Makarios."
"I value highly the stand taken
by the Soviet Union on the
problem of Cyprus, as expressed unequivocally in yesterday's TASS statement,"
declared President Makarios of
Cyprus. " ... We are grateful to
the Soviet Union for its opposition to the Turkish community leaders' arbitrary decision
to proclaim an isolated state."
"Ethiopia, Battling Secessionists, asks U.S. for Airlift of
Arms." The article does not
say or imply that the Soviet regime regards the "military government" of Ethiopia to be on
the Soviet side, according to
Pravda. "United States officials indicated that there was
reluctance to comply with the
Ethiopian request" for arms
because Syria, South Yemen
and Libya will not like it: they
have been aiding the secessionists of Eritrea. The world
is construed by the New York
Times as a mosaic of totally
independent countries: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Syria, South Yemen, Libya.
"For the Sake of Unity." A
300,000-strong demonstration
in the capital of Ethiopia to
support the "military government" in its war to keep Eritrea from secession. It is clear
frOm Pravda that the "military
government" is "on our side."
Small tyrants are likely to be
eventually on the Soviet side.
A tyrant will want the democracies to comply with his tyranny. They will finally waver.
The Soviet rulers will never
waver unless his tyranny is
against theirs.
"Yugoslavs Sentence 15 as
Secessionists." Why Yugoslavs?
Is the regime and "Yugoslavs"
the same?
"Yugoslavia: Subversives on
Trial." The "defendants have
close ties with extremist emigre elements in the West.
'
The other news items do not overlap: Pravda ignores
the news items of the New York Times and vice versa.
The New York Times
Pravda
"The United Kingdom: Can it
Survive?" Secession of various
parts of England: "it is not impossible that the United Kingdom, as we know it today, will
cease to exist."
"Insolent Challenge." Spain
has the insolence of sending
warships to its bases in Africa,
though every sane person
knows that only the Soviet regime can have bases all over
the globe.
"Pakistan Charges Afghan Subversion." "Afghanistan ... has
supported a demand ... for an
independent state to be carved
out of Pakistani territory." No
Soviet involvement at present
or in future is conjectured.
"NO! to Bases." A week of
protest against imperialist (that
is, American or NATO) bases
in the Indian Ocean has begun in Sri Lanka. The global
system of Soviet military bases
is growing without anyone's
protests.
60
"Released Koreans Allege Torture for Confessions." According to this article reprinted
from The Times, London, the
participants in the "demonstrations against the authoritarian constitution" in South
Korea in 1974 have been released and "charge today" that
they were tortured by the
"Korean CIA." Why is the al1leged torturing organization
called the "CIA"? Is the CIA
the world's only institution of
torture?
"The worst days were the
rainy days. I hated them.
The C.I.A. would use the
sharp ends of their umbrellas to prod us around the
cells."
Wait for a rainy day to use umbrellas for torture. The "CIA"
could not use them very well
on a fair day, could it? I doubt
that Pravda would print something so flippant or unintentionally comical.
"Chile: The Tragedy Continues." Pravda is after what may
be defined as an ideal democracy, of the kind the United
States would have been if Senator McGovern had been
elected President, as the New
York Times wished. The motives of the two newspaper~
are different, of course. Pravdd
is after an ideal democracy in
the "target countries" because
it is, according to the Soviet
rulers, the best form of government to be first neutralized
and finally destroyed. Therefore, Pravda is at least as sensitive as the. New York Times to
any violation of an ideal democracy. At the same time,
the article on Chile is very sedate. No torture is alleged, and
the article merely soberly
notes that "even the [Chilean]
authorities admit. that thousands of political prisoners
languish in the prisons of
Santiago alone."
"Saigon Drops Case Against
Six Papers." The Government
of South Vietnam, which the
New York Times calls in its
editorials "totalitarian," has
dropped libel charges against
six newspapers, and so they
can go on publishing allegations of the corruption of the
Government, while the invasion of South Vietnam, a minor event of the day, is on,
to obliterate the "totalitarian"
Government, its alleged corruption, the independent
newspapers, their allegations,
and all.
"Here Where the Chilean junta
will be on Trial." "It is here, in
the Palace of Arts in the capital of Mexico," that the third
session will be held investigating the ''crimes of Chile's military junta." The relevant
"manifesto" has been "signed
by a number of organizations,
including the youth organization of the ruling InstitutionalRevolutionary Party of Mexico." With this sort of social
atmosphere, no wonder the
Soviet rulers were preparing a
Cuba-like coup in Mexico, and
only a Soviet defector frustrated it.
"Ford Preparing Busy Schedule of Trips Overseas in the
FalL" "One source ... said
that Mr. Ford would like to be
on hand to sign personally any
Helsinki agreement." There is
not a hint that the value of this
action is equivalent to Mr.
Ford's being on hand to sign
personally shopping bags before TV cameras, while its
harmfulness goes much
deeper than meets the eye.
"U.S. President's Interview."
Said President Ford, as translated from the Russian of
Pravda: "In the United States
there are many people who realize~and will realize even
better in future-that the abrogation of the Soviet-American trade agreement resulted
from ill-thought-out decisions
in Congress."
AUTUMN1981
�"Gulf Oil Officials in Soviet
Talks." Officials of the Gulf
Oil Corporation started talks
"Preparations for the Conference." No, not the peace conference Flora Lewis reports,
today with the Soviet Government to explore the possibility
but the "power conference"-
of helping to market Soviet
oil."
"U.S. Tuna Men Held in Ec·
uador Are Bitter and in Fight-
ing Mood." A IOOO.word piece
about American tuna fishermen wishing to fight for the
right to fish within the 200·
mile limit off Ecuador though
fifty countries have established the 200·mile limit for
their territorial waters.
"Foes
Intensifying Drive
Against Mrs. Ghandi.''
the "conference of communist
and workers' parties of
Europe."
"Victory of Progressive
Forces." The "candidate of
progressive pardes" was
elected mayor of Kyoto yesterday. Thus, "among the ten
biggest cities of Japan, seven
have mayors representing the
parliamentary opposition, including the Socialist and Communist Parties."
"India: Women's Day." Prime
Minister Gandhi: all women of
the world, unite!
"Vorster Verifies Visit to
Liberia."
Turkey).
"Italians Preparing to Send
"Gambia Yesterday and To-
U.S. Extradition Request for
day" provides a specific illustration of Ponomaryov's global
approach.
Sindona," a run-away Italian
banker.
"Saudi Denies Price Talks
"Riots of Reactionaries" (in
With Kissinger Over Oil."
"Situation on Madagascar."
The "military directoriat"
Kissinger is said to have tried
to impel Saudi Arabia to have
(Pravda would not call "junta"
a junta it favors)" of the Mala·
a heart and bring down the
gasy Republic" smashed the
price of oil sold to the United
States (oh, the power of Kiss·
HQ of the Malagasy Socialist
Party and killed sixteen people
in the process. Pravda regards
inger's diplomacy). However,
Saudi Arabia denies alL
this little massacre of Socialists
as a victory for socialism, that
is, the Soviet rulers' power.
There are several more such news items in both newspapers, but we may as well stop here, observing that in the
volume of international news data, the issue of Pravda (six
pages) roughly matches the New York Times. International
information fills the bulk of Pravda, and its presentation is
mostly concise and factual, if not documentary, while in
the New York Times it is scattered like islands over the
vastness of the newspaper, and is mostly chatty.
The conclusions?
The international information in both newspapers is su·
perficial, easy-to-obtain and insipid (I disregard the enter·
tainment, such as the reporting of a theft in the New York
Times). Both newspapers shape whatever meager information they have to fit their respective views (motives or
goals).
Pravda's mendacity is instrumental: it is a professional
propaganda tool of Soviet global expansion. The mendac·
ity of the New York Times is motivated in particular by its
narrow-minded spineless middle class desire to wrap itself
in its middle-class experience, screen out the outside
1HE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
world, and to substitute an easy fantasy spun out of this
experience. Pravda deceives only others; the New York
Times deceives itself as well.
Apart from individual exceptions, inevitable in any institution, neither newspaper is intelligent or intended for
intelligent readers: certainly the issues under review do
not contain a line which would take more than a mediocre,
conventional, and conformist mind to write. A random
selection of the same number of news items as supplied
by any world news agency would be no less informative.
But all in all, as of February 18, 1975, Pravda presents
the Soviet regime as an expanding global system of power,
with many countries as local arenas of this world struggle.
The New York Times presents the Soviet regime in a far
more false and benign way than the regime presents itself
via Pravda. According to the New York Times issue, the
world is a mosaic of separate countries and local events,
none of which has any bearing on the Soviet regime, seen
as just another chip in this mosaic: a kind of corporation
much bigger than General Motors or Chase, but essentially also seeking-through its representatives-good re·
lations, economic cooperation, and trade.
This parochial world fantasy of the New York Times
makes it on the whole not only uninformative, but
misleading. None of those bits of information which the
New Y ark Times issue contains and Pravda does not can
compensate for this dangerous deceptiveness of the New
York Times dreamland, presenting mankind as its middle
class milieu multiplied to the global scale.
But when all this is said, we must perhaps look at both
newspapers from a higher vantage point.
Quite a few people assume that reality is a certain set of
objects, and so anyone can describe reality no worse than
Einstein or Chekhov-it is sufficient to name objects in
front of you: a house, Mr. Kissinger, a tree. Similarly, it is
often assumed that it is no less easy to describe newschanges of reality: the house has caught fire, Mr. Kiss·
inger is going to Moscow, the tree has grown by ten inches
in one year.
If we look at the New York Times and Pravda through
the eyes of such a Philistine, both newspapers can be said
to describe all the world news there is, and this means all
the reality and all its changes. How and what else can one
describe?
But looking at both newspapers from a higher than
Philistine point of view, it can be said that they have no
sense of reality (the New York Times is more hopeless in
this respect) and hence no sense of changes of reality
known as world news. To claim that the New York Times
presents news about the world at large is the same as to
claim that Philistine twaddle is space-time physics or
literature.
L The Working Press, New York 1966, 71.
2. "The Middle East and North Africa 1973-74," 20th Edition,
Europa Publications, London 1973, 61-62.
3. Middle East Review, Spring 1980, 45.
4. Facts on File, Facts on File, Inc., New York, February 1980, 67.
61
�The Incompleteness Theorems
David Guaspari
[Every mathematician shares] the conviction (. .. which no one has yet supported by a proof) that every
definite mathematical problem must necessarily be susceptible ofan exact settlement, either in the form of
an actual answer to the question asked, or by the proof of the impossibility of its solution.
DAVID HILBERT
An introduction
The Goede! Incompleteness Theorems are perhaps the
most celebrated mathematical discoveries of this century.
I hope to make those celebrations more informed; and, ac·
cordingly, take as my topic not the nature of mathematics
or of the mind-grand things and plausibly related to
Goedel's work-but something rather technical and more
mundane: What, exactly, do those theorems say? What
are the questions to which they constitute some sort of
answer and the new questions to which they give rise?
To understand those questions we must devote considerable attention to some of Goedel's great predecessors:
Frege, Cantor, Russell (and Whitehead), and Hilbert.
The story begins in 1879 with the invention, by Gottlob
Frege, of (formal) logic. This invention was important in
two ways:
l. It was necessary for the elaboration of the so-called
"logicist thesis": the thesis of Frege that arithmetic
is a part of logic; or, as Frege paraphrased it into Kantian terms, that arithmetic is analytic. Russell extended Frege's "logicist thesis" to the claim that all
of mathematics is reducible to logic-that is, that
formal logic provides a fundamental theory, a
grounding, of the whole of mathematics.
2. The devices of formal logic may be used, not to lay
David Guaspari teaches at St. John's College in Annapolis. Most of
his work in mathematical logic has been in set theory and proof theory.
62
out "the" theory of mathematics, but rather as the
basis for rigorous axiomatic theories of geometry,
algebra, set theory, etc. (For the distinction between
"an axiomatic theory of X" and "an axiomatic theory
which reduces X to logic" see section l.) This secondary use of formal logic makes possible a mathematics about mathematics, by providing it with a
precise object of study-formal theories.
Hilbert proposed the invention of just such a theory of
formal systems, umetamathematics" or "proof theory", as
the basis for a radical philosophy of mathematics. The domain of meaningful mathematics was to be reduced, essentially, to the domain of mere calculation. Mathematics
was to be framed within formal theories, and any non-calculational propositions of those formal theories were to be
seen merely as byproducts generated on the way to calculations.
Hilbert wanted to have things two ways: to have the
power of modern methods, while avoiding the difficulty
of explaining or justifying those methods. In order to
understand Hilbert we will therefore need to know something about the methods he wanted so desperately to
save.
I will use Cantor's invention of set theory as a synecdoche for the whole of the modern upheaval. Cantor did
not invent the notion of "set" or "class": he invented set
(or class) theory. Classifications (rather than things classified) became the objects of study, and mathematics became the study of patterns, not things: of "the third position in the sequence of natural numbers", not of "three".
AUTUMN 1981
�After winning his way to this position, Cantor made the
further and frightening step of pressing toward its logical
conclusion (which, we will see, skirts paradox). We will be
interested in Cantor not as a participant in the controversies about the character of mathematics, but as one of the
forces which, by radically altering mathematical practice,
made those controversies urgent.
I
The logicists
Classical logic-more or less a code word for Aristotleis plainly inadequate to give an account of the most elementary sorts of mathematical reasoning, for it gives no
account of sentences involving more than one term expressing generality: sentences such as "Everybody loves
somebody.''
Medieval logicians introduced elaborate theories treating of certain sentences with two general expressions.
Those theories were correct in that they certified the correct inferences to and from such sentences; but they were
both complicated and incapable of extension to more
elaborate sentences; which is evidence that they were just
plain wrong.
What was wrongheaded in medieval logic was the attempt to treat "Everybody loves somebody" as though it
were like "John loves Mary." "Everybody" was to be, like
11
John", a kind of name, referring to certain people who
somehow or other loved a person or persons denoted by
"somebody." The difficulties with this are legion: for
example, a proper name like "Mary" always stands for the
same person, while "somebody" -assuming it ought to be
thought of as standing for someone-can stand even in
the same context for different people: If John loves somebody and somebody is the mayor of Cleveland it does not
follow that John loves the Mayor of Cleveland. Again:
"John loves Mary" is equivalent to "Mary is loved by
John." If "everybody" and "somebody" were genuine
names we would be able to make the same switch. But we
cannot: "Everybody loves somebody" and "Somebody is
loved by everybody" are not equivalent.
In the restricted cases to which their theories applied,
medieval logicians surmounted such difficulties by making distinctions about the various kinds of ways in which
general terms could refer to their objects. Unfortunately
there seemed to be no end to the making of such distinctions, and with such a logic the best one could look forward to was an ever-expanding collection of ad hoc methods
and distinctions.
According to Frege his predecessors were misled by accidents of grammar, such as the accident that "John" and
"somebody" are governed by the same grammatical rules.
The logical structure of mathematical statements-i.e.,
those features in virtue of which statements can legitimately enter into chains of inference-are not systematically displayed (and sometimes not displayed at all) by the
grammar of ordinary speech.
THEST.JOHNSREVIEW
If the logical structure of a sentence is to show on its
face-in its syntax-then a revised syntax and some new
grammatical categories become necessary. Frege's revised
language is not intended to give an exhaustive account of
natural language. It gives no account of metaphors, ambiguities, tenses, modalities, puns, or jokes. Its success
comes to this: the fact that all mathematical argument
(and therefore all deductive argument) can be expressed
in Frege's language and so be made altogether explicit.
(The principal novelty is Frege's introduction of thecategories of "quantifiers" and "variables", which constitute
an analysis of the uses of troublesome general terms like
"somebody." He also discards the "subject-predicate"
analysis of sentences, because of its intrinsic demerits and
because of the requirements of the quantifier-variable
analysis of generalization.)
In addition, Frege listed a small number of rules which
suffice for the purely formal derivation of all valid inferences. By calling the derivations formal I mean this: We
can apply the rules-i.e., determine whether a sentence is
an immediate consequence of some other or group of
others-simply by inspecting the syntax of each sentence
involved; and the procedure for doing so is mechanical. A
machine can check such derivations just as it checks multiple choice tests.
Frege wanted to attain rigor-and he did. Rigor cannot
go any further; controversy over the validity of a proof
came to have the same character as controversy over the
correctness of a long division. Frege had made it clear just
what complete rigor consisted in.
This achievement did not, however, have the desired
practical effect of making mathematical argument completely certain. An attempt to verify the validity of an ordinary prose proof by translating it into Frege's system
will in general involve so many steps that a clerical error
seems no less likely than a logical error in checking the
original informal proof. Nonetheless, the theoretical possibility of rigorously formulating mathematical theories
makes Frege's language and logic, and their kin, analytical
tools for investigations about those theories.
I will from now on call a language and logic like Frege's
a forma/language and the formulation of a theory in such
a language a formalization of the theory. Formalization is
therefore the first step in laying out a completely rigorous
axiomatic theory. It is not a trivial step.
If, for example, we tried to formalize Euclid, we would
immediately be forced to see that the basic terms of geometry are not only those denoting its objects-points, lines,
planes-but also those denoting certain relations among
them: e.g., the relation of incidence, which holds between
a point and a line when the point lies on the line. Symbols
for those relations would have to be included in the language as part of the special vocabulary of geometry. When
we looked for a suitable collection of geometrical axioms
we would come to see that Euclid's unexpressed assumptions largely concern those relations.
63
�In I884 Frege published another book, The Foundations of Arithmetic, this one about the nature of mathematical truths. He was interested not in how we acquire
mathematical truths, or why we happen to believe them,
but in the ultimate justification for believing them. Frege
asserted that the truths of arithmetic and algebra (although
not those of geometry) are truths of logic:
Frege was undertaking to do more than merely to lay
out a formalized theory of arithmetic. I might well frame a
(mere) formalized theory of arithmetic by beginning with
primitive signs for "1 "~ "2", "plus", "times", etc.-signs
which, so far as the theory is concerned, are employable
only as directed by the axioms. From the rules of logic
alone we could then deduce "I=1" and even "1+2=
1 + 2", but not, e.g., "1 + 1 = 2". The specifically arithmetical content of the theory I am describing would have to be
supplied by a list of arithmetical axioms. (The provision of
a suitable list is a mathematically deep, but for our purposes technical, problem.) We need the axioms because
"1 ", " + ", and "2", being non-logical (and therefore arbi-
trary) signs, can stand in no intrinsic logical relations to
one another.
If, however, "1", "+", and "2" are signs which are
themselves defined in other terms, it might happen that a
purely logical explication of those definitions would result
in a deduction of "l + 1 =2". Frege claimed just that, that
plus, times, etc., etc., could themselves be defined in
"purely logical terms," and that from those definitions
alone, and with no need for extra hypotheses, the arithmetical truths would follow.
Arithmetical truths could-and, to be properly understood, should-be regarded as highly compressed abbreviations of logical truths. The statement "2 + 2 = 4" or
''there are infinitely many primes" would be more compli-
cated than, but of the same character as, "A implies A."
Philosophical questions about the certainty and applicability of arithmetic would then be reduced to questions
about the certainty and applicability of logic.
The terms of Frege's proposal require explanation. A
satisfactory account of arithmetic must cover not only
statements like "7 + 5 = 12" but also certain kinds of empirical statements-but not all empirical statements-involving numbers, for there is no need to account for "2 is
my favorite number." The point of contact between arithmetical theory and its empirical application is counting.
The record of a bit of counting-"There are 2 bats in the
belfry" -is what Frege calls a "statement of number."
We must account for the statements of pure arithmetic
and the statements of number.
Next we need to ask what it would mean to "define" 2
at all, and what, in particular, it would mean to cast that
definition in purely logical terms. For Frege it is pointless
to ask what 2 "actually" is. That does not mean that talk
about numbers is talk about imaginings and private fantasies. Rather, to give the meaning of the word "2" is to give
an account of the contribution it makes to specifying the
64
conditions under which arithmetical statements containing "2" are true or false. Whatever does so correctly is entitled to be called a definition of "2".
Here is an example, a purely logical explanation of the
use of "2" in "There are 2 kings of Sparta."
For some x andy, x differs from y and each is a king of Sparta;
and,
it is not the case that there are x, y, and z, each of which is a
king of Sparta and all of which are different.
This explanation is correct; that is, it is true to say that
there are two kings of Sparta in precisely those circumstances in which our elaborate paraphrase is true. Furthermore, the account is perfectly general, being an
account of the role of "2" in all such sentences: to explain
"There are 2 bats in the belfry" we simply replace "king of
Sparta" everywhere by "bat in the belfry." Finally, the
fixed terms of this general explanation (that is, all terms
except "king of Sparta") are purely logical words; and the
non-logical phrases ("king of Sparta", "bat in belfry") occur
only in the simplest way possible, as simple predications.
This account is not a definition of "2". It explains the
role of ''2'', ''3", etc., in particular statements of numberthat is, the adjectival uses "There are 2 X's", "There are 3
X's", etc. It is insufficient to account for the uses of "2" as
a noun, especially for the thinghood we seem to attribute
to numbers by generalizations such as "For every number ... " Frege took the noun-like uses as fundamental. He
argued that it would be incorrect to analyze arithmetical
statements in such a way that numbers (some collection
or other of entities to be called numbers) disappeared altogether. His analysis replaced each appearance of "2" by a
noun phrase denoting, essentially, a certain set or class.
He then explained statements of number as elliptical references to such classes and explained generalizations at
face value as generalization over the lot of them. This
counted as a logical explanation because he regarded a set
as a kind of logical object.
My example has been intended only to show what kind
of thing a purely logical definition is, and to show that
Frege's proposal is: (a) neither opaque nor occult (which
already suffices to set it apart from most accounts of the
subject); and (b) altogether unconcerned with what happens to go on in my mind when I say or believe that there
are two kings of Sparta.
Frege outlined this program (the "logicist" program of
reducing arithmetic to logic) in The Foundations of Arithmetic and carried it out in the two volumes of The Basic
Laws of Arithmetic, the first published in 1893 and the
second, delayed by the discouraging silence which met
the first, in 190 3.
There turned out to be a problem. One of Frege's fundamental notions was that of "the extension of a concept" -what we would now call the set or class of things
AU1UMN 1981
�falling under the concept. He regarded "class" as a logical
notion-and in any event could see no way to do without
it- but pointed out that its treatment was the problematic part of his system. It turned out to be, in a sense, unproblematic-because it made the system inconsistent.
Frege learned of this, while volume two was in press, in
a letter from Bertrand Russell setting out what has come
to be called the Russell Paradox. Russell's paradox is a sort
of liar's paradox. Formulated for a theory of sets, it shows
its sting by demonstrating that an assumption seemingly
fundamental, natural, and innocuous, leads swiftly to a
contradiction. The assumption is that to every property
there corresponds a set, whose members are precisely those
things which possess that property. If we apply this assumption to the property "not a member of itself' and
call the corresponding set R (so that the members of Rare
precisely those sets which are not members of themselves)
we turn up a contradiction by asking: Is R a member of R?
For, R is a member of Ras long as Rs-atisfies the defining
condition "not a selrmember"; which is to say, as long as
R is not a member of R. Frege dashed off a quick and woe-
fully inadequate fix in an appendix beginning, with characteristic detachment, "Hardly anything more unwel·
come can befall a scientific writer ... " and concluding,
hopefully, " ... still I do not doubt that the way to the solution has been found."
Russell was not Frege's adversary, but rather his heir.
Principia Mathematica, published by Russell and Alfred
North Whitehead between 1910 and 1913, advanced even
more sweeping claims for logic: the system of Principia
Mathematica (from now on, PM) was a revision of Frege's
logic which purported to reduce all of mathematics to
logic. That PM sufficed for the derivation of known mathematics, Russell and Whitehead made clear. That it might
justly be called logic they did not. And no one could tell
whether PM would suffice for all future mathematics.
II
Cantor and "Modernism"
Meanwhile, mathematics went on. One of the things
that went on is commonly called a "crisis" -a "crisis in
the foundation of mathematics" -perhaps suggesting to
the innocent (falsely, as it turns out) that mathematicians
around the world were hurling themselves from their of·
fice windows. The central event in this drama was the ap·
pearance of a large array of paradoxes and contradictions
in the theory of sets, the Russell Paradox among them.
The thinking man's reaction might well be ... So what?
Why should the collapse of some particular theory be of
more than local interest? Frege's scheme fell to the
ground and no llcrisis" resulted.
In order to understand why the difficulties with set theory are of interest to other branches of mathematics it is
necessary to understand why set theory has become the
idiom of mathematics.
Set theory was invented by Georg Cantor in a series of
papers published between 1879 and 1897. It is important
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
to know that Cantor's creation of set theory grew directly
out of his work on one of the important mathematical
problems of his day-on the convergence of a particular
kind of infinite series called a Fourier series. just what a
Fourier series is is not important to us, but two things
about Fourier series are: (1) Fourier series are a part of
hardcore applied mathematics. (Fourier introduced them
in order to study heat transfer.) (2) The theory of Fourier
series was, in Cantor's day, at the cutting edge of two important questions: What is the continuum? What is a
function?
If I needed a slogan to characterize the radical features
of twentieth century mathematics I would try something
like this: Functions are things, and things are extensional.
"Extensional" stands in opposition to "intensional", in
opposition, broadly speaking, to any concern for the "in·
ner nature" of mathematical things.
Consider Euclid's definition of "point." That definition
is never appealed to in proofs, and for that reason has no
mathematical interest. Nothing follows from it. The only
way in which something which we might call the "nature"
of a point has any mathematical significance is by way of
postulates about the relations between points and the
other geometrical notions, such as: Between any two
points there is a unique straight line. Euclid's definition of
point is an "intensional" attempt to tell us something
about the "nature" of points.
In contrast, what matters about a function is that certain inputs result in certain outputs. What a function has
by way of a "nature" is exhausted by the record of the in·
put-output pairs, conveniently representable as the set of
all such pairs. Relations are treated in the same way. The
"nature" of the relation "less than" comes to nothing but
a record of which numbers are less than which.
Galling the things of mathematics extensional comes,
grandly and vaguely, to saying something like this: What
interests us about a mathematical object is not its putative
internal constitution, but rather the role which that object
plays in the system of mathematical objects. Mathematics
is about the patterns into which things fall, not about the
things.
The other half of my slogan reads "functions are things."
What is at stake in calling functions things? The account,
I'm afraid, will begin and end in metaphor.
Think of a function as a black box from which; in some
way or other, the input-output record can be extracted.
Then I can, if I want to, take those things, those black
boxes, and put some or all of them into another box-so
that I have a big box full of functions. I offer this merely as
one example of what you can do with things. You can
heap things into big boxes.
I want to contrast this picture of function with another.
In the other a function is not a thmg, but a kind of continuing process, which you cannot put your hands on all at
once and therefore cannot pick up and toss into a box.
What's at issue behind these varying metaphors w11l have
to be considered later.
65
�Let me first give an example of the usefulness of the
first picture-function as thing. Quantum mechanics as·
signs to each thing in the world-electron, atom, cow-a
representative, a function called its wave function. Wave
functions, it so happens, input real numbers and output
complex numbers (the outputs are thought of as representing certain probabilities). All the.se wave functions are
then heaped together in a box called Hilbert Space. What
stands for the world is a box of functions.
Now, one of the other things you can do with things,
beside tossing them into boxes, is to input them into functions. It turns out that momentum, for example, can be
conveniently represented by a function which inputs not
numbers but those boxes in the Hilbert Space, and out·
puts not numbers but other boxes in Hilbert Space. Momentum and its kin, being functions, are therefore things,
and can themselves be heaped in boxes, input into still
other functions, and so on and on. All these entities have
in an important sense the same status as numbers. You
can do the same kinds of things with and to them. (An
aside: This example may give you some idea why it's wildly
wide of the mark to call our mathematics a "science of
quantity.")
To make functions and relations into things, and to be
concerned only with the extensional aspects of those
things, is to make the very fabric of mathematics a search
for patterns and analogies, whose aim it is to exploit the
power of generality. It is important also to realize that
study of the tops of those towers of generality can yield
consequences about things at the bottom. The elaborate
machinery of quantum mechanics yields testable predic·
tions about the behavior of atomic particles. Deep results
in number theory, which concerns the integers, have been
discovered by studying the calculus of complex numbers.
This raises a question to which we will return: Even if
such high-powered methods are helpful for finding theo·
rems and their proofs, are they in some way essential?
Set theory is important not in its details, but because
the point of view which is so conveniently formulable by
means of set theory is fundamental to the current mathematical enterprise. In David Hilbert's famous words: "No
one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has cre·
ated for us."
Hilbert was not voicing a consensus. He was uttering a
battle cry. The reception of Cantor's work made plain
deep and radical divisions among mathematicians. Those
opposed to set theory typically argued along lines like this:
Set theory is riddled with paradoxes and contradictions
because it admits as objects "infinite things", such as the
set of all numbers, and the notion of an "infinite thing" is
inherently contradictory. The two metaphorical pictures
of "function" show the same opposition. A function
which is a "thing" is, in general, an "infinite thing" -an
endless ledger of inputs correlated with outputs. A function, which is an "uncompleted process", is never present
all at once, but is a sort of drama at any stage of which only
66
finitely much has happened. The controversy over set
theory becomes "the problem of infinity."
This is not a problem about some alleged power, entity,
or principality called The Infinite. I, for one, have no idea
what that could mean. Nor has it anything to do with God,
goose bumps, mysticism, or eternity. (There is evidence
that Cantor thought: that it had to do with all these
things; that theological considerations vindicated set
theory; and, at times, that set theory had been granted
him by divine revelation.)
It would be better, but still not very good, to say that we
are asking whether there "really are" infinite sets. Part of
the trouble with that formulation (the passionate but redundant "really" gives it away) is that it has an air, wholly
spurious, of being clear and commonsensical, as though
the matter could be settled by an argument like Samuel
johnson's "refutation" of Berkeley: Johnson's proof that
there "really are" stones consisted of kicking some.
The fruitful view, I think, is that the important differ·
ence between the two positions is entirely expressed as a
difference in mathematical practice. In the mathematical
practice of one side infinite sets play the role of things,
and in the practice of the other side they do not. (In our
speech about Hilbert Space functions are assigned the
role of things: they serve as inputs and outputs of functions; they are collectable into boxes; they comprise a domain over which we generalize ... Moreover, that way of
speaking has been fruitful for the physicist as well as for
the mathematician.)
In one sense the practical problems of set theory were
solved in 1907 by Zermelo, who informally described a notion of set that seemed clear and persuasive, and pro·
duced axioms for that notion from which followed all of
the desired consequences of set theory and (so it seemed)
none of the undesired. To opt for Zermelo's set theory
was to opt for treating infinite sets as things. What
grounds might there be for making that choice?
The practicing mathematician might be satisfied by the
fact that set theory provides new terms in which to answer old questions, illuminates the work of his predecessors, and poses interesting new questions. If unimpressed,
however, by Zermelo's framework, he might maintain that
"infinite things" had to lead to contradictions and that
Zermelo's system would eventually tumble. He might hope
to find empirically interpretable consequences of set theory to test against experience. He might be appalled by set
theory's sheer perversity: Cantor said of one of his most
famous results, "I see it, but I don't believe it."
Set theory, in and of itself, is not a fundamental theory.
It is not an attempt to ground or to explain the nature of
mathematics, but is rather the organ of a revolutionary
change in mathematical practice. A set theorist can happily be an opportunist, tinkering with the axioms ad hoc
in order to avoid an awkwardness or a paradox. Set theory
is useful to "foundational" studies because it yields a formalization of all known mathematics, thereby making of
"mathematics" a precise object of study.
AUTUMN 1981
�III
Hilbert's metamathematics
In 1900 Hilbert began to formulate a radically new reason for deciding in favor of set theory, based on the possibility, which he seems to be the first to have fully grasped,
of using formalization as a tool for the investigation of
theories. Frege, well aware that deductions in his system
could be carried out mechanically, insisted on the importance of the fact that those deductions nonetheless had a
meaning. According to Hilbert, the fact that "deductions"
could be adequately guided by mechanical rules freed us
from the burden of trying to assign a meaning to each step.
Thus freed, we are free to see that much of the "meaning" we find in mathematics is nonsense.
Hilbert divided the statements of mathematics into two
classes: "real" statements, which are intuitively meaning·
ful and can be said to be true or false; and "ideal" statements, which are not, and cannot. Let us for the moment
sidestep all dispute about the legitimacy of such a distinction or about where to draw the line, and call anyone who
wishes to make such a distinction "Hilbertian." Let us
also temporarily adopt a "Hilbertian" position much less
stern than Hilbert's own: that the meaningful mathematical statements are the statements of elementary pure
arithmetic, such as "2 + 2 = 3", "There are infinitely many
primes," etc. Accordingly, propositions about real numbers~
calculus, or Hilbert Space are "ideal."
Let us further suppose ourselves to be contentedly employing a formal-and meaningful-theory of axiomatic
arithmetic, and to be one day confronted by Cantor. He
offers us a (non-meaningful) set theory which incorporates
our theory of arithmetic as a small part. Do we accept?
From our "Hilbertian" point of view we can think of set
theory as an ideal superstructure superimposed on a meaningful theory of arithmetic. Suppose it happened to be
the case that any meaningful proposition derivable in set
theory by ideal methods is also derivable by meaningful
methods-i.e., according to our present stance, from the
axioms of arithmetic. Then, in the "Hilbertian" view, the
controversy about set theory would be finessed out of existence. All the ideal machinery could be explained away
as an ingenious engine for facilitating proofs. We would
have saved set theory without giving in to the vulgar requirements of saving the sets; we would establish a paradise without angels.
To ask whether the ideal machinery of a formalized theory is redundant is to ask a precise mathematical question.
By formalizing a theory we make it an object of study. Its
statements are patterns of signs, comparable to positions
on a chessboard; and we possess, analogous to the rules of
chess, specified procedures, colorfully but irrelevantly
called proofs, for singling out certain of the sign patterns,
colorfully but irrelevantly called theorems. So that the
question "Does such and such a statement have a proof
employing no ideal mean?" has exactly the same character as the question "Could such and such a position on
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
the chessboard have been reached without White's having castled?"
With some historical justification I will call the proposal
to justify the ideal means of set theory by demonstrating
their redundancy, the "Hilbertian" Program. To carry out
the "Hilbertian" Program we have to prove a mathematical theorem about a theory; and that proof itself must be
above suspicion or our justification would be circular.
This new branch of mathematics, the mathematical theory of formal theories, Hilbert calls "metamathematics" or
"proof theory."
To carry out the "Hilbertian" Program is also to demonstrate that all the meaningful consequences of set theory
are true. For we would be guaranteed that any meaningful
consequence of set theory, however originally obtained,
would also possess an uncontroversial proof, one employing only those arithmetical methods we had previously
been content to employ.
The "Hilbertian" Program hopes for a certain rough justice: that meaningful statements should have meaningful
proofs seems only fair. There is also some evidence in its
favor: many theorems of number theory originally proven
by ideal means have turned out to be derivable from the
axioms of elementary arithmetic. In any event, there is
now out on the table a genuine mathematical question,
susceptible to proof or disproof: Can all those positions be
reached without castling?
The Incompleteness Theorems answer, among others,
that question. Before turning to Goedel's paper, let me
summarize these three introductory sections.
Frege began his work as a participant in one of the great
intellectual enterprises of the nineteenth century-the attempt to make mathematics rigorous. He succeeded in
providing an analysis of mathematical proof which made
the notion of rigor precise and which provided all the
technical tools necessary for the elaboration of rigorous
deductive theories. This analysis led him to the conviction
that mathematics is in fact a part of logic. Neither this
thesis nor his powerful criticisms of other views of mathematics (the first half of The Foundations of Arithmetic is a
model wrecking job) received much notice until they were
partly rediscovered by Russell. Wider interest in the problems of founding mathematics arose not from Frege' s
work, but from the practical need to secure set theory
from paradox.
Hilbert, guided partly by his "faith" -the belief that all
mathematical problems can be solved-and by the specific desire to save for mathematics the generalizing
power of set theory, proposed a radically different foundation. Set theory would be saved by declaring most of it to
be meaningless; and by a proof (which he hoped to carry
out) that set theory could nonetheless be safely employed.
Goedel's 1931 paper "On formally undecidable propositions of Principia Mathematica and related systems" replies to the characteristic questions of Frege and Hilbert:
Can mathematics be reduced to logic? Are the ideal methods of set theory redundant? Is "mathematics" com-
67
�pletely specifiable? I take this last question to be a concern
of both Frege and Hilbert. Frege attempted to encompass
mathematics within logic. Hilbert's "faith" can be construed as a belief in the possibility of devising a formal system adequate for known mathematics and capable of
proving or disproving every proposition arising within it.
To each of these questions Goede! gives the answer no.
What, then, can mathematics be supposed to be? Goedel's
own view is that mathematics must be understood not as
a body of tautologies, or as the result of our constitutive
mental activity, but as something we discover.
IV A first look at Goedel's theorems
In the first part of his paper Goede! exhibited an arithmetical statement in the language of PM which is independent of PM-i.e., neither provable nor refutable from
the axioms of PM. By itself, that is a striking technical
achievement, and evidence for the fruitfulness of Hilbert's
point of view: If you make theories into objects of study
just look at the surprising things you can find out.
Let us call a theory incomplete if some of its statements
are independent; and otherwise, complete. It might now
seem that we should get to work, promulgating some new
axioms in order to extend PM to a theory which is complete. If we can demonstrate the incompleteness of some
theories we surely ought to be able to demonstrate the
completeness of others. Then we would have justified Hilbert's "faith" by a proof. For a complete formal system
provides the means for solving every problem expressible
in its language.
Unfortunately, Goede! showed more. He pointed out
that his argument applies not only to PM, but to any
formal system which is sufficiently strong (strong enough
to contain grade-school arithmetic). Such a system must
be incomplete.
The last two sentences contain a mild lie. I can easily
describe a complete formal theory by stipulating that the
list of its axioms is to be precisely the list of all true statements of arithmetic. The trouble with that theory is that
we cannot use it. Should someone hand us a purported
proof in that theory we would not be able to appeal to any
general procedure for checking it, for we have no general
procedure for determining which propositions are axioms.
If we intend to use a formal theory in our demonstrations
or to provide a standard for our demonstrations, then we
must at least require that there be an infallible (mechanical) procedure for checking the validity of its proofs. The
First Incompleteness Theorem says that any sufficiently
strong theory with that property (the property that its
proofs can be checked mechanically) must be incomplete.
How does this bear on Hilbert, or Frege, or us? Can all
mathematical problems be solved? One precise way to
construe that question is: Is it possible to construct a usable, complete formalization of mathematics? Goedel's
theorem tells us that the answer is no. Frege's program
seems dead as well. If arithmetic really is logic, then since
68
arithmetic cannot be completely axiomatized neither can
logic be. There would be no general procedure for testing
the validity of proofs in such a so-called logic.
The "Hilbertian" Program is alive only until we ask:
What about Goedel's independent arithmetical statement?
Is it true or false-or, if the axioms of arithmetic (or PM)
contain all that we think we know about arithmetic, does
the question of its truth or falsity even have any sense?
Goedel's paper contained an informal demonstration that
that independent statement is true. His argument can be
formalized and carried out in set theory-proving that set
theory is not redundant. Goede! has provided an explicit
example of a "meaningful" statement unprovable by
"meaningful" means, but provable by the "ideal" methods of set theory. Therefore our "Hilbertian" Program,
and every "Hilbertian" Program which accepts Goedel's
independent proposition as meaningful, fails. (It will be
claimed below that no "Hilbertian" Program can succeed.)
The Second Incompleteness Theorem speaks directly
to Hilbert's (actual) Program, to understand which we
need a brief excursion. Hilbert called himself a "finitist".
He maintained that a precondition to thought is an immediate intuitive grasp of certain "extralogical concrete objects", which must be surveyable "completely in all their
parts" and must therefore be, in particular, finite. It is
only about such things and by means of such intuitions
that we can perform genuine ''contentual" inferences. An
adequate expression of "contentual" inference is the manipulation of signs. The concrete objects considered by
mathematics are the mathematical signs themselves-the
numerals. Accordingly, the "real" propositions are simply
the assertions about particular calculations: "7 + 5 ~ 12",
"2 < 3", '' l =/::. l ", etc. The ''contentual" reasoning by which
we attain to the truth or falsity of these propositions Hilbert calls elementary.
In Hilbert's thought not even the formula "x + 2 ~ 2 + x",
regarded as a shorthand for the assertion that "for every x,
x + 2 = 2 + x", designates a real proposition-for we cannot directly verify the infinitely many instances of true
propositions which it summarizes. Another way to say this
is to say that we cannot really negate that assertion; for
the purely existential claim that "there is some x for
which x + 2 ,P 2 + x", since it points to no particular x, has
no finitistic meaning.
Is any mathematics left? Hilbert is willing to admit the
"ideal" propositions such as ''x + L. = 2 + x", the proposi-
tions of algebras and calculus, etc., but denies that they
have any content in and of themselves. The introduction
of "ideal" propositions is analogous to the introduction
into algebra of~ which simplifies and unifies the algebraic rules. Although the ideal propositions are individually insignificant, the system of ideal propositions is
fruitful by virtue of its ability to simplify and unify, and
the ultimate reason for its success is that it discloses the
structure of our thinking.
To justify the introduction of ideal propositions (and
rules for their manipulation) we need only an elementary
AUfUMN 1981
�proof of the consistency of the resulting system. Hilbert's
Program is the proposal to provide such a proof.
Hilbert's Program is connected with our previous no·
lion of a "Hilbertian" Program as follows. The calculating
rules of grade school arithmetic suffice for the formal
demonstration of every real truth. Those calculating rules
are derivable in, e.g., set theory. Set theory, however,
might also contain a formal refutation of one of those
truths. That is, the only way in which set theory could be
non-redundant (with respect to "contentual" inference)
would be the ruinous way of being inconsistent. Hilbert's
Program, although differently expressed, is merely that
"Hilbertian" Program that corresponds to Hilbert's austere notion of "real".
The Second Incompleteness Theorem says, roughly,
that the means available in a theory are not sufficient to
prove the consistency of that theory; so that the consistency of axiomatic arithmetic-let alone of set theorycannot be demonstrated in an elementary way.
All this needs some explanation, since arithmetic is, after all, about integers and not about formal theories. How
can we even pose the problem "Is arithmetic consistent?"
in arithmetical terms?
The answer is that we communicate with a speaker of
the language of arithmetic just as we communicate with
speakers of other foreign languages-by means of translations. Suppose we wanted to discuss the consistency of
arithmetic with a computer. We could do so be devising a
numerical code in which to signify statements and proofs.
The statement "Arithmetic is consistent" could then be
translated as a lengthy statement, from now on called
CON, about numerical calculations involving the code.
(Those who are worried by this may be justified. The
sense of the claim that the coded translation CON
somehow "means the same as" the original is not immedi-
ately clear.)
Goede! showed that CON is unprovable in axiomatic
arithmetic. Now, axiomatic arithmetic is, I take it, consistent; that is, CON is true under the ordinary interpretation of its signs. Indeed, CON is provable in set theory,
and is therefore another example of an arithmetical truth
which becomes provable as a result of adding to arithmetic the "ideal" superstructure of set theory. This is a
perfectly general phenomenon: no consistent, usable, sufficiently strong theory can prove its own consistency; and
whenever we are able to add to such a theory a suitable
"ideal" superstructure, the consistency of the original the-
ory becomes one of the newly provable arithmetic truths.
This shows that no "Hilbertian" Program can succeed.
An elementary proof that an ideal superstructure is redundant immediately yields an elementary proof that it is consistent. If it is granted that the elementary means of proof,
whatever they may be, are exhausted by the means available in ordinary arithmetic, there can be no elementary
proof of consistency, and therefore none of redundancy.
If we use a theory we are, of course, implicitly assuming
that it is consistent. Nonetheless, that supposition is
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
something over and above the suppositions of the theory.
Whatever convinces us that the theory is consistent lies
somehow outside its purview. That fact is a genuine piece
of news, even though the consistency of arithmetic is not
controversial.
Many mathematical questions which have at one time
or another been topics of active research have been
shown to be independent of the currently accepted axioms for set theory. It is a distressing fact that few of these
problems seem to be solvable by extending set theory
along the lines of its original inspiration; and that, indeed,
many are only known to be solvable by adding to set
theory hypotheses which are at best implausible and at
worst bizarre.
As a result the mathematician-in-the street typically responds to such news about a problem (the news of its independence) by losing interest in it and regarding this as
evidence that however things might have seemed at one
time the problem is not one of central importance. He can
sometimes justly say that he was seduced by set theory
into studying the wrong problem, or the right problem in
the wrong terms; but that would suffice as a general explanation only if the family of set theories were uniquely subject to the Incompleteness Theorems.
V A second look at the
First Incompleteness Theorem
Let me conclude by stating the First Incompleteness
Theorem correctly, in its most radical form, so that it is
tied to no particular formalism or formulation of logic, and
to no particular notion of proof. To do that it will be nee·
essary to look briefly at its proof. Goedel's original argument, which is important, is widely regarded as utterly
mysterious. From this apparent mysteriousness the Incompleteness Theorems derive some of their cachet. I
shall outline a different proof, which shows that the Incompleteness Theorems can be understood as facts about
mechanical procedures.
In 1936, A. M. Turing produced a precise definition of
the notion of "algorithm", or "computing rule" by defin·
ing a kind of paradigm computing agent (now called a
Turing machine). Turing machines can work in any symbolism you like and on any problem you like. We may as
well stick to machines that work on numerical problems.
Machines can provide solutions to calculating problems in
two ways-by decision procedures and by listings. Consider
the problem of determining which numbers are even
numbers. A decision procedure for the property "even
number" works like this: We hand our imaginary computer the name, in some specified notation, of a number;
it calculates awhile and then answers yes or no, according
as the number is even or not. It always answers and always
answers correctly. A listing of the property "even number"
works differently: We sit in front of the computer and
watch it. From time to time it writes down, in some specified notation, the name of a number. Only the names of
69
�even numbers appear in the list, and sooner or later the
name of every even number appears in the list.
There is no general procedure for turning a listing machine into a deciding machine (which might lead one to
suspect, correctly, that some listable properties are not decidable). Suppose I want decisions about the evenness of
6 and 7, and try to use the listing machine to get them. I
sit and wait. Eventually "6" turns up, at which point I
know that the decision about 6 is "yes." I'm still waiting,
but there has been no "7". I can never safely conclude
"no," because, for all I know, were I to wait just a little
longer 7 might turn up in the list.
"Evenness", of course, has both listing and deciding
machines, but there are indeed properties which can be
listed yet not decided. One example is the property of
"being a computer program that will run successfully." If
that were decidable (in some efficient way) life would be a
lot simpler. A Russian mathematician, Juri Matijasevic,
proved in 1971 that there is a listable but undecidable
property P of the following remarkably simple kind: For a
certain (polynomial) equation with "x" among its unknowns, x has property P (from now on, abbreviated
"P(x)"), if there are integer solutions for the other unknowns. That is, P(x) looks like the following assertion,
which I'll temporarily call R(x): There are integers y and z
for which 3xy + 2y2 + x2z +I ~ 0. So that 2 has property R
(or, for short, "R(2)") if and only if there are integers y and
z for which 6y + 2y2 +4z +I ~0.
Here is an outline for a proof of the First Incompleteness Theorem which, in a sense, only restates the fact that
there are such simple undecidable properties. Officially
we are proving a theorem about PM, but to show how
general the proof is, I will point out the only two facts
about PM which will be appealed to. The first is this:
(l) PM can "express" some undecideable
property~e.g.,
the
P(x) mentioned above. (From now on this will be abbreviated
as: PM is sufficiently strong.)
It takes a little effort to say just what "expressing" is.
For example, "+" does not happen to be one of the signs
of PM, but is instead defined in terms of others. So our
rendering of P(x) into the language of PM will be a little
indirect. That, however, is a minor point and will be ignored. I will suppose that the arithmetical signs we ordinarily use do appear in the formal language, so that "P(x)",
"P(O)", "P(l)", etc. occur both in English and in our formal
language. More important is the question: What does it
mean to say that some formula in a formal theory "expresses" the (English-language) notion P(x)? We can put
our rather weak requirement this way: Whatever PM happens to prove about the property is true. More exactly,
should the string of symbols for P(l7) occur among the
theorems of PM, then the English sentence P(17) is true,
which is to say that a certain equation with coefficient 17
has integer solutions. Should "not P(l7)" occur among the
theorems of PM, then we require that P(l7) be false. Weak
70
as this assumption is, we could get by with much less. If a
theory of arithmetic lacked the means to write down simple equations, or had the means but proved falsehoods
about them, it would not be of much use. So, for our purposes, this restriction is no restriction at all. The only theories of interest are those which are sufficiently strong.
The other thing we need to know about PM is this:
(2) The property of "being a theorem of PM" is listable.
For our purposes this is no restriction either, because it
turns out that (2) is a consequence of:
(2 ') The property of "being a proof in PM" is decideable.
I have already argued that a theory is of no use for theorizing if we cannot decide what counts as a proof.
The First Incompleteness Theorem says:
Any sufficiently strong, listable theory is incomplete.
Therefore no useful theory-PM, axiomatic arithmetic,
set theory-is complete; no useful theory can even settle
all the simple questions of elementary arithmetic.
To see the extreme generality of this it might be better
to replace the word "theory" by something like "recordable mathematical activity." We need assume nothing
about symbolism, logic, or the nature of the proofs that result from this activity, except that the activity can treat of
simple equations, and that a machine can decide whether
the record of some bit of activity counts as a proof.
The proof of the First Incompleteness Theorem is a
proof by contradiction. Assuming first that PM is listable,
I will describe a mechanical procedure (from now on to be
called M) which is an attempt at a decision procedure for
Matijasevic's property P. That is, the inputs to M will be
natural numbers and the outputs ''yes" and "no". We
know that there can be no decision procedure for P. That
is, for some input M must either give the wrong answer or
fail to give any answer at all. On the other hand, from the
assumptions that PM is sufficiently strong and complete
it will follow that M is a decision procedure for P, and
therefore at least one of the three assumptions "listable,
sufficiently strong, complete" is false. Having established
that we have established the First Incompleteness
Theorem.
Here is procedure M: Handed an input, say 17, turn on
the machine which lists the theorems of PM. If "P(l7)"
ever appears on the list, output "yes"; and if "not P(l7)"
appears, output "no".
Suppose now that PM is sufficiently strong. Then procedure M, whenever it does give an answer, gives the
right answer. Suppose further that PM is complete. Then
procedure M always yields an answer, because one or the
other of "P(l7)", "not P(l7)" is a theorem of PM and is
therefore bound to turn up in the list. It follows (from all
these assumptions) that M is a decision procedure for P.
AUTIJMN 1981
�That concludes the proof of the First Incompleteness
Theorem. (By juicing this up a little bit we can exhibit
a particular instance of property P which is independent
of PM.)
It might seem that this proof merely transfers the burden
onto the shoulders of Mr. Matijasevic, with his magical
property P. In fact, simpleminded undecideable properties are not hard to find. I chose property P only because it
seems evident that any self.respecting theory ought to be
able to express it.
We can easily tidy up the last loose end by showing why
(2') guarantees (2)-why the theorems of PM are listable.
A proof is a finite sequence of signs from the language of
PM. We therefore begin with a machine that lists all finite
sequences of signs of PM. (It is left to the reader to build
such a machine for himself.) This machine feeds its output to a proof checking machine. (Here is where we make
use of (2').) The proof checker decides which of those sequences are proofs and feeds the legitimate proofs to a
third machine; and that one writes down for us the proposition that each proof proves.
(Note: The First Incompleteness Theorem is itself
proved by elementary means. Although the hypothesis
"PM is sufficiently strong" cannot be so established, the
incompleteness of PM follows from that hypothesis by a
long chain of reasonings of the most elementary sort.)
Goede!' s own interpretation of his work is in some ways
quite cautious: Hilbert's Program has not necessarily been
shown to be impossible, because the notion of "elementary means of proof' is vague.
.
In other ways Goedel's interpretation is breathtaking:
Notice, he says, that the argument of the paper has resulted in a curious situation. Having shown that a certain
proposition {CON, let's say) is undecidable in PM, we
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
have nonetheless been able to determine that it is true.
That is, we have been able to appeal to a standard of truth
and falsity independent of the notions of provability and
refutability in PM. What could be the basis of such a standard of truth? Here Goede! reaches back to one of the
most ancient answers of all-to an independent, extramental world of mathematical objects. We believe in tables and chairs because we see no other way to make
sense of our sensible experience. Goede! feels equally
compelled, in order to make sense of his "mathematical
experience", to believe in the objects of mathematics.
Along this line of argument Goede! has few followers.
Aside from its philosophical difficulties, Goedel's view
must face a fact of our recent mathematical experience:
CON is a proposition which has been cooked up in order
to be undecidable. When we consider those set-theoretically undecidable propositions which have simply been
stumbled upon in the course of doing mathematics, we almost invariably find that we have no idea how to resolve
them or where to look for relevant "evidence."
What, then, do the Incompleteness Theorems say? As
soon as we get beyond the bounds of mere calculation, as
soon as we allow ourselves to enquire whether something
is so not merely for this or that number, but "for every
number"-we can no longer appeal to any systematic
method for obtaining answers. No improvements in mathematics or philosophy can get around that fact.
Philosophy is called on for a clarification-not to discover the address at which the numbers reside (or, perhaps, their convenience mail drop), but rather to give an
account of what we can justifiably mean by those problem-producing generalizations over the (infinite) domain
of numbers. To speak in a slightly loose and pre-Fregean
way: We need an account of the word "all".
71
�Philosophy and Spirituality in Plotinus
Bruce Venable
1 Knowledge as unity with God
The essential insight of Plotinus and, for us, the central
problem in studying the Enneads is that in them the practice of philosophy and the desire for mystical experience
are inseparable. For Plotinus, a philosophy that does not
culminate in mystical experience is an empty speculation;
the most justly celebrated passages of the Enneads, those
that have caused them to be read and cherished, are those
in which, after many pages of arduous dialectic, technical
distinctions, and dense argumentation, he summons the
reader to the state of serene union with God that fulfills
and transcends them. He felt, however, that a personal
religion that strives for mystical experiences without
grounding itself in philosophy is likely to degenerate or go
astray, like the Gnostics, into melodramatic fantasies and
delusions of cheap salvation. For those who regard philos·
ophy or, if you like, science and religion as independent of
one another their mutual dependence in the Enneads
must seem very strange and might seem even to invalidate them both because Plotinus presents neither a coherent rational philosophy nor a genuine piety, but only an
unsatisfactory muddle of the two.
In what sense is philosophy the necessary preparation
for mystical experience? In what sense is mystical experience the necessary culmination of philosophy?
Those acquainted with medieval scholasticism should
be advised that I shall not discuss this interdependence in
the form most familiar to them: the attempt to reconcile
faith and revealed religion with reason and philosophy.
The problem as it appears, for example, in the first question of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas
does not appear in the Enneads for two characteristic reasons: Plotinus recognizes neither divine revelation nor an
Bruce Venable is at work on a study of Nco-Platonic spirituality. A tutor
at Sante Fe, he delivered this essay as a lecture at St. John's College in
Annapolis on October 22, 1976, and at St. John's College in Santa Fe on
November 5, 1976.
72
independent science of theology UJ1der which the various
claims of revelation and philosophy are reconciled.
The strangeness of Plotinus' view can be somewhat dissipated if we try to peer beyond the fantastic formal complications of the Plotinian system in order to isolate the
ultimate or highest state of existence envisaged by that
system, briefly, a state of unconditioned unity and freedom. It appears in the Enneads twice: as the Good or the
One that is the unknowable first cause in metaphysics,
and again as the self that is the hidden center of the soul.
These two are very similar, if not identical, because, for
Plotinus, to ascend in thought above all created things to
a contemplation of the One is also to descend within the
soul to the hidden depths of the self. Furthermore, just as
a person does not view his self, but rather comes to exist
at that fundamental level, so also a person does not have a
vision of the One, but is rather unified with it. Returning
upon oneself is returning upon one's first cause and in at~
taining to this cause, one meets no stranger, but one's
very self.
Anyone who makes these assertions would consider
religion and philosophy inseparable and even very similar
to each other. But these assertions are rather strange.
Even setting the One aside for a moment as the mystery it
properly is, what about this notion of the self? Where does
it come from, what does it mean, and do we need it at all?
Plotinus, who was perhaps the first philosopher to feel the
need of such a concept of the self, frequently distinguishes the self as more inclusive and elementary than the
soul. The soul means the conscious activities, the acquired traits and personality, as well as the latent contents
and unconscious powers of the intellect, emotions, and
perceptions. The self means something both more primitive and more exalted than the soul. Not acquired or augmented by experience, education, or practice, it does not
present itself directly in any conscious activity, although it
supports and unifies them; the inclusive totality of the
psychic contents and powers, it is also independent of
them, isolated and aloof, unmanifested, unknowable, and
AUTUMN 1981
�unique. It is freedom. When the soul is free, it has withdrawn itself from its conscious life, its scattered thoughts
and feelings, its activities projected outward into the
world, and has gathered its powers into a motionless inward concentration. When it emerges again, the soul rea].
izes that all the goods which previously it sought outside
of itself belong to it naturally, eternally, are proper and intrinsic to itself. The soul is happy.
This description makes it clear that the self, as Plotinus
conceives it, is very similar to the One. It also makes clear
why union with the self will be union with the One. But
why did Plotinus use or even perhaps invent such a concept of the unknown self that is similar to God, when he
had already at hand the perfectly useful notion of the observed soul that is certainly not similar to God? If he had
not used this concept of the self he might have avoided
his confusion, perhaps an accidental one, between philosophy and religion.
Plotinus was certainly impelled by intimate religious desires to create and teach his philosophy. The fervor of his
desire for God is manifest in the Enneads, but something
of its inner meaning has not been shared with us. Because
he expressed his religious desires in the external form of a
philosophy that was in constant conversation with his
great precedessors in the Greek tradition, we can, by reexamining some relevant aspects of that more familiar or
less esoteric tradition, see the innovations of Plotinus in at
least the intellectual context in which he himself considered them and found them necessary. Because of his insistence on the mutual dependence of philosophy and religion,
Plotinus never teaches any religious doctrine, however
intimate its origins, that he would not be prepared to explain, amplify, defend, and fight for on purely philosophical grounds.
There was no philosopher with whom Plotinus' conver·
sation was more intimate than Aristotle. I shall begin,
therefore, with that strange passage in De anima book
three, chapter five that has caused commentators so
much vexation and disappointment.
Aristotle says that in every nature there is something
that is its matter; this is passive and receptive and becomes all the forms of that kind of being. There is also an
active or productive cause that makes all these forms in
the passive matter. It is necessary that these two exist also
in the soul: there is an intellect that makes all the forms
(of knowiedge, presumably) and an intellect that receives
or becomes these forms. The active or productive inte].
lect is like light which makes potential colors actual colors-the light that makes them visible and actually seen.
This active intellect is "separable, impassive, and unmixed." This means that the active intellect is independent of the body. Of these two intellects, Aristotle says,
the potential or passive intellect, which receives the forms
of knowledge, is temporally prior, but only in the individual; in general, the active intellect is prior. This is more
difficult to explain. The first clause seems to mean that in
each individual person, the potential for knowing exists
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
before any actual knowledge. But to say that in general
this is not so seems to imply that there is some other, nonhuman, intellect. Many ancient commentators said, therefore, that Aristotle here refers to the divine intellect.
The view that Aristotle does mean the divine intellect
gains support from his following remark that there is an
active intellect that is eternally thinking; or, as he puts it,
"it does not think sometimes and sometimes not think."
But what follows is again more puzzling: "only when it is
separated is it just what it is and this alone is immortal and
eternal." If ''separated" means "separated from the
human body," then Aristotle refers here to the destiny of
the active intellect of every individual person after the
death of the body. What follows seems to confirm this:
"But we don't remember because the active intellect is
impassible, but the passive intellect is mortal." The most
obvious interpretation of this sentence-although I don't
suppose that its being obvious must necessarily be held to
recommend it-is that every human soul contains two
intellects, an active and a passive; that only the active intellect is immortal, but that this active intellect, when liberated by death from the body, has no personal memory
of ourselves because it cannot receive the impression of
anything merely temporal and transitory, but on\y makes
universal ideas or concepts; the passive intellect does
receive the experiences of ordinary life and is related to
what we should call our personality; but this intellect
perishes along with the body. Thus there would be no personal immortality.
This interpretation was popular enough in antiquity to
cause it widely to be believed that Aristotle denied the
survival after death of any personal consciousness. Aris·
totle appeared to many as an enemy of the hopes for the
afterlife expressed in the Phaedo and the Republic.
This interpretation was not, however, without its opponents, who insisted that by the active intellect Aristotle
means the divine intellect. Many of these commentators
identified the active intellect with the thought of the unmoved mover which eternally thinks only itself. In support
of this identification, they argued that it was impossible to
imagine that Aristotle refers to any human intellect when
he says that the active intellect thinks eternally. But if this
chapter of the De anima concerns the divine intellect
rather than the human intellect, other commentators
wondered why it appears in Aristotle's book on psychology rather than in his books on metaphysics or theology.
So problems remain.
My only reason for discussing what Aristotle means in
this difficult chapter at all is to locate Plotinus in the con·
text of the problems that this chapter caused for ancient
philosophers: the possibility of something like God in the
human soul. It is easy in this context to combine or confuse metaphysics and psychology, as Plotinus seems often
to do. Perhaps it will be possible to combine or confuse
metaphysics and religion as well.
One of the most notorious interpretations of this passage
in the De anima is that of Averroes, an Arabic philosopher
73
�who lived in twelfth-century Spain. Averroes decided that
the active intellect is divine, universal, and immortal,
while the passive intellect is human, individual, and does
not survive the death of the body. An individual human
intellect actually knows only when it is illuminated by the
active intellect, passively receiving from it the forms, essences, or definitions of the things eternally known by the
active intellect. The human intellect is the mere disposition to receive intelligible objects and to suffer knowledge
to occur in it. Knowledge is not an act of the human intellect, because that intellect is purely passive, but only an
event that happens in and to the intellect. The human
person is a particular individual, but knowledge itself remains universal. Nevertheless, the individual's experience
of knowledge is a kind of contact with God. Because, however, the passive disposition of the human intellect perishes with the body, there can be no personal immortality,
no eternal life with God. In the language of religion, the
human individual is of no eternal significance and cannot
be saved. It is passive, transient, and helpless. There is a
conflict between the conclusions of philosophical psychology and the word of God as revealed in the Koran
which proclaims salvations and teaches personal immortality.
The consequences of this interpretation seemed intolerable to St. Thomas Aquinas, writing about a century
later, and he wrote a commentary on the De anima to
prove that the interpretation of Averroes was not in fact
the doctrine of Aristotle. He asked: If, as Averroes, says,
there is no individual active intellect, what sense does it
make to say "This individual person knows"? No sense at
all, St. Thomas thought. He maintained against Averroes
that, distinct from the divine intellect, every human soul
contains an active intellect as well as a passive intellect.
The passive intellect receives from the senses the images
of perceptible things; the active intellect, by its natural
power, extracts from these images their intelligible forms,
essences, or definitions. The active intellect is said to
"spiritualize" the images. In St. Thomas' reconcilation of
the psychology of Aristotle with the teachings of revealed
religion, the active intellect is spiritual in its essence:, sur-
vives the death of the body, and is immortal.
What, according to these interpretations of Averroes
and St. Thomas, is the relation between the individual
soul and the divine truth? Despite the differences between these two interpretations, this relation for both of
them is extrinsic or external. In neither interpretation is
the act of knowledge a co-operation or conversation between the soul and the truth.
For Averroes, the soul is completely passive; it receives
the illumination of the active intellect and experiences
knowledge, but remains, nonetheless, unchanged, without any intelligible content or intellectual power of its
own. The soul receives the truth as an inspired prophet
receives the divine revelation, as a free gift of a God who
exceeds the human capacity to imagine his purposes.
Because the soul is completely passive, it is not trans-
74
formed by the truth, nor can the truth save it, because it
has no immortal part.
For St. Thomas, it is of the soul's destiny and inherent
power to know the divine truth. But the soul constructs
this truth for itself, rather than receiving it from God. The
soul does not require the direct intervention of the divine
intellect to experience knowledge because the soul has an
autonomous and immanent power to know the divine
truth. This situation implies, however, that the soul is isolated; it does not meet, in the act of knowledge, any divine
being, power, or operation. Again, the act of knowledge,
and therefore philosophy, is without religious significance
for personal salvation. Also, as in the theory of Averroes,
knowledge has no specifically individual content. Although
the senses have particular experiences, the active intellect
extracts a uri!versal meaning from them. Individual salvation, therefore, according to St. Thomas, is conferred
upon the soul by an external donation of grace. Although
there is a cognitive content to this.salvation, it is incomprehensible to the human intellect unaided by grace. For
St. Thomas, as for Averroes, the soul, empty and helpless,
must accept its hope of salvation from divine revelation
alone. There is no continuity between its experience in
knowledge of the universal truth and its private desire in
religious feeling for a personal God.
St. Thomas and Averroes sought to resolve, perhaps
successfully, the conflicts that appeared to remain between philosophical psychology and personal religion.
The success of these efforts is not important here, for
these theories are far from anything that happens in the
Enneads. Averroes and St. Thomas begin with a stark contrast and separation of the human and divine intellects;
Plotinus regards them as connatural: of the same nature
and inseparable, they always act simultaneously. He considers human perfection to be a sharing in the divine act
of knowing but he does not want to have anything to do
with grace. Perfection must be real elevation of psychic
life to a higher act of existence, but must not be given to
the soul as something extrinsic to it. Perfection must be
internal and personal, it must be a discovery of and a
proper act of the self. It must also be divine; it must be
contact and union with God.
The difficulty of attaining perfection or even of describing it appears already in Aristotle: there seems to be no internal continuity between the individual human soul and
the universal divine intellect; there seems, therefore, to
be no way for the soul to share in the divine existence
without abandoning its own. In the passage from the De
anima Aristotle never says that he is discussing the divine
intellect, but he must mean the divine intellect when he
says that the active intellect thinks eternally, for surely no
human intellect can be said to think eternally.
With his usual taste for radical solutions, Plotinus says
that the human soul does indeed think eternally. Does
this mean that the human intellect shares what would
seem to be an exclusively divine power? How can an infinite divine power be present in a finite being without
AU1UMN 1981
�compromising the absolute distinction between God and
the soul (a distinction that Averroes and St. Thomas presuppose)? How can one resolve the problems of knowledge,
as posed by. Aristotle in the De anima, as the relation between the active and the passive intellects, without isolating the soul from God and without separating philosophy
from the practice of religion, as Averroes and St. Thomas
did? We seem to have either tgo much unity between
God and the soul or else not enough.
The ordinary philosophical question "How does the
soul get its ideas?" can develop convolutions that involve
the entire destiny of the soul and the religious problems
that surround that destiny. The soul has to be in contact
with God in order to have knowledge at all, but this contact with God threatens to engulf and dissolve the soul in
the ocean of the divine being.
2 Existence as unity with God
I now turn to the question of unity from a metaphysical
point of view, rather than from the point of view of knowledge and its possibility. The question of unity again develops consequences for personal religion and spirituality. It
will be seen again, I hope, that the distinction between
what happens inside the soul and what happens outside
of it becomes vague.
The Pannenides raises the problem of the participation
of material objects in their common, immaterial form.
The problem is seen there as an antinomy of immanence
and transcendence. If the many particular objects truly
participate in the single form, the form becomes immanent in them and is infected with their plurality; if they
partake of the form, they seem to take parts of it, to divide
it, and so do not all have a share of the same integral form
and so cannot all be called by its single name. Yet if the
form remains intact, if it remains untouched by, aloof
from, and transcendent to, the particular objects, it seems
that the particulars cannot participate in it at all.
The philosopher has two problems here: he wants the
form to be transcendent to the particular objects, single
and undivided, because he wants the form to be the authentic, unchanging object of knowledge, distinct from
the uncertain and changing appearances of the particulars, which can be the object only of opinion. At the same
time, however, or perhaps not quite at the same time, he
wants the form to be in some sense the cause of the particulars. This demand seems, however, to imply some contact between the form and the particulars that will violate
the integrity of the form as an object of knowledge.
This antinomy quickly became a traditional point of
argument in ancient philosophy. Most schools maintained
against the Platonists that the forms were in some way
immanent, or embedded, in the material particulars; the
Platonists strove to preserve the integrity and dignity and
the forms by keeping them separate from the sadness and
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
disorder of the material world. One typical gesture in this
direction was the view that the forms were the thoughts
of the divine intellect, the paradigms that guide its creation of the material world.
Eager to affirm the primacy of unity at all levels, Plotinus
would have inclined, as his theory of emanation suggests,
to a theory whereby the particulars, produced immediately by their causes, retain contact with them. His religious language, however, constantly exhorts one to flee
the confusions of this lower world for the true visions and
delights of a divine world somewhere "higher" and certainly separate from this one. The dilemma about unity
looks this way in Plotinus: how can the divine power
create and sustain the sensible world without (l) compromising its own transcendence and unity or (2) destroying
the real multiplicity and diversity of the sensible world?
Either the divine power will be dissipated in the world or
the world will be completely reabsorbed into the monochromatic unity of the greater power that creates it.
Plotinus devotes two long tractiltes to this technically
complex problem. He begins by attacking the Stoics who,
like him, were monists~people who emphasized the unity
of all things, but who, unlike Plotinus, were materialists.
The Stoics tried to solve the antinomy of transcendence
and immanence by making the world-soul present at
every point of the material universe. They diffused the intelligent, creative divine power throughout the world.
Plotinus objects that (l) the divine power is thus thought
of as material and that (2) it loses its unity with itself
because it is spread around on or in other material objects.
(Nothing will make Plotinus accept materialism: he thinks
it degrading. Some of the peculiarity of his own theory of
matter is due to this feeling.) Plotinus further objects that
the Stoic solution is impossible because two separate material things cannot participate in each other, they only
muddle together and lose their mutual independence. If
the world-soul is material, as the Stoics held, then the material world cannot participate in it at all. The world-soul
is left without any power to create or direct it. The objections of Plotinus to the materiality of the world-soul recall
the objections to Averroes' doctrine of the active intellect:
it abolishes the necessary distinctions between the creator
and the created.
The later Neoplatonists such as Proclus betray a desire
similar to St. Thomas Aquinas' in his doctrine of active intellect. They sought to preserve the dignity and integrity
of the transcendent form while allowing the immanent
form to govern the particulars, by distinguishing simply
and sharply between the transcendent forms in the divine
intellect, calling them unparticipated forms, and the
forms immanent in particular material things. The Neoplatonists had nevertheless to explain the real relation between the immanent forms and the transcendent form,
but not, of course, as participation. In their efforts to explain this relation they multiply distinct terms in a relation and then seek to justify their logical continuity~a
procedure that contrasts strikingly with Plotinus' method
75
�of establishing continuity between the transcendent form
and the material particulars.
I call Plotinus' solution the theory of integral omnipres·
ence. Typically, Plotinus accepts everyone's terms and
seeks to solve everyone's difficulties by comprehending
them in a universal theory that explains not only how
things are but also why other philosophers have the par·
tial and therefore false views of things that they do have.
It is a theory of consciousness, of attitudes and knowledge, as well as a theory of metaphysics, i.e., a theory
about the objects of consciousness. First, the metaphysi·
cal side of the theory because it is slightly less paradoxical
than the theory of consciousness, and because this order
provides an edifying climax.
The theory of integral omnipresence is a characteristic
expression of Plotinus' intuition of the universe as a single
spiritual life. In his philosophy, the distinctions of a static
structure of reality were overlaid and dominated by the
notion that this structure is in fact a dynamic interrela·
tionship of spiritual forces. The notion of life as a power
of self-movement and transformation prevails over the no-
tion of existence as formed and completed. Being is pri·
marily power and activity and only secondarily, form and
hypostasis (6.4.9, 23-25).
For Plotinus a form in the divine intellect is a radiance
or a power, illuminating and actualizing the particulars,
rather than an archetype or paradigm separate from them.
The transcendent form is universally present in particular
qualities. Conversely, the particular quality acts as the
form, locally present, although with diminished strength
and intensity. For example, the white color throughout a
bowl of milk is also the white color in two different bowls
of milk, because color is a quality not a quantity and,
therefore, has no parts (IV.2.l; IV.3.2). In more modern
terms, Plotinus equates the intension of a quality, its defi·
nition, with its extension, its range of application.
If the form in the divine intellect is omnipresent in its
spatially-separated and material manifestations, does this
presence not make the form itself spatial and material? If
so, Plotinus will have failed in his attempt to outflank
Stoic cosmology while retaining its dynamic character.
Plotinus attempts therefore to purify his notion of crea·
tion and created diversity from all spatial references, correcting thereby the materialistic implications of his own
imagery of emanation by which he represents the diffusion of infinite creative power into successively' lower and
weaker, but more determinate, forms of existence, desending at last to visible and tangible matter. He takes up
his own imagery and revises it carefully to remove from it
every spatial or material reference.
For clarity's sake the argument has often tried to lead the
mind to understand the origin of multiplicity by making an
image of many radii emanating from a single center. (cf.
5.1.!1, !0-!5). But one must add to this image the idea that
the radii become many while remaining together. One removes, as it were, the lengths of the radii and considers only
76
their extremities, lying at the center, where they are all one.
Again, if you add the lengths again, each radius will touch the
center still. Nevertheless (despite the length of the radii), the
several extremities at the center will not be separated from
the primary center but will be simultaneous with it. The
centers will appear to be as many as the radii which they
touch, but they remain all together. If, therefore, we liken all
the intelligible forms to many centers related to and unified
in one center, but appearing many because of their radii (although the radii do not generate the centers, but only reveal
where they are), let the radii be analogous to the material
things which, when the intelligible form touches them, make
the form appear to be multiple and to be present in many
places. (6.5.5)
In this chapter he uses a spatial image to express a
dynamic notion of causality: the generation of multiple
beings as distinct forces emanating from a single source of
creative power. Plotinus then carefully revises the image
in order to remove from it every spatial or material sugges·
tion: he strives to represent direction without quantity
and forces without a space across which they are extended.
Multiplied and diversified, the power of the creative
cause remains (paradoxically) concentrated and undiffer·
entiated in the cause. The diversity of the created world is
simultaneous with the simplicity of its cause, but utterly
distinct from it because each created being takes a direc·
tion in which it is manifested spatially and materially,
whereas the single cause is free from every specification
and limitation. The relation between cause and effect is
asymetrical; the cause has a transcendent existence be·
cause it is not exhausted in its relation to its effects: the
effects are completely defined by their dependence upon
their cause and their limited and local appearance in the
sensible world. This asymetrical relation is eternal and can
never be reversed. The primacy of the first cause lies in its
infinity and power which contrasts with the structured di·
versity of its effects.
This discussion shows one reason for introducing this
new theory. If all individuals, even the archetypes in the
divine intellect, are not constantly present to their trans·
cendent cause, the One, they will be separated from it
and deprived of its power. They will have no power of
self-subsistence and would perish as heat fades when fire
withdraws. Their death would leave the One as the single,
universal being, the imperishable substrate of its transitory
modes or emanations. A further consequence of particu·
Jar interest is that there could be no personal immortality
of the soul.
Plotinus offers this theory as a solution to the pantheis·
tic and monistic dilemmas encountered by his predeces·
sors. Nevertheless, one must admit that in seeking to solve
all possible difficulties he has invented a theory t)lat is far
stranger than anything his predecessors even imagined.
(I hope that you do not think that I am approaching my
subject frivolously. I have been provoked to this some·
what unscholarly fashion of speech in order to set the
problems aroused by a prolonged study of Plotinus in all
AUTUMN 1981
�their immediacy. Many scholars will blandly present a
bizarre theory like the present one without a hint of why
Plotinus should have desired it at all, without explaining
what sort of satisfaction he might have taken in it.)
The weirdest aspect of this theory is that it seems to
disregard matter entirely. Plotinus was ready for this objection. He points out that the greatest obstacle to understanding his theory is the persistent human weakness that
remains convinced, despite his many demonstrations to
the contrary, that the visible world is real and that consequently the intelligible world must be extended in space
to form and govern it (6.4.2, 28-43). He insists that the
material world is specious, the last feeble manifestation of
intelligible power in the blank and insubstantial substrate
of matter. This manifestation is appropriate only to the
most feeble exercise of thought: the naive opinion that
takes things for what they only seem to be.
Let me hasten to add that Plotinus does not deny that
matter is somehow real; he merely insists that its reality is
not intelligible in itself, but only with reference to the
divine intelligible power that creates, informs, and sustains it and with reference also to the power of human intellect that beholds it and seems to penetrate its deceptive
appearance. Matter is an illusion only in the sense that it
is the most diffused appearance of the divine thought
which recognizes it not as delusion or falsity, but as its
own exuberance and self-revelation. For Plotinus, all mere
existence (for the One is beyond existence) is appearance,
a real apparition of divine energy, in a particular intelligible, psychic, or material form, relative to the level of
consciousness that is able to perceive and understand it.
He insists only that the reality of these appearances is not
in themselves but in their cause because reality means in~
telligibility. All levels of reality are strictly relative to the
levels of consciousness-perception, emotion, discursive
knowledge, pure contemplation-which apprehend them.
The soul ascends to a higher level of reality as it attains to
a higher level of consciousness: the soul ascends to God as
it attains a divine power of thought. A topography of salvation is completely internalized.
This kind of thinking is unfamiliar to us and even Flolinus' contemporaries seem to have been puzzled by it.
Why does Plotinus want to think and talk this way?
Plotinus concludes from the immateriality of the intelligible world that whatever is able to participate in it, participates in it as a whole. Where there is no question of
extension or magnitude, whatever is present to any. must
be present to all (6.4.2, 43-49). The truth of this inference
is easy to see in the case of demonstrative knowledge
which, if it is to be genuine, universal knowledge, must be
the same for all human intellects, despite the differences
in human personalities. Plotinus' idea is another form of
the Aristotelian theorem that the intellect in act is identical with the intelligible in act. If individual intellects know
the identical object of knowledge, they must each become
it identically. Plotinus, therefore, says that participation in
knowledge, in the divine intellect, is identical because
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
knowledge, being immaterial, is equally present to all intellects that know it. The object of knowledge, likewise, is
equally available to any intellect that turns its attention towards it and becomes present to every intellect in proportion to its individual ability. to know it. But the differences
among actually attained knowledges are all on the side of
the individual human intellects; the divine intellect is
equally present to all. But this truth is not too obvious in
the case of existential participation, e.g. human participation in the divine virtues. Why, one may object, does this
participation not also appear uniform? Why in fact does it
appear to be wildly diverse, there being perhaps not a
single form-justice or beauty, for example-that appears
to be evenly distributed in the world? Plotinus answers
that there are manifest degrees of participation because
they correspond to the differing abilities of created things
to accept the impression of the form whose power is
nonetheless present and available to it (6.4.8, 39-40; 11,
3-5). These varying abilities to participate correspond in
turn to different intensities of the desire to receive the
quality or form (5.3.17, 28-32; 5.5.8).
Here Plotinus again uses the vocabulary of psychology
in a metaphysical discussion. But Plotinus is not just careless about his vocabulary: he wants the identification or
confusion of metaphysics and psychology to be an explicit
principle of his philosophy. Free will and not existence is
to be its foundation.
Because divine being is omnipresent and because its
presence is realized in the actual existence of each particular being according to the capacity and desire of each to
receive a divine mode of existence, this relation of the
transcendent power and immanent presence of the divine
being will be valid also for the individual soul. Because,
moreover, all divine reality is both intellectual and intelligible (both thinks and is the object of thought), the soul
shares in divine reality through contemplation, both expanding its knowledge and strengthening its power of
thought. The metaphysical interrelation of transcendence
and immanence is the structure of personal salvation. The
soul is elevated through contemplation to a divine and
universal mode of existence without losing its uniqueness
in that greater power. The divine existence appears as the
individual existence without resigning its transcendence.
This development reveals the importance of the idea of
the self as distinct from all the powers and contents of the
soul. (Compare the argumentation throughout 5.3, 3-4).
The human soul and intellect are manifestations of and
participations in the world soul and the divine intellect.
Just as, in the universe, the world soul and the divine intellect are unified by the comprehensive power of the One,
so, in the individual human person, the individual soul
and intellect are unified by the comprehensive power of
the self, superior to them and usually hidden by them.
Further, just as the One generates the world soul and the
divine intellect out of itself but remains unlimited by their
specific natures and undiminished by their specific activities, so the human self is the real source of the individual
77
�soul and intellect, but a source that remains unaffected by
their diverse natures and acts.
The soul is many things and all things, both the things above
and those below down to the limits of all life. We are each one
an intelligible cosmos, touching the lower world by the
powers of the soul belOw, but with our higher powers attain-
ing the entire intelligible realm. We remain with all the rest of
the intelligible above, but by our lowest edge we are bound to
the world below. (3.4.3, 21-27)
Only the attachment of the soul to a material body dulls
its perception of its continued residence in the divine
world. The soul does not literally descend into a body. Its
only descent is ignorance of its divine origin and nature.
Detachment from the body liberates the higher sensibility
and delivers the soul again to its original beatitude. Salvation, the ascent of the soul to divine life, is therefore selfknowledge; salvation is a re-awakening of the soul from
the torpor of incarnate existence to the eternal world of
its origin and its higher, inner, and secret life. Because the
interior cosmos of the soul mirrors the cosmos of the uni-
verse, the life of the philosopher becoming conscious of
himself is an archetypal personal history in which his individual existence is elevated to the status of an archetype
because it is consciously conformed, through his contemplation, to the pattern of universal being, a pattern that is
always present in his soul as an inherent possibility and
power of existence, the power to transform his life in the
image of the divine realities he contemplates.
As a consequence of the theory of integral omnipresence, a general theory of universal being becomes the
equivalent of the practice of the interior life of contemplation. Because of this equivalence, self-knowledge is
knowledge of God; because knowledge of God is salvation, self-knowledge is salvation.
Or is it? The One is unknowable.
But is the One God? Yes.
But is the One present in us, so that knowledge of the
self can be knowledge of the One? Yes. In the first tractate of the fifth Ennead, after outlining his metaphysics,
Plotinus continues:
It has now been shown that we must believe that things are as
follows: there is first the One which is beyond being, as our
discourse tried to demonstrate, so far as it is possible to dem-
onstrate about such things; next there is intellect and then
the soul. As these three exist in nature, so it is necessary to
believe that they exist even in ourselves. I do not mean in the
perceptible parts of ourselves-for these three are incorporeal-but in those parts that Plato calls "the inner man."
Even our soul, then, is a divine thing and of another nature,
such as is the universal nature of soul. (5.1.10, 1-12)
Plotinus says in other passages that we are joined to the
One, that we touch the ultimate Godhead, by a similar
nature in ourselves. He even says at one point, after hav-
ing described the ethical purification he demands as preparation for the contemplation of divine reality, "but our
78
desire is not to be free of sin, but to be God" (1.2.6, 2-3).
What is the meaning of this dark utterance? It is one
thing, and a thing whose meaning has, I hope, become
somewhat clearer in the course of this essay, to say that
the authentic self is an archetype in the divine intellect, a
self that is therefore unique, divine, and immortal; the
self, on this view, is a determinate aspect of the divine wis-
dom, relative to its limited sphere of manifestation in the
created world. But to assert that the One dwells in the self
seems to make an unrestricted claim for the divinity of
the self, seems to abolish the distinction between the
created self and the ultimate source and desire of all
created existence. Furthermore, because the One is said
to be present in every self and in every form in the divine
intellect, it seems that even the distinction between the
One and the divine intellect, so carefully made and so
strenuously defended, would disappear and with this distinction would disappear all rational justification for
created diversity and multiplicity.
The desire of Plotinus to unify metaphysics and personal religion has caused a serious problem.
3 Mystical Unity
I shall proceed obliquely and by negative contrasts. If
we find difficulties in the system as Plotinus presents it,
let us wonder what it would have been like if it were not as
Plotinus presents it. Specifically, if we see problems in the
distinction between the divine intellect and the One and
in the assertion that the soul can be unified mystically
with both of them, let us consider what the system would
look like without these features. I hope by this procedure
to reveal the appetites of Plotinus in making his system
and his satisfaction in it.
If, then, Plotinus had not posited above the divine intellect another deity, incomprehensible in thought, but attainable in an immediate, non-rational union, his religious
aspiration for union with God could still have been satisfied. He already speaks of the divinization. of the soul
through union with the divine intellect (5.8.7, 32-35;
5.8.10, 39-40; 5.8.11). He could have developed this idea
much as Averroes was to do, by making the conjunction
of the human passive intellect with the divine active intellect the goal of all religious and philosophical striving.
Such a theory would, however, have implied a different
notion of the self than that embodied in the system as Plotinus has it. The self for such a theory would be defined
by its being coextensive with the divine intellect as a system of laws, relationships, and pure archetypes of being.
The self would exist insofar as the truth of the divine intellect, its unity as perfect knowledge, is valid. This theory
implies a fundamentally abstract and impersonal view of
being; the self would be a law of knowledge, coextensive
with the divine intellect, rather than a life or a free will.
(Averroes, who professed this view of human beatitude,
found no need for an additional, personal immortality.)
AUTUMN 1981
�Even if this system included within the divine intellect
the forms of human individuals, the self, although imperishable, would still be defined as a unique point of view on
the finite content of the divine intellect. Its desire for
union with God would have no uniquely determined personal significance. Its immortality would be guaranteed by
the conformity of the intellect to the perfect order of the
divine intellect. This order has two essential characteristics: finitude and necessity. The self, in turn, would be
finite and contained by the necessity that governs all intellectual being. The divine intellect would be the single,
final, and absolutely integrated self and the pattern of all
genuine selfhood.
Against or, more accurately, beyond this notion of selfhood and of divinity, Plotinus sets another, for which intellect and consciousness are not the highest values. His
decision to do this sets him apart from his predecessors in
the Greek philosophical tradition. For Plotinus the two
most important personal qualities are freedom and, dependent upon it, love. It is precisely these two qualities,
insignificant in an impersonal notion of selfhood and
divinity, that Plotinus sought to preserve and exalt in the
mysticism that culminates in union with the One.
The basic affirmation of "intellectualistic" mysticism is
that each human individual is an archetype contained in
the divine intellect. Union with the divine intellect elevates the human intellect to the universality of the divine
intellect, but allows no freedom in that unity. If the self is
preserved as an eternal mode, moment, or aspect of the
divine intellect, its existence is limited and determined by
the necessary causal dependence that creates and maintains it. Such a self is not free and its personal religious
aspirations are ultimately irrelevant because that self will
cease to exist as separate. The intellect sees the One as
the supreme object of metaphysical speculation. Personal
religion desires not to understand the One, but to be
united with it as the object of its love.
This union of love reveals not only a new aspect of the
God that is loved, but also of the self that loves Him. (In
such descriptions Plotinus uses the masculine pronouns
which name a personal God instead of the more usual
neuter pronouns which name an abstract principle or im-
personal cause.) In this union with a personal God, the
self and its love are experienced as infinite and free. The
desire to experience the native infinity and freedom of the
self, in addition to purely metaphysical reasons, motivates
Plotinus' description of the One as itself (or Himself) infinite and free.
Here ·is a passage from the long and careful discussion
of how the One may be said to be free, in which Plotinus
makes it clear that his doctrine about the One's freedom
implies a similar nature in ourselves, a state of isolation
and self-mastery.
When we say that He (the One) receives nothing into Himself
and that nothing else contains Him, intending to place Him
outside of chance, we mean not only that He is free by reason
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
of His attainment of self-unity and purity from all things, but
also that, if we discover a similar nature in ourselves that has
nothing to do with those things which depend upon us and
by which we suffer accident and chance (the body and its
emotions), we mean that by that nature alone we have the
same self-mastery that the One has, the autonomy of the light
that belongs to the Good and is good in actuality, essentially
superior to any intellectual light or goodness. When we ascend into that state and become that light alone, having discarded everything else, what else can we say but that we are
more than (intellectually) free, more than autonomous?
(6.8.15, 8-23)
It would be impossible to state more emphatically that the
discovery of an utterly transcendent God corresponds to
the attainment of a state of personal transcendence that is
the unceasing presence of that God within the self. In
religion, as in metaphysics, there is a union or coincidence
of an immanent power and its transcendent cause.
In this union with God the soul discovers that its deepest ground is not its archetypal being contained in the
divine intellect, that its highest aspiration is not, therefore, to become perfect self-consciousness, omniscence,
and formed existence. Its ultimate uniqueness is a mystery
inaccessible to discursive reason, because its authentic
self is infinite and free. The self is an ideal, a teleological
notion because the self can withdraw itself from its apparent, projected, personality (within whose boundaries it
can have only finite satisfaction) and can thereby discover
its infinity and freedom in union with the infinity and
freedom of the One (6.5.7). The aspiration of the self to
know itself as unique finds its complete satisfaction only
in this union with a God unlimited in activity and uncomprehended by thought. The One is experienced in this
union as one with the deepest point of the self (6.9.11).
But we must return to our problem: how did Plotinus
think that he could get away with this? We must return
because Plotinus himself had no patience with religious
enthusiasm unsupported by philosophy.
Plotinus does not see this problem quite as we do
because he is completely unaffected by incarnational
thinking and probably completely ignorant of it. He
believes that the divine world is omnipresent: its powers
and possibilities underlie every derived existence. The
One is present to the intellect as an innate desire to surpass its self-reflective unity of being and thinking; this
desire, moreover, is prior to the subject-object duality of
intellect precisely because the desire to be at one with
oneself is the presence of the One in the human person as
its innate unity and simplicity. The life of the One persists in the intellect as its inner light which strives to
return from thoughts to its original free and undefined
condition. The One is present everywhere as this spontaneous desire to transcend every internal division, as the
desire of all things for their inherent unity (6.5.1; 6.9.1-2).
Intellect is a principle of diversity and multiplication,
"for intellect is an activity manifest in the expansion of all
things" (3.8.9, 20-33). The One is an act of contraction of
79
�the soul upon itself, a descent into itself, a negative activity that shrinks from the nullity of phenomena mto the
core of the self. All consciousness IS concentratiOn, a
strengthening of the contemplative power upon the inside of the soul. The One appears as the final event of this
concentration. This state is not an intellectual intuition of
the self nor of an absolute unity, but is a coincidence of
the self with the One, not a coalescence of substances but
a coincidence of activities. In this coincidence neither the
transcendence of the One nor the dependence of the self
as created are violated.
Plotinus often recalls the language of the Symposium
when describing this union (1.6.7; 6.7.22; 6.7.34-35). Plato
interpreted erotic passion as the vehicle of personal transcendence into the world of true bemg because eros discovers and actualizes the likeness of the soul to that world.
The sequence of transcendences that conducts the soul to
a final vision of the forms and contact with the truth IS
described in the Symposium as an ascending dialectic of
desire stimulated and desire fulfilled, of beauty perceived
and beauty attained, of love aroused by vision and love at
rest in its object. Plotinus makes one significant addition,
speaking of "beauty perceived and beauty acquired" as
the contemplative soul affectively mmors the dlVlne perfections it beholds. The soul actualizes its visions as
deeper levels of its own virtual existence. Therefore the
dialectic of love in Plotinus culminates not m VISIOn but m
union. But it is a union of lovers that does not obliterate
their distinction, for that would obliterate also their love,
but causes them to forget the distance between them.
This union is two-fold: because it is an attainment of
the authentic self, it occurs within the boundaries of the
soul but because it is union with the One, it is also a certain'transcendence of the soul's individuality. This union
is the mystical counterpart of the metaphysical theory of
integral omnipresence and is a particular application of It.
The One is transcendent because it is the efficient cause
of the lower forms of existence which proceed from it; yet
as their final cause it is immanent in its effects because
they can return to it only by enfolding and concentrating
their activity around the center of their own existence.
Transcendence corresponds to the desire stimulated by
one's unattained good; immanence corresponds to the
tranquil possession of one's good as the part and activity
of one's own self. The soul is not poor: its best part, its
innermost self, is already somehow transcendent (3.5.3,
25-26). The soul does not need to become divine by grace
because its deepest point is already God.
We must put aside all else to remain in that Alone and to
become it, discarding all other attachments. We are impatient
to depart this life and to be free of it so that we may be enfolded upon our own entirety and have no part in us but ~hat
through which we have contact with God. Then it is possible
to see Him and one's self together, insofar as one may speak
80
any longer of vision. It is a vision of a self resplendent, full of
intellectual light, pure, weightless, lightsome, a self that
~as
become God, or rather that is God always, but only then wtth
its Godhead enkindled. (6.9.9, 50-58)
The spiritual meaning of the theory of integral omnipresence is thus made clear. When the soul is saved, it apprehends and possesses its good, it is assumed into and possessed by the more inclusive existence of its good, but II
has not departed from itself in an ecstasy nor has It received a new self by grace; it has only for the first time
realized the good inherent in itself.
.
This union with the God is both the culmination of philosophy (because philosophical contemplation is the only
valid preparation) and also a transcendence of philosophy
(because the union surpasses and temporanly obliterates
the subject-object duality of all contemplation). Phtlosophy is not a mechanical method that. will inevitably supply
the desired mystical experiences (such a view would
violate the freedom of God); the self must prepare·itself
for these experiences and wait (5.5.8; also 1.6.9; 5.3.17,
28-32; 6.5.12, 29-31). The visions of the sober intellect
are annulled by the experiences of the drunken intellect
in love with God (6.7.35). In this sense philosophy is itself
left behind by religion, although it will again be asked to
interpret the experiences at the essentially inferior level
of thought and speech.
The final personal tr')nsformation is to have one's
desire for God and one's vision of God so cldsely united to
one's essential self that the self becomes the pure mirror
into which the final revelation of God is suspended. The
whole sequence of contemplative vision is accomplished
within the soul as a life of theopathy, suffering the divine,
because the transfiguration of these visions occurs only
for the soul that is transformed by them. The important
factor is the correlation of the real apparition of God to
the soul and the soul's degree of inner association with
God, the degree to which it concentrates and strengthens
its inner light into likeness with God.
The ultimate spiritual attainment of the self and the
form of its salvation coincide with the ultimate manifestation of God. The true self, experienced only in union with
the One, is perfect freedom; the ultimate God, experienced only in union with the self, is pure creative spontaneity. The return of the soul through gradual simplifications of intellectual vision to the motionless self reveals at
the same time that self, in its purity and freedom, as the
only perfect revelation of God.
We have returned to the beginning, we have seen Flolinus' idea of the self, its inseparable connection with his
experience of God, and we have solved all problems. I
hope, finally, that it is clear, through th1s discusswn of the
union of the deepest self with the highest God, how the
entire philosophy of Plotinus is but the preparation and
intimation of the silence of that unimaginable splendor.
AUTUMN
I981
�OCCASIONAL DISCOURSES
The Permanent Part
of the College*
By "the permanent part" of the College
in the title of my address, I mean, as you
have probably guessed, you, the alumni.
That is not just an ingratiating way of
speaking devised for the occasion, but it
has some facts in its favor.
Before I explain myself, let me remind
you of an occasion in which many of you
have participated-the president's Senior
Dinner. One part of it that is sometimes
quite moving is the Dean's Toast to theRepublic. If he is feeling thorough, it will
have four parts, ascending in order of
worldly magnitude and then dropping into
intimate immediacy. There will be celebrated the Republic of Plato, which is the
world's first book to set out the program of
a true school, the republic of letters which
is the commonwealth of all those who love
the word, the republic of the United States
of America which is the ground and foundation of our worldly being, and finally, St.
John's College, the living community of
learning.
The question concerning the continuity
of all these commonwealths with each
other, and of each in itself, in other words,
the question in all its range of the continuity of community has always been a preoccupation of mine. As I understand it, it is
an aspect of that question that you, as
alumni, want me to speak about, and I welcome the occasion for becoming clear
about it to myself. So to return to the position of the alumni within the college community.
Consider the students at any time attending the college. Presently they graduate, they go to a first degree of academic
honor and are students in the strict sense
no longer. The Board of the college changes
*Delivered at a gathering of San Francisco area
alumni of St. John's in the fall of 1980.
THE ST.JOHNS REVlEW
all the time; its members have a fairly short
term. Our last president was with us an
amazingly long time-the longest or among
the longest of any twentieth century college president. But he has now sworn not
to set foot on either campus for a year, for
a well-earned period of distance and refreshment. May our new president, whom
you will meet later in the year, be with us
for that length of time which betokens a
good fit!-but it will not be permanently.
And finally, the tutors themselves, who
may seem to you to be truly permanent fixtures at Annapolis and Santa Fe-they too
must retire late in life <!nd become
"emeriti," members of the college by
reason of their meritorious past but now
completed service.
Alumni, on the other hand, are alumni
for good. Their very name proclaims itthey are "nurslings" who have, presumably, absorbed something of the college's
substance. By the college Polity all students, once matriculated, become alumni
of the college, whether they leave with or
without a degree, and no one can retire or
"terminate" them. All other membership
in the college is by choice; that of alumni
alone has in it something analogous to being by nature.
So as nurslings of the institution, alumni
are first of all asked to nourish it in return. I
know very well and have a certain limited
sympathy for the complaint that when the
college communicates with graduates it is
too often about money-exactly the complaint parents have about their student
children. It has to be. Private colleges are
charitable institutions that give their services almost half free. Money-raising is the
price they pay for their freedom to choose
to be what they are. It can be done crudely
or tactfully, but done it must be, by our
president as by all other private school
presidents. Of course, the response is a
matter of choice. That choice may well be
determined not only by a general sense of
responsibility for the continuation of nongovernmental education but also by gratitude. For example, I have a fixed, and fairly
well-kept rule of sending twenty-five
dollars to St. John's whenever the institutions from which I graduated-whom I respected only as the employers of much
admired but very remote professors and
loved not all.-solicit me for money.
But, of course, the notion that the alumni's relation to the college-at least to our
college-begins or ends there is absurd. So
let me now consider the question what
constitutes the after-life of a student from
its most specific to its widest aspect.
First of all, and this turns out to be by no
means a mere formality, the alumni participate in the governance of the college
through their board representatives and informally by the weight of their organized
opinion. That opinion has on occasion
decided issues-such as the proposed
abandonment of our old name.
The college in turn, we all agree, owes its
alumni certain reliable services and wellorganized, substance-informed occasions
for their return. Among the first is the
prompt and effective composition of letters of reference. Among the second are
Homecoming with its seminars, and the exhilarating summer alumni seminars that
take place in Santa Fe. Then there are the
alumni meetings in the various cities, such
as this one. For all of these affairs the
tutors who help with them volunteer their
time and efforts, in acknowledgement of
the permanent bond between them and
their former students.
But the tutors have another kind of
duty~that more informal kind of duty
which, were it not such a pleasure to per-
81
�form, would probably not be very faithfully
observed. It is a duty which, even though it
is more sporadic than undergraduate
teaching, is as serious and as satisfying. It is
to be in some practical sense there for
alumni, to write to in weal or woe, to visit
on the way to a new departure or on a sentimental journey, to bring the conclusions
of life to. Those visits from former students-sometimes there is time only for fifteen minutes of conversation in the coffee
shop-are always talked about among us.
Nothing brings home to us the ultimate
impotence of the profession Of teaching
and the deeply dubious character of the
program as does a visit from a former student who is lost and who attributes that
condition to having been touched by some
unassimilable intimation of paradise or of
hell in this school. Nothing gives so exhilarating a sense of stability in change as the
appearance of alumni who have so well
and truly put the college in the past that it
is equa11y well and truly present in them:
an oracular saying which I am certain will
have some immediate meaning for most of
you, and of which I want to say more later.
But the feelings with which these encounters leave us, from disturbed regret to
a sense that the deliberate benevolance we
felt towards you in your student daysgood teachers are never "close" to their
students-is about to turn into life-long
friendship, are not my present point. That
point is that alumni are in a more than
metaphorical sense returning home, and
have a right to be received in that spirit.
Those, then, are the continuing relations
of the alumni with the college as a home
community, made up of officers and two
campuses and one faculty. Now I come to
the after-life of alumni on their own. How
does the college continue with them? It is
by far the more problematic topic and a
better subject for reflection.
Of course, it too has a practical and organizable part. The alumni organizations are,
as it were, independent extensions of the
college. In bringing former students together in the kind of event which is characteristic of St. John's, in seminars and
lectures legitimated by discussion, they
propagate the life of the college and provide members with the means for continuing to live it at their leisure. For us to hear
that a city has a lively alumni group is to
have a sense of having friends in the world,
82
and to come to such a city, for example, to
San Francisco, is a little like the experience
of the shipwrecked Greek who, being cast
up on a wild coast, saw scratched in a rock
the diagram of Eucid I, 47 and said: "Here
too are humans."
(Let me hasten to add that this feeling is
absurd. Humans, that is to say, people to
talk to, are everywhere. And yet, absurd as
it is, it is also humanly sensible, for it is humanly sensible to feel relieved at finding
one's own.)
This external, organized continuation of
college life away from the campuses is, of
course, only the expression of any inner individual continuity. Let me again begin at
the easy end by giving some plain and practical tutors' answers to the questions about
alumni life.
Alumni should continue reading. I imagine that most of you read quite a bit in the
ordinary course of your lives. Much of that
reading is in so called "papers" -newspapers, position papers, official paperseverything I call to myself "instrumental
junk.'' Mally of you probably also read
reams of poetry and of novels-my own
favorite genre-of that mean range of
excellence which goes down easily and yet
nourishes the imagination. Many of you
will have emerged from the program hungry for history written to that same
standard. I have often thought that the
much-bemoaned heavy tread of our program readings has in the best event this
happy side effect-that it leaves students
with a great appetite-some of you may recall that the Greeks called it boulimia, "oxfamine" -for miscellaneous reading. But
this kind of reading, which we share with
the rest of the literate world, is not what I
have in mind.
I am thinking of a very deliberate effort.
It involves first of all letting the time ripen,
by keeping the thought in mind without
pressing on to the execution. But then,
when you are ready, pick up the program
list. Readiness may be that the new ways of
life which you have, in a healthy zest for
contrast, thrown yourselves into have begun to fail you. It may mean that some specific question has returned to preoccupy
you, or that you see its true shape for the
first time. It may mean simply that you feel
the wave of activity floating you away from
the isle of contemplation.
Pick up the list and choose a text. Then
read it. Read it as experienced grown-ups
reread the books of their youth: with a
twinge of nostalgia for the circumstances
of its first reading and with some wry admiration for the lordly consumption of metaphysics of which you were once capable,
but after that with the critical discernment
which comes from a well-digested, that is
to say, half-forgotten education. That is my
small but precise recommendation for
doing alumni-deeds.
But now the moment has come for matters of larger scope. Let me work my way
into them by dwelling on a dilemma often
discussed or displayed by visiting alumni, a
dilemma at once highly specific to this college and of the widest human importance.
Alumni sometimes arrive with a shamefaced and apologetic air about them. How
have they sinned? They are respected at
their work and loved at home, but now
they have come to the place of accountgiving, and they feel wanting. The matter
is this: they are not living the philosophic
life.
Now that is a difficulty that I can only
imagine a St. Johnnie as being oppressed
by. Other students might be anxious before their teachers for having failed in the
world or even for having lost their soul, but
they would not usually know much about
or honor the philosophic life. I am always
charmed by our students' anxiety because
it shows on their part a willingness to take
root in a deep and wise tradition concerning the good life. But I am also, in turn,
anXIOUS.
Let me backtrack for a moment to be
more accurate. Sometimes there really is
something amiss in these uneasy visitors.
They may have become enmeshed in what
I will simply denominate here by its all too
instantiable formula, "the hassles of contemporary living". Or they are absorbed in
the mild miserie~ of forgetfulness and can't
come to. But more often their account of
their life is full of shy ardor and quiet intelligence. Then I ask myself: what on earth
does he or she, what do we all mean by the
philosophical life?
So the matter needs to be thought out.
Let me give you some of my thoughts,
some long in coming, some thought out for
the occasion.
When the ancient philosophers speak of
the philosophical life, the bios philosophiAUTIJMN 1981
�k6s, one thing is immediately clear. It is a
life and not a profession they are speaking
of. Professors of philosophy have certain
real disabilities in living the philosophical
life. For as professors they have a position
to maintain in the world, and work, not leisure, is their element. It is just the same
with returning graduate students in philosophy. Sometimes they are full of interesting reflections on their activity, but
sometimes they are so lost in their profession that it makes one's heart sink.
Not that tutors are altogether different.
To be sure, one incident that did much to
win my heart for the college was a salary report prepared now almost a quarter century
ago by Winfree Smith.
Its preamble declared that although tutors were paid to live, they were not paid
for their work because that was invaluable.
It was invaluable both in being a pleasure
and the need of their soul to perform and
because its value was incapable of being
quantitatively fixed. But while it is an inner
truth that tutors do not work for wages, it is
an external fact that we are the employees
of a demanding institution, who converse
by appointment, teach on schedule, and
study according to a program-and to miss
any of these official obligations without a
reason is highly unacceptable behavior.
It follows that we too are professionals,
and not free to live a daily life of absorbed
contemplation. But perhaps if no one we
know lives a philosophical life by reason of
even the best loved profession, it is still
true that that life is compatible with any
work, and any work can be done in a philosophical spirit. Let me pursue that.
The life of philosophy seems to me to
have one external condition, leisure, and
one reason for being, the search for truth.
That leisure is not exhausted "time off'
from work, bUt the free time for the sake of
which the other times of one's life are
spent. Of the search for truth let me say
only that it is not only a possibility but a
necessity for most human beings. In whose
life have there not been moments when all
considerations have waned but the desire,
the exigent desire, to know the truth?
The long and short of it is, I think, that
like all fundamental human modes the phil·
osophical life comes in graduated versions
which are continuous and even complementary, and those who come nearest to
living it in some pure form hold its shape in
THE ST.JOHNS REVIEW
trust for those who, from duty or preference, do the world's business.
For in spite of what I said before, there
are protected environments for that life,
and the college is the best place I know for
study and reflection. Its program and its
schedules are, after all, intended to be the
ladder and the handholds in the reflective
climb; most of us certainly I, myself, need
such prescribed paths, since a life wholly
free of stimulants and constraints leaves us
more melancholy than illumined. The
business of our college is in the service of leisure; it is a true schOol, if I m"ay recall to
you the old chestnut, that that word itself
comes from schole, Greek for '~leisure."
Of course, it is for that very reason not
the so-called real world. No one knows that
better than its long-term inhabitants, particularly since they also live out of it, as
neighbors, consumers, taxpayers, voters,
and world-watchers. To be sure, in large
academic conglomerations theoretical megalomania and practical impotence come together in that Lilliputian preoccupation
known as academic politics. But the atmosphere of smaller schools is usually no
more strained than that of an intensely
close family, while the tutors of St. John's,
because of the common allegiance to a program with integrity, form a remarkable
community of friends, willing to talk to and
to trust in each other.
Not only is the philosophical life best
carried on in a special place, it is even most
apt to be carried on by distinctive people.
That distinction seems to me to be less one
of nature or kind than of circumstance and
predeliction. For example, our students approach the leading of such a life by reason
of their being in leisured circumstances,
and most of us tutors come near it more
through our inclination than capacity for
intellection. I know that in saying all this I
can be accused of showing myself a child
of my time and of depreciating the philo·
sophical life. Those would be heavy
charges, but perhaps I must face them in
the question period.
How then is this special life, the life of
philosophy, related to the life of action, if
they are not in principle discontinuous? I
used to think that the movement back and
forth between them was entirely possible.
In particular it seemed to me that someone
who had thought deeply about the world
should be able to act wisely in it. I was
never such a fool as to think that academics or intellectuals would cope particularly
well ·with ruling responsibility, but I was
thinking of philosophers, people whose
thought is not divorced from the nature of
things. The notion of a philosopher kingor queen, for that matter-did not seem
impossible to me. I have not totally recanted, but the facts of life loom larger
now. I honor experience more, though that
is an argument against the activity of the
young as much as of the philosopher. What
matters more is that the rhythm and therequirements of the two lives seem to me
more irreconcilably different. From the
point of view of the life of reflection, the
other life seems unbearable for the continual curtailment of thought and its incessantly instrumental use, for the lack oflong
legatos of development and the hurried
forestalling of spontaneous insight it brings
with it. From the point of view of the life of
action, the inability to reach conclusions
without going back to the primal ameba (as
Elliott Zuckerman likes to say), the ob·
struction of progress on mere principle, the
lack of feel for possibilities, the sheer impotence of those who represent the other life,
must be repellent. I conclude that with
whatever freedom we may begin, at some
time we become habituated to one or the
other of the lives, and we will settle into
our profession and our setting accordingly.
But there is nothing at all in this against
frequent cross-overs. On the contrary, just
as those who make reflection the center of
their life must keep their worldly wits
about them to have anything to reflect on,
so those who do the world's business can
and ought to philosophize, either as a
steady accompaniment of their work, or intermittently, in their times of leisurewhichever fits the economy of their life. I
think our alumni often live just that way.
Would that they knew how close to us they
seem when they do it!
That is what I wanted to say about the
relations between the college as an institution and its alumni.
Now I would like to conclude by consid·
ering how alumni might cope with the college insofar as it is a place and a time in
their lives. I would like to entitle this section: "How rightly to forget the college."
By forgetting I mean, to begin with, a
phenomenon well known to theorists of
learning-and of course, to learners. Most
83
�learning begins in proud but hesitant selfconsciousness and later subsides into a
latent, yet ever active, condition. Such
learning informs the soul as a second nature-it reshapes it with good nourishment
and right exercise. It is in the hope that
something of that sort has happened that
alumni are called alumni. I think much of
that inner shaping, that passage into the
past by which what was once a time in your
life becomes a permanent possession, actually takes place in the decade after you
have left the place itself, and takes a considerable digestive effort.
Let me tell you what seem to me the
signs that the passage has taken place. My
recital will be illustrative rather than
exhaustive, because I am not much enchanted by analytic check lists of the lib·
eral skills and attitudes, and those are, of
course, what I am talking about. If you like,
we can talk more about these in the question period. And my examples will be given
pell-mell, mixing the sublime and the trivial-always remembering though, that
"trivial" originally meant: belonging to the
trivium, the triple arts of language, gram·
mar, rhetoric, logic. Here, then, are some
of the features of that second, that alumninature, which we always recognize with
deep satisfaction:
l. An unpretentious, companionable
closeness to some deep and difficult
books.
2. A fairly wide factual learning of the
sort that is absorbed incidentally, in
the course of trying to understand
some matter.
3. A resourceful recalcitrance toward
all translation, be it from Greek into
latinate English, from common language into technical jargon, from
book onto screen, from original text
to popular paraphrase.
4. A long perspective on our modern
tradition which avoids either kvetchy cavilling or easy riding, because
it is based on some knowledge of our
roots and our revolutions.
5. Knowing that the plural of eYdos is
etde.
6. A carefully cherished ignorance that
texts of mathematical symbols and
of musical notes might be anything
but essentially accessible expressions
of the human soul.
7. A determinedly naive faith in the
possibility of principled political action, supported by a shrewd and
ever-evolving theory of human nature which will neither buckle under
the weight of the world's wickedness
nor invite more of it.
8. A love for the illuminations of the
studies of motion and of life, that is,
physics and biology, and no disposition at all to be taken in by them.
9. As a precipitate of many etymologie::;
studied and many meanings discussed, a constitutional inability to
use even the most current words
without taking thought for their origin and the accumulated burden of
sense they bear.
10. A disposition toward that marriage
of radical reason with reverent respect which was when you were
there, and always will be, the best
mood of the college.
Let me finish by telling the second way
in which the college might pass into a recollection. This way has to do with the fact
that it is the place of your youth. It seems
to me likely that you never had been, nor
ever will be, so young again. Such places of
quintessential youth tend to leave a powerful after-image. McDowell Hall and Peter·
son Student Center become temples
through which float diaphanous figures
swathed in love and logos. Sometimes
when you return, this image may suddenly
fit itself onto the reality-the result will be
pure romance. However, let me try to be
sober about this phenomenon, for it is, I
think, an indispensible instrument in the
shaping of a good life-but only if the col·
lege has become a true object of recollection. By that I mean that you have allowed
life to carry you cheerfully away from its
temporal and spatial coordinates, until the
after-image has in it neither regret nor nostalgia and has become a mere vision.
When those conditions are met, the inner image can and should serve as a source
-a source, not the source-of shapes for a
good life. Then it may provide a paradigm
-a paradigm, not the paradigm-of that
earthly paradise I imagine our alumni as
forever trying to prepare for themselves: a
community of friends held together by a
love of learning. Then you will have put
the college well and truly behind you.
lie policy. But the complexity of the controversies among the great philosophers of
the past should caution us not to expect
easy answers to the questions that are
raised by such an inquiry. Philosophy and
Public Policy is a collection of twenty-one
essays that Professor Sidney Hook has selected from his work over the past thirtyfive years and edited for publication as a
book. Nowhere in this book does the author give more than passing attention to
the important disputes among the great
philosophers. Instead, he offers one admir-
ing essay about John Dewey and one introductory essay of his own on the general
theme of "philosophy and public policy."
Early in this introductory essay, the author summarizes the results of his historical studies: "The most comprehensive as
well as the most adequate conception of
philosophy that emerges from the history
of philosophy is that it is the normative consideration of human values." This definition, though the author gives Dewey credit
for it in another essay, is somewhat reminiscent of Socrates' exhorting us to think
EvA BRANN
FIRST READINGS
Philosophy and Public Policy, by Sidney
Hook, Southern Illinois Press, Carbondale
& Edwardsville, 1980.
Philosophy and politics have enjoyed a
strangely intimate and uneasy relationship
in Western civilization. This curious entanglement, which began no later than the
time of Socrates, remains today at least as
difficult to understand as it ever was. The
historical fact of the relationship should
move every student of politics to inquire
about the influence of philosophy on pub-
84
AUTUMN 1981
�about the pre-suppositions of our ordinary
opinions and activities. Such exhortations
may help move certain people to begin
seeking wisdom, but the definition does
not by itself enable us to distinguish philosophy from ordinary moral reasoning. When
the author tries to provide this distinction,
he encounters difficulties that he does not
surmount. He concedes that philosophic
inquiry is not always about moral phenomena and is not always "morally motivated"
in the usual sense of that term. But he
avoids pursuing the difficulties in the relationship between morality and philosophy
by saying that "[t]he relationships among
the various philosophical disciplines is a
meta philosophical problem, and sti11 open."
At the end of the essay he seems to return
to his original position by saying that "[t]he
philosopher is uniquely a moral seer .... "
But nowhere does he say precisely what a
moral seer is, how he comes to be, why he
does what he does, or what he is good for.
In place of ~m adequate account of philosophy, the author attempts to distinguish
the philosopher by the special skills and
outlook that he might bring to the discussion of public affairs. But the outlook and
skills he describes are available to any
thoughtful man. What Professor Hook
offers is very little more than the uncontroversial standard according to which philosophers' speech, like everyone's, should be
reasonable. That standard is a good one,
however, and I shall try to apply it to the
other essays in this volume, most of which
concern specific political issues.
Perhaps partly because he has not undertaken a thorough examination of the
Western philosophic tradition, Professor
Hook is an extreme liberal, or as he calls
himself in one essay, a "social democrat."
Though he stays well within the boundaries of modern liberal principles, he is not
as crippled by that limitation as many other
contemporary writers are. The cause of
this, I suspect, is that he has the great gift
of common sense. But whatever the cause,
he writes very well when attacking Communists, who subscribe to one of the most
poisonous liberal heresies, and when criticizing liberal fools, whom he calls "ritualistic liberals." Common sense operates best
when dealing with narrow issues, and on
such issues Professor Hook often steps resolutely aside from the sad coffle of liberal
opinion. Confronted with the little tyrannies brought to us by recently fashionable
forms of racism and feminism, he provides
a careful and devastating liberal critique of
what is so euphemistically called "reverse
discrimination." In the same spirit, he
THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
shows that William 0. Douglas's confused
and intemperate defenses of political violence are incompatible with the principles
of liberal democracy. And Professor Hook
reminds us that to be a liberal one need not
substitute a fetish about the free speech
clause of the First Amendment for an intelligent interpretation of the Constitution.
But when he takes up topics that are
very general or remote from specific events,
Professor Hook is apt to become confused
and unilluminating. The volume's longest
essay, which is devoted to "human rights,"
displays this shortcoming vividly. In the
fashion of contemporary academic philosophy, the author is much concerned with
defining his terms and defending his definitions. His discussion tends to revolve
around the following statement:
A human right is a morally justifiable
claim made in behalf of all men to the enjoyment and exercise of those basic freedoms,
goods, and services which are considered
necessary to achieve the human estate. On
this definition human rights do not correspond to anything an individual literally
possesses as an attribute, whether physical
or mental. Morally justifiable claims are proposals to treat human beings in certain ways.
Human rights are not names of anything.
They specify procedures-courses of action-to be followed by agencies of the
government and community with respect to
a series of liberties, goods, and services.
If we follow ordinary usage, in which the
term "right" means something justifiable,
the first sentence appears to be little more
than a tautology. Later in the essay, the author uses the terms "rights" and "freedoms" interchangably; while this would
eliminate the tautology, it would leave us
to wonder how a freedom can be a claim to
a freedom.
Much of the essay is devoted to criticizing other definitions of human rights;
these others are worse, and most of his criticisms are appropriate. But not once does
he mention the notion of "natural rights,"
which is the best known-and I believe
also the best-alternative to his own conception. That he means to reject that
notion is evident from his claim in the quotation above that human rights are not
names of anything and are not attributes of
human beings; and his rejection of it is implied even more clearly when he later asserts that human rights "are not derived
from the reason of things or the reason in
God, Nature, or Man." The closest he
comes to offering any evidence against
such a derivation is to point out that bills of
rights are altered and re-interpreted as time
passes. But this fact does not even begin to
prove that the truth about rights has ever
changed or ever will.
Despite its lack of any arguments against
the concept of natural rights, Professor
Hook's essay does contain hints of at least
three grounds upon which that concept
might be discarded. Perhaps an appeal to
natural rights would be rhetorically ineffective in our time because of the power of
cultural relativism among our most literate
and influential citizens; or perhaps "nature" is a term so broad that it induces us
to pay insufficient attention to the particular political conditions within which all human rights are enjoyed and circumscribed;
or perhaps we should rely on human progress rather than reason, nature, or God to
tell us what the limits of human claims and
freedoms should be. There may be some
merit in one or more of these suggestions,
but Professor Hook does not defend them
adequately. His own rhetoric in this essay
is so convoluted and academic that even
such old-fashioned writers as Jefferson and
Lincoln still sound strong and timely by
comparison. And despite the author's frequent insistence on the need to understand rights in their historical context, he
offers some strained interpretations of history; with perfect seriousness, for example,
he treats the Bible's injunction to observe
the Sabbath as a recognition of "the right
to rest and leisure." In general, Professor
Hook tries to talk about rights without
specifying their limits, apparently in the
hope that this will contribUte to the expansion of human rights and human happiness. But this leads him to substitute a
rather hazy optimism about human possibilities for a definite statement about human nature and enduring human needs.
One result is that he pays too little attention to the practical constraints on the expansion of human rights. He defends the
United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights without showing that it can
ever be more than a pious fantasy; and he
acquiesces in Justice Douglas's fabrication
of a constitutional right to privacy without
so much as mentioning the grave political
consequences that this doctrine has had
through the Court's abortion decisions. Before we forsake the notion of "natural
rights," which has been such a central element in our political life, we should wait
for a more solid substitute than the one
Professor Hook offers in this essay.
On occasion, Professor Hook's weak
grasp of general issues leads him to make
statements that are simply astonishing.
85
�One example occurs in an essay on the
rights of victims of crime:
I am prepared to weaken the guarantees and
privileges to which I am entitled as a potential criminal or as a defendant in order to
strengthen my rights and safeguards as a potential victim. Purely on the basis of probabilities, I am convinced that I run a greater
danger of suffering disaster as a potential
victim than as a potential criminal or defendant. It is these probabilities, that shift from
one historical period to another, that must
be the guide to wise, prudent, and just administration of the law.
The crude egoistic utilitarianism of this
statement appears nowhere else in the essay or in the rest of the book. One can easily advocate a firmer enforcement of the
criminal laws without elevating fear for
one's own safety into a principle of justice,
and elsewhere in the essay Professor Hook
does just that. But through this one careless formulation of the principle upon
which the rights of defendants should be
circumscribed, he allows his otherwise reasonable and public-spirited arguments to
seem motivated by a selfish calculation of
his own advantage.
Another example of the author's clumsiness with general formulations occurs at
the end of an essay on political heroism:
The democratic republic that was born in
this hemisphere some two hundred years
ago is the only political alternative ever
devised to mediate, in Lincoln's phrase, "between anarchy, on the one hand, and despotism on the other."
The patriotism of this statement is touching, but the claim is preposterous. The
United States is not the first, let alone the
only, nation to escape the evils of anarchy
and despotism; and an Englishman could
remind us that our republic is not even the
oldest existing alternative to those evils.
Abraham Lincoln, in whose works I have
not been able to find the quotation offered
above, would certainly protest that his position has been distorted. In the First Inaugural Address, Lincoln does say that the
majority principle, rightly understood,
must be maintained lest the country fall
victim to anarchy or to some form of despotism. But Lincoln's whole argument is
directed to the controversies about secession that were burning in America in 1861.
He does not claim that the Union is the
first or only legitimate polity in history, nor
even that it is the best; he says nothing
about other countries, nor about the forms
86
of government that might be suitable to
them.
Not all the disagreeable statements in
the book result merely from the author's
carelessness in formulating his positions. In
one essay, Professor Hook very sensibly argues that the Cold War has been the best
mean between suicidal appeasement and
the terrible dangers that are now inherent
in military warfare between the great powers. But a little later in the same essay, he
makes this remark:
In the past, President Eisenhower, whose
charming and vacuous smile matched his
knowledge of international affairs, and who
confessed.himself stumped by General Zhukov's questions as to what ideals inspired the
West, repeatedly warned us against the dangers of "atheistic communism" as if a communism that was not atheistic would be any
less objectionable.
The language at the beginning of the sentence lacks precision, but the meaning is
clear: President Eisenhower was a buffoon.
It is unfortunate that Eisenhower became
perplexed in the encounter with Zhukov,
but that does not justify this casual and
premeditated display of disrespect; and the
injustice is especially striking since it
comes at the expense of the man who presided over the execution of policies that
Professor Hook has just spent several pages
defending. At the very least, Professor
Hook should explain to us how this buffoon managed to lead our nation through
eight years during which Communist imperialism was successfully contained and
during which prosperity at home grew almost without interruption. But the main
point of the author's sneering remark concerns President Eisenhower's opposition to
"atheistic communism." Does Professor
Hook consider all communism, whatever
its form, equally evil? Was the Oneida
COmmunity as objectionable as the Soviet
Union? Is life in the Israeli religious kibbutzim comparable to life in Cambodia? The
insistent atheism in Marxist-Leninist doctrine is certainly not the only source of its
errors; and the atheism of Communist regimes is certainly not the sole cause of the
horrors that they bring about. But one has
to ask why Professor Hook refuses even to
consider the possibility that atheism might
be one of the soui-ces of Communism's
evils.
The explanation probably lies in the author's own manifest, though unacknowledged, atheism. For reasons that are not
made clear in the book, he fails to state his
position forthrightly. But that position
becomes visible when he calls himself a
''militant secularist.'' And it becomes trans·
parent when he makes, almost in passing,
the following theological pronouncement:
"It is only because human beings build
gods in their own moral image that they
can reasonably hope that the divine com·
mandments can serve as a guideline in human experience."
Professor Hook has included in this vol·
ume Jacques Maritain's graceful and pow·
erful critique of Hook's secular humanism.
The heart of Maritain's position lies in
three propositions: "no society can live
without a basic common inspiration and a
basic common faith"; this faith must in·
elude "convictions ... which deal with the
very substance and meaning of human
life"; and for this purpose no decent substitute for religion has been found. Professor
Hook tries to refute this view by pointing
out the weakness of the logical link between religious faith and allegiance to
democracy. This weakness is obvious, and
it should remind us that tolerance of atheists is not necessarily incompatible with
preserving a decent polity; it should also re·
mind us that strong religion does not guarantee good politics. But Maritain never
denies the Weakness of the logical link: his
claim is that religion, and religion alone,
can provide a society with the durable
common morality that is one necessary precondition of political democracy. Professor
Hook, who maintains that the "validity [of
moral principles] rests upon their fruits in
human experience," offers not a single example of a society that has given up
religion without degenerating into savagery. Nor does he offer any evidence to
show that such a society can be brought
into being; indeed, the poverty of his own
anti-religious faith is manifest in the last
paragraph of the book: "How to inspire, ex·
tend, and strengthen faith in democracy,
and build a mass movement of men and
women personally dedicated to it, is a difficult problem which cannot be treated
here."
Despite its weaknesses, Philosophy and
Public Policy contains much that is sound.
The strengths of the book appear most
clearly in the section on "Heroes and AntiHeroes." The section begins with a loose
and unimpressive general essay on the
place of leadership in democracies. But
when he turns to criticizing the Communists, liberal fools, and leading hypocrites
of our time, Professor Hook emerges as a
powerful and sometimes brilliant polemicist. In a review of a biography of Trotsky,
he shows why even large men cannot be
AUTUMN 1981
�truly great if they cling to Lenin's doctrines. In a discussion of Bertrand Russell's
political ravings, he shows quite clearly
why America's involvement in Viet Nam
may have been moral without necessarily
also being prudent. In an essay on the Hiss
case, he vividly reminds us that this country has indeed recently been threatened by
at least one genuine and dangerous conspiracy. And in the volume's best piece,
Professor Hook destroys Lillian Hellman.
He is brave enough to call her "an eager
but unaccomplished liar"; he is well informed enough to convict her of act after
act of "political obscenity"; and he is generous enough to distinguish her from
Dashiell Hammett, who kept his integrity
despite his colossal political misjudgments.
Because Philosophy and Public Policy
displays so much common sense and anti-
Communist passion, it could be good medicine for contemporary liberalism. And
because the author accepts most of the liberals' leading assumptions, there is no good
reason for them to refuse him a hearing.
tory and progress~makes for the power of
Europe. But Europe also brings corruption:
Hit was Europe, I feel, that also introduced
us to the lie ... we were people who simply
did what we did. But the Europeans could
do one thing and say something quite different. .. It was their great advantage over
us." Salim discovers that a line supposedly
from the Aeneid on a Belgian monument
commemorating the founding of the city
has been altered. It reads: 41He approves of
the mingling of peoples and their bonds of
union"; but in the original the gods warned
Aeneas not to marry Dido, not to mingle
Europe and Africa. "Rome was Rome.
What was this place? To carve the words
on a monument beside this African river
was surely to invite the destruction of the
town."
The self-deluded Europeans are now
gone, driven out by their former subjects,
but their example remains ~n all its ambiguity. The Africans imitate European institutions, buy European goods, and, increasingly, look on Europe itself as a place of
refuge. As his mentor and fellow Indian
Nazruddin explains to Salim on a visit to
London, HAll over the world money is in
flight. People have scraped the world clean,
as clean as an African scrapes his yard, and
now they want to run from the dreadful
places where they've made their money
and find some nice safe country." In London, foreigners from all corners of the
Commonwealth threaten to undermine
unquestioned European values. With a
mixture of irony and dismay, Salim observes that the Arabs in London have
brought with them their black slaves; Britain now tolerates at home the slave trade it
had once stamped out in East Africa. "In
the old days they made a lot of fuss if they
caught you sending a couple of fellows to
Arabia in a dhow. Today they have their
passports and visas like everybody else, and
nobody gives a damn."
The escape to Europe is possible only for
a handful, but the pressures of modern African life~ the insecurity of rapid and random change-foster escapism throughout
the population. Salim realizes that even in
the city "when you get away from the chiefs
and the politicians there is a simple democracy about Africa; everyone is a villager."
In times of trouble the city empties as people return to their villages and the simple
life of the bush, to re-emerge when things
quite down. A new generation of young Africans, however, without ties to the bush,
who know nothing except the empty and
imitative life of the cities, has no place to
retreat. At the same time the country's
leader opens up the countryside to bring
the previously inaccessible rural population under his control.
The dilemma of the "new African" is
symbolized by Ferdinand, a young man
whom Salim befriends. Born in the bush,
Ferdinand goes to school at the Europeanrun lycee, is trained at the Domain (the Big
Man's school for future leaders), and eventually becomes the local district commissioner. Ferdinand is trapped by his own
modern upbringing, and by the precarious
nature of political life, where every official
is at the mercy of the Big Man, who rules
through a talent for playing his enemies off
against one another. At first, Ferdinand is
confused, his mind "a jumble, full of all
kinds of junk." But in the end he achieves
a terrible clarity: "Nobody's going anywhere. We're all going to hell and every
man knows this in his bones ... Everyone
wants to make his money and run away.
But where? That is what is driving people
mad. They feel they're losing the place
they can run back to ... "
The political stratagems of the Big Man
produce temporary peace and prosperity,
but in the end serve only to break down
traditional restraints. When they fail to
quell a rural uprising, the soldiers of a tradi-
NELSON LUND
Nelson Lund teaches political science at the
University of Chicago.
'THE MINGLING OF PEOPLES
A Bend in the River, by V. S. Naipaul, 278
pp., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., !979,
$8.95
V. S. Naipaul's novel, A Bend in the
River, never names the city and country in
which the narrative takes place. Its true
setting, however, is clearly Kisangani
(formerly Stanleyville), the second-largest
city of Zaire (formerly the Belian Congo);
and the mysterious Big Man, the unnamed
country's ruler, is Sese Mobotu, Zaire's dictator for the past fifteen years. Though
Mobotu's Zaire is a poor and ill-governed
Third World country, Naipaul does not
take the stance of an expert trying to
diagnose and cure the 'disease' of underdevelopment. The principal danger he foresees is anarchy 3.nd nihilism, more often
cause than result from the impoverishment that preoccupies the experts.
The disorder and despair which permeate the novel result primarily from the
haphazard coming together of different religious, ethnic, and cultural groups. Naipaul's protagonist, Salim-an Indian
brought up in an Arab-dominated section
of East Africa, educated in British schools,
who now lives in a newly-independent black
African state-embodies Africa's contradictions. The book's great theme is the
disaster this mingling of peoples brings to
Indians, Africans, and perhaps to Europeans as welL
Europe has been the catalyst; it provides
the possibility of self-understanding for
Africans and Indians alike. Salim says: ''All
that I know of our history and the history
of the Indian Ocean I have got from books
written by Europeans ... without Europeans, I feel, all our past woUld have been
washed away, like the scuff marks of fishermen on the beach outside our town." The
ability to detach oneself, to form a distinct
self-image of one's past, present and especially future condition~the source of hisTHE ST. JOHNS REVIEW
87
�tional warrior tribe are treacherously disarmed and dispersed by an imported force
of white mercenaries. Unable to adopt
commercial or agricultural ways, they form
the nucleus of a new and deadlier rebellion. Official corruption, fostered by the
pervasive insecurity, makes a mockery of
the regime's motto, "Discipline Avant
Tout." The opposition turns by degrees to
unqualified hatred: "When they've finished nobody will know there was a place
like this here. They're going to kill and kill.
They say it's the only way, to go back to the
beginning before it's too late."
Salim too seeks safety, a place of retreat.
He and the other Indian expatriates fight
an ongoing battle with nostalgia and regret,
with the temptation to find refuge in the
past, in the memory of their lost East
African birth place. Unlike his friends who
become rich by acquiring the town's "Big
Boy" franchise, Salim does not forget himself in the successes of commerce. At the
end his property is nationalized, and he be-
88
comes a homeless refugee. He finds his But people are like that about places in
safety in the personal equilibrium, de- which they aren't really interested and
tached and clear-sighted, that shows itself where they don't have to live. Some papers
in the book's opening sentence: "The world spoke of the end of feudalism and the
is what it is; men who are nothing, who al- dawn of a new age. But what had haplow themselves to become nothing, have pened was not new. People who had grown
no place in it."
feeble had been physically destroyed. That,
Salim's hard-won balance does not de- in Africa, was not new; it was the oldest law
pend on condemning those who are inca- of the land." Unlike the manipulative coldpable of such accomodation. He does not blooded ness of the development theorist
explain away the Big Man's machinations or ideological reformer, Salim's detachas 'necessary' or 'progressive'; he appreci- ment comes from experience of the perenates success but rejects the ruthlessness nial laws of the human condition and of
and the denial of the past which so often the ties between personal and historical
accompany it. Naipaul/Salim understands experience.
that Africa's lost balance may be impossible to regain, and that while the losses are
ADAM WASSERMAN
c~rtain, the gains may be illusory. On hearing of the revolution which cuts him off
from his coastal homeland, he is astonished
at the optimism of some of the foreign
papers: "It was exraordinary to me that
Adam Wasserman is a space program analyst
some of the newspapers could have found for the Congressional Office of Technology Asgood words for the butchery on the coast. sessment in Washington, D.C.
AUTUMN 1981
��The St. John's Review
St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland 21404
Non-profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Permit No. 66
Lutherville, Md.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em>
Description
An account of the resource
<em>The St. John's Review</em><span> is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College. All manuscripts are subject to blind review. Address correspondence to </span><em>The St. John's Review</em><span>, St. John's College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 or via e-mail at </span><a class="obfuscated_link" href="mailto:review@sjc.edu"><span class="obfuscated_link_text">review@sjc.edu</span></a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> exemplifies, encourages, and enhances the disciplined reflection that is nurtured by the St. John's Program. It does so both through the character most in common among its contributors — their familiarity with the Program and their respect for it — and through the style and content of their contributions. As it represents the St. John's Program, The St. John's Review espouses no philosophical, religious, or political doctrine beyond a dedication to liberal learning, and its readers may expect to find diversity of thought represented in its pages.<br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> was first published in 1974. It merged with <em>The College </em>beginning with the July 1980 issue. From that date forward, the numbering of <em>The St. John's Review</em> continues that of <em>The College</em>. <br /><br />Click on <a title="The St. John's Review" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=13"><strong>Items in the The St. John's Review Collection</strong></a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
thestjohnsreview
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
88 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
The St. John's Review (formerly The College), Autumn 1981
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1981-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Radista, Leo
Parran, Jr., Thomas
Wilson, Curtis A.
Sachs, Joe
Brann, Eva T. H.
Jaffa, Henry V.
Josephs, Laurence
Klein, Jacob
Levin, Michael
Collins, Linda
Navrozov, Lev
Guaspari, David
Venable, Bruce
Lund, Nelson
Wasserman, Adam
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXIII, Number 1 of The St. John's Review, formerly The College. Published in Autumn 1981.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ISSN 0277-4720
The_St_Johns_Review_Vol_33_No_1_1981
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
St. John's Review
Deprecated: Directive 'allow_url_include' is deprecated in Unknown on line 0