16 20 453 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b22f741ad51b26f15b12ec7351aec94f.pdf 657fd7399e663887dc35151c45a98a70 PDF Text Text THE PAST-PRESENT Dean's Lecture Friday, September 2, 1994 Eva T. H. Brann I. Tonight I want to state, and even to overstate, what I believe to be a truth about the Program of St. John's College. What makes the truth worth 'considering is that it goes against the plain appearances and against what people, quite understandably, say about us. I want to state this truth especially for the freshmen, the newest members of the college, who might be surprised to hear it. And I want to overstate it, because a sharp finite pronouncement is probably the most productive prelude to the chief part of any Friday evening, which is the question period. It is then that I can modify, qualify, perhaps even retract what I am about to say. But before I state my truth, let me say something to the freshmen about all such opinions. Many of you have probably already guessed that this Program of learning is like an iceberg, which has a visible tip that swims along on a subaquatic mass nine times the size of the visible part. It is perfectly fine and profitable to attend entirely to the brilli'ant tip, to study the superlative books and acquire the liberal skills set out in the Program. But some of you will wish to dive from time to time into the murky depths to inspect the contestable theory that supports the Program. The statement I am about to propose belongs to this netherworld. I say that as students of the St. John's Program we have no interest in the Past. None. What I mean is that care for the past is not one of the features that makes this curriculum what it is meant to be. This school has no institutional interest in what has gone by and passed away. You might say that we let bygones be bygones. I assert this in the face of the obvious fact that almost all our books, scores, theorems, and experiments have authors that are, as human beings, long dead and gone. When I say that we do not care about the past I am not particularly thinking of the fact that we do not study history as a field. After all, we do not study any of the other normal university disciplines either - sociology, geology, psychqlogy. We do read the two authors who 1 �are generally agreed to be the founders of history. However it is not . clear just how much interest these writers had in the past. Herodotus introduced the word history, historia, for his composition concerning , the Persian War, but the Greek word means primarily an inquiry. It has . the same origin as the verb for knowing; .a histor is someone who knows, not necessarily things remote in time. Even when it i~ taken in the current sense, history has a relation to the past which is anything but straightforward. After all, History with a capital H, -that is, the public memory of events in the past, comes into being after history with a small h, the work of reconstructing the past, has been done . . Some people go so far as to claim that historians in telling their plausible and timely tales do not reconstruct so much as construct the past, so that the past is an invention of the present. I might say that I cannot quite believe so extreme a claim, because I know of some historians who are less truthful than others and therefore of others who are more truthful in trying to determine the deeds done (these are called facts) and the times assigned to them (these are called dates). Facts and dates form, of course, the skeleton of history. I do believe that something definite in fact happened at a certain date, but I doubt that it is in principle or in practice possible to find out what that was, and I am pretty sure that it ought not 'to be our business here to learn what others thought happened or to try to find out for ourselves. The reason is that the recovery of the past from its fragments is a practically infinite and intellectually tricky task that requires a completed liberal education. In short, you learn to do it in graduate school. Yet, as I said, the fact that we have no department of history, or that some of us have misgivings about the relation of history to the past that was (meaning the past that really was and is really gone), is not what makes me say that we have no interest in the past. Nor could I possibly say that as private persons many of us lack interest in the past. Many of us are ardent time-travelers. We like to go sight-seeing in temporally distant places. For example, in my free time I like to read about the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Part of that interest is, to be sure, intellectual and is closely connected to the fact that I function in a program that deals exclusively with the · Euro-American West, so that any light that is thrown on this tradition immediately draws my attention. In the case of the Aztecs and the Incas it is the evidently irresistible potency of the West, the power to conquer, to coopt and to corrupt that is sometimes luridly and sometimes tragically illuminated. I have in mind the awful fates of those two great kings, Montezuma of the Aztecs and Atahualpa the Inca. Both of them - canny, sophisticated potentates - gave themselves, like rabbits frozen in a trembling panic, into the treacherous hands of those two conquistadores Cortez and Pizarro, whose scruffy, diminutive bands had only a few horses, a few guns, limitless greed, and 2 �impregnable faith in the Cross, to oppose to the two huge magnificent royal armies. Naturally I would like to know, if history can tell me, why the West always conquers and conquers so completely that all resistance assumes the means and terms of its enemy. But learning lessons, if there are any, is not my best reason for reading books of history. Mostly I want to see new worlds. No city, except perhaps Athens, has a more beautiful past behind its ugly present than Mexico City. Bernal Diaz, the soldier-chronicler of the Conquest, who rode with Cortez, says this of ancient Mexico City, Tenochtitlan, set in a great lake covered with floating gardens: When we saw so many cities and villages built in the waters of the lake and other large towns on dry land, and that straight, level causeway leading into Mexico City, we were amazed and we said that it was like the enchanted things related in the book of A ma dis because of the huge towers, temples, and buildings rising from the water, and all of masonry. And some of the soldiers even asked whether the things we saw were not a dream. The book of Amadis, Juniors will know, is the romance that inspired Don Quixote. The hanging city of Machu Picchu, a fortified outpost of the Inca empire, rediscovered accidentally in 1911, also has a weird and wonderful beauty, which I simply have in my mental picture book of ancient marvels. And that seems to me to be the main attraction of the past - that it adds worlds to my world, and bygone beauties to a present diminishing in beauty. It does so much as does fiction, only with the strangely moving modifier of real past existence. I read history dutifully for information, I consult historians somewhat skeptically for illumination, but I am in the past uncritically as in a romance, like Bernal Diaz when he saw Tenochtitlan. For the past is primarily a place (we will see that all talk of time is infected by spatial metaphor), a romantic place, as the present is prosaic and the future uncanny. Perhaps we can talk about this claim, that the past is the place of romance, in the question period. II This might be a proper spot to collect the reasons I can think of why anyone should, and why many of us do, care about the past, if not as students and tutors in the Program, then as human beings. For the two are not entirely coincident. 1. Well, then, I have just mentioned the romance of time travel. I am persuaded that all devoted archaeologists and historians begin as temporal romantics, though it is their professional obligation not 3 �2. 3. 4. 5. to let on. When, some thirty-six years ago, I was a practicing archaeologist - which means someone who gives an account of very old things - I was not too young and naive to get pleasure from watching each of my revered elders in the excavation at Athens talking in carefully damped scholarly prose about the particular period for which I well knew each cherished a hopeless passion. It was like listening to a lover giving a disingenuously objective account of the one face about which that is really impossible. A second reason why people do care about the past is, as I have already mentioned, that they hope to learn its lessons. Sometimes they mean to use the past to lay the past to rest, for it is said that those who are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it. One book of essays we study, the Federalist Papers, is full of such a use of the past. The eighteenth paper, for example, written by James Madison, is a study of failed Greek confederations, intended by horrible counterexamples to point the way to a successful federal structure. In other words, the past can be used like our personal memory, as the depository of accumulated experience. For some, the past is treasure trove and the way to it a treasure hunt. The origin of archaeology was largely in grave robbing and gold digging. Eventually the passion for lost beauty and lost treasure turned into a sober science of carefully recorded digging below ground and meticulous mapping above ground. The passion of discovery and acquisition yielded to the more temperate but equally tenacious passion for detective-like induction, and for accuracy, cataloging, and tabulation. As the past below the·earth is carefully brought up and recorded, so the past about ground is carefully preserved and restored. Time-reservations, such as Williamsburg, are established somewhat in the same spirit as that in which in Victorian times the woman of the house would maintain a "good" parlor - a place protected from the wear and tear of daily life. Thus nostalgia is legitimized by academic discipline, and the past is preserved in a form more pristine than it had as a present. A peculiarly contemporary way of dealing with the past is to put . energy not into digging out the roots of the present but into .inventing them. Such inventions are plain lies, told by people, usually professors, who should and do know better, to people who have no way to be critical - told for dubiously therapeutic reasons. The people who participate in these self-deceptions tend to understand that the passage of time confers honor and that the past plays a role in establishing what is nowadays called "identity." 4 �6. On the opposite end with respect to motive and honesty 'is an academic way of occupying oneself with the past that is exemplary in its rigor. It is represented by the university discipline called "history of ideas." Here past and bygone notions evoke a meticulous reconstructive interest, and are objectively reported as beliefs that used to be believed. I have always been puzzled by the strong attraction of so bloodless an activity. 7. A last, and to my mind best, way of having close relations to the past that I have observed is the way of revival, rebirth, recovery, renascence. It is an act of pure imaginative vitality, of which the greatest historical example is the period called the Renaissance. Its mode, which can be reactivated anytime, and certainly right here and now, is to attempt to revivify a golden antiquity while succeeding in bringing to life a resonant modernity. Each of these ways of being involved with the past has its dangerous and debilitating aspects. The romantic attachment to the past, which is called nostalgia, is a form of sentimentalism. The lessons of history teach everything and nothing. The earth's treasures are no longer for the taking, and robbing graves is in most countries plain illegal. The exact recording and reconstruction of the relics of lost worlds imposes an abstracted rigidity on the messy life that was. Self-invention with respect to the past is also self-delusion. The meticulous study of superseded opinions is even drearier than the trendy courting of current ones. There are two ways of mummifying the past: by not letting it die and by not letting it live. On the other hand, to be disconnected from the past is also a pathology. A human being that lives merely in the present is less than Euclid's point that has no parts- it is a dimensionless being that lacks even a location. For such a memoryless being has no path behind, no human lineage. It seems to me part of our human location in the world to feel sometimes some sorrow at all the worlds that are lost arid gone and some elation at all the civilizations to which we are heir. This function of pity and love for the sheer goneness and absence of previous worlds and people, a sense not so much of personal as of generic loss, seems to me a necessary part of one's humanity . Therefore I do think we ought to be sometimes somewhat in love with what I shall call the past-perfect, the past that is finished, has passed away. III. I think the time has come to analyze more soberly what is implied in caring about that past-perfect; that finished past. In all such caring, this seems to me to be the essential element: The past is the temporally absent. As students are not usually marked absent from a class in which they have not been previously present, so absence in time 5 �implies an earlier presence. The future is not, to my mind, temporally absent, because it hasn't yet been present. Therefore the essence of caring about the past-perfect is a relation, be it of love, hate, or fascinated indifference, to what was. "Was" is the past tense of "is." "Was" is an "is" that is no more. (Let me interject here the thought that "no more" need not mean _ "nevermore," for I am not at all sure that the adage about not turnmg the clock back is true. I think we can tum , the clock back at a blink of the will. It is only a question of cost.) "Temporal" as in "temporal absence" is the adjective formed from time. To think about the past it is thus necessary to think about time. I have read an estimate of the number of publications concerning time: Since 1900, there have been 95,000 books, and since 1990 well over 90,000 articles. Of these writings I've read perhaps forty-five, among them the eight or nine that seem to matter most. They do all, apparently, agree about this - that time has two major aspects: Now and Then. They also agree that Then in tum has two aspects: Before and After Now or Past and Future. Beyond these three aspects or phases of time, Present, Past, and Future, everything is debatable. The Now presents a set of puzzles first set out by Plato in the dialogue Pannenides. The order of importance of the phases, the direction in which they advance, the substantiality of time itself, the relation of . time to soul - these and many more issues are treated by Aristotle, Augustine, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger. Most of these you will in fact read in the next four years. What I will say tonight will be almost culpably sketchy. And first I have to observe once more, without stopping to dweH on the reason, that it is practically impossible to speak of time and its phases without using spatial metaphors. The past particularly is in its very name metaphorical, for "past" is related to "pace" or step, and to "passage" or a going by; past means, as I have said, by-gone. Let me now give you the feature that I think of when I reflect on the meaning of the word "past." 1. It is one of three times or phases of time "in" which an event can be. Notice the space-like location of events implied by the prepo- · sition "in." 2. It is what was. Notice the apparently unavoidable contradiction of the tenses used in this description. 3. It is present for us in two ways, externally and internally. Notice • that the past is present for us as memory (an insight I have borrowed from Augustine's Confessions), and that memory has two storage spaces, so to speak. One is in our souls. It is described beautifully by Augustine as a "spacious and infinite inner sanctum" (X, 8). A being without such an inner room is one for whom . nothing has significant connotations or imaginative penumbras. 6 �The other memory space is outside. It consists of all the testimonials, be they writings or objects, that have survived into our present as evidence of past life. As I have already said, it seems to me that a person who has no knowledge of these reminders of our human antecedents is an unanchored and untethered being. 4. My fourth and final feature of the past is the one I have just mentioned: the gravity of our attitude toward it, whether it is to be deliberate denial, laborious reconstruction, shameless invention, nostalgic luxuriating, or free appropriation. Notice the implication that our position with respect to the past is at some point a most deliberate choice with wide consequences to our life. IV. I now feel entitled, and perhaps even obligated, to say outright how I think we should bear ourselves toward the past and how we should live with it. There are past-related pathologies that seem to me particularly sick. One is the condition of those people, describable as galvanized zombies, who live in a frantic present, without a moment's collected contemplation. This mode is practically definitive of contemporary life. The other is the luxuriating nostalgia of Poe's Raven, who croaks "Nevermore." This mode is practically definitive of romanticism. For my part I think the past is indeed a place in which to take refuge when it is necessary to pull back, to contemplate life and mull things over. The present is the phase for brisk deliberation, decision, and action, for being in that sleepwalking state in which we do, more or less surefootedly, the one thing needful just now. In visiting the past, whether in books or places, we get longer, more serene views. In the past too the open-ended passage of moments turns into completed tales, from anecdotes to myths. In it, moreover, are to be found the models for our actions and the patterns for our demeanor, without which it is impossible to shape a distinctive self. And finally the past is to be appreciated as a double source of dimensionality, a source of solidity and ghostliness at once. For, as I have already intimated, it is the past that adds a dimension to the here and now, which would otherwise be a mere momentary facade, a painted curtain stretched over nothingness, floating into a shapeless future. It is the past that gives this moving front of present appearances some sense of solidity, of having endured and being here to stay. The ghostliness I have mentioned is really the same effect in _a different mood. When I was in Japan I saw in the enclosures of Buddhist temples trees with prayer strips affixed to the branches, fluttering in the wind. So also memories of the past attach themselves to places and flutter about them, giving them an attendant ghostly life. 7 �To be sure, not all locations are equally good ghost-catchers - for example, to my mind, this auditorium is not as good at it as our Great Hall over in McDowell. v. Now I want to recall to you the claim that set me off, paradoxically, on this praise of the past. The claim is that whatever attachment we do and ought to have to the past privately, as students in the St. John's Program we have none whatsoever. It is a claim I mean to argue even in the face of the fact that we study hardly any contemporary book or subject, and that almost everything we pay attention to is rather old - or as Francis Bacon says, very young, since the older a production is, the closer it is to the childhood of humanity. To develop my opinion, I want to put before you, and to disti~­ guish, three terms. They are History, Tradition, and Past. I don't feel much obligation to define them here. When people say "Define your terms," they usually mean to turn a conversation into a debate. But although I am putting forth my claim with a certain panache, I would like it to be the beginning of a conversation rather than an argument. So I shall offer a mere collection of the connotations that I personally intend, first putting some preliminary effort into distinguishing these terms. I have already said something of the past. The past, I say, is what is absent in time, bygone. It is a kind of folk wisdom that the past was, meaning that it is a bygone present, and that it is therefore in a way · that neither the moving now nor the unhappened future is. History, of which I have also spoken before, is the deliberate account given of selected past events or conditions by historians, whom we may call public memory-experts. History depends on the fact that human affairs assume distinct shapes, either as discrete notable events like revolutions or as continuous but noticeable conditions like social · movements. History with a capital His reconstructed in histories with a lower-case h by means of written and tangible testimonials. The writing of history is therefore, as I said, a research activity, and its study from books requires the experience necessary for a critical review of the use to which the testimony is put. All writing of histories that I know of rests on the faith I have already mentioned, that human time . on this earth organizes itself into discernible entities that have some relation of cause and effect. This fundamental axiom of all History is no stronger than a hypothesis because, since events are always demonstrably unique, no one is in a position to show for sure that a given outcome was lawfully caused by a given antecedent. You might call this histori3:n's faith a post hoc, ergo propter hoc disposition. This Latin tag means: "After the event and therefore because of it," and we all tend to believe it. I'll give you two personal examples: I ardently 8 �believe that I could be born in Europe only because Leonidas and his three-hundred Spartan held Thermopylae for a while against the Persians, and I ardently believe that I could flourish in America only because Abraham Lincoln was president when the Union was threatened. But who could prove that? The deeds that make up History are alive insofar as we feel their effects reaching into the present and dead insofar as the sheer increasing weight of intervening human moments push them into the ineffective distance. Since the fall of Troy in 1183 B.C., 100,189,872,000 seconds have gone by - and anyone who has ever had a sharp pain or keen sorrow knows what a second is, each an eternal moment. Most of History is truly gone by, only dimly and diffusely related to our lives. The historical past is prologue but not present. VI. So we are left with the third term, Tradition. The word literally means a "handing down" of the past to the present. Often it means ritual that has been taken over and respected because it has long been established; thus Shakespeare speaks of "respect, tradition, form and ceremonious duty" (Richard II, III, ii. 173). There is however, another strong and significant usage. Theword is often used of the literary and textual tradition, the set of books that have survived because people have respected and protected them and have handed them down, mostly in those book-reservations called libraries. This tradition includes only a small part of the writings of the past. We can hope that it is an advantageously sifted past, and that the best books are the ones that survived, but we cannot be sure. For example, of Sophocles's 123 dramas only seven are extant, one eighteenth of the output of Athens's central tragedian. From the vicissitudes of war, like the -allegedlyaccidental burning of the huge library at Alexandria during Caesar's siege of the city in 48 B.C., to the deliberate torching of books conducted by the Nazis in Berlin in 1933, from the mildew of forgotten trunks to the acid bum that is eating up old books in contemporary libraries, circumstance has played a large role in the selection of the written tradition, since it is handed down physically. That we are lucky both in the losses and in the survivals, that what survives is both the best and somehow coherent, is a faith, a reasonable faith we have in the discrimination and care of our predecessors. In sum, we believe that the past has preserved for us plenty of great books, and they seem to speak to each other. ·How does this tradition of texts, be it texts of words, or mathematical symbols, or musical notes, differ from the other remains of the past? ·Let me use as an example our own McDowell Hall, the pride of the Annapolis campus. Our Director of Admissions, John Christensen, 9 �probably the faculty member best known to the freshmen, has pu. together a handsome and informative volume about this "historical" building. McDowell was begun in the 1740s and by 1799 it housed all th~ functions of St. John's College, which had been chartered in 1784. Iri 1909 it was burned down to just above the first story. The then-princi~: pal, Dr. Fell, wrote that the students "ruined their suits of clothing tci save the building and its contents." This dreadful catastrophe inspirec some dreadful student poetry about old McDowell, who, it was written in the yearbook, "has perished in the flame ... and she's nought now but a name." Which was as wrong as the poem was bad, because she rose, like a phoenix from the ashes, to be continually used as our main building. In 1989 McDowell was again gutted, this time for a deliberate and beautiful renovation and modernization. Here is the contrast between our building and our books, the contrast that is relevant to my point: We can modernize old buildings, · install new operational systems, modify unsafe or inconvenient features. We cannot do that to our books. Modem paraphrases or bowdlerized versions will not give us new improved up-to-standard texts, · but travesties. Secondly, we can live comfortably and purposefully in our building without understanding it, or with only a dim sense of esthetic satisfaction, yet without knowing the underlying construction: ·: or even seeing the elegantly rational hierarchy of her elevation. But we •· can't live with our books unconsciously. Everything depends on max- · imum awareness of detail, structure, purpose. A dim sense of a great text is almost a contradiction in terms. Therefore, the books of the past differ from the buildings of the past in the manner of their renovation - their renewal excludes comfort· able remodeling and trouble-free use. We have to do it their way. The: would seem to impose their past on us. VII. But actually the case is just the opposite. Because we have to engage the books of the tradition as they are and with all our available awareness, they are not in the past, but in the present. There are not, except in incidentals, bygone. What they say to us is what they have always said, and they say it now and always now. There is the simple past, the once-and-for-all past, which is absent except in memory or in monuments. But there is also a past which may be named after the grammatical tense from which I took my title: past-present. It is a nice fact that there are certain verbs in English as well as in Greek that display this past-presence dramatically. The English can" as in "I can" is actually a past from a verb meaning to know, as in "cunning," or German, kennen. Past knowing is present power; to have learned is to be now able. Similarly, the Greek verb for /1 10 �"I know," oida, is a past form of the verb for seeing; to have seen is now to know. That is what the grammarians call the past-present. It brings a past form into the present tense. The tradition, as I understand it, does the same. It presents a past that is not absent but present - if we let it be. I can think of a powerful . image for what I mean. When Odysseus goes into the underworld the diaphanous shades flutter about him and cannot attain to living presence until he lets then drink from the pit of sacrificial blood (Book XI). The books are, with our encouragement, capable of taking life. VITI. To understand the tradition of books consciously as I have delineated it, you have to be willing to entertain a very powerful- and very controversial- set of beliefs. There is, I hasten to add once again, also the possibility of just reading the books receptively. It is perfectly profitable, and even sound, for students to read thoughtfully without reflecting very often on the conditions for reading. But you might want to consider them sometimes, so here are the beliefs that I think support the idea of the tradition as a past-present. First: I think that, in order to believe that there is a past that is present, you have to believe in the unity of literate humanity. You have to imagine the thinking and writing human species as living below the threshold of natural evolution and also as standing in some part outside the vicissitudes of history. For example, I believe that a certain young man called Glaucon, one of Plato's older brothers, if he were present tonight, might be puzzled and disgusted to see a female in unbecoming dress address the public and utter decided opinions. But although he might not get over the indecency of it in one lifetime, I believe this time-immigrant would undergo the same naturalization as does a contemporary space-immigrant. He would pick up our customs and prejudices and begin to be involved with us. He might even enroll in the Graduate Institute. His intellect would be engaged even if his sensibilities continued to be outraged. My guess is, he would imperceptibly become acclimatized until he loved this place better than that time and could bear to return to Athens only in the manner of a loquaciously superior tourist, as happens to most of us immigrants when we try to go ''home." So much the more readily would his quicker and deeper younger brother be naturalized, especially since he would already have understood, and as I think, respected, democratic life. For he had observed that the kind of free discussion concerning the choice of a way of life and of a political constitution that his Socrates carries on, happens naturally in democracies (Republic VIII, 557). So conversely, since we can readily imagine him thinking with us, we can pick up his writings and think with him. For these writings are meant to be ahistorical in 11 �the sense that we can, in imagination, discount historical circumstance. Of course old books will refer to past prejudices and preoccu- ' pations, but we, by trying to understand what it means to be prejudiced and preoccupied, will soon learn to read around what is simply past in old books. Second. A closely related belief maintains that we have not only been the same rational species throughout recorded time, but that we do, in fact, have the same preoccupations, the same questions as even our remotest ancestors, provided only the level of formulation is deep enough. We must feel a little queasy at the sanctimonious superiority with which people who think they preeminently inhabit the present , condemn the opinions of people who lived in the past. But let me choose items on which positive contemporary opinion probably really is on safer moral ground, say, the position of women, the exposure of children, the owning of human chattel. We do, whatever our local conclusions may be, at the least share the questions (perennial questions, as they are rightly called) concerning human equality, the right to life of the very young, the inalienable freedom of individuals. These problems you will recognize as not dated at all. But the argument that we are, at least in our questions, alike through time, could be turned against the tradition. If at a level properly established nothing changes, neither human nature nor human preoccupations, why bother with older, less accessible versions? If concerns are perennial, why not seize hold of them in the present from? Third. Yet two additional beliefs address this reasonable point. One · is the belief born of experience, which I for one hold with equal amazement and fervor, that there is a palpable distinction between good and great. Good books are written all the time and they lean in · friendly fellowship on their great relatives. But those great ones are few and far between. There seem to be times, to be sure, when they are bunched together. It is probably that inexplicable fact, that miracle of history, that makes us think of centuries as if they were breeding grounds: the fifth century B.C. for Parmenides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Socrates, Plato; the sixteenth century for Luther, Bacon, • Shakespeare, Galileo. But however they seem to be bunched or strung out on the tablets of time, these writers are rare and - I will say this ·· most controversial thing-absolutely great. As you know, this faculty, your tutors, claims for itself - some might say arrogates to itself the judgment and the choice of books. We have many gross and subtle criteria, which we might wish to discuss in the question period. The first one for me was formulated by the teacher who introduced me to Homer and won me for Classics, back in Brooklyn College in 1950. I recall a student asking her in a bright and impertinent tone-we were a bright and impertinent lot -what made her know a great book, and 12 �she said in the throwaway voice of utter conviction: "It makes my hair stand on end." One answer, therefore, to the desirability of taking up books ostensibly written in the past is that the tradition is a very slowly filling treasury. We are too poor in the present to be able to afford the loss of this inheritance. Fourth. But one more belief, complementary and even antithetical, is needed. When the past is regarded as presenting unique and irreplaceable treasures to the present, one dimension of human thinking and imagining is disregarded. We live, as I said before, at the front of a facade of time, a facade propped up and given solidity by the past behind it. It is not that we need to think of the past as determining our thinking. Thought is by its nature capable of thinking anything at any time. Yet it is a· fact, perhaps a paradoxical fact, that we live with inherited opinions. It is a paradoxical fact beca4se most opinions are held thoughtlessly; they are unthought thoughts. It is a very different thing to inherit a book and to inherit an opinion, not only because the books reach much farther back than the opinions, but because the · books become ours only by an effort of appropriation, while the opinions are what we effortlessly just have. They are part of that ever-advancing, ever-changing facade called the present. There is no denying that the facade progresses, not necessarily in the optimist's sense of getting better but in the neutral sense of going on. For while the questions may stay recognizably similar, the answers change drastically, by creeping evolution or abrupt revolution. Yet it seems that the more radical a new departure in thought is intended to be, the more it is shaped by its origin, be it through the precise contradiction involved in a sharp rejection, through the careful reconstruction required by a conscious recovery, or through the conversational continuity encouraged by a receptive response. It follows that the tradition, as I understand it, is for us not only a treasure house for any time but also a key to our specific present condition, to our understanding of private and public humanity, of nature and of divinity. One way or the other - as suppressed antithesis, as deliberate reacquisition, or as conversational partner - it props up our present, and on our knowledge of it depends our critical · appreciation of our time. I speak of time, but, really, time, datable time, has little to do with it. I can think of several ancient authors who are nearly two millennia away from us in time, but two seconds away from us in thought two seconds being what it takes to conceive a tremendously new idea. The order in which these authors appear probably matters but not the date of their birth, just as in our thinking the sequence of conception, the genesis of understanding, is significant, but very rarely the exact time. 13 �This notion of mine, that order matters but not dates, is, I must tell you, pagan; in fact it seems to me to be the gist of Paganism. It is therefore highly debatable, and I hope we will talk about it in the question period. In any case, the point I want this notion to reinforce is that absorbing the tradition is not the same as studying history or caring about the past. For we study these books not insofar as they tell us hf bygone times but because they tell us of the present. They are not absent in time, as is the past, but present (and perhaps even out of time altogether). They are the past insofar as it is present; they are effectively present; they are in the terms of the title of my lecture, the PAST-PRESENT. But that is not quite the last word. The books of the tradition, our books, become present, as I have said, only when we let them. We revivify them and make then vital. Therefore they stand by us and speak as does that shade in Hades whom Odysseus calls "the prince of those with gift of speech." It is the seer Teiresias, and he pleads: Let me but taste of blood, I shall speak true. (Odyssey XI, 96, Fitzgerald) 14 � 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. 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Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 14 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/. Title A name given to the resource The past-present Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-09-02 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 02, 1994 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1994-09-02 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/265">Audio recording</a> Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b3ea3e06e0d6c778606befa155573b23.pdf 2a7c82008ccd2f962088495bf800c3f8 PDF Text Text 1993 St. John's College Opening Lecture Telling Lies Eva T .H. Brann, Dean St. John's College, Annapolis �Telling Lies EvaT.H.Brann,Dean St. John's College, Annapolis The first lecture of the school year is, by ari old tradition, dedieated to that portion of the college new to this Friday night ritual, the freshmen among us. Yesterday, Thursday night, you participated in the first of many seminars where you yourselves do all the talking. Tonight you are present at the only weekly event where someone else gets to speak to you, a dean or a tutor or a visitor. One thing stays the same. Whether you are speaking or listening, you are intended to hear and to judge. Although you may have allowed the talk of the world to persuade you that "being judgmental" is a social sin, judgments are what you are intended to render - on the words of others, though above all on your own. For example, this lecture is entitled "Telling Lies." What, you are intended to ask yourselves, "ts she up to?" Is she gotng to start us off here by giving lessons in lying? Or, what is worse, by preaching honesty to us, good people all? If she is so preoccupied with telling lies, that's perhaps what she does. And in fact I have already engaged in false speech: That "old" tradition of dedicating this opening lecture to you, the freshmen - I made it up myself and it is only three years old. To recognize this and similar lies you have to know some facts, and to judge their seriousness you have to have some appreciation of rhetoric. For the bravado of rhetorical overstatement seems to be a species of the so-called white lie. Perhaps such a colorless lie is better than a blazingly scarlet one, perhaps it is not. You will spend time in the language tutorial distinguishing and analyzing the rhetorical deceptions of language and forming judgments about them. To top it off, for your last seminar, not only of your freshman year but again of your senior year, you will read a dialogue by Plato, the Phaedrus, in which questions of love, rhetoric, and truth are intertwined. Unfortunately, the knowledge that initiates you into judging speech cannily can also be construed as lessons in lying - an uneasy fact to which I shall return. 1 �But I have put the cart before the horse. Before you can judge whether an utterance is a lie, you have to be .able to discern what it means: meaning first. then judgment. For example, what does "telling lies" mean? Does it mean "uttering untruths," as in "She stands up there and keeps telling lies"? Or does it mean "revealing." as in "Achilles' lles are always telling lies, since they tell us a lot about him"? In order to establish possible meanings you have to know some grammar. You have to know that "telling" can be a participle, a verbal form. and then "telling lies" is something a speaker does. Or "telling" can be an adjective modifying "lies," and then "telling lies" are lies that tell you something. "Telling lies" is in fact a pun, and puns exploit the squtrmtness of language. while grammar nails down the choices. You will be studying a great deal of grammar in your language tutorial. (If that prospect does not delight you. do but consider that grammar is etymologically connected to glamour, a most telling relation.) There is one more study that completes the traditional trio making up the art of language. Besides grammatical regularity and rhetorical effect you will also be studying logical validity. I shall return to the relation of logic to lying later. All three studies are intended to make you canny and witting hearers and speakers, able to discern meaning and judge truth, to have your wits about you. You will need these skills here, because you have joined a community that engages in a very peculiar activity. We ask after truth. We ask whether the books we read contain something true, and we ask on occasion not only what truth herself might be, but also what the truth is, independently of books. I will say something later about the reasons why it ts unusual for a college to admit these questions after truth and what the conditions are that make them possible. Whatever the conditions. let me point out one consequence of trying to live in a truth-seeking community. Members of such a community should probably try not to tell lies. It ls conceivable that there might be one who earnestly seeks the truth for himself while determinedly telling lies to others. But such a person ls probably a loner, not a friend among friends. ·Let me give you two reasons that may be new to you why members in any intimate community, such as ours, should be truthful with each other. We are able to tell lies because we who speak are encased in a cocoon, in our opaque body. Some people think that they can see through others and that others are transparent to them, 2 �but where they think they see through our exterior as through a pane of glass they are in truth apt to be looking into a mirror. There are no certain somatic signs of lying. The nervous reaction to being suspected 1s not discernibly different from that of being guilty. Consequently even lie detectors are known to be unreliable. The human carapace is really impenetrable. Now when people live as closely together as you will on this campus, a certain decent distance 1s essential to comfort. You will not want to observe each other too penetratingly. But a bodily presence that hides a lie draws attention, and a face suspected of being a facade invites searching curiosity. Telling lies in close quarters 1s a temptation to breached privacy and to sorry involvements. Under these circumstances there is no harm that is not compounded by lies. The same mortal sheath that hides thoughts can be used to express them. I say "can be used" because every adult expression is part performance. A small, close, lively community acts at its best like those revolving stone polishing cylinders that take off the rough edges and bring out the natural markings of a piece of rock. Those markings represent the personal rhetoric, the gestures and the diction, that a community of learning brings out in people. It 1s a curious fact that adult nature has to be brought out by polishing. Consequently there is nothing straightfoiward about uttering - which literally means "outering" -your meaning. Some of you may think that spontaneity and sincerity are natural and therefore easy and that controlled expression is hypocrisy, an elderly vice. I think intended spontaneity is a self-contradiction, and sincerity is a sappy virtue, the virtue of insisting on being always one's - possibly reprehensible - self. And isn't it a strange fact that people indulging in natural expression tend to look dramatic and self-dramatizing to their neighbors? So I think I need to say something in favor of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy derives from the Greek work for actor, hypocrites. It is a necessary part of adult conduct because it prevents something worse. Hamlet urges his adulterous mother to Assume a virtue, if you have it not (III, iv, 158). She is to make a pretense of purity so that it might turn into truth. There is a stage of badness beyond being bad, and it is not caring how one looks. Hypocrisy, they say, is the compliment vice pays to virtue. There is another similar word that brings out my point. The word "person" comes from the Latin persona, an actor's mask. A person is a being behind a mask, a self-made facade through 3 �which come utterances. The lower anJmals at least do not seem to have such masks, because they have no conduct, only behavior. Perhaps one should say that they are masks, masks through which nature ex.presses herself. But we have masks, and we conduct ourselves. I mean that there can always be at least a brief check between our impulse and our expression. Homer uses a wonderfully apt figure: "What a word has escaped the barrier of your teeth?" one person will say to another, implying that the words should have been held back. We can maintain silence, and we can shape our speech and its expressive accompanJments. In fact we cannot do otherwise, for all human conduct is a kind of self-presentation, and being natural is a great feat. (A sociological classic on this subject is Erving Goffi:nan's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959.) Suppose I am right in intimating that learning to be oneself, to be a person in a community, is an arduous work ofmaskmaking, requiring much biting back of words, some white lying, and continual attempts to find expression that will do justice to one's meaning. Then to derail these efforts at sculpting one's own expressive persona by the strong jolt of a crude lle would be a criI:ne agatnstyour own developing personality, particularly when you have looked someone in the eye and sworn that what is about to come out of your mouth is the truth. In Robert Bolt's play about Thomas More, A Man for aU Seasons, Thomas says: When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. (He cups his hands) And ts he opens his fingers then- he needn't hope to find himself again. (Act Two) So these are my two arguments - I don't think they are preachments - against outright intended lying. Telling such lies prevents intimacy and wrecks self-formation. There are plenty of authors who disagree with me in both directions. Kant, whom you will read in your junior year, will condemn every kind of lie from the whitest social lle to the heroic lie told to protect an innocent life. For lying, he says, is "the obliteration of one's dignity as a human being" (The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue 429). He thinks so because he thinks that the will to communicate our thought is part of what it means to be a person, and thus to misuse speech is to abrogate our personality, to undo the intention of our own rational will, which must be to utter truth. There are, on the other hand, authors who advocate lying like hell. Machiavelli advises his prince to be like a fox and to 4 �deceive when it is to his interest (The Prince, Ch. XVIII). Rousseau blithely confesses that he often lied from embarrassment just to keep the conversation going. In fact, he does talk a suspicious lot about lying. in his Reveries of a SoUtary Walker (Fourth Walk), a book we.don't read. Nietzsche inveighs against veracity as the impossibly naive wish to come clean, to expose oneself, and he praises the bracing tonic of a falseness perpetrated without guilt (The Wal toPower377-78). For my part, I am not entirely persuaded by Kant's absolutism and more than a little repelled by the others' equivocations. There is, happily an author who seems to me to speak sweet reason, and that is Thomas Aquinas, who treats of lying in a book of which you will read parts next year, the Swnma Theologica (II. 2, ques. 110, art. 4 ff.). He gives various useful classifications of lies and concludes that not all lies are mortal sins, sins that entail damnation. Lies that injure God and your neighbor are mortal, but lies told with no intention contrary to charity, are not. This judgment leaves room for wh!te lies and seems to me pretty good for practical purposes. (Practical lying is treated by Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Ufe, 1978.) But it was not really my purpose to talk about the practice of lying. either whether to do it or how to go about it. What I want us to consider is the theocy of lying: What are the conditions of human nature and the world that make lying possible? It seems to me that the inquicy into telling lies is particularly appropriate to a school devoted to the truth. You will discover in the next four years that the most convenient access to the house of truth is often through the back door. The assumption in the back-door approach is that truth precedes falsity, that it is the original positive. Our language seems to imply the priority of truth, since we speak of untruths but not of unlies or unerrors. Your reading will often take the back-to-front way: In Homer and Tolstoy, War precedes Peace. In Dante and Milton, Hell comes before Heaven and' Satan, the lord of lies. comes before God, the fountain of truth. In Plato, error explicates knowledge. And in Aristotle, art elucidates nature. Before I proceed to lies, I want to pause a moment to reinforce the claim that in this school we seek truth. Of course that is not the only, or even the first, interest we have. We also acquire skills and learn arguments and even gather some facts. But we do have a remarkable hypothesis. We ask ourselves and each other: "Is what I am reading true? Should I let it enter my life or must I fend it off?" Here are two special conditions that 5 �support our search for truth. One is that we are not ashamed to be discovered in error. When I say "we," I mean we- tutors along with students. We go so far as to regard the recognition of ignorance in ourselves as a high achievement. The other condition is that we admit.no institutional truth, no authoritative dogma. If we had the truth, we would not need to inquire about it. This hypothesis of ours is peculiar and hard to defend. At most academic institutions the professors deny it and take precautions against it; they bracket the question of truth and set it aside. They have good reasons: They think many old books by now have historical interest only, treating by-gone problems and providing "irrelevant" answers. They think it is a sort of intellectual tactlessness to get too close to students' lives in the classroom, and they distrust the authority such inquiries might give the professor who directs them. They think there is no fixed public meaning in texts, that the meaning is construed anew by each reader, and often they also think that a question after the truth is in principle nonsense, because truth is a private or senseless notion. All of you will be coming to grips with some of these notions right in the seminar. For example, you will be tempted to say that a proposition is "true for me," if not for you, and then you will have to consider whether the word "true" can be used in that way. Meanwhile we will ask you to act provisionally on our hypothesis that truth may be pursued, to be shamelessly open to the pursuit, to trust your tutors as fellow learners, to work at discovering the meaning of a book, and to treat authors as fellow human beings who raise questions you can care about. In short, we will ask you to engage in what Francis Bacon calls the inquiry of truth, which ts the love-making and wooing of it. ("Of Truth") By way of beginning the inquiry into telling lies as a prelude to searching for truth, I want to add a classification of lies to those gtven by Thomas Aquinas: Some lies are subjective, others are objective. The subjective lie is the one Kant defines and proscribes so absolutely: wilful, intentional falsehood. Your straight basic liars intend to tell lies and know they are doing it. But there is also the objective lie, an unintentional falsehood, a failed willingness to tell the truth. Being willing to tell the truth but failing at it is usually called being in error. At this point I might be accused of the rhetorical trick of metonymy, a figure of speech in which the speaker confuses species and genus. For 6 �here the genus seems to be the False and the species seem to be the Lie and the Error. An error is not really a kind of lie, but one of two parallel species of the False, the Unwitting and the Witting Falsehood. Errors are all the unintended misses of targeted truth: mistakes, misspeakings, misjudgments, misperceptions. Now there will be a man, the guardian angel or perhaps the goblin ofyour first year, Socrates, who will claim that ignorance, and therefore error, is the genuine or "true lie" in the soul (RepubUc 382 b). He is helped in saying so by the fact that in Greek the word for error and lie is the same. It is pseudos, which you know, for instance, in the word pseud-onym, a false name. But he also really does mean to identify lie and error, and his thinking .ts roughly like this: He will iiy to persuade you that effective virtue is a kind of knowledge. If he is right, then it is at least likely that ignorance is a kind of vice, and that the particular ignorance manifested in error is not far from the vice of lying. After having studied some logic in the sophomore year you will be able to show diagrammatically that these consequences are not logical entailments but just thought-possibilities. If you find reason to accept them, then there is no truly unwilling falsehood; our errors become our responsibilities, and we are charged with exorcising the unwitting lie in the soul. This ignorant lie is what I call the objective lie. Socrates has something to say not only about the untold lie hidden in the soul but also about the outward telling of lies. There ts a dialogue we don't read, called the Lesser Htppias, so called because it ts the shorter of two dialogues featuring a sophist called Hippias. Sophists figure in many of the Platonic dialogues, above all in the dialogues called Theaetetus and Sophist, in which Plato deals respectively with error and the possibility of lying. I can tell you that no book has affected me more than the Sophist A sophist is the most fascinating creature in the world, and Plato is never through with him. The sophist has a name that begins with the word for "wise," sop1ws, and ends in -ist, a suffix that denotes an imitator and an operator. For Plato ordinary sophists are wise guys, smart and dumb at once, by profession evasive, tricky, and deceitful, though somettmes in person endearingly naive. The sophist extraordinatre ts Socrates himself, a canny wise man, whose mode is irony, a wily sort of self-deprecation that Aristotle does not hesitate to classify among the lying deviations from truth (Ntcomachean Ethics II, vii, 12). 7 �Now in the dialogue Socrates carries on with Hippias, two characters that will soon be very familiar to you come on the scene: Achilles and Odysseus. Hippias, who can quote Homer, cites passages to show that Achilles is a true and simple fellow, who tells Odysseus that he hates lies worse than hell (Iliad IX, 312). Odysseus, on the other hand, is a habitual teller of lies. The two men differ as truth-teller differs from liar. Now comes Socrates to prove that Achilles sometimes tells lies. For example, he informs Odysseus that he will leave Troy so that "on the third day he would come to fertile Phthia," his home - and yet he makes no move at all to go. Hippias objects that Achilles tells untruths unwittingly while Odysseus lies by design. Socrates then tricks Hippias into admittlng that it is the person with the more capable soul, the one who knows exactly what he is doing, who is best, and that therefore the voluntary liar is better than the unwitting teller of falsehoods. The claim that the true lie is a kind of guilty ignorance is here complemented by the not altogether playful assertion that the truer and more genuine person is the liar who knows the truth and determines not to utter it. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, agrees with Socrates· estimation of Odysseus, for she declares her love and loyalty to him as a cunning knave and a witting liar (Odyssey XIII, 287 ff.). Not only, I conclude, is the silent lie in the soul to be held against us as a weakness because it betokens a culpable ignorance, but the utterance of a lie confirms our strength, because it presupposes knowledge of truth. As Nietzsche puts it: "The recognition of reality ... has been greatest exactly among liars" ·(Will to Power 378). More generally, anyone who grants the possibility of lying reveals a commitment to the existence of truth. With subjective and objective lies established, let me now list the rubrics of conditions that make the telling of a lie possible. I will read them off before explaining them: I. Will II. Knowledge III. Negation IV . Necessity V. Freedom I. First, then, for a lie to be told there has to be the wUL This is the main condition for the pure subjective lie. Perhaps will is too strong a word, since much lie-telling results not so much from strong choice as from a weak willingness. In the lingo of this decade: We give ourselves permission. Sometimes lying is even a mere default position of the will. But one way or another 8 �the capacity for choice, for letting the words escape from the barrler of our teeth, is involved. What the human will is, and how the will comes not to will, are a long story for another night. Of course, as I have said, the exterior has to cooperate: The body has to be opaque and the world obtuse. If every lie caused our noses to grow proportionately, or if a spade when falsely called a shovel protested loudly, we would in time lose the will to lie. II. Second, for a lie to be told there has to be, as I have intimated, knowledge. As Socrates shows, a liar has to know the truth, all sorts of truth, but particularly the truth about words. Otherwise the uttered lie may be a false lie, an unwitting truth. Uttering unw.Ittlng truth is just what happens to Ach1lles, when he says that on the third day he will come to Phthia but stays in Troy. He does not know the truth of the name of his all-too-attainable home. The knowledge of such truth is called "etymology," and etynws is a Greek term for word-truth. Socrates has such knowledge. For in prison two nights before his execution he dreams that a beautiful woman quotes Achilles' words to hnn (CriiD 44 b}, and he clearly knows what "coming to Phthia" must mean. It means death, for Phthia means "Land of the Dead," from the verb phthlnein. to destroy (H. Frisk, Grtechisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch II, 1O15). You have to know both what is the case and what you are saying to tell a proper lie. They say there are no atheists in the foxholes of w:ar. and there are surely few relativists among the true tellers of lies. Consequently, as I have said, this condition for lying is an odd cause for cheer: Every telling of a lie is a reaftlrmatlon of the possibility of truth. m. The third and central of my five conditions for tell1ng lies is a human capacity, which is an incapacity as well. I will call it the power of blind negatton. In the dialogue the Sophist that I mentioned before, the main speaker (not Socrates) says: To believe or to say the things that are not - that ls, it seems, the lie arising in the mind and in words. (260 c) More than two millennia later Captain Gulliver is, in the course of his travels, set ashore by his crew of mutineers in a land governed by noble horses who call themselves Houyhnhnms. The land also harbors some savage, repulsive two-legged ape-like creatures, the Yahoos, with whom the horses identify Gull1ver, calling him their "gentle Yahoo." Gulliver tries to give his equine master an account of the mores of the European Yahoos, but the noble horse is hard put to it 9 �to comprehend the Yahoo custom of telling lies, which ts. Gulliver notes, "so perfectly understood, and so universally practiced among human creatures." The noble horse calls it "saying the thing which ts not," to him a most self-defeating use of speech. · By this testimony, we may begin to definer lying as saying the thing which ts not. So, of course, ts sp~aking in error, as Socrates had already intimated in the di~ogue on error that precedes the Sophist, the Theaetetus ( 199 4, see also Aristotle, Metaphysics 1011b27.) In fact, tn logic the two falsehoods are indistinguishable. For logic abstracts from what ts called the pragmatic aspect of speech, the internal intention and the social use. I might put it this way. In the full human context, lies have something infernal about them; they are under Satan, the prince of li~s and of dental. In the bright and weightless realm of logtc, dental ts a mere squiggle or "curl" ("') - just an operator. It ts defined by a table of so-called truth-values. ("Value" 1n logic as in life denotes an arbitrary as opposed to an intrinsic worth.) If a proposition. little p, ts assigned the truth value T, then squtggle-p ("'P) ts F, false. and conversely. T and Fare mere symbols; T has no primacy over F and imparts no particular significance to a proposition. (While it is the case that logicians think about what truth is, they do not feel equally obligated to think about what is true, though it may be finally impossible to separate the two questions.) Now in real life people do not talk "propositionally" very often. except in courts of law. under cross-examination: "Is it or is it not the case that your mother told you something signJficant? Just answer yes or no, please." In ordinary speech the negative does not stand outside an impregnable proposition but invades it and is deeply implicated in it. Traditional logtc does in fact recognize two additional possibilities for the position of the negation. Textbooks on logic seem quite unamazed by these possibilities, which they blithely declare to· be equivalent (e.g. I. M. Copi, Introduction to Logic, p. 223), though thoughtful logicians have had their preferences. In what follows S stands for the subject, capital P for the predicate of a proposition. We can say: _ 1. S (is not) P. Here the proposition itself, internally, ts said to have the "quality" of being negative or positive: Achilles ts-not a liar. Some authors maintain that this form alone ts correct because logical quality belongs strictly to the copula connecting the subject and the predicate (Maritain, Formal Logic, p. 110). I think that view is too restrictive. 10 �2. Sis (not P). Whether the speaker is telling the truth or a Ue, this form posits a "thing that is not": Achilles is a non-liar. It therefore supports the doctrine of lies adopted by the Sophist and the Houyhnhnms. 3. Not (Sis P), i.e. Np. The negative is outside the proposition: It is not the case that Achilles is a liar. This is how the modem logic called propositional places the negative, though the thought goes back to the Stoics and to Abelard (W. and M. Kneale, The Development of Logic, p. 210). Here the whole proposition is externally negated. The real life differences among the three forms are remarkable when the logical bones are fleshed out with meaning. For while the negative that has got inside the sentence wrecks havoc there with meaning, the denial of the whole proposition leaves it intact, as putting a negative sign before a number leaves it its absolute value. Look at the example of the truthful Achilles, the unwitting liar. Early on, in the first book of the Iliad (352), we see him withdrawn from his friends, weeping on the shore and calling his mother. "Mother" he says, addressing her plainly and intimately, "Mother, you bore me to be short-lived"; the Greek word is mtnunthiados - minute-lived. The son states it, and the mother confirms it: Achilles will die soon. Now listen to a later episode. In the ninth book (410) Achilles tells Odysseus, who has come to talk him into returning to the battle, that his mother- she is now grandly "the goddess, silver-footed Thetls" - has said that he has a choice of two fates. He can go home and forego fame or stay and die soon gloriously. Unless mother arid son have been talking behind our backs, Achilles is engaging in sheer hopeful invention, attributing it to his divine mother. And finally, in a still later passage in the sixteenth book (51) he answers the concerned and suspecting question of his friend Patroclos, whether his mother had told him something from Zeus: "Neither do I care about any oracle that I know nor has my mistress mother [as he now calls her formally and coolly) told me anything from Zeus." This answer betokens what we like to call "going into full denial." Note the progressive negation of the truth. At first Achilles admits the hard fact: I and my mother both know I shall die young. The second version is: My mother has told me that I have a choice of fates. Here Achill.e s begins to say "the thing that is not": Sis not-P. For he does not deny that his mother has been in communication with him, but he undoes and denies her message. And third he says: It is not the case that my mother has told me a thing. Now he is denying the whole proposition: not (Sis P). This is not altering 11 �the message and saying the thing that is not. This is a more radical lie, that of denying blindly that anything whatever has been said. Such is the progress and the pathos of Achilles' peculiarly telling lies. lies that reveal the young warrior's fear of facing death. Let me step back for a moment. It seems to me that we can think more than we can say. The papers you write this year will probably demonstrate that fact. We can also say more than we think. Some of your colleagues in seminar will seem to you to gtve examples of that fact. Moreover, while the world contains more things than we can enumerate. it is also true that we can say what corresponds to no thought and no thing. We can speak without meaning. The word can become footloose. One good example of a word rattling around by itself is the pseudo-name by which Odysseus introduces himself to the Cyclops, No-One (Outis, IX, 364-412). The poor monster literally does not know what he is saying when, having been brutally blinded by Odysseus, he calls on his neighbors for help. Who has hurt you, they ask, and he answers "No One." Nor do they know what they are saying when they go off shouting something to the effect: "Well, if no one has hurt you, you must be sick. Go see a doctor." For in conditional contexts the form 01ltis turns into me tis, which means again "No one," but it also sounds like metis, which means "cunning, craftiness": "Cunning has done you in, go see a doctor" - that is what the Cyclopean neighbors truly but unwittingly say. But particularly to my point are the words no and not and the prefixes wiand non: The first philosopher, Parmenides, said that ".neither could you know that which is not (for it is impossible). nor·could you say it" (Diels Fragment 2). I think he holds too nobly simple a view of speech. I agree that it is not possible to think what is not. The intellect is incapable of the pure negative. When it tries to think not or non or un it always finds itself attending to something different or other rather than to nothing. For example, Un-rest is not No Rest but Motton, and Non-being is not Nothing but something Different or Other. I think that in perception too there is never nothing but only difference. Even the imagination cannot practice negation effectively. For an image of the imagination may be nullified, as a stamp is cancelled so that its value is gone - yet its face, though smudged, is not obliterated. In the imagination and in visual thinking - which is what we mostly do - negated being nearly always has a positive look. Denial produces a murky or perhaps a monstrous shape, but never a nonentity. 12 �In speech alone can we say the negative and for a moment really mean nothing. It Is, I think, this potent Incapacity that makes lying possible. So let me sketch out for you how telling lies seems to me to come about as a product of negating speech and defective will. There ts a crucial moment - for Achilles tt comes last, but often it Is first - whe~ we say a blind and ignoble no to the truth, when we will to tell the lie. The proposition that we know to be true remains untouched but we determine in our hearts to reject ft, Ignorantly and uncircumstantlally: "Not (S Is P)." The hero decides to maintain: "It is not the case, Patroclos, that my mother conflnned my pending death" - without thought for the consequence to the interior of the sentence. We say no and think nothing constructive, only "I shall not tell the truth whatever follows." Our two strange negative capacities for exercising an infirm will and for uttering an unmeaning word come briefly but momentously together. In the second and third moment the negation invades the sentence and begins to generate meaning. Perhaps ft first attaches Itself to the copula so as to disjoin subject from predicate: Achtlles and his death are not to be conjoined in speech. But eventually the negation ends up attacldng the predicate itself; S Is not-P: My mother told me not what you all think, Odysseus, but something else, that my death is still my choice. That "not" when stuck to the predicate no longer betokens pure blinding negative non-truth, but signals an alternative to the truth, a positive invention; the lie goes out of control and become baroque. Here cross the activities of telling lies and telling tales. Both tell the thing that ts not. Let me conclude this section on lies and negating language by reminding us that except for the willing, all I said holds also for error: Lies differ from errors only in beginning wilfully and then sliding out of control, while errors begin inadvertently and then settle in. I cannot resist adding that telling lies is also close in form to asldng questions. A lie is in fact a kind of inverse question. For a question Is a directed receptivity, a shaped expectation of a truth as yet unknown. And a lie ts a directed rejection, a determined negation, of a truth already known. Since we are a school for questioning, lies, the diametric opposite of questions, would seem to be. on occasion, a proper preoccupation for us. IV. I would phrase the fourth condition oflytng. necessity, in this way: We can lie because we must lie. I am thinking not ·of the subjective pseudo-necessity of lying from fear or need, but of unavoidable objective lying. If human speech is to be efflca- 13 �cious it must accommodate itself to a world about which it is, as I have already intimated, simply not possible to speak with total truth. Let me quote an author of the junior year with whom I maintain a - necessarily one-sided but cordial - friendship, Jane Austen. She says: Seldom, v~iy seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken. (Enuna, Ch. 49) It is an ever-rewarded effort to try to tell the truth, but to tell the whole truth is beyond our cognitive abilities and to .tell nothing but the truth is outside of our linguistic equipment. Anyone made to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is being asked to stretch it. We cannot utter exactly what it is we think because the qualifying internal history behind every thought is enormous. It cannot be put in finite words. Similarly we cannot tell all that we perceive, because the world's space is indefinitely extended and infinitesimally detailed, and in addition every spatial point has behind it an infinite history in time. The case is not entirely hopeless and offers no excuse for not trying. Our cognitive constitution, our capacity for speech, and the external world all do seem to be to some degree geared to each other. Our attention highlights parts of the world that seem to be meaningful wholes. The parts of speech seem to fit the behavior of the world, and the words of language seem to be able to collect items scattered widely in space. Sometimes many things can be said "in a word." The constitutional limitation on our truth-telling, our necessary objective lying, is therefore also an incitement to subjective truthfulness, to the effort to do what we can with such telling speech as we have. V. There is, finally, a fifth condition, .freedom, the condition for telling true lies of a marvelous sort. Here is an activity in which the reckless will, the footloose word, and the feckless world intersect. This activity produces the freely willed lie called fiction, feigning wonderful worlds in words; or poetry, making splendid fabrics out of words. The notion that fiction and poetry are a kind of lie is attributed to Socrates, and you will hear him say so when you read the dialogue called the Republic (Bk. II). Yet it was not a philosopher who first published this slander, but a poet, Hesiod, Homer's younger rival, for whom we have no time. He takes seriously what Homer takes lightly: the aboriginal birth of the gods and the daily work of men. This peasants' Homer 14 �tells how the Muses spoke to him, a shepherd of the wilderness, and said: We know how to tell many lies that are stmllar to true words, and again, when we wish, we can utter true things. (Theogany 27-28) These are wonderful lines because they introduce a distinction into the truths that are opposed to lies. There are what I will call world-truths, alethea. and there are word-truths, etyma. the term I mentioned before, the one that goes into the word etymology. Hesiod's Muses tell lies that are sim1lar to true words. These are the free lies I am talking about: words freely chosen to tell lies that are true in the world of words. How is it possible that such :11berated lies should acquire the force of a peculiar and special truth? The answer is in a strange capacity we share with the world, the power of entertaf.ning certain half-existences called images. But like the will, the imagination is a mystery for another night. I am nearing the end, and your turn ~o express your judgments of my lecture in your questions for me is about to come. Let me, on the way out,. return once more to the second hero of this lecture, Odysseus. When he is about to become the teller and poet of his own travels, he introduces and reveals himself in this fashion to the Phaeacians, who will be the first folk to hear his odyssey: I am Odysseus Laertldes: I am the preoccupation of mankind · for all my deceits... But I dwell in lucid (eudeielos) Ithaca (IX 19-21). ·Telling false lies and telling true lies, telling lies from necessity and for pleasure, Odysseus attains the sunlit clarity of the home he loves. Not, I think, the worst way to home in on truth! But there is a better way still, Socrates' way: the unwillingness to tolerate the unwitting, untold lie in the soul, and the wit and wisdom to transmute the unavoidable lying of any utterance into the telling lies that reveal truth. 15 � 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. 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Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 16 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/. Title A name given to the resource Telling lies Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993-08-27 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on August 27, 1993 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1993 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/264">Audio recording</a> Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e6f1157139bf924ec9e93794c6868746.pdf eade299c139b39789a4f60b3f51922b8 PDF Text Text Eva T. H. Brann Dean's Lecture August 25, 1992 THE SEAL WITH SEVEN BOOKS You have all heard of the book with seven seals. It is spoken of in the Book of the Apocalypse, or, as it is known in English, the Book of Revelation. Its authorship is attributed to st. John the Evangelist, who had on Patmos a vision, which he reports in obedience to a great voice behind him, that said: "What thou seest, write in a book." He turns and sees many amazing sights, but the climax of his vision is this: "And I saw," he says, "in the right hand of him that sat on the throne, a book written within and on the backside sealed with seven seals" (5: 1). And because no man in heaven or on earth can open the book, John weeps until he is told that the Lion of Juda, the Root of David, the Lamb of God, will open it. Unsealed, the book releases seven categories of catastrophe, a multitude of figures signifying a swarm of scourges presaging the redemption of the world. Among these figures are the infamous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, symbolizing conquest, war, famine, and death. There also spill out seven trumpets, and from the sixth falls a little open book that John is bidden to eat, and "it is sweet in his mouth but bitter in his belly." To my mind John's big sealed book is the great Book of History as it happens, while the little �2 open book stands for all the books that are written about history and are pleasant to read but hard to digest. The John who foresees history in the epoch we call the Christian era is also the apostle who wrote the gospel that begins "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God," the text on which so many sophomores and seniors write their essays. I have been paper advisor for enough students to have a sense of the reason for their choice. They hope that John's text will bring together for them the meaningful word, called in Greek logos, with the vision of God. (I want to interject here for our freshmen, to whom the first lecture of the year should speak most directly, that logos, a word that signifies both the thought and the speech it fathers, a word you will soon talk about in the language tutorial, is to my understanding the most important word in the tradition you are now setting out to study, the tradition of reason.) This John who writes, sees, and eats books may, I am sorry to tell you, not be our John, the John of St. John's. In the last century people thought he was, because they thought our college had been named after st. John's College in Cambridge, which in turn was named after the Evangelist. In the previous century, however -- you should realize that you have come to the third oldest school in the country -- the students here thought that their John was st. John Chrysostom. Francis Scott Key, an alumnus of the class of 1796, in whose hall you are sitting and who, as you know, was to write the words to the Star-spangled �3 Banner during the War of 1812, received in January 1807 a letter from another early alumnus. It said in part: I am in great haste, and in no less of our Saint's assistance .... o Sancte Chrvsostome! ora pro nobis! (O Saint Chrysostomos, pray for us.] I have examined the college library and find ma!!Y; valuable books in it. There is an edition of Chrysostom, in twelve volumes, three of which are wanting ... (Fletcher, 43) This Chrysostom, a Greek nickname that means "the goldenmouthed," lived in the fourth century. He was a preacher at Antioch and, very unwillingly, Archbishop of Constantinople. He appears to have been a very nice person who was continually in hot water with the establishment because he tried to get the rich to be more charitable -- but his congregations loved him. He was a lively, humorous, humane, clear and pleasant speaker, as his name betokens. We still have a couple of volumes of a later edition of his homilies. I took out the volume that contains his commentary on the Gospel of St. John, and found in the second homily a wonderful commentary on a current mania. This mania is to explain or expose an author's opinion by reference to his social origin. twist. John Chrysostom gives this nasty trick a new He begins by chiding those who won't pay attention to the Evangelist's social and family origin. This son of Zebedee from Bethesda was an illiterate barbarian, without learning, a man who fished not even the sea but only a small lake, a man poor and rural. How, John Chrysostom asks, could such a man have known why man exists and why the world exists, what vice is and what virtue is, matters about which even Plato and Pythagoras, who were better than other people, said the most ridiculous things? �4 It is necessary, our saint concludes, to know a man's background to understand just how little it matters if only the spirit be upon him. That's a new twist to the current preoccupation. The preacher then begins a line-by-line commentary on the gospel and raises a question none of my advisees ever thought of, nor Had I, until now: Why does the evangelist pass over the Father in his opening line and go immediately to the son, whom he calls the Logos or Word of God? If any students ever ask me again to help them with an essay on the fourth gospel, I shall surely send them to "our" saint, the Goldenmouth. There is yet one more saint who is a candidate for being our name-saint. This is John the Baptist, who was from the Christian point of view the forerunner of Jesus, but from the Jewish point of view the last of the Jewish minor prophets. The Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in the first century A. D., describes him as a sort of holy hippy, clothed in patches, eating fruits and nuts and preaching freedom from all authority but that of God (The Jewish War, Appendix after I, 110). Our connection with this John is established through our seal, the one that will appear on your diplomas four years in the future. This seal was adopted in 1793. �Masonic Apron. Jacques Cbailley, Tbe Magic Flute, Masonic Opera Seal of St. John's College 1793 Our former librarian, Miss Charlotte Fletcher, has interpreted its symbolism, which had long been identified as a Masonic figure. She did so in an issue of the St. John's Review devoted to her researches into the prehistory·and early history of st. John's College. And she was able to do so by means of her participation in the St. John's program. She was preparing for the senior seminar, which opens with that novel of novels, Tolstoy's War and Peace. She came on the description of the initiation into the rites and rituals of Masons that Pierre Bezuhov, the hero of the novel, undergoes. Tolstoy gives a description of secrets revealed to Pierre, a description that precisely corresponds to things seen in our seal (Vol. I, Bk. ii, 3) • You see a mound of stones in seven courses forming steps, leading up to a pillared temple. A person is climbing. up the hill, carrying not, as you might think, a cross, but a T square, the symbol of the Masons. temple of wisdom. The temple is Solomon's Temple, the The steps leading to it re.present the seven �6 Masonic virtues, first of which is discretion, the keeping of secrets. You can see the theme in a Masonic apron of the nineteenth century as well. It appears that Tolstoy scorns the first virtue of Masonry, since he is evidently exposing the secret rituals of the order. How did this college come to have a Masonic seal? On December 16, 1784, the subscription list, the list of contributions necessary to make a beginning, was filled, and the draft of a plan for founding a college on the Western shore, on our side of Chesapeake Bay, was released. This college, together with Washington College on the Eastern shore, was to be the University of Maryland. So you see that you have actually come to the real University of Maryland. The committee that worked out this draft was headed by three clergymen, a Jesuit-trained priest, John Carroll, from the great catholic Maryland family after which two of your dorms are named, William Smith, an Episcopalian and a Mason, and Patrick Allison, a Presbyterian. Forgive me for injecting here an irrelevancy charming only to people who like birthdays. a day of wonders. December 16 is a dies mirabilis, Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770, Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, and St. John's was born on December 16, 1784. Make of it what you will. In any case, Miss Fletcher thinks that the following is what happened. On December 16 the college was ready to go. Toward the end of the month George Washington, was here in Annapolis to negotiate a fairly momentous agreement, the first �7 post-Revolutionary cooperative legislation between two states of the United States, concerning the use of the Potomac. The bill was passed in the State house, across from us, on December 27. great dinner was given to Washington who had resigned his commission as general before the Continental Congress right in that place a year and four days earlier. (The room in the Statehouse where he performed this, one of the momentous acts of history, when a man chose to be a citizen rather than a king, is still to be seen up on the other hill of Annapolis.) Now December 27 is the feast day of St. John the Evangelist, the patron saint of the Masons. And George Washington, himself a loyal Mason, may have thought of the dinner as a double celebration. When two days later the legislature chartered our school they named it in honor both of the event of having Washington back in town and of the feast day. Add to this circumstance that local freemasons had cooperated with local catholics -- a thing unthinkable in Europe -- to establish this, one of the oldest non-sectarian schools in the country. The charter approved that day said: ... Youth of all religious denominations shall be freely and liberally admitted ... according to their merit •.. without requiring or enforcing any religious or civil test, or 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 and guardians to attend. (Charter, Article II) And that is how we got our Masonic seal of 1793. It is an emblem of the spirit of that year of the Treaty of Paris which ended the successful Revolution, an emblem of the spirit of A �8 religious pluralism, of the sects making room for each other. If Miss Fletcher's conjecture is right, the saint of the book of seven seals is ours after all. To me it seems, as I have said, that this book of seven seals is the book of history and of the terrors time releases. It is a book of catastrophes. This college, however, was founded at a felicitous moment when there was hope that a new order of centuries, one released from the doom of catastrophic history, could begin on this continent. And in its two hundred years (or three hundred if you include its predecessor the King William School, with whose stock of professors and furniture st. John's opened) the college has seen many minor miseries but only one enormous catastrophe, the Civil War. This war was the only time when the school was closed and the campus became a military hospital -- though even then one lone professor carried on a class, so as not to let the charter lapse. On this continent history has, then, not been incessantly apocalyptic. But whether the great book of John of the Apocalypse has one or seven seals, it is not a book for reading. It is, as I said, the Book of History, of events, to be lived through, endured. It contains history before the fact. There are, of course, also books of history written after the fact, ex post facto history, the little open books. Those books are for reading and for study, but we do not read or study many of them here. �9 This little school that has endured through much great history, that has inspired four little books of its own, that bears witness to the past above ground, in its Colonial and postRevolutionary buildings, and below, in its artifact-laden land (of which we may soon be doing an archeological survey) -- this historical college harbors a program that excludes the study of history. I hope to tell you -- I mean our freshmen why we do not study history by telling you what we do study. Underfoot, let into the same ground that probably contains pieces of pipes smoked by the gentlemen and "mechanicks" who made the Revolution and buttons of the tunics of Union soldiers wounded in the civil War, there is a seal. You walk over it every day, when you descend the steps·. from the hill of McDowell Hall to the Francis Scott Key building. Johannine book of seven seals. It is the reverse of the It is a seal of seven books, seven books round about a scale. This seal is not the historical and legal seal of your college chartered in Maryland, but a new design, which appears in the earliest catalogue of the present Program to which eventually two campuses would play host. It is the catalogue of 1937. Seal of St. John's College 1937 �10 (Incidentally, many of you will in time give some thought to the differences between this college as it appears in Annapolis and the same college as it appears in Santa Fe. Well, one difference to consider is that in Annapolis the Program was fitted into the place while in Santa Fe the place was made for the Program.) seal has a nice jingly saying in Latin: Libris Librague. it up. The Facio Liberos ex Liberis No one seems to know what inspired punster made It plays on the Latin root for "free," as in liberty, or in "liberal arts." On the seal the college announces that "I make freemen of children by books and a balance." You have come to a school of the liberal arts. You will, if all goes well, participate in a liberal education. But to be a school that offers a liberal education is not at all the same as to be a school of the liberal arts. indicated by this fact: The difference is If you ask "What is a liberal education?" the answers lie on a field whose axes are not easy to articulate. But if you ask "What are the liberal arts?" the answer is discrete and definite: There are traditionally seven in number and they are divided into two groups. I should say that by tradition, a word that will occur often here, I mean that aspect of the past which is actively effective in the present. here. I also want to make a marginal remark In this school the Dean gets to talk to the whole college five times. This will be my third and middle time. it as the central moment. I think of On this occasion I really ought to talk about the arts that guide our curriculum. �11 The lower group is called the trivium, a Latin word meaning "three-way." These arts are traditionally: Grammar, Dialectic or Logic, Rhetoric. The upper group is called the quadrivium, or the four-way. These arts are traditionally: Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music. They are all traditionally studied from books. The first set of books is concerned with the arts by which human beings order and express their minds and hearts, that is, with language. The second set has to do with the arts by which people approach the learnable structures, abstracted or sensuous, of the world. A school that wanted to institute learning by means of the trivium and the quadrivium might well turn out to have a language class and a mathematics class. But not all that is to be learned is studied through written books. Just as history may be thought of -- I don't know whether rightly -- as a book that precedes the written history books, so the people, such as Galileo, who discovered what we now call science -- the mathematical study of nature -- thought that there was a book of nature whose decipherment preceded the writing of books of physics or biology. To read that material �12 book, that book of reality, one had to look hard at the appearances, or, as the Greeks say, the phenomena. engage in disciplined observation. One has to Now the property that most consistently distinguishes the things of nature from the things of the mind is weight, heaviness -- and all weighing involves a pair of scales reaching an equilibrium position. Therefore we have a scale, in Latin called libra, in our seal; unlike the scale of justice it is a scale in equilibrium. A school of the liberal arts should add an eighth, not so traditional, activity: science as done in the laboratory, by means of observation and measurement. The state of equilibrium, which a scale must reach if it is to measure anything precisely, and which is a crucial phenomenon in nature, will consequently occupy a large part of your first-year laboratory. Let me expound, as succinctly as I am able, the subject matter of the seven old arts. by calling them arts: But first let me say what is meant They are skills, forms of know-how we get good at by practice, by doing problems, proofs, translations, analyses, regularly, several times a week. Consequently one understanding of the Latin word for arts, artes, was that it came from arete, the Greek word for excellence. Another understanding comes from the fact that the compendia of the liberal arts from late antiquity on were collections -- rather dreary ones, incidentally -- of terms and rules. Hence the principal medieval writer on the trivium, John of Salisbury in his Metalogicon (I, 12), suggests that the word artes comes from artant, meaning �13 "they bind,'' because the arts delimit, constrain, discipline us through their rules. These are both fanciful etymologies. The "liberal" in "liberal arts" was, on the contrary, traditionally and rightly understood to refer to freedom in several ways. In a classical context the liberal arts rescue us from banal pursuits. earthly bonds. In a religious context they deliver us from And in a modern context they set us free from inherited prejudices. What appeals to me as revealing is John of Salisbury's implication that the liberal arts free us by binding us. For that is the nature of education in a nutshell: Education forges the bonds of freedom. I won't leave that paradoxical epigram just hanging there; I'll return to it at the end, and we can talk about it in the important part of this evening, the question period. To get back to the contents of the seven bookish arts. As I said, these arts were handed down in compendia that served both as the depositories of all knowledge and as course outlines. Cassiodorus, who wrote in the sixth century A. D. and seems to have been first to use the phrase "the seven liberal arts" (Kimball, 23), wrote one such handbook, which was in use for a millenium. Here is a sketch of the contents of the arts adapted and expanded from his pamphlet: Grammar includes the kinds of subjects of which your Greek manual is full: features. the parts of speech and their syntactical Every modern language manual derives its terms and topics from this tradition. �14 Rhetoric includes everything having to do with verbal composition: the parts of a whole, the poetic figures that enhance it, the informal arguments that make it persuasive. These are matters you will take up often in the language tutorial. I might tell you that very recently rhetoric has again become a lively university subject. Logic includes the study of the categories of knowledge and the types of inference, such as the various sorts of syllogism. These subjects too will turn up in the language tutorial. Arithmetic deals with the nature of unity and the kinds of numbers and their ratio relations. You will get a taste of what is traditionally meant by arithmetic in the freshman mathematics tutorial when you study the seventh book of Euclid and when you read a book called Introduction to Arithmetic by Nicomachus. Nicomachus agreed with Plato that arithmetic is the root of all the sciences. Geometry is the mathematics you will study more extensively here than any other liberal art whatsoever, and I'll come back to it in a moment. Astronomy, which is, as we study it, geometry adapted to show the intelligibility of phenomenal motions in the heavens, is a liberal art you will study here through three years, and in various combinations of versions: geocentric and heliocentric, mathematical and dynamical. Music, which is sometimes listed at the top of the liberal arts, is put by Cassiodorus right after number. For, taken as a �15 liberal rather than a fine art, it begins with the study of the natural consonances and dissonances associated with numeral ratios, and with the modes and scales arising from the composition of these ratios. In your sophomore year you will study these rudimentary facts and much more: rhythm, melody, and harmony, using modern examples complex beyond anything the ancient tradition imagined. Each of the three trivial arts, grammar, logic, and rhetoric, has been in turn the leader. (Incidentally, the term "trivial," used as a contemptuous reference to the trivium first as trite and soon as paltry, appears late in the sixteenth century.) In the days of early imperial Rome, rhetoric, oratory, public persuasion, was the all-encompassing art, for which the quadrivium was the preparation. This is what Quintilian says in his work on the Education of an orator (I, 10), one of the great texts on education. In the earlier Middle Ages grammar, then interpreted as the reading of great literary texts, was valued above all (Paetow, 33). But with the rise of the universities and scholastic philosophy in the thirteenth century, dialectic drowned out all literary studies. They returned with the advent in the fifteenth century of the scholars, who called themselves humanists because they studied the antique poets who cared about men rather than the medieval theologians who wrote of God. The trivium then became what we now call the "humanities," just as the quadrivium, on the whole neglected in the middle ages, returned as "science." In our day, rhetoric is making a serious �16 bid not to replace but to be philosophy, as the art of the construal of texts. I want to warn you that this kind of flamboyant historical gesture drawing I have been engaging in is too crude to do events justice. In the age unjustly suspended by historians between antiquity and modernity many renascences and returns took place, learning was preserved, and discoveries were made that set the stage for the great Renaissance. All I mean to do is to point out that, just as the learning of language is not an orderly linear progress but the simultaneous acquisition of various skills, so the trivium is not naturally ordered. It is otherwise with the quadrivium, a much more ancient, and, moreover, an intrinsically ordered, set of studies. The word itself was a translation, made by Boethius in the early sixth century (I, i) of Nicomachus's term tessares methodoi, meaning the "four ways." The word trivium was a much later derivative. It is first known in the ninth century (Lutz 76). Both groupings of the arts are of course much older than their names. The quadrivia! studies will become known to the freshman as a course of education through the Republic of Plato, where the higher liberal arts curriculum of the West was first expounded. It is the higher learning because what we call literature, namely, poetry and drama (novels hadn't been invented yet), are used in the Republic for the moral and civil training of children. But it is also not the highest, because for Plato �17 dialectic is not mere logic but philosophy. And so dialectical inquiry is above all mathematics, pure or physical. Why those three and those four arts? If we grant that it makes sense that there be two kinds of study, those of sayable thoughts and those of learnable objects, yet why just seven and why just these? The tradition, which loves number magic, saw seven as the virgin number, called Minerva, the Latin name for Athena, because within the decad it is the only prime number that does not "beget," that is, act as a factor of another number in the first ten. It is the sum of three, the male, and four, the female number, as Athena is a man-like woman. There are seven phases of the moon, seven planets, seven days of the week, and many more sevens including the seven openings of the human head (Stahl, 152-54). It was Martianus Capella who first fixed the number at seven (Lutz, 74). This is wild and woolly stuff, but perhaps we can do better. The arts of speech are three because speech has three aspects. There are rational and empirical rules of language in general and of language in particular, of Language itself in the singular and of languages in the plural, such as English, Greek, and French, and these constitute grammar. Then there are formal structures of reason -- of concepts, propositions, and rules of inference and these make up logic. And finally there are the precepts of persuasion, by which words grow -- as Homer so beautifully says -- wings. words that reach the hearer. Winged words, epea pteroenta, are Rhetoric is the art of making words �18 fly. I think with a little trimming and shoving all language study (as distinct from studying languages) does fit under these headings. The four arts of learnable objects, however, are ordered not as were the three aspects of one thing, speech, but as a dimensional development, as a genetic sequence leading to a complete object. At least that is how Socrates presents the quadrivium, or perhaps I should say the quintuvium, since he wants his philosopher kings to learn not about four but five mathematical subjects. I should say something here for the freshmen who have not yet read Plato's Republic, the book to which I am referring. It appears to be about the best political community, but turns out, at its center, to be a book about education, the program of philosophical learning that will educate those who might be fit to rule this polity. These four or five studies are called mathemata, which might be translated as "learnables." Mathematical studies are those which are by their nature learnable. about mathematics? What is so learnable Well, partly it must be the fact that it is unlike language learning, which has no given natural order (though that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done in an orderly fashion, though the order will be conventional). Mathematical learning builds up systematically, just as mathematical objects can be ordered genetically. There are, of course, several other features that makes mathematics more learnable -- and more teachable -- than language, among them the clarity and �19 distinctness of its objects. The truth of this claim will probably become clear when you compare your language and your mathematics tutorials. Socrates begins with arithmetic (522c). Arithmetic is the study of the unit, the collection of units called arithmoi, numbers, and the study of calculation, the Greek word for which denotes the use of the reasoning power, logistike (525 b). The unit is zero-dimensional; you will in fact find it defined as a point without position. Next the philosopher-kings- to-be are to study geometry, not only plane geometry, which deals with one-dimensional lines and two-dimensional surfaces, but also solid geometry, which rises to the third dimension, the dimension of depth. Next these geometrical solids are put in motion, and studied especially in the circular revolutions of the heavens. That is astronomy. Besides the visible geometrical figures of heavenly motion, there are also the audible progressions of numerical ratios. And that is harmonics or theoretical music. For Plato it is the crowning study of the quadrivium, especially insofar as the tones produced belong to the octave sounded by the heavenly spheres (617 b). It is qualitative number moving in figures, or, you might say, rational bliss. I should tell you that in accordance with the Platonic scheme, in the early days of our program books on physics such as you will be studying in your junior year, for instance books on the motions that produce light and sound, were to be found in the �20 King William Room of our library under the heading "music." Those were the days! You might well ask: With the enormous burgeoning of the sciences in the past two centuries, and particularly in the past half-century, does the quadrivia! ordering still make sense or is it purely antiquarian? Of course there have always been subjects regarded either as too technical or as too advanced to fit in the quadrivium, such architecture, medicine, and jurisprudence. But though the number of descended specialties is now enough to swamp the originals, I can think of two ways in which the "four-way" still makes sense. First, the ordering of mathematical and natural objects by dimension still yields a plausible progression. As you know, the basic quantities of science are called dimensions, meaning magnitudes that give scope to measurement. The fundamental physical quantities are the three dimensions of Space, which give the configurations of bodies, and then Time, which is the measure of bodies in motion, and finally Mass, to which bodies owe their sensory effects and which is in fact the magnitude measurable by the scale at the center of our seal. So we can still say that dimensional progression is an ordering principle of science, especially of physics. I should add here that there are other ways of organizing the quadrivium, by the discontinuous or continuous, for example, or the absolute or relative, the unmoved or moved character of the objects (Merlan, 89-91) . �21 Second, you should realize that we carry on our studies in a way that makes the liberal arts expecially fit for our use. This is our way: We do not present you with fields and subjects that we try to cover in an introductory sort of way. Our tutorials and laboratories are not introductory but elementary. Here is what that distinction means. Introductions are overviews of extensive fields of information in which high points are presented in a cursory way with some explanations to hold things together. Introductions are of necessity superficial, but they are not necessarily elementary. On the other hand, Euclid's book on geometry, the one that you have begun to study, is called the Elements. Elements are that on which, and also out of which, learning is built. The elementary studies are usually both simple and profound, and they are not extensive bodies of information, but basic skills and practices. elements is different from getting on with it. Dwelling on studying beginnings is different from being at the cutting edge. Advanced studies and breakthrough work are wonderful activities, good for graduate study. We, however, dwell on and in origins. It is a wonder of human learning that these beginnings often have a special perfection and elegance. It could well be that first things are nondescript and insignificant and that only through progress does quality arise. For example, in the evolution of mammals, the scurrying eohippus, which means the "dawn-horse," is a little ugly thing and the galloping modern horse a large and noble being. But it is not so for the dawn of �22 learning. First discoveries are often well-shaped and grand and make good paradigms and exemplars. decided to do: And that is what we have not to cover the field but to choose fine elementary examples for study in our tutorials and laboratories. For that is what the liberal arts are: the basic skills of learning taught through the elementary but grand discoveries of the human intellect. To return for one more minute to the Republic. We found laid out there the quadrivium in a plausible development. find the trivium there as well? Can we Yes, but divided and wrapped, so to speak, round about the quadrivium. The children's character is trained by means of poetry, by the same works, epic, tragedy, and odes, that will later afford the material for the trivial studies of grammar and rhetoric. Logic, called dialectic in the Republic, is not, however, a study for children. It is rather the high point of study for the young philosopher-kings-to-be. They take it up in their early thirties. Dialectic teaches the way of rational argument, not however as a formal science of the schemata of reason, but as a road to final knowledge, up to the highest structures of being and even beyond. Dialectic is for Socrates what we call philosophy. I might say here that the project of tracing the uses and exchanges of the terms logic and dialectic, their fate in connoting the highest or meanest, the richest or driest of studies, is almost coextensive with the project of following the vicissitudes of learning and thinking in the West. You might �23 want to write your senior essay on it. Let me just say here that dialectic is soon demoted to a mere counterpart of rhetoric -Cassiodorus, the author of the sixth century I mentioned before as writing one of the best known handbooks on the liberal arts tradition, says, borrowing from the Stoic Zeno (Stahl 95): "Dialectic and rhetoric are as with respect to a hand the contracted fist and the extended palm -- the former completes its arguments in brief speech, the latter roams the fields of eloquence with abundant talk; the one abridges words, the other stretches them out" (Ch. III) . Yet even when dialectic loses its grand sense, the liberal arts tradition steadfastly preserves the notion that the culmination of the liberal arts is philosophy: Cassiodorus says: Philosophy is homoiosis theoi kata dynaton anthropoi, "the assimilation to God as far as is possible for a human being" (1168). One of my favorite writers on liberal learning is a monk of the twelfth century, Hugo of st. Victor, the director of his monastery's school, who wrote a book called "Manual on Learning Through Reading" (Didascalicon de studio legendi). I like him especially because he tells me, with modest clarity, things I have discovered and lived by over the years: That to study books you have to know which texts to read and in what order and how. That diligent study from books is quite different from meditation, which is careful and repeated thinking through, and that meditation in turn differs from contemplation, which is a kind of collecting, comprehensive insight -- and you have to do �24 all three. That searching for wisdom is not the same as having it, wherefore we are to be called not sapientes, sophai, "wise people," but amatores sapientiae, which is the Latin rendition of the Greek words philoi sophiae, philosophers, "lovers of wisdom." That pursuing empty stuff strenuously is worse than plying good things negligently. That reading has three stages: the letter, or construing the grammar, the sense, or getting the first meaning, and the significance, or penetrating deeply. That the wisdom for which the soul burns is not in the first instance technical and good for accomplishing things in the world, but theoretical and good for illumining and bringing us back to ourselves. What gives me pleasure is that this experienced teacher can reach back over a millennium and a half, and say old truths with unselfconscious freshness. Hugo holds that the seven arts are "indeed the best tools and beginnings by which to prepare the way for the mind to a full appreciation of philosophical truth" (III, 3). It is in our seminar that we realize Victor's way. We read for the seminar and our trivial studies have prepared us to construe the sentences, to follow the logic, to appreciate the style, and to understand mathematical and scientific references. Together we try to work out the simple sense of the text, and to prepare for the deep interpretation that we search for later in meditative privacy. Sometimes we have sudden and encompassing insights right in the seminar room. Sometimes such insights come when we have withdrawn into ourselves. (I recall a sophomore who �25 saw the One walking along College Creek.) We waste no study time on piffling books, since we have chosen to read only works that repay our efforts. We try to do it in the right order, keeping abreast of our authors. We try to have read some of the same books that have gone into the making of each book we come to. Hugo would probably have been surprised at the capture of his monastic studium legendi, which might be translated as "book learning," by the modes of participatory democracy in our seminar: by the relegation of the teachers to questioners-in- chief and by the encouragement of tentative offerings and trial balloons from all participants. I think he was the sort of man who, having seen us at work, might have been tempted to turn the monastery school at St. Victor in Paris into an early st. John's. Of course, he might then have ended up in the monastery scullery, for our questioning is almost routinely more radical than his community could have countenanced. Our seminar, I am implying, is devoted to philosophy, and the tutorials, including the laboratory, are the preparation that should make the seminar conversation progressively at once more allusive and more coherent. than technique. In the seminar we follow wisdom more Some books are in fact quite directly concerned with the wisdom which Hugo calls vivax mens et sola rerum primaeva ratio: things." "living mind and the only primal principle of Proceeding through direct argument, these books are the ones usually called philosophical or theological. Others present their wisdom in more oblique ways, clothed in the many-colored �26 coat of fiction. They have a relation to the philosophical books something like that of the open palm to the clenched fist. Recall that Cassiodorus had used that figure to distinguish rhetoric from dialectic. Those books, usually referred to as literature, are easier to read but often more demanding. One of the beauties of our order of reading is that we do not preordain which is which, what books must be called philosophy and what books must be called fiction. For all our seminar list knows, Homer's Iliad is a work of philosophical theology and Newton's Principia a word of cosmological myth. All the distinction we ever make is to assign some readings to the tutorials and others to the seminar. In the tutorials we use manuals, compendia, textbooks for guiding our demonstrations, and the prose selections and poems we read are chosen to be worked over -- translated and analyzed. Euclid's Elements, for example, is a textbook, meant specifically to introduce students into the sciences of space and number in the most succinct and systematic way. And when we do a logical and rhetorical analysis we might use a question from Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologicae. I would sum up the work of tutorials and laboratories as dealing with the seven liberal arts. Here we use the best examples available and apply to them the terms and techniques of the basic skills for learning about words and things. And these terms and techniques are in turn taken from the best teaching texts we can find. Some know-how may even be best acquired in a form abstracted from all context and then compressed and �27 reconstructed, like processed food. Sometimes manuals are just the thing. In the seminar, on the other hand, we read books, whole books as much as possible, or carefully -- and reluctantly -selected parts. Here it is not arts and textbooks but authors and texts that we attend to. Here we do not engage in exercises for acquiring the skills of learning, but we engage in liberal learning itself. We reflect on everything that we are and that the world holds, including the arts of learning themselves. The reason that the seminar is the place for integral texts by named authors is this. That since we use the seminar books above all to help our own thought, it is of the essence that we should be addressed by an original human voice and that we should hear it out. I said earlier that whereas the liberal arts were quite definable, liberal education could mean practically anything. There is a book that tries to organize the chaos. books as it is with children: It is with We tend to have a special affection for other people's offspring if we have gotten to diaper them as babies, and we have a special esteem for books that we have been asked to read in manuscript. The book I am thinking of is by Bruce A. Kimball, and it is called Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education. It offers a typology, that is to say, a conceptual coordinate system, of the kinds of liberal education that the author has discerned. You will see by looking at the axes on your sheets �Two Axes } of Liberal Ed~tion Four Types Classical Authors ~o<? o~ ~~ ~~ %~~· (' & ~':>~ co N The Liberal Arts Elements of Learning Preparation for Truth-Seeking Education of Leaders Pursuit of Virtue <Qo/- "J-!Y ~ ~~" ~ o(f . ~Q· ~Oc; ~~ ~~Q' ...(>~& ~ ~~ <Q~~ ·O~ c,':>~ ~~ .q,.~o Modern Science Derived from Bruce A. Kimball, Orators and Pbflosopbers, p. 228 "Liberal Arts'' Curricula Elective Courses Epistemological Skepticism Tolerance of Individual Views l~elativism �29 what the most telling characteristic of the types are. The right-hand horizontal or major axis shows the spirit of liberal education prevalent in the best of secular American schools: "epistemological skepticism," that is to say, comprehensive questioning and tolerance of all views. The left side shows a diametrically opposed idea, that good citizens must be trained in a common set of virtues, which are often set out in great texts. You will find this spirit alive especially in the great Catholic schools. The minor axis opposes mathematics and sciences, the hard disciplines, at the bottom, to classical texts, the soft readings, at the top. I do think with a little patting and pushing, most colleges in this country fit into this coordinate system. And now comes your own college, St. John's. go on the grid? Where does it Well, we study classical texts, many of them, and the best we can find, of all periods. Do we confine ourselves to one of the so-called "Two Cultures," the sciences or the humanities, at opposite ends of the vertical axis? No, everyone studies mathematics for four years and science for three, simple but real science, elementary but real mathematics. Yet, looking to the left of the horizontal axis, we certainly also think that our studies should make us better human beings, and we are deeply concerned with the civic effect of our education. Moreover we choose the texts we read because we think they contain worthy truths about moral and civic matters. looking to the opposite right, we are inveterate askers of And �30 questions. Tolerating others' opinion isn't quite a sufficient description of the spirit of our classrooms: We try truly to hear what others say and, if we can, to appreciate their opinion rather than just to tolerate it. To us the verb "to question" does not mean "to attack" but "to elicit." At this school we read classical texts but think that these include works of mathematics and science. We assume that moral civic and intellectual virtue may be acquired through attending to the teaching of our authors, but we think that there is no authority other than each thinking student. In short, we use classics to teach us science, and great books to help us reflect on large questions. The founders and sustainers of this school, the generations of tutors and the fifty classes of students that have devised and confirmed this program since 1937, seem to have done a remarkable thing. Without much conscious reference to the historically discernible types of liberal education, they seem to have brought about a school that encompasses and reconciles all the major good purposes that the grand tradition of liberal education has over time included. how have we done that? The St. John's program is materially exclusive and intellectually inclusive. By "materially exclusive" I mean that there are many subjects well worth knowing and many objects well worth accomplishing that we have excluded so as to able to require ourselves to study what we think is best and so as to study it together. By "intellectually �31 inclusive" I mean that there is no mode of learning, knowing, and believing that we fail to acknowledge as worthy of serious attention. By "serious attention" I mean that in studying a book or listening to a person we hold open, somewhere in our thought, the possibility that what they say might be true and that we might want to live by it . And what are we consequently? We are a college where learning is well-defined and question-asking unlimited, where study is selective and thought receptive, where opinions may be definite and minds yet open. That is what our seal of seven book betokens. At the center of St. John's are the liberal arts and the books and instruments through which we study them. These arts are encompassed by an understanding of liberal education that the seal articulates in the surrounding work: "By books and a balance I make humanly free adults of legally free children." the seal the college speaks to us and promises: the bonds of freedom." On "I forge for you �32 BIBLIOGRAPHY Boethius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, De institutione arithmetica libri duo, edited by G. Friedlein: Leipzig (1869). Cassiodorus, M. Aurelius, De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum, Opera Omnia, II (1848). Fletcher, Charlotte, "St. John's 'For Ever': Five Essays on the History of King William's School and st. John's College," The St. John's Review, XL, 2 (1990-91). Hugo of St. Victor Didascalicon de Studio Legendi, Geschichte und Dokumente der abendlaendischen Paedagogik, Vol. I, edited by Eugene Garin, Hamburg: Rowohlt (1964). John Chrysostom, Commentary on Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist: Homilies 1-47, translated by Sister Thomas Aquinas Goggin, New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc. (1959). Joseph, Flavius, History of the Jewish War, translated by H. St. J. Thackeray, Vol. II, Appendix, 644, Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library (1976). John of Salisbury, The Metalogicon: A Twelth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium, translated by Daniel D. McGarry, Berkeley: University of California Press (1962). Kimball, Bruce A., Orators and Philosophers, New York: College Press (1986). Teachers Lutz, Cora E., "Remigius' Ideas on the Classification of the Seven Liberal Arts," Traditio, XII (1956), 65-86. Marrou, H. I., A History of Education in Antiquity, New York: Mentor Books (1956). Merlan, Philip, "The Origin of the Quadrivium," From Platonism to Neoplatonism, Ch. 4, The Hague: Nijhoff (1975). Nicomachus of Gerasa, Introduction to Arithmetic, Annapolis: The St. John's College Press (1955). �33 Paetow, John L., The Arts Course at Medieval Universities with Special Reference to Grammar and Rhetoric, Dubuque: Reprint Library (from 1910). Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, translated by H. E. Butler, Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library (1963). Stahl, William H., Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, New York: Columbia University Press (1971). �34 THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS The Trivium Grammar Logic Rhetoric The Quadrivium Arithmetic Geometry Astronomy Music �35 Masonic Apron. Jacques Chailley, The Magic Flute, Masonic Opera Seal of St. John's College 1793 Seal of st. John's College, 1937 Bruce A. Kimball, Orators and Philosophers THE BOOK OF SEVEN SEALS � 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. 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Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 35 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/. Title A name given to the resource The seal with seven books Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1992-08-25 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on August 25, 1992 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1992-08-25 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/33acaf358c64e8c6acd99724881018db.pdf 822a5c33efa63ce2b8b7229eb3fa0a7d PDF Text Text WHAT IS A BOOK? EVAT. H. BRANN Dean's Lecture St. John's College, Annapolis August 30, 1991 �It is our tradition that the first lecture of the year should be dedicated to our freshmen. They have newly joined a community whose program of learning centers on the scheduled reading of a pre-set list of books and on the twice-weekly discussion which takes place in the seminar. They have come to us chiefly because that is what we do here. I have read each of their applications, and I can vouch for the fact. Then what sort of impression will I be making on them if I ask an absurd question like "What is a book?" - and in public? Don't we, known to the world as a Great Books College, know what a book is, even what a great book is? I was friends once with a little boy (we are still friends, but he is a . big strapping lawyer now, a public defender, no less) who told me he was making a rocket to send into space. In the proper adult spirit of annoying little children I asked him "What do you mean, space?" He looked at me in big-eyed amazement (he was used to grown-ups having more answers than he had questions) and said incredulously; "Don't you even know what space is-you know, outer space?" So don't I even know what a book is, a great book? Well, I do and I don't I don't say that to create confusion. Contrary to what some of your upperclass colleagues may try to tell you, confusion is not our business, but rather clarification, an10ng other things because clear-headedness is one condition of open-mindedness. A slowly developing, limited clarity of mind does seem to me to be our business. Nor, for that matter, is reading books our primary activity, or even thinking about them. Our primary purpose is, in my opinion - I say "in my opinion" because not everyone agrees-to reflect, which means literally "to bend (our thought) back" - on itself and on ou·rselves. When you leave us in four years you may well have chosen a career. The word "career" is related to "car" and connotes taking off on a track, straight, speedy- and upward, we hope. The years immediately before you are, on the contrary, years of leisure, of slow progress in a rising circle (such as is called a spiral), of reviewing your points of origin1 �2 one of which is yourself-from different vantage points. It is significant that we never ask you to "take a course" but always to "be in a · tutorial." We invite you not to course along a set track of organized knowledge, but to be active in a community protective of learning wherever it goes, even in circles. That, incidentally, is why your teachers are not called professors but tutors. These are both Latin words. A professor is "one who speaks out assertively in public," but a tutor is "one who safeguards and watches" over things. A tutorial, then is a safe haven for learning with fifteen or so members, one of whom is the special guardian of learning. It is often said that there is yet another presence in the tutorial or the seminar, the one that brings us together, the true guide and teacher, namely the great book being studied. We often say that, and I think it is true. Not for nothing does our college seal display seven books. Let me take out a minute here for an interjection. You may be surprised by my vehemence, butl want to warn you of what seems to me a very bad blight. Countries, congregations, colleges - all have their verities, truths they keep telling about themselves. When a truth has been told and heard very often, it loses, by a very natural process, its sap and its savor. Then there is a type ·o f person who concludes that because the truth has lost its savor for them, it is unsavory, and they affect ennui and disdain toward it. They think the truth is flat and falsified when it is their souls that have gone flaccid. I am not speaking of those who vigorously oppose the truthfulness of the truth: They are the tonic that keeps truths healthy. I am speaking of people- ourselves in certain 11\oods- who let the soul slip from the words they speak and then blame the words. The cure for this condition seems to be to cultivate the habit of reverence. By reverence I here mean the disposition to grant at least provisional significance to words and sayings from which the meaning seems for the moment to have withdrawn and to . �3 have become remote. The next step is then the effort to recover that meaning. In that spirit I say thatgreat books are our teachers, and this lecture is one attempt to recall the meaning of this truism. There is a man- you will spend much of your year arguing with him - who intimates that it is foolish to talk about the quality and purpose of a thing before asking what it is. In the manner of this man Socrates let me then put my title question, to which we all know some obvious answers that tum increasingly unobvious under reflection: What is a book? Books as Bodies A book appears to be, to begin with, a bodily thing. In an old college film, which I hope you get to see sometime, there is a dorm sequence ofa student shouting upstairs to her friend: "Throw me down my Iliad." Down comes the Iliad. Or it might have been her Paradise Lost, I've forgotten. Is the Iliad then a thing subject to gravity, gaining distance as the square of the time? Is it her Iliad or Homer's Iliad or Achilles' Iliad? Where is the place of this Iliad? In a book, in the mapsode 's literal line-by-line memory, in the student's impressionistic memory, nowhere, in Troy, in Hades? I say Hades, because as you will soon read in the Odyssey, it is to the blood-drained invisible underworld that you must go to learn the great tales on which poetry works. Again, when is a book's time of being? When the story called the Iliad happened, in the twelfth century B.C.7 When it was told, in the eight century B.C.7 When an Athenian commission first produced an official written version in the sixth century B.C.? Or whenever Johnnies read their seminar in the twentieth century, or, for that matter, in 1808 when the freshmen of this college (then called the "noviate class") first read Homer - in Greek? (T. F. Tilghman, The Early History of St. John's College in Annapolis, p. 36). Or whenever Homer's poem is at work influencing lives, as the vision of Achilles once, in the fourth century B.C., drove Alexander the Great to the deeds that made him so? Or whenever the Iliad stands on a shelf waiting to be opened? In that most thought-provoking of children's books, Michael Ende's Neverending Story, the boy Sebastian, about to open the magical book he has stolen, says to himself: �4 I would like to know what actually goes on in a book as long as it's closed.... One has to read it to experience it, that's clear. But it's already there beforehand. I would like to know,how7 These are tricky perplexities that push themselves forward when you approach this book-thing with questions such as: whose possession, in what place, at what time? Let me nonetheless stick for a while with the crudest set of solutions, those that take a book as a physical object. Paul Scott, the author of the Raj Quartet, the work I think of as the most considerable novel of the time between the Second World War and our present, was much impressed by the following prosaic account of what it is to be a book: A small hard rectangular object, whose pages are bound along one edge in.to fixed covers and numbered consecutively. (On Writing and the Novel, p. 211, quoting Bergonzi). As I flesh out this bare-bones definition of a bound paper book, do, please, compare what it means to read such a book with the unrolling of a papyrus scroll on the one hand, and the scrolling of a computer display on the other. Books, says the passage, are small and hard, which means they are safely carried hither and thither and can even be thrown down the stairwell. As sophomores you will read Augustine's autobiography in which he confesses first his life of sin and finally his conversion to faith. He tells how his landlord let him use the garden of the house Augustine was renting, and there he and his friend one day carried a book, or codex, as Augustine calls it, which means a set of wooden tablets, a sort of proto-book. It was not just any book, but a codex apostoli. It was a part of the The Book, to bib/ion, in English, the Bible. (Let me take out a minute to say that the Greek word bib/ion means a thing made of biblos, which is the word for papyrus, while papyrus itself comes into English as paper.) Augustine was, at that time, in great agony over his sins and his doubts. Suddenly, in the garden, he heard a child's voice saying over and over in a sing-song voice: "Tolle lege, tolle lege," "Take it and read it, take it and read it." So he took the book and read what he found, and at that moment it was, as he says in his beautiful Latin: �5 Quasi luce securitas infusa cotdi mea, omnes dubitationes tenebrae diffugerunt (Confessions VIII, 12). "As if a light of assurance had poured into my heart, all the shadows of doubt fled away." If the book had not been in the garden there might have been no voice, or if there had been a voice, Augustine would not have heeded it, or if he had heeded it, he would have had nothing to take up and read. And he would have missed the moment that made him, his conversion. It is because books are portable that the ready reader can sometimes come on the word fitly spoken To descend from the solemn to the ordinary: The bound paper book can be carried about more conveniently than can most other containers of valuables except wallets: in a pocket, handgrip or knapsack, to bed, bathroom, beach or waiting room. How many of you spent months in high school carrying around a book until the time was ripe, and you took it and read it? Besides being small and hard, the book of the definition is normally rectangular. Its rectangularity betokens the self-effacement of the visible lay-out of the text. Let me explain. There is something called pattern poetry. An example is the Mouse's saci Tale in Alice in Wonderland, which looks like what it sounds like, a tail. You see here only the tail end of the tale: ' Such a trial dear sir, With no . jury or Judge, would be wasting our breath.' 'I'll be judge, I 11 be jury,' Said cunning old Fury: 'I'll try the whole cause, and .condemn you to death.' �6 This sort of innocent typographical game, a kind of printed calligraphy, has, I should tell you, recently been used as a jumping off place for grave reflections on the latest of intellectual revolutions. A famous ·. French intellectual has said: Thus the calligram aspires playfully to efface the oldest oppositions of our alphabetical civilization: to show and to name; to shape and to say; to reproduce and to articulate; to imitate and to signify; to look and to read. (Michel Foucault, This is Not a Pipe, p. 21). The traditional book, it is true, suppresses the looking in favor of the reading. It is rectangular because it breaks the narrative into optically convenient and semantically arbitrary stacks of lines. In some traditions these are arranged horizontally, in some, like the Chinese and Japanese, vertically; some are read from left to right, and some like Hebrew, from right to left so that the book begins where an English book ends. The earliest Greek writing is sometimes read back and forth, which is called boustrophedon, meaning ox-turning, as. in plowing. I am sure that all these conventions carry significance with them. For instance the fact that Western reader's eyes survey the page in the plane of the horizon back and forth, while Oriental readers nod vertically there must be some meaning in that. Next, Scott's quotation says that the pages of a book are numbered consecutively. This pagination is, so to speak, the street address of the narrative. That address system makes it possible to revisit locations in a book. For worthy books are meant to be read in a double way, so that the first reading is somehow already the second reading. One way is to follow the stacks of lines and the sequence of pages straight through. Of course, while we are barging on with the inexorable clock- say it is 6:30 on a seminar night- the time of the narrative warps back and forth. For example, the centerpiece of the Odyssey, Books IX-XII where Odysseus turns poet and tells of the ten years when he seemed losrto the world, is all flashback; it is only with Book XIIl that we return to · the present of the story. But there is a second way to scramble the time of reading. It is made possible by the fact that a book is a bound stack of numbered pages. That means you can put slips of paper or fingers in the pages you have passed. As a visible, weighty, numbered thing, a book is all there at once, and we can treat all its tale or argument as simultaneously accessible. �7 Literary theorists have in fact invented a word for the writing that fully exploits the non-linear property of the book format They call it "spatial" prose. (l Frank in Spatial Form in Narrative, 1977.) It is spatial because it depends on continual back-reference, on always holding the text present, as if it were all there simultaneously just as space is - while time is al ways either gone or yet to come. It seems to me that the physical format of the bound book invites the writer to make spatialist demands on the reader. That does not mean that authors who may not have been writers at all, like Homer, or who wrote in scrolls that show only one place at a time, did not compose spatially: All great texts demand continual back- reference, but book texts make it mechanically easier. The theorists I have mentioned thought that the so-called "Modernist" writers, above all James Joyce, were peculiarly spatial, but you will see that every Platonic dialogue (for example) requires you to refer back all the time - a demand which you cannot, of course, fully meet until you have studied your way through the text once. We might conjecture, on the other hand, that a people that values time and its sacred cyclical order might keep its scripture in scrolls, as do the Jews their Torah. The other place where events that are strung out in time are kept simultaneous is memory. A book ' is indeed a memory analogue: an external memory. This seems to me a wonderful thing. The last dialogue and the last book you will read this year - in May when all reading is a drag- is called the P haedrus. In it Socrates will claim that any written text is pernicious because it can't answer back when questioned, and also because it acts as a pharmaceutical pacifier: It keeps you passively reminded and prevents you fTom being actively mindful (275). Readers of dialogues might point out to Socrates that the texts in which he appears do answer back, and readers of books might say that a paginated book does keep us actively casting back and forth. Finally, a book, in Paul Scott's quotation, is bound along one edge between fixed covers. This physical fact means that books have spines; they are upright vertebrates. They normally stand on shelves next to one another. (I can't help telling you that in my private library at home only the books I respect stand up; the indifferent ones have to lie prone on the top shelves.) Only the spine shows, so a book is known by its backbone. That fact in turn means that a book is identified by author and title. In ·antiquity titles were evidently not always given by the author. Who knows whether Homer would have called his song about �8 the wrath of Achilles after the name of Hector's city? Or what Aristotle would have called his lectures on being, later called by the ambiguous title Metaphysics, meaning either "the book that follows the Physics" or "the subject matter beyond nature"? In modem times, on the other hand, titles are almost always carefully crafted announcements of the author's intention, and they are the first thing to think about as soon as you have finished the book once. Some titles reveal, some retract, some complement the contents of the book. For example, as a rising senior you will spend a glorious summer with Tolstoy's fourteen hundred page novel entitled War and Peace, of . which 1340 are devoted to war and sixty to peace. What did Tolstoy mean by his title? Did he mean that those last pages of peaceful family life, the so-called First Epilogue, have as much gravity, as much cosmic significance, as all the tunnoil that went before? I think so, but you may find that your seminar divides around that question, which is made more interesting by the fact that the Russian word for "peace" also means · "world." ****** That concludes my unpacking of the definition of a book as a small hard rectangular object, made of paginated leaves bound along one edge. So far the answer to the question "What is a book?" has amounted to this: A book is the kind of artifact we call a medium. It is made to mediate a text to us. In his I' hysics Aristotle will observe a fundamental two-foldness in the human world. Some things in it grow, or at least move by themselves, and these, he says, are natures. Other things are made by a human being out of some material according to a plan, and these we call . artifacts. (I might say, incidentally, that one of our modem perplexities is our capability for turning natures into artifacts.) Now to figure out what a natural being or what a given artifact truly is- a house, a marble image, a tool - is complicated enough. But to think about the kind of artifact called a medium requires special subtlety. For a medium is meant to come between the receiver and the source in such a way as to convey a message while being itself overlooked. Telescopes, telephones, television sets, whose names mean respectively things for scanning objects that are far off, for hearing voices that are far off, for seeing images produced far off, are not the focus of the user's interest when they are transmitting, and go dead or empty when not in use. But �9 as the book is not a mediwn that plays or replays some performance far off in space or even in time, so it is not like a tape or disk that goes inactive after it's been played. Sebastian's question, What goes on inside a book when it is closed?, is not purely phantastic; even an unread book seems to have a sort of secret vitality just because its text is all latent significance - imageless squiggles. I ask the seniors if there has been a single seminar book in your three years here that would gain very much from being illustrated. The solemn last paragraph of Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit speaks of Spirit in time as presenting a languidly moving "gallery of pictures." Ask yourselves, when you come to it, whether you would wish someone to take Hegel at his word and to produce an illustrated Phenomenology. In the image-smashing disturbances of late antiquity, the iconoclastic opposition to depictions of God and Christ was countered by the notion of a "Pauper's Bible." Religious images, the iconophiles argued, are scripture for the illiterate. Perhaps they should have conceded that for those who can "take up and read" the written word is antagonistic to depiction because pictures fix the narrative in its flow, specify its intimations to the imagination, and rivet the eye on the page. In short, illustrations turn a book from a medium into a presentation. They capture the imagination and thereby drain the word. I have only mentioned book-illustrations to set off the peculiar wonder of the verbal book as a mediwn-body, a mediwn that harbors its content without presenting it- I mean, as I said before, that we are not caught by images, and we read right past the print presented on the page. To me there is something elusive and mysterious about this unpresented yet ever-present life of books which makes the question what happens within them permissible and plausible. Of course, I am too much of a coward seriously to propose that arguments go on developing and characters go on conversing all over my library- and yet! And yet - they do seem to have done just that from reading to reading. The mystery here is that of mental life encased in a hard rectangular object. A book, then, is a peculiar kind of medium, a mediwn not unlike a vessel of the spirit - that is what makes it understandable that people might kiss a book or swear on it or carry it always along. Yet although it is a peculiar medium, it is still a medium. Being a medium means that it mediates between senders and receivers, in this case, between the writers and the readers. Let me start with the readers, since that is what we are - and there are, thank heaven, more of us than of them. �10 Readers as God-Parents I call this section of the lecture "Readers as God-Parents" because · I will later liken writers to parents. A god-parent is the sponsor of a rite of spiritual regeneration; a reader sponsors the rebirth of the bookbody's soul. The first step toward this revival is, of course, to tum the spatially all-present text back into real, live, passing time. There are many perplexities and complications to the conscious reading of a book. The study of these problems is called "hermeneutics," named after Hemes, the ,god of messages. It seems to me far more important to read books than to engage in this study. I once offered a · preceptorial on it which left us all unclear whether anyone could in fact · read a book. Let me proceed on the sensible hypothesis that books are readable. Then the first practical observation to be made is that there are different kinds of books, and that they should be read differently. It would be plain eccentric not to quote from Frances Bacon's essay "Of Studies" here: ' Some Books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; That is, some Books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Let me give you examples. Some people will be outraged right away and that was part of my pleasure in writing this lecture. 1. Mysteries. When you are about to invest a portion of your life in reading one - on the hypothesis that you will get to be eighty and that it takes three hours to read the mystery, that would be .0000042 of your life, but these things add up-do the following. Turn to the denouement and find out whodunnit If you still care to read the book, start at the. beginning. Otherwise, forget it. 2. Scholarship. Read the preface. If it is clear what will be proved and why, go on. Otherwise, forget it. �11 3. Minor novels. Apply the sortes Biblicae, an old mode of reading. Sortes is a Latin word for "chances." ''The chance of the Bible" is exactly what Augustine was bidden to take when he was told to "take up and read." If the passages you find at random are entrancing, begin at the beginning. Otherwise, forget it. Notice that these kinds of books are not the ones you will read for seminar, though it is true that one of the novels on our list is, among other things, also a murder mystery- Dostoyevsky' s Brothers Karamazov; however it is scarcely a minor novel. Notice also that the books we do read for seminar all have one thing in common: None that I can think of has an index, at least not one made by the author. Why do great books have no index? Because you are bidden to read them whole and as a whole at least once, from their pregnant beginning to their well-delivered end. Because you are not to look up subjects that interest you or follow through topics you specialize in. Because understanding is not an encapsulated result but a way, the way through the book. Because a book of stature, be it philosophy or fiction, is not about - round-and-about - something, but is the presentation of a matter most adequate to it in the author's judgment. (I might say, incidentally, that Hegel gives similar reasons for arguing, in the long and famous Preface to his Phenomenology, that prefaces are impossible.) · When you are reading a book for the second time you may want to do the following to the text, provided you own the book bodily. You may want to take a marker of the color children use when they draw the sun, and highlight passages. How is highlighting compatible with reading the whole well? It seems to me to be permissible for four reasons: 1. Some writers occasionally stop to put their whole meaning in a nutshell. Whether you have come on such a nugget, you cannot really know until you have read the whole book. If you mark such a nutshell for yourself, then when you come on it you can crack it and re-develop for yourself the argument, which grows as an oak from this acorn. An example of such an acorn is Kant's epigram, in the Critique of Pure Reason (B75): "Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind." Whenever you recall that sentence, you can recover the whole Critique for yourself. �12 2. Often you will notice, some time into the book, that a motifkeeps recurring and that you must at some point collect its incidences and figure out its meaning. An example is the returning vision of large blueness in War and Peace. 3. A third case of occurrences inviting highlighting is the significant mystery. A book will say things that you don't yet understand, that are pregnant enigmas for you, and that you want to talk about in seminar. One example for me is the second half of the fourth line of the Iliad: t'tW(E'tO Pou A.ft ... Dios d'eteleieto boule . . . and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled. . • • dtOc; li' What plan? When fulfilled? That is the puzzle dominating the epic. 4. Last among the occasions for highlighting I can think of, are the passages of personal import - those that penetrate to your heart and that you want never to lose, the ones you keep to yourself or show to close friends. I won't give an example now, but I will tell some, if asked. Let me say again: Highlighting, whether in sky-blue ink or in sun-yellow marker, is for the second reading. I think that though the books may look defaced when you are finished, the writers are rejoicing in your reading of them, be they still on earth or in either of the other places. That brings me to the author. Writers as Parents We speak of"Homer's gods." "Homer's gods," we might say; "are frivolous creatures -just compare the lightness of their invulnerable immortality to the gravity of his death-expectant heroes." Homer's gods, Homer's heroes, Homer's Iliad: How is the author related to the book? Auetor means literally "progenitor, parent" And like a child, the .·· book goes forth into the world, sometimes falling into hands the parent may shudder at. But like a good parent, the author knew that this would happen and gave the offspring what it needs in order to be on its own: self-sufficiency, a certain replet~ness. Here is what I mean. �13 In the course of the year you will be writing at least five small papers in your language tutorial and several more in your other classes. On some of these you will have conferences with your tutors. Your tutor will ask: "What are you saying here, what did you have in mind?" And you will tell all the things that you thought but failed to say in your paper. That is what distinguishes an accomplished writer: the ability to make the book independent, to tum it loose, to find a way to get the reader to ask not "What was the author thinking?" but "What is the book saying?" Ailllie Dillard, a very fine contemporary writer, who has thought much about composing a book, says in her essay The Writing Life (p. 4): "Process is nothing; erase your tracks." She is attacking a current school of writing teachers who exalt process over product, writing exercises over perfected expression. Here you will almost never be asked to write merely for the sake of writing. We take a leaf, so to speak, from the books of real writers and ask you to think about a matter that really does make you think, and then to say on paper, as perfectly as possible, what you have thought. That is what the authors of our books have done - they have thought and found the right words. "Thought" is a noun, but it is also the past form of the verb "to think." Thought is thinking that has been done, thinking perfected. So Annie Dillard should not have said "Erase your tracks" but "Absorb your tracks; make your product point the reader to your tracks." For writing is thinking frozen in its tracks by speech, speech crystallized so as to make the point of origin visible within. A book is a translucent product containing its process. That is how Homer's Iliad can become our Iliad. It preserves within it the world that Homer meant with each word he said. (Incidentally, it is because we want you to write papers somewhat as real writers write them - first think, then say - that you will have such a devilish hard time writing, but at least the task will dignify rather than degrade you.) So no more than we ask your parents what they meant by producing you, need we ask what Homer meant in his epics. The off-spring in both cases are amply provided to speak for themselves. Or rather, you are amply provided to read it. Even the Iliad, the one that is not a material thing to own, is yours, the reader's. You bring it to life, melt its frozen state. Again I quote from Bacon, this time from his Advancement of Learning (Bk.I): But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of �14 perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seed in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages: so that, if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much . more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast sea of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions the one of the other? Now the notion that you bring the book to life seems to be close to the claim of a currently very busy school of thought: that the reader is the author. But what I mean is in fact a world apart from the notion that you may tease the text into any meaning your brilliant wit devises. On the contrary: It is the book's will, not yours that is to be done. , There is a book by Joseph Conrad (whose novella 'The Heart of Darkness," to my mind the greatest short story of our century, you will read as seniors). The book is called The Mirror of the Sea. It tells of the difference between going to sea in sailing vessels and on steam boats. A steam boat plows through the water; it conquers the ocean. Its progress is mechanical, though its route is wilful. The sail ship on the other hand respects its element and responds to its every indication. From departure to landfall, it is engaged in a fierce and loving battle .. with the sea. Its course is contingent and its arrival uncertain. A great · writer, to extend Bacon's nautical figure, provides a book that is more like a sea for sailing than an ocean for steaming. And that brings me to my final reflection, on the greatness of books . . Before I finish let me say that I know full well that I have been speaking in similes and metaphors and that I expect to be held to a more literal account in the question period. �15 Greatness in Books St. Jolm's is known as a "Great Books College," and, as I said early on, I know from your applications that you came because you want to read books that raise you rather than demean you. Mr. Curtis Wilson, a retired tutor who was twice dean ofthe college, used to wish that we would stop talking of "the hundred great books," and instead speak of "some very good books." I agree with "some," but, though I see his point - greatness is not a very sensible sort of classification - I can't quite agree to dropping "great," not at this moment in America. To begin with, I want to prognosticate that the more books you read, the more you will find that there is greatness, that it is an emergent quality that some books just have, and that each reading confirms. The community that has in common the reading of these books and the acknowledgment of their greatness is bound by two powerful bonds: first, the fact of a shared judgment, competently come by and continually confinned, and second the fact of a practical willingness to reverence what is high as expressed in a daily schedule of study. Some of you may know that nowadays these are fighting words in academe. How, they ask, can any communal judgment have been fairly atrived at when we are a people divided by a diversity of hopelessly opposed interests - who are playing, as they say, a zero sum game? How, again, can any one human expression be higher than another, when every text is a testimonial to some human condition, and the tradition of chosen books merely represents the winner? In other words, the present trend is to want democracy without commonality and equality without excellence. To me the wish seems outrageous - and again I am yours to question in the question period - but doubly outrageous because it contains the seed of a fair dream. The fair dream is that the human being in us should be universally respected and that all our works should be universally appreciated. The forced version is that we should live in a society in which, without admitting a common humanity, every last group discrimination based on extrinsic properties, such as race and sex, is outlawed, while all intellectual discriminations based on intrinsic criteria of quality are proscribed as having ulterior motives. �16 Let me offer two rules for choosing books to read that take some account of what is fair in the desire for universal appreciation. Here is Law One of the Discriminating Reader: Devour everything you can swallow with relish, indiscriminately. Test texts as I recommended before, but give everything a try. There are dozens of wonderful genres and fine works within them: Science fiction, utopias and . fanstasy; children's, ethnic and women's literature; Westerns, adventures and thrillers, book reviews, political flyers and literary criticism. (If you come to see me in my office I will be delighted to tell you my loves and hates in each category. I also know a lot of rather pleasing trash, including comic books.) Law Two of the Discriminating Reader then goes as follows: Read only a limited number of books, perhaps a hundred and twenty or so; discriminate severely; while attending to a text allow a little voi~ on ; the sidelines to say: "1bis is great and worthy of my best time; that is . not" Far from being at odds, Law One and Law Two are complementary. . Obeying the first shows you to be a lover of books, a bibliophile; obeying the second makes you a student, a reader. But how will you judge that a book is great? I had a teacher, forty years ago in Brooklyn College, who said that some books made her hair stand on end, and they were great Much as I like this criterion, which, I have since discovered, was not original with her, I see some flaws in it. But there are many other diagnostic marks, signs and indices of greatness, that people have listed, and we might talk about them in the question period. Let me add to that multitude one observation of my own, which does not so much pick out greatness as distinguish greatness in woiks of fiction from greatness in woiks of reflection: ) In a great epic or drama or novel, if any word were different, the tale told would be other than it is; in a great philosophical treatise, every sentence could be paraphrased and the truth told would be the same. To make myself clearer, let me take the counter-example, that of lesser books: A mediocre novel tells a tale coarse-meshed enough, with characters gross-grained enough, to be equally presentable in language only approximately equivalent A mediocre piece of philosophy, on the other hand, can't be told to its advantage in other tenns: It is all idiosyncratic jargon and its ordinary language paraphrase puts it to shame. That is why trying to say exactly what the book says in another �17 way is the useful initial exercise in seminar when the work is philosophical, but is love's labor lost when the work is fictional. And that is why it is usually harder to read a novel than it is to read a philosophical text - except perhaps when that text is also a drama. I am referring to the Platonic dialogues, the first of which you will be reading right after Homer. They are the hardest of all, since they are philosophical plays - you will decide whether tragedy or comedy. Let me end, if not conclude. My question for myself and for you was: "What is a Book?" My answer was: It is a special kind of body made to be inhabited by a curious kind of frozen but fusible soul, a body fitto mediate its own peculiar life. It has a parent, the author, who equips it with all it needs to live on its own, and god-parents, readers, who can revivify its printed life. The books that realize their book nature most perfectly may be called "great", and it is from these that we at St. John's College have selected a number for study. Both because it is a strenuous and wearing business to be constantly in their presence, and for reasons of inclusive humanity, it is good to read many lesser books as well. Have I answered the question I post>.d for us? Not remotely. Let us try again in the question period. � 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/. 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Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 18 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/. Title A name given to the resource What is a book? Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-08-30 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on August 30, 1991 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1991-08-30 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/57b75698a1fc9344d68a44c4dba01829.pdf 68b54b68294159bfb3c23e406c145907 PDF Text Text MENTAL IMAGERY (The College and Contemporary Cognitive Science) Eva Brann Homecoming Lecture September 1985 �Mental Imagery (The College and Contemporary Cognitive Science) Homecoming Lecture September 1985 I am very much alive to the fact that this is Homecoming weekend-homecoming not only for the alumni out also for me. I've been gone from St. John's far and long-- as far as Delaware and as long as a year . So I look on the place where I've spent exactly half my life as an astronaut in outer space looks on the very small planet which is home. That, together with the nature of tonight's subject prompts me to indulge in five minutes worth of looking backwards. When I came to the college well over a quarter century ago, I entered a fresh and heady world of learning, leaving behind what I felt, rather than understood, to be a hide-bound, dreary academia, the academia of the decade after the Second World War. The college, then only existent in Annapolis, was less than a third the size it is on this campus now, and it had a kind of guardian spirit, a philosopher king, as one might say (provided one said it with a smile), in Jacob Klein, th~ Dean. It was conveyed to me that he had described me as behaving like a fish in water, and that was just how I felt-- like one who was disporting herself in her element, to whom understanding came as she breathed. largely for the freshmen among you. I am recounting this For as it may for you, it turned out for me that one cannot glide along in freshman glory forever-- there followed the notorious sophomore slump bringing sophomore sobriety and with it a second beginning, the exchange of a weightless exhiliration for a betteranchored interest. One can't be forever tumbling about in one's element; �2 the time comes when the thronging intimations of truth have to be turned ·into precise questions and problem.s. the way: The program itself offered. twenty-eight hundred years' worth of commentary on fundamental questions, not excluding the question whether these are always the same or subtly or even cataclysmically different in different ages. So, like most of my colleagues at the college, I paid only very passing and largely aversive attention to the contemporary state of affairs. (I mean intellectual affairs since ignoring politics for very long is what a citizen does at her peril.) At the end of tonight's lecture I mean to make a principled argument for living in isolation from "current thinking", from vogues and trends, for long stretches of time. Nonetheless, a moment eventually came, and happily an opportunity too, for catching up. saying. the I simply felt a certain avidity to know what the world was I did a lot of reading, but of course I haven't begun to master matter~- no one could, anyhow. Yet I think I have certain inklings concerning at least one area and its associations which I'll come to in a minute. Let me, though, repeat to you in the largest and vaguest terms my first impressions: Our contemporaries have verve and sophistication. Quite a few of the best are, not to mince words, charming (or not so charming) smart-alecks. Their intellectual mode has explicitness, precision and often a kind of purity. All the possibilities which used to remain obtusely unconsidered in the mid-century have been articulated and worked over. The engine of invention has been producing faster and faster, and the mill of rational speech has been grinding finer and finer. I hear that there is a Chinese curse: "May you live in exciting times" and also a Greek counter-curse: "May you hear nothing new". Well, we're �'" 3 afflicted in the way of China and blessed in the way of Greece-- at least on the face of it. I want to claim right away that this condition of affairs can't help but draw in the college. It may and ought to affect the program in only a limited way, but I think it might put us in a new position vis-~-vis the intellectual world which I want to sketch out in a broad and somewhat undigested way later on. Consequently my lecture will have two parts, which I will call, with grand simplicity, Psychology and Philosophy, the first to set out what I learned this past year and the second to be a sort of coda of conclusions for us. So then: I. Psychology Again, I must begin with a bit of intellectual history, both personal and public. For a decade now my thoughts have circled about the theme of the imagination. In fact, I have collected so much stuff that my ideas are beginning to sink under its weight-- the time has come to carve out some conclusions. As for the theme itself, I have been drawn to it along several approaches-- and, as I've learned, when all roads lead to Rome, to Rome one must go. One of these approaches is bookish. The imagination plays the role of the missing mystery in a number of philosophical texts, by which I mean that a faculty by that name is given a central task while tts operation is left sanguinely unexplained.. depth of the human soul." As Kant says, it is: "a hidden art in the I might say here what is, broadly, meant by imagination in the philosophical sense: It is a faculty which presupposes that somehow or another two worlds of objects are present to us, one of �4 which St!ems to us to be outside, the other inside ourselves. The inner world, in turn, appears to consist of two realms, one of which, though lacking a certain feature of "thereness" which belongs to the external world, has at least one characteristic apparently and yet elusively in common with it: it is shaped and colored and, in short, space-like; the other realm is non-sensory and word-like. Philosophical texts have much to say on the role the imagination plays in cognition, that is, in knowing. Lately they have said quite a bit about the unintelligibility of imagining, but what has rarely been confronted head-on is the question: "How is such an ability possible?" And that is what intrigues me. Another approach is through politics. The imagination is a puzzle not only as a universal cognitive capability but also as a general human gift which may be abused either through hyperac.tivity or desuetude. I've become convinced that most political catastrophes are connected to a fault in imagination: the inability to imagine accurately the minute daily detail which any large vision might entail. So I became interested in what one might call "imaginative coherence", or the projective powers of the imagination. The third and last approach I'll mention is through the fact that the imagination is usually regarded as the source of made-up realms such as dreams and fictions. Since by my reckoning I spend about 62.5% of my day betwixt the one and the other of these, I wanted to learn something about the power that is behind these non-existent and all-important worlds. But tonight I haven't got much to say about that topic. In search of a clue to my theme I set about reading the shelves of the excellent research library at the University of Delaware where I am teaching. It turns out that there is a new and burgeoning science called �5 cognitive psychology and in it a fiercely embattled area called mental imagery. The title of tonight's lecture, "mental imagery", betokens the translation into the new science of the old mystery concerning inner, space-like representations ("re-presentations", as opposed to the original external presentation, though our juniors are about to learn that most philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century think that representations are all we have). The newness of the science that studies mental imagery is expressed in the fact that most of what I am about to _report to you was published within the last five years. its method: That it is indeed a science can be seen from It tortures nature, as Kant puts it, or teases out the facts, as psychologists like to say, by simple but clever experiments. the slippery and intrigu~ng As for business of turning a philosophical question into a scientific problem-- what changes the issue undergoes on the way and which endeavor ends up guiding which-- I hope to say something about that at the end. To introduce cognitive psychology and to explain its special interest in mental imagery, in what actually goes on when we see images before the mind's eye, I must one last time go backward to give you a thumbnail sketch-- written on a tiny thumb at that-- of the history of psychology. The state of psychology represented a considerable part of the afore-mentioned intellectual dreariness of the mid-century. In the half-century which lies between about 1910 and 1960 the discipline was dominated by two schools, a soft one and a hard one, so to speak. former was psychoanalysis. framework~- The Freud proposed as a provisional theoretical ultimately reduceable to biology-- a model or topography of the soul, in which the most extensive territory was assigned to the �6 unconscious, a pandemonium of anti-social passion, which a skillful analyst might nonetheless tease out into the open and render less harmful. Although its founder did not think of psychoanalysis as primarily therapeutic, it eventually became almost wholly the province of psychiatrists. The imagination played a role in psychoanalysis since the interpretation of dreams was thought to give access to the unconscious. However, the interest was in e~tablishing a symbolic interpretive vocabulary for therapeutic use, and that turned out to be scientifically soft, that is to say, not extensively amenable to verification. At the same time the imaginative agency that did the dream work, that turned the passions into symbolic representations, was not itself a central subject of study. images. The interest in their symbolism suppressed the interest in the (Freud also had a theory of the origin of imagining in infantile wish-fullfilment hallucinations.) The hard school was behaviorism. It was very much driven by what post-Freudian psychologists refer to as their irrepressible "physics envy". Its crude but forceful tenet was that to be a science, psychology must deal with what is verifiably observable. Therefore internal events, being ipso facto unobservable and at best known through the unverifiable reports of introspection, were excluded from its field of inquiry. No event is more internal than a mental image, and so Watson, one of the founders of the school, uttered his notorious dictum directed at reports of "reminiscence-imagery": "Touching, of course, but sheer bunk". Sir Arthur Eddington summarized this mind-set, which at once bedevils and buoys up the sciences, in a sarcasm which might well stand as the epigraph of this lecture: "What my net can't catch isn't fish". In the sixties both empires waned, psychoanalysis because as a theory it was unverifiable, as a therapy it was expensive and as a world view it �7 had become established. Behaviorism, on the other hand, choked by the huge accumulations of quantified experimental results unlevigated by any interesting overall theory, more or less died of tedium, though its method, too, had seeped into general opinion. But mainly it was a new and vigorous interest that usurped their place, the interest in cognition, in the temporal stages of learning in childhood and in the patterns and processes of cognitive events in adults. Piaget, who pioneered the former investigation called "genetic epistemology", had long had a special interest in the imagination because he thought of it not as a congenital ability but as a symbolizing function developing in the second year of infancy, intermediate between mere perception and rationality and responsible for the first interiorization of representation. The concern with imagery in adult cognition sprang from several sources. One was a recollection of the fascinati n'g imagery studies undertaken by experimental psychologists in pre-behavioral times. Another was the spectacular new discipline of Artificial Intelligence, the attempt to write programs which would, when run (sometimes rather incidentally) on computers, simulate human cognition. Cognitive functions involving figurative features turn out to be both rather recalcitrant to simulation and theoretically intriguing. The effort fed a very old philosophical debate concerning the distinction between space and thought, for which the contemporary computer terms-- I will Just throw them out for the moment-are given by the pair "analog" and "digital". Yet another source of the new interest in images is the burgeoning new brain science. The gist of the problem here is that, contrary to earlier expectations, the brain events which appear to be the accompanying conditions of, or to mediate, the cognitive function of imagining show absolutely no evidence of any formations of the sort that used to be �8 called "engrams," formations analogo·,1s to the imagery reported by subjects. That is to say, there are no pictures in our brain, although the whole scientific community, with no significant exception, suppose that in some, often rather sophisticated, sense cognition is just brain states and events. (Note, therefore, that when I spoke before of computers merely simulating cognition and brain events merely mediating it, I was speaking far more conservatively than do most cognitive psychologists.) The most pertinent source is, finally, philosophical, not however insofar as the imaginative faculty is acknowledged but precisely insofar as it is denied. In this century was written the first full-scale thematic treatment of the imagination that I know of in the history of philosophy, namely by Jean-Paul Sartre. He was inspired largely by Edmund Husserl, who founded phenomenology, a philosophical school which is interested in the description of experiences as experiences. However, it is not that work which most cognitive psychologist take account of but rather Ludwig Wittgenstein's scattered and, above all, Gilbert Ryle's systematic attack on the possibility and significance of cognition through mental imagery. Ryle's Concept of Mind is one of those bold books which mask the obscurity of their position by the hard-hitting clarity of their opposition. What Ryle attacked is what he identified as the essence of Cartesianism, namely the very idea of internal mental representation which I spoke of before: the notion that we have something-- ideas, thoughts, symbols or pictures-- in or before our minds. What Ryle found absurd in mental representations, and so rejected on logical grounds, was that they required a mind's eye, a mental mannikin before which to appear; he dubbed it "the ghost in the mind's machine". What he objected to in the interiority of mental representations was their lack of public �9 evidence; here "le followed the methodological requirements of the behaviorists-- but he went fu~ther,converting the requirement of observability into a conclusion of non-existence. fishy argument all over: It's Eddington's What my net can't catch, just isn't. Naturally, mental images were included in this annihilation. I want to interject here a comment on the attitude of students of cognition toward ordinary experience. Their method-driven mode sometimes makes them cavalier about what they nowadays call "folk psychology", meaning everybody's natural suppositions, for example the distinction we . all ordinarily make between ourselves and our bodies, and, most to the point, the fact that we all just do seem to see pictures in our head. For my part, no theory is plausible which, yielding to mere logical squeamishness, fails to begin by honoring and to end by grounding what we naturally say and believe. This, happily, is the hypothesis of the book from which most of what now follows is taken (from it, I should say, with the aid of about six-hundred and sixty-six other texts). a cognitive psychologist at Harvard. The author is Stephen Kosslyn, The title of the book, published in 1983, is, pertinently, Ghosts in the Mind's Machine. Its impetus was the sense that, Ryle notwithstanding, we do have and also use mental images, and that methods might be devised for teasing and tricking truths about them out of subjects-- in short, to make mental imagery somehow observable by devising experiments which would make the protocols of introspection more reliable. ( I should say here that Kosslyn has succeeded in developing a detailed theory of the structures and processes underlying mental imagery, but it would go too far to try to describe it tonight.) �10 The problem proposed itself in three parts. first was: The part investigated do people use mental imagery in solving some problem? answer was yes, the question: been implicitly answered. "do people have mental images?" If the would have The second part was to determine what the distinctive features of such imagery might be. The third part, which shaded confusingly into philosophy, was to determine the essential nature of such imagery. You might think these are plain enough questions, but to ask them clearly and to answer them productively turns out to be a, possibly bottomlessly, complex business. The first problem, then, whether people have mental imagery, was attacked by Galton a century ago by the naively empirical method of sending round questionnaires to great men, asking them to describe their breakfast tables. It was partly the surprising response of a number of the scientists among the respondents that sent the subject into eclipse-they claimed not to have such imagery. No one regards this result as very significant nowadays; experiments presuppose that subjects can and do follow the order: "Visualize (or imagine) x 11 ; the result of the experiments is taken further to corroborate the assumption. In the seventies Alan Shepard and his associates devised a series of experiments designed to reveal the mental representations of subjects by seeing if they actually used imagery in doing certain tasks. (I want to note two items on the way. First people under the constraints of an experiment are called "subjects" by psychologists. It is obviously a major question whether a subject is coextensive with a full human being. Second, in order to avoid the distracting bustle of visual aids, I shall choose from a horde of experiments those most easily describable in words, and I shall omit some of the complicating control �11 features.) Shepard presented the subjects with pairs of pictures of somewhat complicated three-dimensional block shapes. In half of the pairs the two shapes were slightly different, in the other half they were the same, though differently oriented, at increasing angles of rotation. The subjects were asked to look at the pictures and then to judge whether each pair included different or identical shapes. The hypothesis was that the response time Nould be a linear function of the angle of rotation, that is to say, subjects would take longer to answer in proportion as the second member of the pair was farther rotated from the original. The results startlingly confirmed the hypothesis, and were interpreted to mean that the subject mentally performed a rotation on the second member of the pair to see if it would be brought into coincidence with the first, taking twice as long for a doubly large angle. Consider how remarkable it is that the participants, who had been looking at mere drawings, apparently did the mental rotation of the depicted solids not flatly in the picture plane but through mental space, mimicking depth-perspective. (I want to point out here that "reaction times" is the bread and butter of cognitive psychology, used in boring cases to festoon with numbers a dull fact no one disputes, but in interesting ones to make cognitive processes reveal themselves. It means, of course, that in the most telling cases subjects are required to report on some kinetic aspect of pre-given imagery. Since it seems to me that when most itself, most absorbing, our imaginative capacity tends to self-produced timeless tableaus and transformation, it follows that the imagery processes clocked by cognitive psychology are characteristically of a narrowly mundane sort-- but that is the price to be paid for hard results.) �12 It is the second part of the problem, concerning the distinctive marks of mental imagery, to which Kosslyn addressed himself. Here much ingenuity was required first to articulate the features which an internal image might display and then to devise experiments to make them manifest themselves. Kosslyn, too, fell back on the very hypothesis attacked by Wittgenstein and Ryle, the notion that our imagery has something depictive, something picture-like about it. Let us stop to see what in our experience of imagining might drive us to the picture analogy. First of all, people do in fact experience themselves as viewing their images "in their heads." --Much as they inspect scenes and portraits and still-lives outside, they seem to be gazing on appearances in inner space. (In fact, there is a curious and beguiling theory that the earliest art images are cave paintings because caves serve as a physical representation of the black internal space that appears when the eyes are shut.) Furthermore, they don't think that the landscape or persons or objects themselves appear but their likeness or image, just as happens in a picture. call it "imagining". That's after all, exactly why we Not to be what it represents is the hall-mark of any image, be it on mirrors, reflecting pools or photographic plate, as you can read in Plato's Sophist. And finally, mental images share with artificial images the fact that they are shaped by and imbued with the author's knowledge and feelings, and sometimes even more: It seems somehow to be possible to imagine and to paint what the eye of perception has never seen. Guided by some such considerations (and helped by the new field of visual information processing), Kosslyn could frame a first precise question: Do we actually scan our interior images? To elicit an answer he devised the following double-checked experiment. Subjects were shown �13 a picture of an island containing seven unevenly distributed features, a rock, a tree, a beach and so on. They were to inspect it until they could hold it before their mind's eye, and fixing on a given location, they were to determine whether or not a certain announced feature was on the island by making an imaginary black speck move to it at top speed, and when it had arrived, they were to press a button. reaction times bore out Kosslyn's expectations. The The little speck took proportionally more time to reach more distant features. Subjects were evidently passing mentally over the intermediate distance, that is to say, mentally scanning their images. To explain the double check part of the experiment I have to begin to say something about an old battle of latter-day gods and giants that rages in cognitive psychology. These days the antagonists are called "imagists" and "propositionalists", or, for fun, "iconophiles" and "iconophobes". The former claim that we both have images and use them cognitively along with propositional thought. The latter (whose chief proponent is Zenon Pylyshin) argue either that we don't have them, or that if we have them we don't use them-- that they are merely along for the ride, "epiphenomenal," and that all cognition is propositional. I won't attempt to be pr:ecise about what is meant by "propositional" (except that it implies not-figurative and non-spacial representations), but let Kosslyn's double-check indicate the distinction. After having had his island experiment criticized by the propositionalists because, they claimed, reaction times could have been the same had the subjects run through mental lists of features rather than scanned their mental images, Kosslyn simply instructed a second group of subjects not necE7ssarily to use images but just to answer as quickly as possible, on the supposition that seven features could easily be kept in mind as �14 a list. Lo and behold, reaction times were indifferent to the distances of the features from base. Apparently the task could be done either by scanning mental images or by consulting a word-like mental list. Next Kosslyn investigated the mental image as object. First he posed a rather startling question suggested by the picture analogy. As opposed to sculpture in the round, picture images, be they mirror reflections, newspaper photographs, paintings or wax impressions, are all manifested on a medium: silvered glass, newsprint on paper, paint on canvas, wax. The question became: imagery in general? Do mental images have a medium which underlies all What is the inner picture plane like? For example wax takes impressions differently if it is dry or soft (here Kosslyn cites Plato's Theaetetus where the mental medium is compared to a wax tablet), and paper can be coarse or fine grained. too set a limit on the resolution of images? Does the mental medium If so, it would underwrite the picture-likeness of the imagery, since pictures are distinguished from their real originals precisely by the fact that.we can expect real objects to offer almost infinite prospects of detail, bounded only by the acuteness of our sight, whereas a picture has an inherent limit of resolution past which we are no longer looking at the im~ges it carries; for example, a· human being can be inspected down to the pores of the skin and beyond, while a newspaper photo presently dissolves into mere dots. To test the grain of the mental medium, subjects were asked to commit to memory pictures of a rabbit next to an elephant and of a fly next to a rabbit, so that the larger animal would in each case take up most of the mental space. They were then asked to report the features of the large and the small animals. The latter took consistently more time, as if the small features were harder to see, or as if the viewers had to zoom in on them. Since many people have a favorite familiar rabbit while few have a favorite �15 fly, they were also asked to look at a tiny rabbit next to a large fly, lest they be reporting features from mere verbal memory. animal's features took longer to make out. Again the tiny Kosslyn concluded that the mental medium had a definite grain which makes small objects harder to discern-- perhaps somewhat dubiously since the result might be equally attributed to the resolving power of the mental eye. But then he didn't consider the mind's eye to be an organ of sight, as we will see. (I must inject here a doubt I feel about Kosslyn's procedures, which is that he always has subjects memorize objects which are pictures to begin with, that is, he works with mental images of real images. There may be a predisposing factor in that, but let us set it aside for this lecture.) Again the propositionalists demurred, claiming that subjects were not inspecting mental images but verbal-like lists of features. They would look at the larger animal, which also had more features, f°irst and store its description in their short term memory. (Short term memory is the kind of memory where we "keep", say, telephone numbers we have just looked up between the book and the dial.) Now experiments have shown that the short term memory can hold only plus or minus seven items. the small Consequently animal!s features had simply been crowded out, and subjects would have to dig into their long term associative memory files, where· general coherent knowledge about flies is stored, to answer questions about them, and this would take longer. Again Kosslyn devised a double-check. When subjects are asked without a picture whether cats have claws they can answer just as immediately as when asked if they have heads. In fact, claws which are spatially small, have as much associative memory strength as heads which �16 are comparatively large, but when subjects are asked to answer the question by inspecting a mental image, they nonetheless take longer to ascertain the presence of claws than of a head. The medium does seem to obscure small features, and furthermore, in general, we seem to be able to solve memory tasks in two ways, through mental images and through verbal registration. your house. (Ask yourself, for example, how many windows there are in Most people answer by taking a mental walk through the place. Now wait five minutes and ask yourself again. Usually the answer will come in a word-- fourteen in my case.) Finally, Kosslyn considered, a medium has a size and a shape. real pictures these are given by the dimensions of the frame. For For our perceptual window on the world the size is given by our angle of vision and the shape by the fact that our eyes are set horizontally side by side-- consequently our visual field is roughly elliptical. the size of the field-medium, Kosslyn had subjects m~morized ment~lly To measure walk toward images of animals of various sizes, a rabbit, a dog, a cow, until they overflowed the mental field. The subjects then placed a real tripod at a distance from a real wall which they judged equal to the mental distance of overflow of each animal. That distance, it turned out, increased proportionally with the size of the animal. The. angle of sharp central mental vision, was calculated with a little trigonometry to be rougly 25°, similar to that of the perceptual field. Furthermore, subjects were to imagine walking toward a foot-long ruler held first horizontally and then vertically. The vertical ruler overflowed the field sooner than the other, showing that the inner medium 0 too, is roughly elliptical in shape. Most people suppose that seeing and imagining have similarities. That they can be confusingly alike was shown in a famous experiment made �17 by Perky in 1910 on the eve of the. great eclipse of imagery studies and replicated more recently in improved format. She seated subjects before a screen in a well-lit room and asked them to project the mental image of, say, a banana on the screen. psychologists.) (There seem to be animal and vegetable Unbeknownst · to them she projected a faint slide image on the same place. Subjects declared themselves a little surprised that while they were thinking of the banana as lying on its side, they kept imagining it as standing on end, but no one caught on. Kosslyn considers her results as well . as his to indicate that perceiving and imagining .. share certain cognitive processes: For him that means, of course, that they share brain mechanisms, (his book has the subtitle "Creating and Using Images in the Brain"), those namely which take place well behind the organs of visual perpception, as suggested by the fact that people who lose their eye-sight in·youth continue to have mental images. So much for a small sampling of the experiments and their results. Now comes the serious business, the effort to say what all this might amount to, in itself and for us. II • Philosophy I hope I have not left you with the impression that the so-called propositionalists have been repulsed. All the conclusions have been called in question, though for my part, I'm p·a rsuaded by the design itself of Shepard's and Kosslyn's experiments that introspection can be tricked into yielding disciplined, hard information about internal, that is, psychic, states and events while the results indicate first, that we have an internal space-like receptacle which resembles in some respects the medium of pictures and in others the field of perception, and second, that the images therein �18 are cognitively effective, that they are at least s0metimes used in the act of knowing and are not merely epiphenomena-- idle accompaniments of cognition. That's what I am persuaded of, but as I mentioned, in cognitive psychology the battle continues to rage-- some say ad nauseam. I think, however, that the combatants show good instincts in carrying on, because although within cognitive science it may be that as the formulations become more and more refined the issue becomes more and more obscure, and perhaps finally recalcitrant to experimental resolution, from the philosophic point of view the question won't go away. Before sunnning up what, in rock-bottom terms, that question is and why it matters, let me just quickly run through some of the. subsequent perplexities concerning the imagination. There is the great dual question about the relation of perception and imagination: could we perceive .if we didn't imagine?; can we image what we haven't perceived? Then we might ask whether we inspect our mental images passively or whether in beholding them we are actually producing them. Then there is .the question of the difference between real images and imagination-images: what is the distinction between perceiving an image such as a portrait, and imagining a perception, such as the visualization of a friend's face? ask about'composition of images: Then we can are they wholes made of parts?; for instance, can they fade in sections or are they fragilely integral, generated and lost as are they? a whole?; and in general, how sturdy or evanescent Are they altered piecemeal or by so-called blink transformations? Do they obey compositional laws like the "law of good form" proposed by the Gestalt psychologists? And since mental images, whatever else they are, are somehow images, there are all the questions about the way they mix being and non-being first raised in Plato's Sophist and now treated in logic under the heading of fictional or non-existent objects. These are the �19 enticing inquiries which would come next. But for now let me state the two terms which seem to sum up the debate, as I said, in the most rock-bottom and revealing way, namely: depiction vs. description (Ned Block). The pictoralists say that some of our mental representations are picture-like. Aristotle's famous remark that "the soul never thinks without images" would seem to be the founding dictum of this camp. (Though that has been doubted, in fact by Martha Nussbaum, who lectured here a couple of years ago, in her commentary on the De Motu Animalium.) The descriptionalists claim that all our mental representations are language-like, that our inner representations although about the world are never like it. I am now going to conclude by trying to show what matters about this controversy and how it might affect us in part.icular. First, you might think it was pretty obvious that the debate would drive its proponents smack into such questions as: what is depiction? What can it be but the representation of an object as a space-like image (not, by the way, necessarily visual)? is space, what is an image? But what is representation, what Well, the psychologists mostly do what I've done tonight, skirt around these questions. But when the moment comes to take them up a student of this program should be way ahead. What is the inner point of the sophomore study of analytic geometry, for instance, but to think about just these issues? the text and an equation on the other. There is a picture on one side of The diagram is spatial and figurative and appears to image something. The equation consists of letters and signs and seems to symbolize something. Are they two manifestations of the same object which they represent differently? the equation closer to words or to logic than the figure is? Is What is the difference among figure, symbol and word, and what difference does that �20 difference make? A successful sophomore mathematics tutorial cannot help but be a rather deep introduction to the depiction-description debate. In fact, come to think of it, our study of prime introduction to the issue: Apo~lonius already offers a Remember the propositions where figure and words jibe at the beginning and at the end, but in between you are required to follow letter manipulations, which are geometric nonsense (or are they?) while on the otner hand, Apolionius' very understanding of his curves as conic sections can't be adequately rendered in symbols (or can it?). Images, however, are only a subheading of the category representation, and mental images come under mental representations in general. Cognitive psychologists are one and all committed to the existence of mental representations-- else what would their experiments be forcing into the open? But as I mentioned way back in this lecture, stud~nts of philosophy in this century have taken to attacking the whole notion of representation. Recall that the title of Kosslyn's book Ghosts in the Mind's Machine was intended as a rebuttal of Ryle's attack on mental representations, images, of course, in particular. Kosslyn could take this position because he thinks he has solved the very problem of that mind's eye before which the images appear whose necessity made mental imagery an absurdity to Ryle. Of course, the mind's eye is just a sub-problem: all mental representation requires a self, or subject or, derogatorily, a "homunculus", before whom the representations are present, and that fact always leads to bottomless difficulties-- though, in my opinion these ' are mysteries we' 11 just have to live with. I mentioned earlier on that Artificial Intelligence, or computer simulation of cognitive processes, was one of the impulses behind the new study of mental imagery; Kosslyn was able to construct a computer model of his theorY, and it is indeed through a �21 computer analogy that he means to dispose of the question: watches the pictures of the mind?" "what or who The answer is simply that the imaginal medium of a computer, the display screen, is actually an array of dots, and that the computer's central processing unit, the analogue of the mind's eye, can "interpret" the imagery because it is immediately translatable into words and numbers like: there is a dot in row 5, column 7. So a computer can both gene:rate and read images without benefit of a mind's eye. "Good-bye homunculus" is Kosslyn's chapter heading for this solution. Now, to my mind, it is both a surrender and an evasion (though, I should add, Kosslyn seems to know exactly what he is doing-- I just can't make out his explanation), it is a surrender of the notion that imagery has some ultimate cognitive independence or value, because it implies that an image is only what is called an "emergent" whole, or as he says: a display "does not have to be a J?icture to function as one". That is to say, the image emerges from non-figurative elements, namely from dots marking coordinate positions. Furthermore the interpretation, so called, of the image, the computer simulation of its comprehension, is nothing but just the stored matrix of these points expressed in words and digits, or even in digits only. In short, images are at the bottom "digital", and not "analog", a pair of terms from computer science which I've mentioned before, ref.erring to discrete word-, digit-, or symbol-like representations as opposed to continuous, figurative or space-like representations. What we know when we ap~rehend Descartes first implied in his an image is finally its algebra, just as Ge~metry which, as I mentioned, we study so carefully for that very reason. The evasion in Kosslyn's solution to the mind's eye perplexity is simply this: As he explicitly says, cognitive science is not competent to deal with experience, with the conscious sense we have of our .cognition, �22 (although Dennett has tried to provide cognitive science with a theory of consciousness). As a science it is bent on turning the interior into an exterior, on making inner processes observable, and consciousness is hopelessly and recalcitrantly and essentially interior. (It is this conscious experience to which the phenomenological school of philosophy which I mentioned before specifically attends.) Consequently, the computer analogy simply circumvents the perplexing sense we have of an inner vision-- an evasion which is practiced throughout the Artificial Intelligence community, only that generally the "what my net can't catch isn't fish" principle is in full force. What is evidently possible, though hellishly complex, is to devise equipment and programs which will "perceive" simpre scenes, and image them, or put images having the established features of mental imagery on the' display and read them off-an accompl~shment which is then hypothesized to give insi~ht into human imagining. If you think about it, what the fish principle does is to put philosophy under the domination of science-- with the whole-hearted concurrence of what might be called the hard-nosed branch of academic philosophy. The cognitive scientists decide what method of theorizing will keep their inquiries within the concerns of science, and then more or less knowingly move to exclude from being what their canon excludes from notice-- that after all is just what it means to turn human beings into experimental subjects. And they do this without let or hinderance, not to say·with the connivance, of a large part of the contemporary academic philosophical community. For the contest about who asks the questions has been won by the scientists, in this case the cognitive scientists ("Cognitive Science" being the overall name for "Cognitive Psychology", "Artificial Intelligence", "I;nformation Processing", and �23 so on), and they sit inside calling the digital tune, while th,e professional philosophers skulk at the windows making comments. This state of affairs can't help but eventually arouse our community's anxious interest, because, while our program is built on the trust that the important questions are perennially the same however diverse the attempted answers, the capitulation of philosophy to science makes urgent the question of questions I mentioned in the beginning, namely whether the terms of the questions themselves may be transformed radically and beyond translation from age to age. For science itself, by its very progressive nature, undergoes periodic revolutions which appear to some to consign the old problems and terms to irreducible incommensurability with the new ones, and perhaps philosophy should reflect this discontinuity. We could do the intellectual world a great service by rousing ourselves to a"rigorous debate with the very clever contemporary proponents of this point of view. Lest I seem to have gotten away from the significance to us of the imagery debate, let me quickly show how it fits in. On the one hand there is a bunch of terms like "imagistic", "pictorialistic", "analogous" and "analog". On the other there is "propositional", "descriptional", "symbolic" and "digital". As we have seen, even the scientists who have devoted themselves to discovering the precise characteristics of mental imagery soon abscond into the camp of those who believe that all cognition is finally to be characterized by the second complex of terms, although somehow the first keeps intruding itself on experience. Why is the battle so drawn out while underneath the profession is so unanimous? reason is this: The chief Human experience may speak for the significance of our imaging power, but the underlying impulse of cognitive scientists is to turn the mental into the physical (forgetting, by the way, that their heroes, the physici~ts, are meanwhile busy turning the physical world into �24 .an intelligible one). Specifically they expect to explain all cognitive processes in terms of the sort of logical functions which can be realized as a physical machine, be it computer or brain. Now as I mentioned, brain science apparently has at present no evidence that well accommodates picture-knowing, although there are basic facts of the brain's functioning which would lend themselves to the "digital" cognition. So it is plain that the impulse in cognitive science would be to explanations in those terms. Now I have a deep-felt though not yet very well-grounded suspicion that it is our imagining capacity which will turn out to be the impregnable center of our embattled humanity-- embattled, because it appears to be infernally difficult to articulate in principle the difference between the activity of a perceiving and reasoning human being and the behavior of a sophisticatedly programmed machine, that is if the factor of self-consciousness or inner experience is disallowed, while the purely and precisely rational argument for hanging on to what I might as well call the soul, are confoundedly elusive. We might talk about that in the question period. My inklings that the imagination will be crucial in finally distinguishing human cognition from its computer simulation do have some evidence and some ' arguments in their favor. The evidence is chiefly in claims from critics of the Artificial Intelligence project that it will come to its limits in capturing just those functions which have analogue character. The arguments I can only gesture toward by bringing up, belatedly, a pair of pertinent terms which is conspicuously missing from the imagery debate: imagination and intellect. It is one of those old thought complexes whose meaning is supposed to be hopelessly inaccessible to us once its transformation into the current terms has been accomplished. �25 Well, since I can believe that only for a minute at a time, I think there is a world of light to be gotten from carefully retranslating the debate into these terms, since we can then re-ask (without ignoring the new contributions of cognitive science) old but unanswered questions concerning our strange double power to bring the looks of this world into ourselves while leaving its stuff outside, and to bring forth within us figures which were never of the outer world and yet can act potently on it. One of the chief boons will be that the traditional pair, unlike the contemporary set, is not an opposition but a conjunction, and that whenever imagination and intellect are considered as equally and unseverably necessary to knowledge, reflection on thinking, reasoning, acting intelligently, takes on a very different coloration than when the faculty of imagery is regarded as an analytical embarrassment. What I mean is: to my mind what the contemporary intellectual world needs most urgently is a revision of its mode and its understanding of rationality. Early on I described the thinking of our more interesting contemporaries as being smart, precise, pure. That begins to catch its flavor, but of course not the serious impulse behind it, which is, to think of thinking as essentially analytic and formalistic, symbolic, logical rather than analogical. I am using somewhat opaque buzz-words because I have not yet quite come to grips with what is going on, except for a sense that sweet reason requires the curbing of this rampant rationality, requires, if I may put it this way, a logically legitimate way of respecting the mysteries. Now I can imagine that it might be one of our students who is destined to work out such a revisal, having been prepared for the task by a program which does not segregate works of the imagination from works of the intellect and which contains many texts honoring-- and also despising-the appearances in a way wholly different from that of current cognitive �26 science-- a way in which our environment is not under$tood as a source of information to be processed but as a world of figures sending us significant looks and speaking to us in intelligible tongues. And in general, it is because of the temporal cosmopolitanism of the program, its intention to make a serious attempt at empathy into radically diverse human possibilities, that the St. John's program can be a protection against the regimented seduction of the bubbling Babylon which constitutes our contemporary intellectual world; were I a child's mother I would not wish to send it out there unprepared in some such way, because for all its vaunted multiplicity and its vigorous polemics, the marchings and wheelings of opinions take place in amazingly close formation-as is perhaps not so surprising considering the temporal parochialism of university training. When I said in the first couple of minutes of this lecture that I hoped to give reasons for maintaining distance from "current thinking", enticingly brilliant though it be-- practically I suppose this means clearing only a very modest and very deliberately designed space for it in the program-- I had in mind mainly this phenomenon of ll homogeneity. It has recently been givenvsophisticated rationale under the heading of "the social justification of belief" by Richard Rorty, (who lectured here a couple of years ago) and has been joyfully taken up by para-scientific disciplines such as Anthropology (Geertz) and Educational Studies (Bruffie). "We understand knowledge," Rorty says, "when we understand the social justifica.tion of belief," meaning that . knowledge arises not from taking in and testing for oneself what the world has to give, but from devising language for obtaining the concurrence of the community accredited to judge, while learning means being absorbed into that society which carries on the pertinent, essentially terminological conversation. To me this view of a community of learning seems like �27 philosophy's self-imposed revenge for its voluntary subjection to science, for it is modelled on the current philosophy-of-science-view of science as a social construction (which, by the way, apparently infuriates practicing scientists, insofar as they pay it any mind.) Now this college is not only a program but also the conununity designed for the study of the program, and those of our students who were self-aware members of the former should make peculiarly discerning judges of the pervasive and potent view I've just described. For the conununity Rorty projects is a spatially scattered league of competent professionals whose largely written communications are aimed at the fixation of shared belief, while St. John's is a living community of people of carefully guarded amateur status who converse with each other face to face, to save their souls, and, standing somewhat apart, prepare for four years to grapple with a present that has been twenty-eight hundred years in the making. To conclude: Under these circumstances it is not so surprising that, while in the sciences hopes are high, the dominating philosophical mood is, according to temperament, either a rage for finis-writing or a lugubrious nihilism-- a zealous anticipation of an end to philosophy which is no consummation but either a self-destructive bang or an unravelled whimper of mere endless argumentation. But I imagine that some of us can think of an understanding of philosophy by which it escapes these ignominies. If philosophy is directed wonder then we need not follow the lead of the sciencas in asking only warrantably pursuable questions or abandon answers because their complete formal justification proves elusive. Then we are permitted to assume that when something arouses such wonder in us it is given to us, first and last, as wonderful, however relentlessty we may work it over in between. �28 A practical illustration : Close your eyes and summon the image of some attractive shape-- an elegant object, a familiar face, a significant scene. When you have it before your mind's eye, ask yourself, perhaps vaguely at first but then more pointedly, what might have to be true for that wonder to occur. How could such an inquiry, refreshed by frequent recurrence to the inner experience itself, peter out into mere argumentation? It seems to me to consist of continual beginnings, impulses toward a truth which is just out of sight. � 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/. 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Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 29 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/. Title A name given to the resource Mental imagery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-09-27 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the homecoming lecture given in September 27, 1985 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1985-09 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Homecoming Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/eea3e779d9235dca0cfc64ac799a2926.pdf 89fef65059b523582c3e667104a90ce3 PDF Text Text Against Time* Eva Brann •Given as two Friday Night Lectures at St. John's College in :\nnapolis on February 18 and 2; , 1983. THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW 65 �Contents I. Approaches to the Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 67 Time Language Time Puzzles Time in Science Temporal Sensibility The Philosophers II. Aristotle: Time as the Number of Motion 73 1. Time and its Measures 2. The Now 3. Memory III. Augustine: Time as the "Distention" of the Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . Husserl: The Phenomenology of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 80 1. Retention 2. The Diagram of Time IV. Kant: Time as Inner Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 82 Inner Sense Understanding Imagination Time and Space Temporal Thinking V. Heidegger: Temporality as the Meaning of Existence 86 1. Ecstatic Temporality 2. Difficulties VI. Time and Imagination 89 1. The Non-Being of Time 2. Time as Noticed Passage 3. The Phases of Time a. b. c. d. The Present The Past The Future The Past as Paramount Phase Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 I. II. III. IV. Main Texts Supplementary Texts, Studies, Commentaries Collections Time in Science Notes 1-37 ................................................ 101 �Against Time That time has no being and no power, that the- past is most to be cherished by those who have least taste for bygones, that our own temporality is the work of the imagination-these are the reflections that I want to articulate and confirm in the following inquiry, for I believe and hope to show that opinions of this sort are necessary for thinking of ourselves as free and for filling our lives with substance. I. APPROACHES TO THE INQUIRY* Given this purpose, the first question is where to begin an inquiry whose object appears to be both ubiquitous and nowhere. There seem to be so many likely approaches to the topic of time: through attention to our all-pervading talk of time in ordinary life and through the neat enigmas which even the lightest musing upon time generates, through the science of nature which claims to determine its concept, and through the observations of poets, novelists, and psychologists concerning our temporal sensibilities. All these efforts provide necessary grist to the mill of reflection, but Time itself does not seem to be revealed in or through them, and the very profusion of speculation bears witness to its elusiveness. There remains the way through philosophy, where time is treated in conjunction with the question of being-and particularly of human being. Here the nature of time becomes at last a direct theme. I shall, therefore, after a brief review of the other approaches, devote the middle section of this study to an interpretation of the five philosophers who seem to me to have given the most coherent and pregnant answers to the question What is Time?, and conclude with a section of my own thoughts on, or rather against, time. 1. TIME LANGUAGE The first and obvious way to get to the nature of time might seem to be through examining the mentions of time in ordinary language, through attending to what everyday speech says of time, for example: My watch tells the time, and I can give you the time. Do you have the time to give • ..\II references are to books listed in the Bibliography. Eva Brann recently published Pau1doxes of Education in a Republic.(University of Chicago Press, 1979). THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW me some time? I am wasting my time, while having the time of my life. Time is money, and the times are bad. At this point in time he has no comment, but time will tell. Time heals.and at the same time, time destroys. The time is coming; the time is now; the time is past We live in time and through times, are on time, race against time, kill time, donate time, are true to the end of time, and imagine once upon a time. _ · Now the very profusion of usages, although it is an index of the great frequency of our references to time 1, seems to me to preclude the discovery of a central meaning without our falling into the error of decreeing which of these usages is canonically ordinary. Certainly, how time occurs in daily speech is suggestive: Augustine, for instance, begins his inquiry by asking how it is that we can speak of time as long or short (XI 15), and Heidegger refers to the observation that we speak of time as passing away and not as coming into being (Logik, par. 20). It turns out, however, that both authors, far from being guided by what is said, conclude that ordinary speech obscures the nature of time. · It seems, all in all, that from listening to the use of the term time one, but only one, crucial conclusion can be reached: Time is always spoken of metaphorically or figuratively. It may be treated as a spatial dimension with length and points, or as a possession to have and to give, or in a personification, as an agent of multifarious potency. Its power is sometimes benign but far more often hurtful, as in the insistently grim time-figures of the Shakespearean Sonnets: devouring Time, confounding Time, decaying Time, swift-footed Time, sluttish Time, Time's injurious hand, Time's fell hand (19, 55, 63-65). Most time references are well-worn and mean little; they are time-honored phrases, once perhaps heartfelt, for disposing of the mysteries of change. When we talk of time as healing we consign to a hackneyed phrase the miraculous restorative power of nature and the blessed oblivion of which memory is capable. Poets, on the other hand, tend to give time injurious epithets, because, I think, they speak more often and more accurately of the high, intense, and vulnerable configurations of life than we do in ordinary speech. · The word "time" is not, of course, remotely all that language says of time.·All our sentences requfre tensed verbs, particularly "is," "was," and "'shall be." But can their use tell us their meaning? Or must we not rather know what is meant by present, past, and future, the three phases of time, to understand the use of aspects and tenses? 67 �2. TIME PUZZLES A second start might be made from the puzzles about time which can be so copiously and near-spontaneously generated. For example, why does time seem to have a forward arrow and a leading edge? 2 Does it progress in a continuous flux or in atomic jerks? Is it within or outside of us, in the soul or in the world? What is the "now" in which aloQe things are present and which reason reduces to a point between past and future? And above all, how is it possible that anything be in that past which is no longer, or in the future which is not yet? There are many more such problems, even excluding those concerning temporal continuity, which belong primarily to mathematics. Such conundrums are easily disposed of by the positivist, who obviates them by pointing out that in ordinary life, before the onset of a philosophical seizure, no one is at all inconvenienced by them, so why concoct enigmas? 3 To be more than idle puzzles they must arise in the context of a well-grounded inquiry into time itself. They are not its beginning but its by-products. 3. TIME IN SCIENCE In view of the fact that time is the basic independent variable of all the physics accessible to laymen, it would seem reasonable to turn first to the science of nature, that is, to physics, for help in the search for the nature of time. Reflective physicists and philosophers of physics have, accordingly, propounded powerful theories of time. At the very beginning of the science of dynamics stands the most extreme theory of the reality of time, Newton's self-subsisting, equably flowing, absolute world time-and its equally extreme opponent, Leibniz's relative time, a mere order of phenomenal succession. 4 Newton's theory of an absolute temporal flux may well be integral to the theological purposes of the Principia, but it does not seem to be operational within its physics. It is a philosophical rather than a physical requirement. In contrast, the plain statement by a great physicist of the most minimal notion of time conceivable is fairly recent, namely Einstein's wholly operational or instrumental definition of local time as "the position of the small hand of my watch" (p. 39; an instrumental definition is one in which the term is defined through the instrument and the operation which measures its magnitude). Although it may seem strange at first that after two and a half millenia of arduous exploration of the question "What is time?" the outcome should be that time is what the clock tells, one soon sees that this definition is the cleanest and clearest reflection on time that a physicist can give. For in physics time must be positive, that is to say, it should be no more than an observable quantity the method of whose measurement is defined. There is then an enormous and intellectually most 68 acute literature about the philosophical implications o. time in nature, or more accurately, in the science of nature. (For all references see Sec. IV of the Bibliography.) Three branches of physics seem to be especially amenable to philosophical interpretation: Thermodynamics seems to have implications about the forward motion, the socalled "arrow" of time and its irreversibility. Relativity theory appears to have exploded the common sense notion of universal time or the simultaneity of the present moment throughout space. Quantum theory throws in doubt the continuity of time. But intriguing as such theories are, because they are bent on interpreting with ingenuity and vigour the unignorable discoveries of physics, they help only incidentally and negatively with the question: \\!hat is time? For in these theories time is invariably understood as a privileged 9r process or motion, either a macro-motion_ an atomic vibration; the temporality of these timing-motions is itself left unexplained-as indeed it should be since such an explanation would no longer be amenable to verification by observation. The implication is that time really is an aspect of motion to be got at only in telling time. But time-telling is commonly taken to be a three-cornered affair, involving an observable event, a timing device, and an observer who can distinguish and relate the two and communicate his findings. And though a physical theory may include the observer with respect to his relative motion or his unavoidable interference with the observation, it is regarded as the part of psychology to deal with the distinguishing and rt lating itself, that is, with the internal observer. In sum, in physics time itself is the name of a fundamental motion, while the telling of time is not ultimately explicable in physical terms. Furthermore the philosophical interpretation of physical time is by no means univocal, any more than ate those of philosophy in the wider sense, with which the philosophy of physics does, after all, eventually merge. Therefore, through this approach a clarification of the concepts of time implicit in various physical theories is the most that can be expected. Let me give very brief versions of three accessible cases in point. _ I. Eddington introduced the phrase "Time's Arrow" to sum up the observations of thermodynamics. Let there be a partitioned container, isolated from outside influences, and let one part be filled with air, the other empty. Now remove the partition, and the molecules of air in their individual random motions will over time spre~d through the whole vessel (while the probability that they will ever again simultaneously collect at one end is so vanishingly small as to make the case practically impossible). The aggregate of molecules as a whole will then have less organization and will be said to show increasing "disorder," by which is meant here a certain kind of homogeneity. Its measure is called "entropy." The large-scale phenomenal effects of this statistical law of nature are quite familiar in lifr SUMMER 1983 �Things Jeft to their own devices tend to fall into sprawling disorder. Now Eddington interprets this irreversible process of nature as an intrinsic forward tendency of time itself. If he is right, physics is indeed capable of revealing the nature of time. There are, however, many and much debated difficulties, for example, whether the universe is an isolated system, whether a probable event and a process subject to fluctuations can be imputed to the steady underlying action of time, whether to show that time is "anisotropic," that is, directed, is necessarily to show that it advances, whether the physical law applies as well to life. But the most telling difficulty for present purposes is this: An observer can assert that time is reversible, for example, that if the time coordinate were imagined as reversed the planets would exactly retrace their orbits, only if .h e also imagines his own time as maintaining its direction so that he can compare the two successive motions. Would not the same hold for an observer of irreversible processes, so that he would have to say not that physical time itself was advancing, but that "disorder" was irreversibly increasing with time, namely his psychological observer's time the question of whose advance is no longer a matter for physics? There is a counterargument, to be sure, namely that human memory itself, the condition of time-telling, is an entropic process since it has an entropic physical basis. But that leaves us with the question, certainly no longer in the realm of physics, whether the human observer of nature can logically himself be subject to its law (Eddington, Ch. IV; Gruenbaum, Chps. 8, 9; Schlegel, pp. 55 ff.; Whitrow, Ch. IV 3, 4). 2. Einstein begins his 1905 paper, which sets forth the special theory of relativity, by defining what the common sense of mankind had so far taken as a natural given, namely what it means to say that it is the same time at places very far apart. His need to do so follows immediately from his definition of local time as what the dock tells, and that, in turn, embodies a deep reflection on the nature of physical knowledge. For nothing is to be counted as scientific theory which does not ultimately refer to possible sensory events. So to tell what time it is at a fixed place somewhere far off we must have a dock and an observer there and sensible signalling between him and us. Now even the fastest signal, light, takes time to go there and to be reflected back; we all know that the light from the star we now see is not the light being emitted by the star now. That means that a procedure for synchronizing both clocks must be established so that we here can say what time it is there now. Einstein defines such a procedure. The time for the light signal to come and go is taken to be equal by definition. We signal our time !o the remote observer who sets his clock by it just as he reflects the signal. Upon receiving it we set our clock to a time exactly half way between our sending and receiving the signal. The two clocks are thus said to be synchronized, and when an event occurs at the 11-IE ST. JOHNS REVIEW · place far off it will be said to occur at the same time or simultaneously, with our clock-time for the: arrival of its signal. Further, clocks which are synchronized with a third are said to be synchronized with each other: Therefore simultaneity is not universal "nowness" but merely what it is defined to be by the synchronizing process. Next Einstein lays down two fundamental axioms. The first of these is the principle of relativity itself, which says that the laws of physics governing a system are not af· fected if the whole is put into uniform rectilinear motion. The second is that the speed of light is absolute, namely the same whether the light is emitted from a stationary or a moving source. Within a page Einstein has shown that two clocks which are affixed to the ends of a moving rod and which have been separately synchronized with a clock in the stationary system, and so with each other from the point of view of the stationary observer, will not appear to meet the criteria of synchronicity from the point of view of the moving observers. What the stationary observer sees as simultaneous the moving observers do not. That means that what one observer takes to be the same moment comes apart for another observer into different moments. There is no absolute signification to the concept of simultaneity. The now is not universal. This result is usually interpreted as confuting the com· mon sense notion qf a universal contemporaneity, the feeling we have in ordinary circumstances that our now is everyone's now. But I wonder if that follows. The theory means by "the same time here and there" an operation definable in terms of observations, namely, the relating of clocks by a signal which takes time to travel back and forth. The speed of the signal, namely the speed of light, is the crucial element in the formula which shows that events simultaneous in one system will not be so in another relatively moving one. If that signalling speed were to be in· creased beyond all bounds, an impossibility in physical theory to be sure, simultaneity would be reinstated.5 But are we in our thinking and imagining bound by the physicist's requirements? Can we not in our thoughtswhich are as swift as the ships of Homer's Phaeacians, namely instantaneous-extend ourselves over all space at once? If our thinking were in principle incapable of coming under the requirements of science we might well imag· ine any number of friendly extra-terrestria1s, moving and stationary, all thinking of us and of each other simultaneously, now. A concord of consciousnesses is not inconceivable. I cannot think that the deep-seated human sense of a universal now can be confuted by a definition of time and a canon of knowledge not its own (Einstein, I 1-2; Reichenbach, par. 19; Dingle, pp. 460 ff.). 3. In Plato's Sophist the debate between the proponents of being and bec9ming is called the Battle of Gods and Giants. This battle rages between interpreters of relativity theory and furnishes my last example of the difficulty of extracting a clear philosophical interpretation from physical theory. The argument arises over the interpretation of 69 �the Minkowslci diagram, which is a geometric representa· tion of a world in which the space coordinates are interde· pendent with the time coordinates. A number of authors claim that the relativization of simultaneity and the in· volvement or covariance of space and time so spoil the objectivity of the temporal order, that is, the unambiguous and universal separation of past and future, that one can no longer speak of becoming in the world. The world is a four-dimensional continuum of three spatial and one "spa· tializing" time coordinate, spatializing in the sense that in this geometric diagram the motion of any substantial point is represented by a stationary curve. This world is already "written." It is and does not become, though it appears to us successively, like a prepared cartoon strip we read by moving our eyes. Thus the only change is that in the per· ceiving consciousness of the observer, and if there is real time it is only his psychological time. The defenders of becoming argue, on the other hand, that the perturbations of time pointed to by proponents of being do not occur for causally related events, whose suc· cession is preserved in all frames of reference; only the suc· cession of causally unrelated and of simultaneous events is relativized. So nothing, they claim, stands in the way of positing real, that is, causally conditioned, becoming. Aside from self.contradictory use of the term "being" to mean static appearance and the too-narrow use of the term becoming for causally related succession, the diffi· culty in drawing philosophical conclusions about time and the world, even supposing the physicists came to terms, seems to me to be that the interpretation really concerns only the representation of the theory, that is, a model of its world, not the world itself (Frazer, pp. 415 ff.; Whitrow, pp. 227-228; Gruenbaum, Basic Issues, 195-228). It seems that while the study of physical theory is indis· pensable to an understanding of process and motion, it can be no more than suggestive with respect to time. But that really implies that time properly speaking must be· long not to nature but to the observer. 4. TEMPORAL SENSIBILl1Y . Sometimes it is the matter itself which arouses wonder and perplexity, while sometimes the world's preoccupa· tion with it excites curiosity and concern. In the case of time the two motives for starting a study seem to me to coincide. There is certainly plenty of external evidence for our world's pervasive fascination with time. In the decades close to us there is no getting away from observations to the effect that the rate of change of the human environ· ment has increased stupendously, and this increase is usually expressed as a speeding up of time itself. "Innovation" is the incantatory term which people feel they must utter to keep time from outrunning them. Complementing this 70 general sense of the urgency of our situation there is al~~ _ flood of scientific work on time; for example, intriguing bi· elogical experiments on the_ temporal rhythms of animals and jet-setters, psychological studies of time perception and estimation, sociological accounts of time management in different cultures (e.g., Zerubavel). But this overwrought sense of time's power did not arise only after the First World War. It had been in the offing, one might say, for tw9 millenia, but it first broke out acutely almost two centuries ago, in Hegel's writings. It in· fected common opinion with the notion that the times are informed by a supraindividual force whose laws human science can divine and with whose ends human beings must, on pain of merciless punishment, cooperate. There was the widespread sense that this movement of time was coming to a culmination, either in an earthly paradise or in a man-made apocalypse. There was a passionate elevation of personal time in its vitality over space in its dead exter· nality (Bergson, Note 27, 3). There were discoveries of the interdependence of space and time (Einstein, Alexander, Note 6). And, as was to be expected, an irritated reaction against this "time-mind" soon followed (Lewis, Note 7). But most weightily, there was the claim that the philo· sophical situation of our time forces us to view the ground of human being itself as temporal (Heidegger, Logik p. 267). . Although cataloguing the elements and sources of what everyone is saying is a dry and dubious business, I car · °' help speculating, or rather summarizing the speculatio .. _ ) others, on how time, having been dethroned from its mythical majesty by Aristotle, returned as the demon force of modernity. Four root references seem to me discernible, four causes to which the temporal preoccupation oflate moder· nity is referrable. First and fundamentally this preoccupation is the secu· Jar residue of Christianity. Christian time has a beginning, an end, and an internal epoch. These are the Creation, the Final Judgment, and the birth of God as man. Our other· wise apostate world retains a secularized sense of impend·. ing doom, of a man-made catastrophe (which long ante· cedes the concrete fear of nuclear annihilation), and, alternately, of coming salvation through progress toward a divinization of mankind or a return to an original crea· turely equality in a terrestrial paradise. A second cause is the simple fact that we come late in history, not in the sense in which Greek philosophers pos· ited innumerably repeated cycles of the discovery and loss of art and wisdom (Note 13), but because we have behind us a minutely documented civiliution, classical antiquity, uniquely brilliant and irrevocably bygone, to which we have a peculiar relation. For modernity begins with a seJf. conscious, systematic transformation of the classical cate· gories of thought and conduct. Hence the shape of mod· em preoccupations is not quite intelligible without ·e reference to their ancient origins. At the same tim SUMMER 1983 �seem to have every reason for forgetting those origins as being superseded. For we have more power over nature and are, in the modem West, better governed than were our intellectual ancestors. Such forgetfulness, however, in· duces a vague feeling of discontinuity and leaves us with the contradiction of a chronic sense that our situation is utterly new. Third is the temporal effect that goes with the sheer massiveness of modernity, its human numbers, informa· lion, organizations, wars, crimes, and instruments of plea· sure. The motion of magnitudes so far beyond human per· spective appears to us to be attributable to an agency less than divine and yet suprahuman; we call it time and con· sider its effects inevitable. the Finally, and most to my purpose, is _ special modem propensity for a kind of psychological introspection which, in contrast to philosophical self-knowledge, consists of a prolonged pursuit of intimate affective subtleties. It seems to me to stem from two sources coincidentally: from that secularization of the anxious Christian interest in the sal· vation of one's soul which motivates Augustine's Confes· sions, and from that sophisticated reaction against the early modern view that human subjectivity is ultimately rational which is called romanticism and whose founding work is Rousseau's Confessions (Note 7). Naturally such introspection-it is really an ingenious kind of musing-is especially rich in observations about the sense of time and ready to luxuriate in the aroma of temporality. Those of us who were born in the first third of this century participate in these affects by birthright. For then a sense of decadence and fin de siecle, climaxed by the First World War which realized all the worst forebod· ings and indeed closed an era in civilization, had worked the temporal sensibility into an acute state, which was the psychological complement of the new interest in the phys· ical time. Three novelistic masterworks of the early century which, although demandingly voluminous, found avid readers, are at once a sign and a source of this sensibility: The first is Proust's novel, literally entitled Toward a Search for Lost Times. It is an account of the ennui· infected author's quest for the catalyst of his art, which he finds in the last part of the novel, Time Retrieved; it comes in the form of an instantaneous, time-annihilating recov· ery of certain paradisical childhood moments. The second is Mann's Magic Mountain. It is a book described by its au· thor as intended to induce in the reader that same "subli· mation of time," a warping of the sense of time in accor· dance with the intensity of life, experienced by its solidly bourgeois yet physically tainted young hero. The book contains several phenomenological expositions of time, in· eluding a whole "Digression on the Time Sense." Finally there is Joyce's Ulysses, an Irish odyssey, whose hero is a Jew, an ordinary man and an outsider, who enacts within one Dublin day the adventurous Mediterranean voyage performed over a decade by his Homeric original. Joyce THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW learnedly interweaves mythical, historical, personal time; the book is a recollection of European civilization. • • • Let me describe some of these experiences of temporal· ity-a mere personal sample of temporal affections indica· tive of our time-under the interlaced rubrics of pacing, routine, and skewing. l. By "pacing" I mean the phenomenon that our inter· · nal time seems to undergo drastic shifts in tempo. We modems are so acutely subject to these, it seems to me, because the rhythms of modem life are not long-breathed natural periods, punctuated by public ritual, but tightly scheduled stretches interrupted by private vacations. The characteristically modem art forms, like the novel and symphonic music, seem tQ me peculiarly expressive of our habituation to sharp changes in pace. We modems are a). most congenitally expert in the central temporal experi· ence of the Magic Mountain-the periods of apathy, sur· feit, distraction, and boredom which are long to live through but vanishingly brief in retrospect, "wastes" of time, poor in feature and welded in memory; they alter· nate with times of intense eventfulness, accomplished at breakneck speed, while depositing memories so close· packed and vivid, that today seems aeons from yesterday. A similar experience is that haunting sense of its expanded or contracted availability which makes time seem like money to be prodigally spent in one phase and anxiously hoarded in another, always with a guilty sense that one's lifetime is being mismanaged. Again there is that pecu· liarly modem drivenness which prevents us from ever "having" time-and its complementary lethargy when the possession of no amount of "free" time avails: our time devils either ride or bind us. There are, similarly, those oC· casions of wild anticipation when the present moment, overburdened with the concentrated desire that time should pass, stalls in a bad imitation of the "standing now" of eternity, and will not give way to the next second. Then again, though, time suddenly takes off and shimmies away, as in periods of nervous distraction. Perhaps the latter af· fections are not peculiar to our time, but here is one that surely is, the strangest and most characteristic of modem time experiences: our watchful subjection to that ubiqui· tous little face on the wrist which, -through all internal tempi, equably shows the time. It is somehow, I suspect, the cause of our loss of temporal equanimity. _ 2. Next, "routine": Routine is that organization of our time economy which causes periods of time to be end· lessly reflected as in facing mirrors, so that our memory can scarcely discern whether it contains an infinity of times or just one moment. Almost everyone who works in the modem mode, according to a nonseasonal repeating schedule, has some sense of the enigma of the time· constrained round. How are such calendar days additive? What memorable difference could be powerful enough to 71 �now! But is being in the same place at the same time _.., ) distinguish each of the ten-thousand times of hastening up certain a remedy for remoteness? Can it not equally be its these particular brownstone stairs at the sound of the bell from every other? The memory is curiously cavalier about cause? Cannot the absent soul be more vividly a presence the routines of life. It abstracts one event and remembers than the present body? One writer on time illustrates the that schema, modified by the mere knowledge of its multicommon claim, that the feature which most distinguishes present from past is vividness, by· referring to his colleague tudinous recurrence, its mere temporal heaping. The duX who is, he asserts, more acutely there than Plato; I wonties of each day, when done in the present, at the front of der, or rather I doubt it. On the other hand, there does time, as it were, are vivid and absorbing enough, but when seem to be a special bond of awareness-if only of disilluwe tum around to face the past an enigma stares back: There has certainly been living but has there been a life, sioned awareness-that links not only those who live in that complete shape which the Greeks call bios, as distinct neighbourly contiguity but also those who coexist in spa· tially distant contemporaneity. from mere vital process, zoe? Can a temporally bureaucratized life become a whole unless the routine is no more To extend the speculation from spatial to temporal relothan the thorough·bass of some atemporal melody? Again, cation: If it is sometimes, though perhaps rarely, possible the complement of clock-bound business is the vacation, a to go back to former places and presences, and to reenter vacancy of time, "free" time, and this_ whole temporal contheir continuity, why should it be an interdicted purfiguration of engaged and disengaged periods is subject to pose-as the common opinion of our age con'siders it-to a curious inversion of background and foreground, as in go back to former times by internal recovery and an external reconstruction? Such a collective return, or rather re· certain optical illusions, such that work time, in which life's energy is, after all, primarily invested, feels like the trieval, such a going back which means a bringing back, mere backdrop to the periods of "off' time. No matter has, after all, been attempted, and always these renaishow contentedly we are enmeshed in the cocoon of daily sance times are also the newest of times. Similarly, why should not individual retrievals of our private lost times be absorption, let there be a.break in busyness, and the inertia which is strong in the scheduled spirit exerts itself to resist a possibility? That is, after all, Proust's project-just as the not only all duties but all actions, and the released soul Renaissance revives antiquity in grand vignettes, so Proust drinks deep draughts of diversion. relives his childhood in paradisical tableaus. Could it be, 3. "Skewing" is my term for the overpowering sense indeed, that such retrievals of time, public or private, a1e which befalls us moderns especially in historical settings, the modem replacements for the ancient periodic ri ) thie sense that space and time can be at cross purposes. I enactments of mythical moments-these being the ·~ · have been in Athens, at a place where my path crossed spective modes of bringing the then and there into the that of Socrates, not conjecturally but precisely, since arhere and now and of undoing the skewing of time and place? chaeology, that quintessentially modem discipline, has fixed the exact location, for instance, of the court where I have only described some time affections which seem he was tried. Nor was I. on the spot in plane coordinates to .me particularly acute in modern life. But such diverse only, for again archaeology, which brings back the past by musings while expressing the mood and providing the madigging down, had laid bare the level of his time. I was, terial for the inquiry into time have no end and lead to no resolutions. then, correctly located in all three spatial dimensions. I was in the right place but at the wrong time. That melancholic sense of the irreparable loss of what we have never 5. THE PlllLOSOPHERS had which is induced by written histories of bygone splendours-for histories induce memories of the never-experiWhat is left, in the end, for someone anxious to clarify enced-that temporal nostalgia, is many times intensified and test certain iiitimations about time, is the way through. when no space intervenes to compound the temporal disthe philosophers. It is, after all, their proper and specific tance, when here and now are directly at odds. It is, after business to ask boldly and set out coherently what Time all, to bask in such melancholy that we visit "historic itself is. The five writers I have chosen are those who seem spots." · to me to present the most deep-reaching, well-grounded, The apprehension of this skewing of space and time inand mutually responsive thematic treatment of time. vites much rumination. Take, for instance, the common Aristotle defines time as the number of motion. His is inverse experience of the case above: being contemporathe first thematic treatment in the West, unsurpassibly neous, even precisely simultaneous, with another chercomprehensive and therefore the natural reference for all subsequent expositions. ished human being, but apart in space. How does the case of spatial distance differ from temporal separation? Appar· Augustine, in his effort to comprehend the temporal ently by the fact that the latter seems to be remediable; by creature's relation to his eternal God and Creator, discov. ers time as the "distension" or worldly dimension of the an investing of available time in transversing space I can come again into the other's presence-incidentally itself soul. His ardent and original inquiry first establishes t~-o:i­ porality as at the root of human existence. ) the strangest business, this going into and out of another's 72 SUMMER 1983 �On this Augustinian discovery Husserl bases a phenomenology, namely a description, as presuppositionless as possible, of the internal appearances of time, that is, of time-consciousness. · Kant finds time to be the "inner sense," the sense in which the self becomes an appearance to itself; here time, as the form of human sensibility, is of the soul without belonging to the ultimate subject, the self. Heidegger understands the very ground of human existence as temporality, inverting Kant's relation of the self to time and driving the notion of time to its most extreme distance from Aristotle. There are, of course, other writers on time who are of great stature. Of these my chief omission is Hegel, whose writings, (except for the paragraphs on time in nature, _ Note 27, 2) are just not capable of a dissevered thematic _ treatment of time. For his system is the account of the spirit in its necessary appearances which is Time.8 Plotinus (20), Leibniz and Newton (4), Locke (24), Nietzsche (13). Bergson (27, 3) and Whitehead (16 and 32) are briefly treated in the Notes indicated. As for the absence of Plato, it is not really an omission because there is no extended treatment of time in the Dialogues except in myths (See Notes 12 and 13) and, significantly, none of these are told by Socrates himself-whose images are reierved for the atemporal. Finally, I should say that it is not so much the gist of the theories here presented that is instructive for my purpose but the exposition of their motives and principles, the tracing of their explicit and implicit consequences, and the formulation of those oppositions and analogies which mark them as belonging to one tradition. Using the texts in that way, I shal1 in the last section (VI) try to formulate my suspicions against time. II. ARISTOTLE: TIME AS THE NUMBER OF MOTION Time, Chronos, is endowed among the _Creeks with vividly various shapes and widely diverse, even opposite, powers; he is monster, god, and heaven itself, all-seeing, healing, and all-destroying. 9 Sophocles, for example, says once that "omnipotent time" confounds and· destroys all, and then again he calls him "a gentle god" (Oed. Col. 609, Electra 179).·Time's attributes are evidently fluid, but he is always a potent being. In the fourth book of the Physics, the first extensive thematic treatment of time, Aristotle suddenly and drastically reduces it to the lowest possible status. This epoch-making triumph of thinking over myth-making has not prevailed. · Indeed, the dethroned god has been resurrected as God himself by Aristotle's modern counterpart, Hegel. So much the more, it seems to me, should the overthrow accomplished by Aristotle be recalled. 1HE ST. JOHNS REVIEW 1. TIME AND ITS MEASURES* Aristotle begins with the suspicion that time is "either wholly not, or scarcely and obscurely" (217 b--34). For many perplexities arise if being is ascribed to time, chief of which is that some of it is gone and is no longer, some of it is to come and is not yet, while the now is no part of time at all. He resolves the difficulty-like this: Time is a mere affection or aspect (pathos, hexis, 223 a 19) of motion: "Time is the number of motion with respect to before and after" (220 a 25). The Loeb translators comment ·that Aristotle "enters into no profound metaphysical speculation as to its essential nature" (I, 378). But the profundity of his speculation lies precisely in his showing that time has no essential nature; an interpretation of his treatment ought to show what the deep-lying reasons for this determined trivialization of time are. Not only is time a mere aspect of motion for Aristotleit is not even a necessary aspect, since not all motions are temporal. Two kinds of motion at least are prior to time. They are the motions at the two limits of the natural world, so to speak, and they are timeless because they are themselves the source and principle of time. The first is the ultimate, primary rotational motion of the heavens, the second is the motion of the soul apprehending time. I shall say more of these later, but I must mention right now that to identify these motions as pretemporal is by no means to say that they cannot be timed. We can clock the heavens and we can time our cogitations-but we have clocks only because of the regular continuous motions of the heavens, and we can tell time only because of the counting motion of our soul. Time is the measure of motion, and therefore motion can in tum measure time (220 b 24). Up to the last book the Physics is about inner-worldly motions and these alone are the motions affected .with time, the number of motion according to before and after. Where there is no physical body, there is no time (On the Heavens 279 a 16). Motion (kinesis) includes every kind of change (metabole) of qu~ntity, quality, place, and the process of becoming (218 b 21, though not becoming as simple coming into being, Met. 1067 b 32): How can motion possess number, that is, come in ordered units? Motion has a quantitative aspect; it is a magnitude; we may say that it has extension. Motion derives its sequential extended character of before-and-after from this aspect which is merely a property in the motion although separable in thought (219 a 22; see Loeb Ip. 384, n.b.). (Strictly speaking, as we shall see, the motion derives its magnitudinal property from the thing moved, the mobile.) In other a •Tue section on Aristotle was worked out during year of learning with and from Anderson Weekes, then a senior at St. John's College, Annapolis, who during that time developed a coherent and illuminating account of Aristotle's theory of cognition. 73 �words, the category of continuous quantity is predicated of motion. 10 To say that time moves is meaningless; rather motion is temporal, and from motion time derives all its properties·· and problems. As motion is continuous, so is time, and all the problems continuity offers to reason, time does likewise. First among these is its relation to the now, which is analogous to that of a point to its line. !\fore of that later. A second difficulty is that since motion is continuous, so is time: Whence, then, come the unit measures, the periods, through which time can become the number of motions? Time, therefore, pertains to motion insofar as motion is a continuous quality or quantity, which always has a before-and-after. The primary before-and-after, according to Aristotle, is that of place (219 a 16), and therefore locomotion is in all ways the primary motion: It is the condition of all other motions, and it is the motion of a completed being, and it is temporally prior to other motions since it initiates them (VIII, 7). But it would be false to conclude that motion is continuous because it is spatial, as if it were the covering of extended space by an indifferent point-mobile. That would be an importation of the modem physical view that a motion is sufficiently understood through its "quantity,'' which is called momentum and defined as the measure of the mass multiplied by the velocity of the moving body. Aristotle rejects the possibility of a motion indifferent to the nature of the mobile and its proper places. I I Indeed, as was said, motion itself is defined in terms of the mobile, as its state. He says clearly that motion is continuous because the thing moved is continuous and not because that in which it is moved is so (Coming to Be 337 a 27). He does not, of course, mean the continuity of the present extent of the thing, for example, its length, but rather that continuity which a mobile has by reason of possessing a matter which remains continuous through change, the substrate or subject of the motion (Met. 1042 a 32, 1044 b 7). The magnitude of motion, and derivatively of time, is an affection of a divisible subject which is not the momentary present movable thing itself but "what was moved" (Met. 1020 a 32), which must mean the mobile in its_progressive changes of place. In this continuing-through-its-phases the mobile displays that extension which is reflected in the motion and which, when counted, is called temporal durations. In brief: what is countable in motion is its continuously phased development, its "before-and-after." It should be noted here that, accurately speaking, the magnitudinalaffections are so-called "proper affections"; they belong to the mobile not essentially but yet necessar· ily, just as a human being is not essentially either a male or a female and yet is necessarily one of these. Temporal duration is therefore not of the essence of the mobile. From this fact follows the crucial distinction between Aristotelian and modem physics: To Aristotle the science that leaves out motion and magnitude is closer to essences, more intelligible, and therefore more accurate than that 74 which includes-them (Met. 1078 a 12); therefore physi~ a subordinate science, and not Science simply, as it is with us. Locomotion, then, is prior in all ways to the other motions. Of locomotions, rotary motion alone is continuous in all senses: It has no beginning and it does not end through having completed its process, nor does it abruptly double back on itself; it can be regular, smooth, uninterrupted, and eternal (Phys. VIII 8-9). The first heavenly sphere is the uniquely perfect embodiment of such rotary motion. It comes as close to being at rest as a mobile can be, since every point in a circular motion is equally a beginning, middle, and end, so that in a certain sense it has no before-and-after (265 b l~ It is in motion, but not toward an end; its movement is rather a steady state which imitates in its regularity the pure activity of completely fulfilled being, Cod (Met. XII 7). This is the motion which is the cause of all other inner-worldly motions, and so, indirectly, of time (Phys. VIII 9). IZ Beyond the heavens there is no time (On the Heavens 279 a 15). The continual character of time, its endlessness and its uninterruptedness, is therefore derived from that of the ultimate motion. Because of the heavenly motion, time is one and the same throughout the world (Phys. 218 b 14). The discontinuous motions of the terrestrial world, which come to an end with the reaching of their goal, are all fitted into continuous cosmic time. And since everything within the world is mobile and subject to timing, time i~ · everything (223 a 17). As the heavens are the source of temporal continualness, so they provide the measure of time. The cycle of rotation is the best unit of time, because it is easiest to count (223 b 19}-a continuous quantity must have a unit measure in order to be countable. The unit measures of time in the terrestrial world of be· coming are provided by the ·sun's oblique motion along the ecliptic. Just as the movement of the whole heaven is responsible for the continuity of motion and time, so the sun, the "generator,'' by its approaches and withdrawals causes each life to have its span: "Every life and time is measured by a period, though not the same for all .... For some the measure is a year, for some a greater and for others lesser period" (On Coming to Be 336 b 13 ff.). Hence the period or cycle is the natural time unit (Phys. 223 b 28). God has made this somewhat irregular but uninterrupted cycle of becoming perpetual so that it may come as near as possible to eternal being (336 b 35); becoming approaches being in a kind of Eternal Retum.13 To tell continuous time over such annual cycles it would seem necessary that -each cycle should differ somewhat from the next, as, because of the accidents of matter, it certainly will be. Time, then, belongs, strictly speaking, only to the sublunar world of change, of becoming and of linearly advanc· ing motion in which before and after are distinguishable. Such motion, defined in Physics III (201 a 11), 14 is to be ) understood through Aristotle's two fundamental tf a SUMMER 1983 �potentiality or capability for being (df11amis) and actuality, activity, or being-at-work (energeia; also entelecheia, fulfill· ment). Motion, then, is the fulfillment of a capability; it is the actual exercise of the potentiality that the mobtle has for being what it was meant to be, for achieving its full form (eidos). Each motion is a unity, governed by its .o wn end and ceasing when that end has been fulfilled. Its time is just the measured course of this activity of approaching full being. Since a terrestrial mobile, unlike the heavens (On the Heavens I, 3), has a corruptible material substrate and is subject to accidents, it cannot hold its perfected state. If it is an animal it will instead have generated a new animal, different in number but the same with itself in form. And so as a member of the species it will participate in eternity, in spite of the temporary life of each genera· lion (On the Soul 415 b 4). Such generating is the terrestrial complement to the work of the generating sun: "Man is begotten by man and by the sun" (Phys. 194 b 13). The father as progenitor comes before the child in time, but because he contributes the form toward which the child is moving he is prior not only in time but also in being. That toward which as an end the motion is, the actual· ity, is prior in dignity (Met. 1050 a). This priority is time· less. When a moving thing has come to the state of beingat-its-own-end or fulfillment it straightaway cuts out of the continuum of time and becomes, with respect to its being, timeless. What is actual, fully in being, is present (hypcir· chon, 1048 a 32), in a state imaginable as a kind of motion· less vibrancy. One must say of it that it has been and is at once (1048 b 24); it is not temporally determinable or articulable. But just as for pure eternal objects "to be while time is is not the same as to be in time" (Phys. 221 a 19), so worldly things which are composites of form and material can have temporal duration in their actuality. For their having come into their own form does not preclude lheir informed material from being in time. Thus the men of Troy cannot be said to be either before or ~fter us with respect to their form, and yet the Trojan War in which they served certainly occurred long before our day (Prob le· mata 916 a 18 ff.).15 It is just because every motion is one and terminates in its own end that time is powerless as a cause. For this end is always discontinuous with the motion that leads up to it. Aristotle separates the concluding moment as no longer belonging to the motion but to its completion and fulfillment (Phys. 263 b 15). So while a motion and its time are yet in process, none of the moments of this continuous span is determinate or complete enough to be the suffi· cient cause of the next moment. When mere time inter· venes between a cause and its end, that is, when the motion is not a completed unity, the end is merely contingent (Post. An. II 12). Thus, while a cause may be in time, it can never act through mere time: That means that there is no mechanical causation, which is a causation where each momentary state fully determines the next. Furthermore, Aristotle notes that the mere ]apse of time is never responTIIE ST. JOHNS REVIEW sible for a thing being made new or beautiful. If anything, we say that time destroys, but only because motion itself is, from one perspective, "ebtatic" (a word Heidegger will raise to central importance~ that is to say, it is a destabilization and a "standing forth" from the status quo (Phys. 221 bl; 222 b 17). Time is but the number of motion-the objective number, the countable parts themselves (219 b 9~ Motion is potentially numerable, but it has an actual number or be· comes temporal only when it is actually counted. It is the soul that counts motion. How? By noting change, of course. When we have no awareness of change, as during sleep, we say that rio time has passed, for we fit ·the earlier directly onto the later now (218 b 26). (Because of the continuity of motion the opposite case, that there should be no change to_ perceive, is apparently impossible.) So time depends on distinguishing nows. 2. THE NOW If time is thought of on the analogy of a continuous directed line whose parts have an intrinsic order (though of position rather than of before-and-after, Cat. 5 a 30), the now corresponds to a Eudidean point, namely a point which is not a constituent element of a line but merely lies upon it (Elements, Def. 4). For the now, Aristotle is at pains to show, is not a part of time but its very "continuity" (220 a 19, 222 a 10), at once the pivotal link of before· and-after and the possibility of temporal division. This mathematized now reproduces whatever perplexities a mathematical point raises, and so, since time depends on motion and motion on the continuous magnitude of the mobile (219 a 12), time shares all the problems of geometric continuity. For example, the nows are the limits of seg· men ts of time without belonging to time and are therefore not attainable by dividing time, just as the point is a part· less element which indefinite divisions of a line approach but do not reach. Further, the now is always the same in function but never in "position" (219 b 16), just as any ·point which produces a cut in the line is indistinguishable from another except by location; similarly, as a point divides a line everywhere potentialJy, but actually only when a cut is made, so the now does not divide time actually until a temporal c, t is made. µ How is that temporal cut made? As time accompanies motion, so the now hovers, as it were, over the moving thing (219 b 24 ff.) It is by the now alighting on an object that before-and-after in motion are first distinguished, for "the now is most apprehensible." We conclude that the now must be the presentness of the perception 16 of a moving thing; and that the cut in time is niade by the act of perceptual attention to a moving object: "Perception is necessarily of a this and a where and a now" (Post. An. 87 b 30). Perception is "an innate distinguishing power" (99 b 36) which is actualized by the external and the particular 75 �(On the Soul 417 b 21 ), and the now-cut in time is actualized with it. But, on the other hand, how can there be perception of the point-now? If perception itself takes time, then how can it cut time except in time, which means, not at a now. But if, on the other hand, perception as the activity of the faculty of sensation (On the Soul II 5,12) is, like all actuality, essentially not in time (though it can be accompanied by time), then what does it have to do with the now which makes the temporal cut? What Aristotle says of the activity of pleasure exemplifies this problem: "It is a kind of whole in the now" (Nie. Eth. 1174 b 9; a 14). 17 Is this psychic now which is capable of atemporal substantial fulness formally identical with the now of physical time? Similarly for perception: What is perceived in the soul's now is the atemporal actuality of the object-the .soul perceives its form through the sensing of its shape. How then can the soul simultaneously perceive the partless point-now of the mobile's temporal extension? Aristotle does not say. He does indeed try to make provision for the perception of lengths of time (see below, 3). But even then it will not be clear how the soul cuts time, and this is a crucial difficulty since "time is what is determined by the now" (Phys. 219 a 30). It is this difficulty which later philosophers solve by taking time into the soul so that the now becomes identical with its noting. When the soul has pronounced "now" twice (however it does so), namely before and after a motion-stretch, we say that a certain time has passed (219 a 28). Since time is that by which motion has number, it must be possible to count the stretch between the termini, which requires reference to a standard measure. We have, as was shown, such universal measures given us by the heavenly spheres: days by the revolution of the starry sphere, years and seasons by the sun, months by the moon. With these natural passages and their more minute subdivisions we compare the stretch of time and, counting the bounding nows-for the now corresponds to the unit in number (221 a 16)-we count the substretches which they mark off. There is no time without soul, for time arises where countable motion is actually counted, and only a soul, by means of the perceptive intellect (nous) can count (223 a 23 ff.). What, then, is counting? We must cast loose completely from latter-day Kantian notion that counting is the articulation of an inner stream of consciousness, an internal time-flux. The soul, for Aristotle, has no original psychic time because it has no one continuous underlying flow or motion; nor does thought run through or touch on a continuum as it counts: "The motion of reason is not a continuum and in an underlying matter, as is that of a moving thing" (On Invisible Lines 969 a 32). When the soul thinks time it does not actually run through the temporal continuum but takes its sections atomically, as it thinks its successive thoughts discretely, like numbers(On the Soul 430 b 7, 407 a 9). . The soul, locomotive, affective, or rational, cannot well be said to be in physical motion (408 a 34 ff.). 18 But in some 76 other manner, never quite defined, it must be spoken ot as moving. For example, thinking is motion for "without continuity and time it is impossible for us to think even those things which are not in time" (On Memory 450 a 8). Coming to know is a motion for it requires experience, repeated and remembered perceptions through which the universal is suddenly established (Post. An. 100 a 3 ff.). The attaining of a good condition takes time, for the human intellect, being composite, needs a continuous approach to perfection (Met. 1075 a 9). So there are psychic motions, but they are discontinuous, in fact in two ways: Motion is not always present and each motion proceeds discretely. I think it can be shown that the human soul does have an everpresentness, namely its first actuality, analogous to the un.intermittent thought of the pure intellect, but it is not the continuity of an ever-advancing, ever-incomplete homogeneous flux. The continuity of time is entirely external and physical. Its source is the heavenly local motion with which the intermittent inner motion of the soul has only this in common-that it, too, must be in a strict sense achronic; for how, without infinite regress, will the soul count its own counting?l9 3. MEMORY Without the now, then, there is no time, and no t;.,,e without a now (219 b 34), but as we have seen, then. .s not a part of time. Indeed its mode of being is quite ditrerent from that of time, which is to say that it comes under a different category. Time belongs to the category of "how great" or quantity; the now belongs to the category of "when" (Cat. 2 a 2, 11 b 12) along with "yesterday" and "tomorrow." Except for an isolated chapter on the usage of "when" words, nothing is said of this latter category in the Physics nor is it elucidated in the Categories. This most significant and strange disjunction of time and the now is implied by Aristotle's problematic theory of the role duration plays in perception and perceptible being: The perceptive intellect comes into contact with the continuously moving physical world always at a here and a now; the here may stay put, but the now passes on along with the motion, and from that, derivatively, arises the perception of time. But the now has another relation to time besides generating its perception: Each present now forms an impenetrable limit between all the nows that have passed and all the nows that are to come (234 a 1). Or perhaps since there are, strictly speaking, no past and future nows, one should say that the now separates time before from time after. Therefore there is a past-or rather, we humans have a past (as do certain animals, On Mem. 450 a 15). The inanimate physical world has no past or future, although it has a before-and-after, which simply means that it is in a prior or a posterior phase of its approach to being. Nor has r ~ a _ past, for having no sensory perception he has no nL _ 1 How then is it possible for us to have a past, that is to SUMMER 198l �say, passed nows? Aristotle deals with this most humanly soul, resulting from the activity of perception, by which we have images (On the Soul 429 a 3). No human being, as interesting of temporal problems, the triune character of the category "when," in the brilliant little essay On Mema composite of matter and form, can think without images; ory and Recollection. We know even beforehand that we for example, one cannot do geometry without at least internal diagrams. For the image is an accommodation of must have a capacity for retaining nows drained of present material objects to the thinking soul, a holding of their perception. Without such an ability we could not tell time, since we could not interpret what we had counted up. Nor form and their continuity without their matter; the human could we learn, since we could accumulate no experience. intellect needs this form to go to work (On Mem. 450 b 31 For it is many memories which make one experience, and - ff.). memory is of past perception (Post. An. 100 a 4). Memory and imagination, then, both belong to the About the three "whens" Aristotle says succinctly: "Of same part of the soul, that "primary organ" of perception what is present, there is perception, of what is to come, which receives deliverances incidental and common to all expectation, of what has been, memory" (On Mem. 449 b the senses, namely magnitude, motion, and, consequently, time (450 a 8 ff., On the Soul 425 a 14 ff.). Memory is the 28). The present (pciron, being-at-hand) is the perceptionaffection of this power when time has gone by (On Mem. filled now. It is immediate: Of the now in the now there . 449 b 26), a kind of perception perpetuated past its cause. can be no memory (449 b 26). Enough has been said of it. All things imaginable can be remembered (450 a 24); indeed it is hard to think what sense-derived image would Heidegger will subject it to a fundamental critique. It is the imagination which makes the two non-present not be, strictly speaking, a memory, since all images arise phases of time possible. The future arises when the soul, from perception as soon as the actual sensing in the sense organ has ceased. in present deliberation about what is to be, projects images (On the Soul 431 b 8). Aristotle observes that we appear to Only what is no longer present can be remembered. But face into the future since the before of the past is more how is that possible? Aristotle never tells hows imagining works, except by analogy. He likens a memory-image to a remote from the now than the after, while the before of the future is closer (Phys. 223 a 9). But beyond that he seal impression, a simile which expresses the crux of his treats the future mostly from the logical point of view, askdifficulty: Imaging compounds the mystery of perception: ing what it might mean to speak now the truth about what how can a material somatic organ receive the physical obwill be. For if futural assertions are always either true or ject extendedly and yet immaterially (On the Soul 424 a 18 false, just like assertions about past and present, then conff., 427 b 29 ff.)-and then hold it through time ready for recovery? tingency and chance are excluded-the future is determinate. But that cannot be, since both human choice and the But he does tell what it means to be an image. The memvagaries of matter work to make future events contingent. ory recovers the perceptual trace or memory-image in the So while it is certainly necessary that tomorrow there must soul. However it is not the image we remember but the be a seafight or not, it is impossible to say which of these is thing itself, and therein lies a problem. Aristotle resolves it the case (On lnterp. 9). Therefore, in order to judge of fu. by pointing out that· that is just what it means to be an ture propositions, one must know which things will be by image: to be all in one an affection present in the soul and necessity (either because they are part of a necessary cycle a likeness of an object, just as a picture is before us both as of becoming, Post. An. 95 b 38 ff., or because they are ala physical object and as a likeness of a person. Aristotle is ways or never), and what things are within human choice. here prefiguring one of Husserl's central conceptions, that Then one can say either "it will be" or "it is expected" (to of "intentionality," which is the defining characteristic of esti, to mellon, Coming to Be 337 b 3 ff.), knowing that · consciousness as always consciousness of something. these sentences really refer to two different futures-the We have a past, then, by virture of memory, and we foreknown and the merely anticipated. have memory by virtue of our threefold receptive power. But Aristotle never intimates that there is anything in These are its facets: 1. perception (aisthesis), which is rethe future as future, some innovation or fulfillment to be sponsible for the actual present sensory event; 2. imaginacredited to mere futurity. What will be necessarily in the tion (phantasia), which is the capability of being affected by the continuities of place and motion abstracted from future is what has already always been (Note 13). Even human affairs run· in cyCles: "It is likely that art and philosotheir matter; and 3. memory (mneme), which permits rephy have often been discovered as far as possible and pertention of images and their revival together with an awareished again" (l<.Jet. 1074 b 11). So the future is of no great ness of the time elapsed since perception (452 b 23). Arisinterest to him. It will be otherwise with Augustine to totle supplies a not quite intelligible explanation of how whom prophecy, as the foreknowledge of the apparently such elapsed times are gauged (452 b 7 ff.): Just as one esticontingent, is a serious matter, and with Heidegger for mates a great external object not by actually reaching for it · whom the future will become the spring of time itself. but by representing it in a proportionate figure in the field It is the past which Aristotle treats most significantly. of the imagination, so one does not actually go back a long There is a past because there is memory and memory is a time to estimate the age of a memory-image, but one repmode of the imagination. There is a kind of motion in the resents it proportionately in a speeded-up motion-for exTHE ST. JOHNS REVIEW 77 �ample, by running through a decade in a second. What is hard to see is how such a scaling of time can given more than a very impressionistic comparative judgement of its length, since temporal extent cannot be panoramically surveyed in the imagination-for it does not appear-so as to give some sense of a scaling factor. As I have said, the chief difficulty in Aristotle's account of time is his insistence that duration itself can be perceived and imaged. Aristotle, nonetheless, summarizes: "Only those animate beings who perceive time remember, and by that part by which they perceive time" (449 b 29). This might seem to be a circular outcome: We have a past, because we have memory and memory because we have a sense of passed time. Yet with all its difficulties it sets the terms for future debate-the past can be only for animate beings who have an imagination with a temporal dimension, that is, memory. What is entirely missing in Aristotle's founding account is any sense that our triple temporality is humanly significant. The reason for this omission is that not time but timeless actuality is life in the full sense. This view is plainly expressed in this passage from the Nichomachean Ethics, which may serve as an epigraph: · Pleasant is the activity of the present, the hope of what is to come, the memory of what has been. But what is truly pleasant and lovable in these is their being in the way of actuality. (IX 1168 a 13] * * * The vulnerable places in this magnificently detailed and dovetailed theory of time which can be culled from Aristotle's various works are patent. They occur, I have argued, at its outer and its inner termini: the continuous celestial revolution which is the cause of all motion and the perceptual now, which is the point of tangency of natural motion and the soul. Happily the central thesis, the reduction of time to an affection of motion, is not, I think, exclusively bound into Aristotle's terms. (See Sec. YI 2.) Before going on to Augustine, who fully makes good Aristotle's lack of temporal pathos, let me at least refer to the intervening grand psycho-cosmological theory of the Neoplatonist Plotinus. (It is briefly sketched in No~e 20.). III. AUGUSTINE: TIME AS THE "DISTENTION" OF THE SOUL Time and the soul's temporality is transfigured in acreated world. Augustine bums with curiosity, expressed in ardent language, to know how the temporal human creature can reach beyond creation to the creator so as to find God's will "before" the world. He begins by throwing out an impetuous barrage of time quandaries and reflecti ') (Confessions, XI 14-19). What is time? How can there ht d ·past when what is gone is now no longer and what will be is not yet? And yet, did the present not pass, it would be eternity. Again, how can I say that is, whose cause of being is that it shall be? And how can I measure times when those gone are no longer and those to come are not yet available? If I do it, it must be while it is passing. But then what of the "three times" -how can I preserve them concurrently? Augustine thus begins, in some faith of getting satisfaction, with just those questions which Aristotle cites as perplexities arising from the error of giving time substantial being. In the course of his passionate inquiry some truths do come clear to Augustine. He thinks he can affirm boldly that if nothing were passing there would be no past time; if nothing were coming, no future; if nothing were, no present. So there must be a motion of the world; God's creation has passage. Further he sees that he always faces time: It does not come up from behind and out of the past, and he cannot, like Aristotle, go along with it, but it comes toward him from the future. As Aristotle, in Greek, calls the past "that which has become" (gen6menon), so Augustine calls it what has gone by (praeteritum). For there is a real future, not merely a necessitating cycliCal return, but events-to-be, contingent to human apprehension, yet revealed to the prophets through God's omniscience. A real future is the human consequence of God's foreknowledge. However he approaches the perplexity, Augustine j s sure of this-and here begin his wonderful resolutior ) that past, present, and future, wherever they are to ~i found, are only as present (20). There are not, properly speaking, three times (Aristotle's "whens"} called past, present, and future. Rather there is "a present of what is past, a present of what is present, and a present of the future." Such three are indeed in our soul (anima) and elsewhere I do not see them. The present of what has gone by is memory, the present of what is present, eyewitness (contuitus), the present of what is future, expectation. [20) Augustine is not describing an Aristotelian faculty for sensing what is before us, for reviving images with their accrued times and for projecting them in planning. He is speaking of time itself, and he is placing it within the human soul. The problem of measuring this psychic time leads him on (21-22). His mind "is set afire" by it, by the burning perplexity of the dispersal of time into its three phaseshow to lay them together for comparison, in what space, in what dimension to do the measuring. For time is not the measure of a motion but what is itself to be measured: While the sun stood still, time yet went on for Joshua. · "New," he exclaims, .. is the discovery of these things!" The discovery is this: "In you, my mind (animus), do I mea- . sure my times" (27). Times can be measured in the mind ) 78 SUMMER 1983 �because they are co-present there, and hence comparable. Thus is resolved the great puzzle of primary time measurement: ml1ike a length of space whose rigid measure can be transported intact and made congruent with another length, times and their measures flow away and are incapable of superimposition. (One must keep in mind that clocks measure and compare times only derivatively, through motion.): But in the soul times do coexist. The soul's collection of all times into its present proceeds, I infer, as follows. Worldly motion passes, so to speak, under the attentively apprehending soul. The soul perceives each moment as it goes past and absorbs it into its own temporal dimension, its memory. Thus the now remains fixed in its context but sinks ever further down as new moments of motion are perceived. At the same time that the soul remembers, and at the same juncture of the world's motion and the soul's present, it also expects. The difference between remembering and expecting is only this, that whereas present moments drop into memory, fu. ture moments drop, as it were, out of the dimension of expectation into the world. The future, therefore, is not a long time, for it is not, but the long future time is merely a long expectation of the future. Nor is the time past a long time, for it is not; but a long past time is merely a long memory of past time. [28] Augustine has referred to this co-temporaneity of the times as being in the mind. But now he goes further. Time is the dimension of the soul. Here is how Augustine putS it: " ... It seems to me that time is nothing else but a stretching out in length," [distentio is his word] "but of what I know not, and I marvel if it be not of the very mind" (26). Note that here time is not in the mind but it is the mind, or rather the dimension of the mind: The soul is the "space of time," that is to say it is drawn out into a temporal longitude along which memories, perception, and expectations are copresently arrayed. This "distention" can therefore be visualized as a kind of vertical elongation, an ordinate in a diagram. The horizontal axis represents the world's motion coming from the future towards the soul's "eyewitness." That moment is the origin, the perceptual present, where the soul's "distention" intersects, or sits astride, the world's motion and turns its sensation-events into memory images. These con· tinually drop down, preserving the order of entry, into the memory segment of the soul's distention, falling deeper with every passing moment. At the same juncture expectation or foreknowledge is drawn down from the upper segment to meet the real moment, to become realized in a perceptual present. The whole ordinate, the expectation and memory segment joined in the point of perception, constitutes the soul's triune present. The diagram expresses three significant elements of Augustine's temporality. First, since time is the soul's ver· tical dimension, the world's horizontal axis is timeless. It is Expectation (Future) Past (memory) indeed implicit in Augustine's understanding that the external creation has events but no temporal succession; it is the world as God sees it, all at once. It is the "standing now" (11) which becomes fluid only to the finite creature: Whatever God doth, it shall be forever .... That which hath been is now, and what is to be hath already been, and God requireth what is to be. [Ecclesiastes iii H-15] Second is the real futurity of the projections and previsions of the expectation segment; prophesies, as Godgiven visions of what is to be, meet their own realizations in the world, when the moment of their juncture with it arrives. Finally, the diagram points to the plenitude of memory for Augustine. He has indeed already devoted a most beautiful book (X) to its power, its "ample and infinite inward· ness (penetrale)," its "fields and spacious palaces," whence he can make present to himself by their images things he has seen and learned, including himself as he was, and which he traverses to come to God (8, 9, 17, 25). Augustine's passionate interest in temporality has its reason in his faith. He wants to discover the condition under which a temporally diS"persed being can approa<:h union with God. Having collected time from what might be called its horizontal extension into the vertical dimension representing the cotemporaneity of the phases of time, he has achieved a human present which is analogous to God's "standing now." But he prays further that his soul's stretching apart, its "distention"-William Watt's vivid translation of 1631 says "distraction" (Loeb}-should be gathered in, so that he might be not stretched apart in time (distentus} but stretched forth (extentus), not. in distraction (securidum distentionem) but in concentration (se.. cundum intentionem) toward the delights of the eternal father "which are neither to come nor to pass away" (29). This "extention" out of and beyond the world is represented by the third dimension in the diagram. 79 1liE ST. JOHNS REVIEW ' �Temporality, then, is the wordly dimension of the created soul, namely its capacity for taking in and containing the world, that is, was, and will be. And so time is also the soul's "distraction." HUS.SERL: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF TIME Husserl's abstruse, intricate, and subtle description of the sense of time, The Phenomenology of Internal TimeConsciousness, begins with the praise of Augustine as the unsurpassed master of the problem of time. Indeed, Augustine's "distention" furnishes Husserl with his guiding schema, and Husserl may be-regarded as Augustine's expositor, with this difference: Husserl's analysis is intended to require no act of faith or philosophical thesis at all since he aims to write a phenomenology, a presuppositionless description of the phenomena of temporality and of temporal appearances. He therefore requires a rigorous "abstention" from all substantializing assumptions. He suppresses what might be called ontological greed, not in order to gaze about aesthetically, but to develop a penetrating analytic insight into the deep constituting structures of phenomena seen as phenomena, namely as they appear to consciousness. To put time before oneself strictly as a phenomenon hence requires the exclusion of objective or world time insofar as its existence is posited, and a transfer of attention to the fundamental phenomenon of immanent time, the flow of consciousness from now to now. This flow is the "temporally constitutive flux," the "originary" stream, in which temporal phenomena and, remarkably, the consciousness of time itself are simultaneously constituted (par. 39). In the end, to be sure, this flux is interpreted as consciousne!;s itself, as absolute subjectivity or self (36). But that is a leap beyond simple phenomenology, forced by the irrepressible human need for more than merely descriptive accounts. The early section, entitled "The Analysis of TimeConsciousness," is, however, rigorously phenomenological, and from it I shall sketch some findings: apt new coinages, illuminating discriminations, and, as the centerpiece, a diagrammatic synthesis of the elements found in the · analysis. 1. RETENTION Although each now is a source of fresh perception and the spring of the living present, temporally enduring objects are not perceived in a pointillistic mode, but in longer presences. This is a fact of temporal phenomena seen as phenomena. They have enduring_presence, even though the flux of time has an instantaneous leading edge. (To overcome the perplexity associated with this observation, 80 which Aristotle had left unresolved, namely how anythinb can be perceived in the partless point-now, the so-called . "specious present," an unintelligible notion of a finite, enduring now, had been introduced,21 but Husserl admits no such constructs.) How is an appearance, say of a melody, which develops over time as a unified object, to be understood? The term "intentionality" was mentioned in reference to Aristotle's understanding of the memory-image as an image of a thing. Husserl develops intentionality into an indispensable element in the description of consciousness. Consciousness is always also consciousness of something: it is always intentional. "Truly ... it pertains to the essence of the intuition of time that in every point of its du· ration ... it is consciousness of what has just been and not mere consciousness of the now-point of the objective thing ... " (12). Every now-consciousness is also a yetconsciousness, like a comet's tail of a previous perception. ·Thus besides the veritable perception, the content present in consciousness in its own right, there is also a consciousness of the time gone by-not a faded perception but something quite different: a past tone present as a past tone. This mode is distinct from ordinary memory, and Husserl calls it retention, or primary memory. It is the consciousness in the present of what has just been, discovered through the analysis of the phenomenal fact that an experience has duration within the immediately superseded now. Every present impressional consciousness "sha· ) off' into an everfresh retentional consciousness of ti •., temporal object's immediate past. But when the spring of tonal impressions gives out, the melody is over and sinks back to a vanishing point, passing into ordinary, or secondary, memory. Secondary memory is distinguished from primary, or retentive, memory by these features: Perception has the distinguishing character of "self-givenness" which means that it stands there, uncalled-for, in its own right. So too is "originary" time-consciousness self-given, for one cannot inhibit time's running-off. What we can do is to re-produce or re-present sections of temporal experience. Husserl employs the term "representification" (Vergegenwaertigung), "making present again" (Appendix II). Retention, then, yields the immediate past which is present; memory yields the remoter past which must be made present again. Husserl makes numerous other acute observations about memory phenomena (See Note 22). Memory is a mode which posits, that is to say, requires, a previous perception. The intentional reaching for the past is fulfilled in the presentification of a perception which is no longer self-given. The phenomenon of memory as a whole is precisely that of a present givenness of the past as past-but it is no longer a question for phenomenology how the past can be. Thus the present is characterized by perception, the past by an "intention" or a reaching for a previous percPl"\tion, and the future by a "protention," that is, an exp( ~1 SUMMER 1983 �tion of fulfillment in a perception to come. Protention is therefore inverted memory: Perception succeeds proten· tion but precedes memory (24-28). 2. THE DIAGRAM OF TIME Husserl's famous "Diagram of Time" (10) displays the phenomena of these three phases of time in their conjunction with the phenomenon of the "running off' or coursing of time in a coordinate schema which had been suggested by William James (Ch. XVII, end). One might say that it accomplishes the junction of Aristotle's two distinct categories of "when" and of "how much," or duration. Husserl is careful to state that the diagram is not a repre- sentation of objects as they appear in time, that is, of temporal appearances, but rather of the phenomenon of temporality itself. Here is an elaborated composite version of Husserl's schemata: +f' ' •' ' I \. I .I \ \ I '' I _:._~L---~~~ ~ - f ' ~,- - - - - - - - I '' \ '' \ \ I I \~ P" I I I The horizontal axis represents the originary flux of now points in consciousness. E is the now. PE is the span of the temporal flux of one temporally perceived object, for example, a melody, and it is therefore one retentional episode whose beginning was at P. 0 is some now before the initial now of the melody and belongs to the time of an event now past. Fis a future now. The oblique lines PP', 00' represent the "shading off' or "sinking away" into memory of the consciousness of P THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW and 0 as the perception-filled now has advanced to E. The line FF' represents a protention to be fulfilled in a coming perception at F. The vertical axis F'EP'O' stands for Augustine's "distention" of the mind, namely present consciousness encompassing perception, memories, and expectation. lrito it flow the oblique parallel memory and protention lines which fix past events and future expectations into the .memory and expectation order of the present. The present therefore contains a continuous and unperturbable time-order; the latter feature is schematically guaranteed by the parallelism of the oblique Jines. EP' is the present retentional memory of the temporctl event-object which occurred over PE. The triangle PEP' js the whole melodic episode in its "double continuity": the horizontal line represents the continuous flux of ever new perceptual nows, while the broadening triangular surface composed of parallel paths which fall out, as it were, from the flux, stands for the continuous memory lines of past nows feed· ing into the present memory. . The horizontal through P marks a variable threshold between retention and secondary memory, below which the melody would have outlasted the retentiona] span of that consciousness and would cease to be a unified temporal object. When F is now, the melody will have to be deliberately or spontaneously recaUed, being by then a secondary memory at P. . Husserl's diagram differs from tlie schema I have drawn for Augustine in that the horizontal axis of the former stands for the internal temporal flux rather than for the external motion of the world. Husserl regards that inner flux as the fundamental temporal phenomenon; an external time-consciousness would be for him a contradiction in terms, because to be conscious of a phenomenon temporally is just to constitute the temporal flux in consciousness. Therefore Husserl uses one time coordinate to represent the simultaneous presence of all the phases of time in consciousness and another to stand for the advancing temporal flux whose front is the now-consciousness. But whether this flux is really a primary phenomenon is just the question. (See Sec. VI 1.) • • • Aristotle's understanding of time as the number of motion counted by the soul follows from his theory of motion as actualization. Augustine's view of time as the dimensionality of the soul follows from his desire to relate the three phases of human temporality to the eternity of the . Creator. Kant's theory of time will serve to ground the new science of dynamics, particularly its causal relations. Insofar as the temporal relations of nature are contributed by a faculty of the soul, its formative ·sensibility, Kant is Augustine's heir, but it wiU be more interesting to see his theory in terms of an antithesis to Aristotle. 81 �IV. KANT: TIME AS INNER SENSE I. INNER SENSE The first and all-determining discovery Kant presents in the Critique of Pure Reason is a truly revolutionary understanding of what it means to sense ("Transcendental Aesthetic"). Recall that Aristotle had said that time is sensed, or better, perceived, in the primary sensory organ, because whatever is sensible also has duration. Now Kant claims that time is not sensed but is the form of sense. That means that the sensibility is not only a receptive but also a formative faculty; and the first form it gives sensation is temporal form. What is behind this claim? The immediate purpose of the Critique is the grounding of the knowledge of nature, above all of the new science of motion, Newtonian physics. "Grounding" means setting out the conditions of possibility of such a science, which guarantee its necessity and its universality-which make it certain. Aristotelian physics was the science of individual motions by which an indeterminate material, which is only potentially, is formed into an independent, fully actual, natural substance. Newtonian science, in stark contrast, studies the motion of a system of bodies homogeneously constitu.ted of massy matter and moving inertially through space unless deflected by interactions with other masses, interactions which are governed by universal mathematical laws of force. For the former, time was the counting of the actualizing motion, for the latter it is the independent variable in the expression of natural laws. Kant assumes that knowledge of this system of nature requires the cooperation of two faculties. One is active, law-giving, spontaneous (which means that it originates with the human subject itself); it is the thinking function, and the faculty is called the understanding. The other is a receptive power which must be affected by something given to it from outside; it is the sensibility. The latter is needed because human thinking is for Kant purely formal, that is to say, it has a merely rule-s.u pplying function. Therefore it is incapable of conceiving its own objects of thought without being supplied with matter; for it to try to do so would be like a hand grasping its own grasp-less than an empty form. Therefore, thinking requires that a material be given to it, and the faculty in which such givens are received as representations-since Kant con· siders everything before consciousness at all a representa· tion-is precisely the sensibility (B 33). Kant also calls this receptive faculty the intuition, and he applies that same term to the original pure content which he ascribes to it and into which sensory affection is received. Now all physical experience in fact occurs in terms of space and time, and these are understood to be the pri· mary dimensions of physics. Therefore, if it is to be a cer· tain science, there must be neither absolute, independent, 82 external substances in space nor adventitious develop· ments through time. For both of these could be known only a~er the fact of experience, and that means they could not be known necessarily or universally. The only knowledge which can be certain is that which is condi· tioned from the beginning through the observer himselfwhich is, in Kant's term, a priori. Therefore, not only the conceptual side of physics but also the invariable components of its sensory aspect, namely space and time, must proceed from the knower. Accordingly Kant assigns to him an original formative re· ceptivity-on the face of it a contradiction in terms, but an unavoidable one. This actively receptive capacity is Janus· . faced. One face is turned outward and shapes sense material into spatial configurations; the other looks inward and forms what it receives into temporal sequences. The sen~i· bility, then, is dual; it has an inner and an outer sense. Kant presents the outer sense first, significantly, as it turns out. This sense receives in the mode of outsideness, in two meanings of the word. First it receives those sensations which are alien and adventitious, which come to us as they will from outside ourselves. But then it also re· ceives them in the mode of outsideness, of extemality, namely as spatially extensive. The outer sense is therefore the reason why external sensations always assume spatial form. Furthermore, because the spatial form has inherent formative characteristics, namely those of Euclidean ~ometry, spatial appearances are certain to be amenabk ) geometric treatment. Hence the outer sense guarantees the applicability of mathematics to science. The inner sense, on the other hand, faces toward the innermost parts, the very subject or referrent of all representations, the Self. The inner sense receives the self as if it too were a given, namely as it presents -itself to its own intuition. Within the ·inner sense the subject itself becomes, by definition, an appearance, for whatever the sen· sibility receives and forms is called an appearance. The inner sense is called time. It is not that time is an inner sense, but that the inner sense, and the self appearing within it, are temporal in character. In so presenting inner sense Kant is therefore not saying what time is but only why it is the inevitable form every appearance takes. Nevertheless, a new understanding of the nature of time will come out of Kant's discovery, one aspect of which has already emerged: Contrary to Aristotle, for whom time is not an affection of motion, Kant will argue that motion itself is possible only under the form of inner sense. Indeed it is only under the form of temporality that motion is even conceivable for Kant, since it is only the succession of time which fluidifies the law of contradiction so that opposite predicates can, at different times, belong to the same ob· · ject-that being the much reduced post-Aristotelian con· cept of motion (B 48). But why is the inner sense given the name of time? And what does it mean to say that the self appears withir' . ~. ) The paradoxical fact that the self, the ultimate subjec SUMMER 1983 �representations, is somehow also an appearance to itself is taken as given, and, Kant says, is equally a mystery in all theories (B 68, 152). But to learn how it happens we go to that part of the Critique which deals with thinking ("Tran· scendental Deduction"). 2. UNDERSTANDING All conceiving is steadfastly accompanied- by an "I think," a kind of pervasive prefix to all thinking, which is, however, purely formal in that it adds nothing to what I think. Furthermore, the prefix tells me at most that I am but never what I am (B 157). Kant calls this consciousness "apperception," a term that had . previously meant self. consciousness. He, however, indicates by the term not self-knowing but only the inmost subject or self of a rational being, the ultimate knower. The apperception is "transendental," which in Kantian terminology means that it is a faculty, not an object. So Kant does not mean that the self is self-conscious in the sense of having itself as an object; it is not, like Aristotle's pure intellect, thought thinking itself. Nor is the self my self; indeed its self-hood is not in the ordinary sense personal. The self might as well be an "it" (B 404), for it is simply the hidden subject underlying all thinking func· tions. (Heidegger will criticize the lack of "my-ownness" in the Kantian self.) Moreover, the transcendental subject cannot be known to itself, because its strictly formal, that is, rule-giving thinking functions cannot, by their very character, become objects of thought to themselves (A 402). Collectively these conceiving functions (the word "function" is taken statically, as in mathematics) are called the understanding, which is therefore the self as it is diversified into certain definite enumerable functions or "categories." Each of these accomplishes certain syntheses or unifications proper to itself. Besides these operations the categories are nothing and mean nothing. What do they synthesize? Sensible givenness is assumed to be in its very nature manifold, spread out, various. Accordingly, the sensibility must be capable of receiving such a manifold. In the case of the outer sense there must be ready a transcendental space for its reception. This sense therefore contains a "pure manifold," the pure intuition mentioned above, which is the form-giving content affected by sensationthe pure space of geometry itself. The nature of this pure content of inner sense will be addressed presently. It is this pure content of the sensibility that is unified, or determined, or structured by the understanding in definite ways, as many ways as there are concept-categories. What the understanding determines first is the content closest to it, so to speak, namely that of the inner sense. That is how the thinking functions first obtain their required object, although a pure, not a sensory one. rnE ST. JOHNS REVIEW Objects represented in the sensibility and unified by the understanding are called phenomena or appearances (A -429 ff.). Kant claims that when the pure content of inner sense is determined by thinking, the resulting appearance is that of the apperceiving subject itself. Kant takes the word appearance seriously-only that which is not itself on the scene can have appearances. So the self, which cannot know itself in itself, appears in the inner sense, and since every appearance is an appearance for the subject, the self appears to itself. The primary example of self-appearance is the act of attention, in which thinking, having determined the inner sense according to laws of connection contained in the categories, appears as a succession of moments (B 155)-our ordinary awareness of the now-succession. The transcendental self, then, the inaccessible rational source of thinking, can determine another part of the soul, and though it cannotJmow itself, it can at least represent itself to itself as an appearance. Note; however, that the situation is peculiar in that the self can hardly be said to affect the sensibility as sensory material could affect it: it cannot materially fill but only determine or unify the inner sense. The motive for establishing an inner sense is, on the face of it, to ground the temporal or causal dimension of physics, but its deeper role is that of providing for self. appearance. The reason why this sense, or rather its content, is identified with time now emerges. This content is the steady, unceasing, underlying flow which we always come to in self-inspection: "Time does not pass away but in it passes the existence of what is changeable." Time it· self is unchangeable and permanent (B 183), for it is the original flux-content of the inner sense itself; it is this flux· content which our thinking determines and structures. The thought-determined inner sense is consciousness, , but it is emphatically not self-consciousness in the sense of self-knowledge, since the self has not affected the inner ' self so as to produce the kind of real knowledge Kant calls experience. For experience requires more than that the subject should work on itself: it requires a material object (where "material" refers not to physical matter but to a real sensory content). 3. IMAGINATION The configurations to which thinking determines the inner sense are the work of that most central power, "an art hidden in the depth of the human soul" (B 181), the imagination. For ~ristotle, the activity of the imagination, identical with that of the primary sensorium, is not hidden in the depth at all; it is, in fact, on the interface of soul and nature and has a physical base. Kant rightly considers his discovery of the original contribution of the transcendental imagination quite new (A 120 n.). For him thinking and sensing are too heterogeneous to come.! together without 83 �some intermediate agency; it is the imagination which is the meeting ground of the two. It performs what Kant calls a "figurative" synthesis (B 154), which produces schemata through which thinking can determine sense and accomplish the mystery of empty, meaningless thought interpenetrating with pure inner flux. The schemata are essentially rules for sensualizing concepts or, equally, conceptualizing sense content. The imagination makes time thinkable or, as we have seen, conscious. But much more importantly, it does the inverse: it makes thought temporal. Here are just two examples of the schemata which are the work of the imagination. (Oddly, and significantly, this work is always presented as picture or figure-making, although it is supposed to be primarily temporal.) l. The inner flux, the pure intuition of time, is, as was said, assumed to be an even, primary flow. (Recalling that Kant's project is the grounding of Newtonian physics we can recognize in this flux the internalization of Newton's equably flowing absolute world time.) Kant calls it the pure picture of quantity, applicable to all objects in general. The first schema or conceptualization of this continuous forward flow of inner quantity is number. Number is the imaginative scheme of a countable succession of units, that is, of articulated, measured internal duration. In cotmting, the understanding is continually unifying the undifferentiatedly fluid manifold of pure Time, and generating pure, conscious, temporal succession, or the pure sense of passing: counting is not so different from the pulsing of mere consciousness itself. (The spatial analogue to the difference between Time as flux and conceptdetermined time would be that between Space as a whole and measured space.) 2. Another imaginative configuration brings toge~her pure inner intuition with the concept of necessary connection in the schema of before-and-afte.r. Thus is added to conscious advancing time a necessary, unperturbable time-order, the ground, for Kant, of the principle of cause and effect in nature. All the schemata together-there are as many as the understanding has concepts-circumscribe thoughtinformed temporal flux, or speaking more familiarly, temporal thinking. It was, after all, to be expected that when the rational self cast itself into inner sense to become an appearance the result should be thinking in time. What are its features? 4. TIME AND SPACE For Aristotle, the external world with its continuity of places defined by movable substances is clearly prior to being in time, which is merely the countable aspect of motion. Kant, on the other hand, at first, at least, presents time as the sense of senses, the first formal condition of all ap- 84 pearing objects in general, both self and nature. Time -. ceives all representations, everything which is there for consciousness at all; it is the ultimate relating receptacle and the condition of all connectedness. Space, on the other hand, is the condition of outer appearance, namely of nature, only (A 99, B 177). The reason is that time belongs immediately to the soul and is the place of consciousness itself, while space must wait to receive material from the outside. But then, in a crucial section added to the second edition of the Critique, the "Refutation of Idealism" (B 274279), Kant totally inverts his new order in a doctrine surprising in the context but also quite unavoidable. Space is again the condition of temporal experience. In the "Refutation" Kant explicitly aims to prove that mere consciousness of one's own existence-thoughtdetermined inner sense-proves, in being affected by outer sense, the real existence of external objects in space. Implicitly, however, he shows that objects in space are the necessary condition of self-experience. The internal flux of unfocussed attention, he argues, is absolutely featureless, indeterminate, a mere fugitiveness . To determine time and give it steadiness it must be projected on something permanent; it must be represented in terms of perceived permanence in space. Spatial appearances seem to stay put while time has no aspect that stands but its flux itself. Time supports only the alteration of determinations, but no determinate steady object: · . the soul "everything is in continual flux" (A 381). Tht. ) fore the representation of time is always spatial; if time is to appear at all it must be in a spatial form, most appropriately as a one-dimensional straight line (B 156): Time appears as space reduced by two dimensions. It is now also clear why the self cannot really properly appear in time. The inner intuition admits no material affection except through space. (Indeed, it is only this geometrization of appearing time which makes possible the primary measurement of physical motion, namely velocity. For velocity is conceivable only as a ratio of homogeneous magnitudes, namely space lengths and time lengths. But as I said, that means that time, insofar as it is apprehensible at all, which is to say, insofar as it is representable, is only a dimension abstracted from space: Bergson has a point when he accuses Kant of confusing time with space (Essay, "Conclusion"). Yet more follows: There can be no full consciousness without the appearances of three-dimensional externality. For the linear representation of the determinate inner sense, while it may be formally adequate, is also utterly poverty-stricken and unrevealing (Foundations of the Metaphysics of Nature, Preface). T9 appear to itself, the self must put the inner sense in the way of spatial appearances which then represent to it ·its own formative powers and that of its sensibility. The system of such revealing thought-informed spatio-temporal appearances Kant calls nature and its science is Newtonian physics. ·· \ SUMMER 1983 �Inner experience is, then, only mediately possible through space. That is why, I think, space is treated before time in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" and why the imagination is fundamentally figurative. Time·began as the formal (or better, formative) condition of all appearance whatsoever, but space turns out to be the condition of the appearance of time. A self having only an inner sense would have no representations of itself at all. If it were conscious it would be conscious of nothing; it would be at most a forever-idle capability of a possible experience. 5. TEMPORAL TillNKING To recapitulate: 1. Self.consciousness: Of the self which underlies all thinking and sensing there is no knowledge. There is no immediate representation of it; it cannot become an object to itself beyond the indication given in the universal prefix "I think." There is therefore no self. consciousness in the sense of reflective self-knowledge. (It is one of the mysteries of the Critique how any of the re· flective terms necessary to critical analysis of the self obtain their meaning.) 2. Consciousness: Consciousness, awareness, belongs to the thought-determined inner sense, or better, is identical with it. That time is in the soul and that the soul is in time are converse propositions (A 362). Both claims mean that the. self is ready and able to receive an external material. But to be merely aware in this way is no more to know oneself than it is actually to experience an external object. Time, even when determined by thought, yields no formed object but merely the schemata of relations of possible representations within the soul (B 50). It is the mere capacity for thinking objects. 3. Self· experience: If self-knowledge in the reflective sense is impossible to the self, it can yet experience itself, that is, its own powers, in inner sense-but only if that sense is spatially represented and determined by real objects. Then the self can appear to itself as a temporally thinking subject and behold its formative faculties constituting nature. Self-experience begins23 when temporal thinking, namely the time-informed categories, such as number, perma· nence, and causality, is exercised on-spatial material. A great question arises. The explicit motive of the Critique was to find what the human constitution must be if physics is to be a science. From this point of view the temporal sense was established primarily to secure the causal ordering of motion. But is it plausible that Kant's view of the soul should be so altogether a mere consequence of this motive? Indeed, there might well be other ways to ground physical causality than by means of the original flux which, as has been shown, is in itself insufficient to account for self-conscious thought. 24 A deeper reason, · namely Kant's thinking about thought itself, seems to me to be at work. It is best phrased in terms of the conse· quences following from his very modem rejection of Aris· totle. rnE ST. JOHNS REVIEW For Aristotle knowing is a motion of the soul, an actualization, which achieves actuality as the intellect achieves its end and becomes the thing thought. That final activity is true life. For Kant, knowing, as the conceiving of material objects, cannot be such a motion, since motion is itself generated by thinking, when it determines space through time (B 155, note). Nor can it be an activity, for thought is not fulfilled in its object: It simply determines or unifies the manifold and, so to speak, fits itself about the object and constitutes it. Truth is no longer the simple luminous identity of the intellect with its intelligible object, but rather the "adequcition" of thought with the material object (B 82). 25 Therefore Kant's thinking has neither motion nor life; it has no actuating principle. The pure flux of inner sense can now be seen in the light of a deep though inexplicit need. Time is needed to float thought, as it were. It gives thinking a spurious kind of motion, a pseudo-activity. . In themselves the thinking functions are merely empty, static forms; cast on the stream of inner sense they assume fluidity. Time is the animating principle of that kind of thinking which has no end in itself, and the Kcintian temporcility is the substitute for the lost life of thought. "' "' "' Kant's treatment of time is the focus of Heidegger's deep, engaged, but also strained reading· of the first Cri· tique. Heidegger calls this kind of interpretative reading a "recovery" or "repetition" (Wiederholung). It is meant to bring to light the unspoken, and for the author unspeakable, implications of the text. It attempts to reveal not what the author meant and failed to say-an author worth "repeating" is quite able to express himself-but rather the inexorable ultimate outcome implicit in his thought. This interpretation yields very striking-if not quite persuasive-results especially with respect to an aspect of time markedly missing from Kant's account, namely its three phases. Heidegger reconstructs these from the first, superseded version of the Transcendental Deduction. (See Note 26 for a summary of Kant's text with reference to Heidegger's interpretation.) I have just argued that Kant has deep reasons for making time the primary sense, namely to vivify the inert functions of his concepts, but that his almost inadvertent, yet inescapable tendency is the spatialization of time. How· ever, Heidegger, who sees in Kant his predecessor, views the whole critical enterprise as centered on the unexpressed fundamental temporality of the human being. Heidegger understands that hidden art of the imagination, to which Kant assigns the function of temporalizing thinking (or, equivalently, of thought-determining time) as the "temporalizing," the time-origination which is the being of human existence. Kant drew back, as it were, from an opportunity he was not ready for, the possibility of seeing the imagination not as a third and mediating faculty, the 85 �·meeting ground of thought and sense, but as the common root of both. He could not yet abstract from its figurative character to see it as transcendental temporality simply. Kant's failure to explain the "my-0wnness" of the self, together with his inability to see the imagination, the meet· ing ground of self and time, as anything but a mystery are Heidegger's clues to a new understanding of human exis· tence. Heidegger owes debts also to Hegel and Bergson (see Note 27), and most certainly to Augustine (paras. 9, 81 end), who anticipates him in the essential temporality of the human being and in the primacy of the future among the time phases-indeed one might almost call Heidegger a godless Augustine. But he goes beyond all of them, as far as one can go, I think, in the exaltation of time. If for Kant the inner sense is a mysterious mirror. for the unknowable self, for Heidegger time will be the very meaning of being human. The answer to the question ''What is time?" will fall out of the analysis of human existence. V. HEIDEGGER: TEMPORALilY AS THE MEANING OF EXISTENCE 1. ECSTATIC TEMPORALilY Heidegger's starting point in Being and Time is the old question concerning Being. However, he does not ask: What is Being?, since he considers that question a fateful wrong tum into metaphysics. He rather asks: What is the meaning of being?, What makes a being possible?, What is the being (Sein) of Being \Seiendes)? Assuming that there are different beings, he chooses to pursue the question by analyzing the being most expressive of the inquiry itself, the being that exists. To exist means to position oneself beyond oneself so as to understand one's own being. The being that so exists is also the being that is there, that finds itself involved in the world, not merely present in it. It is, further, that being which is in each case mine, which has "each-his-0wnness," in contrast to the unowned Kantian subject. Heidegger names it by the ordinary German term for existence, Dasein, "there-being." It is the human being. The larger first part of the book is devoted to an "exis· tential analysis," an interpretative description of the phe· nomena of existence which will reveal its basic structure. These original modes are called "existentials," and the structure so revealed is called "care." The "meaning" of care, that is to say, that which makes it possible, will be temporality. In the following abbreviated account of "care," the prodigious originality and ingeniousness of Heidegger's analy· sis will perforce be blunted. 86 Care has a threefold constitution: 1. The being tha cares, understands. Understanding~sharply distinguished from theoretical knowing-is its ability to project before itself its own possibilities. It is aware of being able to be (not that it has that possibility but that it is that possibility). The being that exists is always "ahead of itself." For what it is, its essence, is just that it exists, that it understands itself as a being that is able to be. 2. This being, Dasein, also has moods, "existential moods," which are the ground of ordinaiy, familiar moodi· ness. These moods are testimony to the condition in which it already finds itself (Befindlichkeit). They attest to its "facticity," to the bald fact that it always finds itself al· ready cast or thrown into an alien world. Heidegger calls the existential condition of existing always already in the world, "thrownness." 3. In this world Dasein is always already preoccupied with what it finds there, alongside itself, namely other existences and things. It is its lot to sink into a state of self· forgetfulness or "fallenness" as it busily "takes care" of this world. This .state of "inauthenticity," literally: "unone's-0wnness," is as genuine a possibility of existence as its opposite, authenticity; Heidegger disclaims any invidi· ous connotation in these terms. In sum, then, the being that cares is a being ahead of itself in projecting its own possibilities, which finds itself involved in a world along with other existences·and enti· ties, and which can lose itself in being busy about them. -. Now Heidegger asks what it means for Daesin to be : this way. This question belongs to a deeper, that is, an on· / tological, level of analysis, for here is discovered the mean· ing of care, namely the condition of its possibility. The an· swer is: temporality (Second Part, Chps. 3-6). The existent being is one about .whom there is always something yet outstanding, something still .to come, namely its death. So also is it an "ecstatic" being. "Ecstatic" is a word used by Aristotle in his chapters on time (Phys. 222 b 17) to describe the self-unsettling of motion. Heidegger uses if for the primordial "being out of itself" of Dasein, namely its temporality (par. 65). 28 The word has, of course, the connotation of being transported and rapt away. Dasein is "out of itself" in three ecstatic phases, each of which accounts primarily but not exclusively for one of the aspects of care in either its inauthentic or its authentic version. Hence the ontological analysis covers a large num· her of combinations, of which I_ shall sketch only the primary ones, reversing Heidegger's order so as to begin with the ecstasis to which Heidegger assigns the least standing (par. 68). l. The self-forgetfulness of fallenness is in its nature al· ways inauthentic. It is the mode of-note well-actuality, of fact, of mere presentness and nowness, greedy for satis· factions which hold no further possibilities, The !'.>ntologi· cal ground of this existential mode is the ectasis of the present. Heidegger understands the present not in the tr:J,, . SUMMEJt 1983 ) �tional way as the phase of perceptual vividness, but as a derivative mode, abstracted from living involvement-the mode of "presentification," .the grasping attempt to tum the possibilities of existence into present actualities. The ecstasis which yields the present, the phase which is traditionally the front or fulcrum of time, is the one most dependent on the other phases for its authentic version (68 c~ 2. Just as in English there is a periphrastic past perfect "I am gone," so in Cennan one says "I am having been" (Ich bin gewesen). Human existence always is as having been, for it always finds itself already cast into the al_ien world. It is this fact which makes it moody. An existential mood is a condition in which Dasein finds itself coming back to or brought before the · mere fact of its own exis· tence.29 Heidegger gives as a cardinal example the authentic mood which he calls dread or anxiety (Angst; the inau· thentic counterpart is ordinary fear). In anxiety Dasein discovers the world into which it has been thrown as uncanny, unhomy, unmeaning, unamenable to being taken care of. Anxiety brings Dasein back to the fact of its own isolated thrownness, and this "being brought back to itself" apprises it that it can return to itself, that it has the possibility of "recovering" or "repeating" itself. What ac· counts for the possibility human existence has of finding itself already in a state of mind or mood and what brings it face to face with its own recoverableness (Wiederholbar· keit; sometimes translated "repeatability") is the ecstasis of the past, in which Dasein goes out of itself to be as having been (68 b). Through this ecstasis human existence comes back to itself as an ever-antecedent fact whose possibilities can always be repeated. Therewith is also revealed the possibility of authentic existence. It demands the introduction of a future element into the repetition of its past. 3. Therefore the primary ecstasis of primordial authentic temporality is the future (65). This future is not an indeterminate "not yet.'' It is, as the German Zu-kun~ suggests to Heidegger, that toward which Dasein goes, but it is also the tenninus from which Dasein comes back into the situation in which it finds itself, to face the present resolutely. The future thus comprehends and makes possible the other two ecstases. Futurity accounts for the aspect of care called understanding, since to understand means to project one's own possibilities. Future means an· ticipation; rather than being propelled by present urgencies that need to be taken care of, futuraJ Dasein cares authentically: It Jets its own possibilities for being come toward itself. The future, too, enables the human being to repossess its past properly; it is in facing its possibilities that Dasein is brought back to what it already was. The futural ecstasis of coming toward oneself accounts for authentic existence (69 a). The dominant case of authentic futurity, understood as resolute anticipation, is Dasein's facing of its own death (46-63). The human being is that being which lives as a being which is going to die. Dasein discovers among its ex11-IE ST. JOHNS REVIEW istential possibilities the ultimate one of not being, and this discovery makes it focus on the wholeness of its existence. Death is what it escapes from in the inauthentic present; death is what it is already inescapably saddled with; death is what it resolutely anticipates. Death therefore has the threefold structure exhibited by care and time, and conversely. The inference follows that our temporality is finite and that primordial existential time comes to an end. What then of ordinary time, the common time human beings have, spend, puzzle about? Heidegger undertakes to show that, strange though it seems, time is tempora~ namely that ordinary time falls.out of primordial temporality (79-82). . . Dasein finds itself in the world, and it is in dealing with its "gear" or "equipment" (Zeug~ iil circumspectly taking care of its affairs,That ordinary time shows itself. Affairs in the world can be dated: "Later, when ... " or "now, that ... " or "formerly, when ... "-that is the language of worldly management. This datability of the world is derived from ecstatic temporality because "later, when" can be said only on the condition that there is possibility, "now, that" only if there is presentification, and "formerly, when" only if there is repeatability. So Heidegger has grounded anticipation, ·presence, and memory-for that is what he -is talking about-in the primordial temporality which is human existence. Precise public datability must refer to universal 0ccurrences, originally to the sun's rising and setting. People say, for instance, "now, that" the sun has set it is time to turn in. This public reference enables people to make and set clocks, and thence "vulgar,'' worldly time comes to be what the clock tells, What the clock sho"'s is a perfectly levelled and indifferent equable succession of jerks called nows, going forward from what is no longer to what is not yet, and spawning many puzzles. Such time passes rather than arises; the very use of clocks is witness to the attempt to hold on to the not-yets and the no-Jongers by making them all in turn present, as the clock's hands are followed while they tick off the nows. What is worst of all for Heidegger is that this meaningless derivative clock time is theoreticalJy infinite: It is the time of fallen, inauthentic humanity because it masks the radical finitude of mortal human existence.JO 2. DIFFICULTIES Here is the extreme of opposition to Aristotle. Actuality, fulfilled presence, is interpreted as human fallenness. Possibility, a notion even Jess determinate than potentiality (which is always a.specific "potentiality for") ·is raised to being human existence itself. Time, which was for Aristotle merely the measurable aspect of a being's actualization, is for ~eidegger the very meaning of existence. And, 87 �tradition, that is to say, the going back into a Dasein t' ) finally, time ends in actuality for Aristotle, but for Heideghas been there." Authentic repetition means that "Daseiri ger, in death. Being and Time, in its potent and coherent originality chooses for itself its hero" on the basis of an anticipatory resolution. What Dasein thus recovers is a possibility, not a (though originality in the pursuit of being may well be a state (74). disability) deserves at least the tribute of not being treated Dasein takes over such possibilities as its heritage. How? like a lending library of terms and notions; one must enter Heidegger begins his analysis of the historical past with a its world or stay out-the latter I think. The reasons are discussion of real antiquities, the objects of archaeology. sketched below. These are things which were once "to hand," by which 1. The first is a mere intimation of a possible argument: Heidegger means functional, in a world that is gone. They That actualizing motion has temporal duration which is measurable by the soul, or that time is a dimension of the are now present in our world. They are not genuinely but only secondarily historical because insofar as they are created mind, or that the lawful causality of nature has a "equipment" they are not in the past but in this world. As ground in the observer's temporality-these theories of the being of their own world was wholly conditional on Aristotle, Augustine, and Kant respectively can be apprethat of a past Dasein, so its passing is wholly a matter of hended and judged directly, although their context illumihuman temporality. nates their motive. It is otherwise with Heidegger's underNow here is the difficulty: If Dasein is to recover its heri· standing of time, which is more inextricably and originally implicated in his approaches: in the problematic formulatage, the possibilities of an existence that has been, it must do so by way of the surviving "equipment" of the past, tion of the question concerning the "meaning of being," through ruins, pots and manuscripts. Heidegger suggests in the doubtful insistence that the human being is the beno other way (73). ing of choice for such an inquiry, in the interpretation of human being as existence, in its analysis in terms of care, But how does it recognize these as testimony of antecedent existence? The ecstasis of the past was formulated and in the grounding of care in temporality. The doubts one might have about any of these elements or about their in terms of the indivual, unique, and separate being. What concatenation would make questionable the notion of a can it mean to recognize in the stuff "to hand" in the primordial ecstatic temporality. present world the possibilities of other, past existences, not to speak of making them one's own? 2. The interpretation of human existence as the being which is its possibilities leads to its essential futurity, the The problem points to what seems to me a crucial h : ecstasis which accounts for living in possibility. Dasein's cuna in Heidegger's account of the past. The ecstasis : ) ultimate possibility is that of being able not to be: it is be the necessary condition of ordinary temporality but 1( death (50), the extreme possibility. In requiring of the hudoes not seem to be a sufficient condition. The "ontic" man being that it face at every moment this end as its own, consequences, namely human beings with their past, do Heidegger deprecates-I am disregarding the pretense not immediately fall out of the "ontological" ground of that these are not terms of judgement-as inauthentic and past being. To lay down that Dasein must have a past befallen the perennial wisdom of humankind that the dread cause it is in its being temporalizing does not tell how the of death must not dominate life. The question arises individual human being comes back to itself, that is, rewhether the stark and unspecific resolution to face one's members. And yet, the additional element that is needed own death can at all be the basis of public decency and to complete the account, namely what is ordinarily called even inner dignity. I shall argue that the future is of the memory, may change the whole complexion of the acthree phases the most impotent for human action and that count. our death should be allowed to exert its power only as a Since Heidegger considers existence to be possibility he remote and indefinite limit of life. cannot ascribe a nature or faculties to .human beings. In3. The greatest problem and the one with most bearing deed, in his "recovery" of Kant he had suppressed the fig· on the final section of my inquiry has to do with Heidegurative, primarily spatial, imagination, Kant's faculty for ger's treatment of the past. Human existence has a certain having objects without their presence. But how is the reself-antecedence which is grounded in the ecstases of "beconstruction or recovery of one's own possibilities, or of ing as having been." The defining characteristic of this the possibilities of the past world of historical remains, to mode is that it brings Dasein back to the "repetition" of its take place without such a faculty for reconstituting re· own possibilities and to authentic being. This ecstasis natmembrance of the past, personal, or historical? urally plays the chief role in the constitution of "historicalOne final point:.Repetition, the authentic appropriation ity"-although the most fundamental role is still played by of past possibilities, seems to be most practicable for writthe future. For true historicality ultimately arises from a ten works, records of past thought. The mode of resolute repetition of the past which is motivated by the resolute purpose, however, in which such a recovery is to be carried projection of a life span dominated by "being-unto-death." • on seems to invite a certain wilfulness of illterpretation Dasein can explicitly repeat possibilities of existence which leads to highly pointed constructive readings. Such that have been handed down. Such repeating "is explicit repetition may be incomparably more serious than ? ' · 'c ) 88 SUMMER 1983 �toricistic approach, but it is also very constricted, since, being grounded in the stark mood of the past ecstasis, it excludes less harsh modes of pastness. In particular, there is no authentic mode of panoramic revery or imaginative contemplation,31 though these, I shall argue, are of pri· mary importance in human temporality. try to capture its being, though time-terms there are aplenty. For, I claim, time as a distinct object of inquiry, or rather our sense of its being one, comes about when we block our usual mental activity and try to concentrate on time itself: · - • Die Ziet • • So I now come to some reflections of my own about time. Naturally, I shall draw on the philosophers just studied for the terms of the inquiry, for insight into the con· texts implied in certain answers, and for examples of what seem to me fertile errors. Since I shall argue that time has no being and that to think otherwise has harmful conse· quences, I should not attempt to present a theory of what time is, but rather an intimation of what it is that induces the illusion of temporal being. And, of course, I should explain why, for all that, I think of the past as the prime phase of time. Es gibt ein sehr probates Mittel, die Zeit zu halten am Schlawittel: Man nimmt die Taschenuhr zur Hand und folgt dem Zeiger unverwandt. Sie geht so langsam dann, so brav als wie ein wohlgezogen Schaf, setzt Fuss vor Fuss so voll Manier als wie ein Fraulein von Saint-Cyr. Jedoch vertraumst du dich ein Weilchen, so ruckt das zuchtigliche Veilchen mit Beinen wie der Vogel Strauss und heimlich wie ein Puma aus. VI. TIME AND THE IMAGINATION 1. TIIE NON-BEING OF TIME The beloved text of writers on time is Augustine, Con· ) fesSions, XI 14: For what is time? Who is able easily and briefly to explain that? Who is able so much in thought to comprehend it as to . bring forth something in words? Although what do we more familiarly and knowingly mention in speaking than time? And' we understand surely when we speak of it; we also understand when we hear someone else speaking of it. What then is time? If no one asks it of me, I know; if I want to explain it to the one that is asking, I do not know. At first thought, Augustine's observation seems to be no more true of time than of any other matter: Questioning always makes the familiar strange and precipitates perplexity. Yet there is this difference: Though we sometimes quarrel about the management and the worth of time, we deal with its ubiquitous appearances not only with perfect, practical aplomb but also without anxiety to defend a doctrine concerning its being. I think that is because we have an intimation that our dealing with temporal affairs and our speaking in temporal terms has, as it were, nothing to it, no object of inquiry whose name is time. We sense that the bold question "What is Time?" itself drives the answer implied in our unimpeded behavior out of sight. But from another aspect, what Augustine says seems not quite right. We really do not know what time is when we are not asked; we only know how to live familiarly with watches and words and our sense of time. And therefore we do not know it less when we ask ourselves about it. On the contrary, there is not even any Time to know until we THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW Und wieder siehst du auf sie nieder; ha, Elendel-Doch was ist das? Unschuldig lachelnd macht sie wiedcr die zierlichsten Sekunden-Pas. Christia_ Morgenstern, Zeitgedichte n Ti11ie There is a good and proven way To strongarm Time and make it stay. Just take your wrist-watch by the band And concentrate upon her hand. Then she goes slow enough to keep The pace, as of a well bred sheepCoes step by step, as mannerly As any high-bred miss could be. But if you daydream for a while The shrinking violet with guile Makes off on legs of ostrich length And with a puma's stealthy strength. Now you look down just as before0 wretched watch! 0 curious chancel With guiless smile she steps once more · The very daintiest second-dance. E.B. What we find when we concentrate on the- passage of time is the repeatediy frustrated impulse of our inten· tion to perceive time, indeed an iteration of attempts, orchestrated by the beating of our hearts and the coursing of our blood-a kind of internal perception 89 �called by psychologists prioperception, self-perception. As soon as we leave off trying to find in ourselves empty time · we see images of spatial .passage. Indeed even Kant finally admits that inner sense, to be actually affected, needs spatial appearance. The pure underlying flux seems to me, therefore, a philosophical construction which is the result of ulterior motives, and a phenomenon which is the effect of self-interference. So when Husserl claims such a flux for the first phenome· non of time-consciousness he is observing accuratelyhis own observing. Internal time flux is the first effect of attempting a phenomenology of time-consciousness. What of external time? Newton is alone in positing a genuine external time flux, absolute, equable time antecedent to all motion, physical, yet not apparent-a notion whose motives are as understandable as the concept is confusing. All the others who appear to believe in physical time turn out always to mean either some designated physical process or the "passage of nature" as a whole.32 It seems to be impossible for them to point to time itself or to refer to it except by spatial metaphors. From the physical point of view, time appears with as many natures as there are motions and ways of studying them: It is a discrete quantity for quantized micro-motions, a covariant of space for remote places, an anisotropic progress for irreversible processes, an in· dependent continuum for the local motions of bodies, and a numerable dimension for motions which are developments. I do not think it is possible to decide which of these conceptions should primarily determine our understanding of motion and thus time. It may just be impossible to give a single account of physical time, and therefore it may be best to say that various kinds of time seem . to occur in the world, depending on where our attention is fixed, whether on the statistical conceptions of aggregates, or on signaling to remote clocks, or on watching the formation of completed beings, or on the comprehension of human affairs, This last perspective raises yet another possibility. What if time were worldly but not of the world, not one of its physical dimensions, but rather the very life and moving principle of the world? Such a doctrine makes the appearances coherent, as the monolithic grandeur of Hegel's System shows, but so thoroughly coherent as to put an end to human freedom under· stood as .our possibility of thinking and choosing independently of our situation in time. It seems to me pernicious. The claim is that the appearances of nature as well as of human thought and action are manifestations of the substance of Time. Now the chief property of ap· pearances is usually thought to be that they are a becoming: variable in themselves, perspectival for us, in alterable passage, contingent. If, then, the being behind them and expressed in them is itself a primordial be- 90 coming such as Time must be, the variability of · pearances must be governed by that deeper beconu. . Time; appearance is the manifestation of the logic of becoming. But that means that we must give up the thought of a loose connection, of room for play between the world and its grounds, which supports our efforts at independent thought and free action, and submit to our time-determined fate. Human beings and nations must fulfill the historical role assigned by their time or be consigned to parochial impotence. Time is a tyrant, and the philosophy of time is a tool for tyrants: our time has seen the consequences. These, in sum, then, are the charges against Time: As an internal flux it is a philosophical or psychological illusion, as an external elapsing it is no more than the measure of motion, and as the fated logic of becoming it is a coercive myth. Aristotle, who first wrote a sustained- exposition of time, also introduced its most radical de-substantializa· tion, more complete even than that of the later great relativist of time, Leibniz, for whom time is at least an idea in the mind of God (Note 4). In that dethronement of time, in the · claim that time is only the counted measure of motion, it seems to me that Aristotle was simply right. But why, we must ask ourselves, if there is time neither within nor without, it is so copious a topic of talk, and whence oomes our ever-fertile feeling about time? The related words time, tick, and German Zeit, pear not to be specifically temporal in their etymolo& ) origin. They are connected with Greek daiomoi, "I divide or distribute," which has to do with all sorts of divisions, like that of the people, demos, and the portioned meal, dais. Originally "time" seems to refer quite neutrally to the dividing of certain passages of na· ture into stretches, just as Aristotle · says. The timefigures of poetry and ordinary speech, on the other hand, are usually strongly affective. Let me take as ex· amples two complexes of time figures which seem to me best to reveal why we speak of time with feeling. First, phrases like "the womb of time," "the ripeness of time," "the fullness of time." The Greeks have a word, kair6s, which although son:ietirnes used interchangeably with chr6nos, has the specific meaning of a special, critical, or opportune moment. n There was a famous statue by Lysippus, showing Kairos with a long lock over his brow and the back of his head shaved, as a figure for the fact that foresight is needed to seize opportunity by the forelock and that once gone it cannot be pulled back. In the New Testament the word has assumed great theological gravity; it means both the individual time for turning or doing the appointed deed, and the day of judgement "The kairos is near,'' the fulness of time is at hand, John 5ays in the opening of his Revelation (1,3). Leaving aside theological elaborations, what do such phrases betoken? They seem to me all / SUMMER 1983 �ways to mean at bottom this: We feel that there is something in the world's becoming which peculiarly concerns us, that something is in the offing, something to monitor, to watch, to prepare for. The second example is quite opposite in flavor, namely, the image of time as a tread-mill or a conveyor· belt on which we plod or are wafted willy·nilly past scheduled events and holidays to an unscheduled but sure cessation. For terrestrial beings this coursing of time has what biologists call a "circadian" rhythm, the natural twenty-four hour periodicity of the sun's circuit, imaged on the faces of our watches and iterated by the predesigned routines of our business lives. It is the pa· thos of the daily round-no matter whether it whirrs or grinds-that makes us time-conscious, conscious, that is, of a fleeting stillness in the countable accretion of our accomplished motions, of a flux that stays while it flows, since it ever bears the same event. Were our lives either totally mutable or total1y monotonous we would, I imagine, attairi neither to a sense of time nor to intimations of timelessness. The tread~mill figure of time, at any rate, expresses the mood in which the pas· sage of life seems at once inexorable and aimless, fugitive and onerous. Time, these figures show, is our word-and this is the meaning elaborated by Heidegger-for the world's passages insofar as we care. We speak of time often, because the world continuaJly concerns us; we speak of it variously, because our mood or concern shifts; and we speak of it always in figures because there is no other way to give shape to our sense of the world. 2. TIME AS NOTICED PASSAGE Time, I say, is noticed passage-besides that it has no being of its own. Perhaps I might have said that time is our noticing of passage, but it seems to me better to locate our sense of time where we feel it, in the changing world itself. But what is this "passage"? When we speak of the passage of time we cannot mean (although we say) that time passes, but rather that something, something primarily spatial, is going on. Indeed, passage is not, to begin with, a temporal word. It means a passing, a going from here to there, as in "pacing"; there even seems to be an etymologi~ cal connection to "space.'' It has a meaning similar to, but even wider than, Aristotle's "change," kinesis, which is it· self a wider term than locomotion, while preserving its spa· tial undertone. I am using the term to express my under· standing that appearances in their variability, however caused and however regu1ated, are as appearances spatial. Two views of motion seem to me paramount: Aristote· · lian motion, which is the actualization of the thing moved, and Newtonian motion, which is characterized by the time rate of change of a body with respect to space. For Aristotle the individual mobile is everything-the substrate THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW which undergoes the motion and the substance which is the aim and completion of the motion. For Newton the mobile is qualitatively indifferent to the motion it under· goes, though as a mass it figures at once as the cause of change in other bodies and as the cause of resistence to change in itself. Thus for both motion is dynamic, that is, it is regarded in terms of an indwelling cause: form for Aristotle, force for Newton. But consider that there are, to human discernment, apparently aimless motions which, like motes in sunlight, show some pattern only in the aggregate, and also that it is possible to regard bodies as moving not because of their own inertia or gravity but by reason of their location in a force field. In some of its appearances, motion is neither compellingly Aristotelian or Newtonian. So as a kind of exercise, let me try a wider view of passage and of time, a view less focusseCl on mobile and cause and more on field and configuration, a spatial view. By space I here mean not the abstracted infinite contin· uum of geometry but our extended human environment, ground and figures equaJly. I think of it as just that which is such as to be capable of being passed through and of containing passages. But even before it is the scene of pas· sages, it is the opening, the room for appearances, the place for patency, what.Keats caJJs "the World or Elemen· tal Space.'' The Cree~ word for the appearances, phenom· ena, means what shines out, and the appearances seem to me to have these four connected characteristics: They shine out, they spread out, they vary and they are for us. Patency, extendedness, multifariousness, and perceptibility-that is what makes space. The spatial scene is in its very nature variable, and variable in the nth degree. Its spread-out, variegated conformations themselves vary: variably or differentially-and those are the passages of space. Some passages are lawfully developing fulfillments, some negotiations of distance, some random dancesthese are the varieties of the variation of spatial variable· ness. It is not becoming that causes this display but just its remaining what it is-various; and our discerning and noticing only make it more so. We commonly think of the present configuration of space as being an aggregate result, the outcome of many separate paths of becoming. The world is full of forms which seem explicable by their genesis. Spa~ and its fig· ures, appearing space, seems to be the frontal face of be· coming, the advancing surface, so to speaJc, of the temporal succession. But now let us cut the world in another way, as it were, across the line of advance rather than lengthwise along the lines of its genesis. Then the passage of time no longer appears responsible for the configuration of space nor is its history what makes the world appear, but space with its present and passing appearances lies fully there and openly displayed befor~ us, in aJJ its immediacy, a pan· orama which is not the result but the Scene of time. I mean that the appearances are not apprehended as the current 91 �state of temporal becoming, but the reverse-that the world appears as a space, a room, a theatre of events and happenings. These goings-on may be recurrent or continuous or periodically culminating, fascinatingly lawful or astoundingly unique. But the study of these passages tells us only the route, not the reason for the panorama of appear· ances and directs us only to its elements and not to its integral sum. Let the contemplation of the world in this mode (which is analogous to the field notions of physics) be, to begin with, an exercise of the imagination in concentrating on the phenomenology of spatial passage. Accordingly I describe motion-passage now more particularly as discerned variation. I do not figure such motion to myself as being borne forward by time. By "being borne forward by time" I mean the sense we allow ourselves to entertain that each and all motions ride on some primary vehicle (describable, to be sure, only by spatial metaphors such as the flow of a river) which, when related to space by a ratio, yields their rate of change or velocity, for example 55 miles per hour. In such a rate we normally take time as the independent variable, precisely because we think of it as the steady ubiquitous reference-spatial location varies in three dimensions and two directions, while time only advances. But to the time-disencumbered eye, motion is not through space in time, but time, no longer equably universal, arises in different places and tempos as this or that passage is noticed: felt in the observer or referred to other motions, for instance to that of our natural clock, the sun. A passage can be noticed by us, in the sen.se that we care about it, when a distinguishable variation has been discerned within the variegated field of appearance. Such discerned variation, or perhaps better, differential variation, of course always requires that the observer be himself in the picture,H an appearance among appearances. Consequently certain kinds of passage arise from the relation of the observer himself to the appearances. For example, he can stay still and concentratedly look into the field, search it by scanning, or himself bodily pass through it to obtain varying perspectives. So, for example, little children some· times gaze into the world pressed up against their grownup and.sometimes run out to circulate and inspect. The world, on its side, also offers to observation various configurations of motion: There are distinct and isolated motions that occur against a still background: runners running along a ridge. There is the scene which vibrates everywhere with localized variation: the town-square on market day. And then is the still center of an indifferently varying field: the cynosure of one's eye in a crowded room. We are moving or still figures in a still or moving landscape of appearance, and all passages can be distinguished in tenns of the various combinations between the discerning viewer and the passing scene, and, if we wish, timed by means of some designated accompanying motion .. This primarily spatial way seems to me a particularly apt way to come upon the world. To begin with, there is the evidence of a common experience, namely that temporally 92 extended acquaintance dims vision, while sudden, ~ oramic sights make for poignant perception. Then there is the unfailing testimony of our spatial time-language. A "moment" of time is really -a "movement," as of the clock; the "passing" of time is a "pacing"; the "space of time" is never converted into the "time of space," and the words "time," "past," "present," "future," themselves all have spatially interpretable etymologies. Again, we have external organs for sensing all sorts of spatial motion, sights, sounds (which come out of space), and internal organs for sensing our own spatial position, and we have a capability for perceiving perspectival transformations. But we have no discernible organ or power for perceiving the mere elapsing of time. Our estimate of time depends on the spatial passages from light to dark, from fresh to worn, from full to empty, and if we are deprived of their sensory evidence our sense of time becomes totally confused. Moreover, time is somehow more accessible than space. We can "spend time" to gain space. Time serves to pass through space: Now when Joseph had named his underworld name to the Ismaelite, and had indicated to him what he wished to be called in Egyptland, these people trekked on, some days, several and many days, at an indescribably comfortable pace and full of serenity concerning time, which would one day, they knew, manage to overcome space, if one cooperated .but a little-and would do this most surely if one didn't fuss but ·). · gave in to its progress, each of whose advances might be c.. . account but which would, quite incidentally, run up a large sum, if only once carried on and reasonably maintained one's direction. [Thomas Mann, Joseph in F.gypt) One may even recover, in some sense, one's former place in space. But it is only in a figurative way that one can regain lost times by going down through space, as in archaeological exposure of earlier levels of life. Then, too, time's effects can be fugitive-a moment of bliss can sometimes obliterate a season of suffering, but a ravaged place cannot be healed without the investment of laborious motion. In brief, spaces and places contain the passages that concern us, that is, they contain time, but not the reverse. I take all that as suggestive, though of course merely circumstantial, evidence that time is not even coordinate with space, as a form of appearances, not to speak of being prior. Proof of such an assertion there cannot be beyond its possibly convincing consequences. But I can, at least, in concluding my brief collection of the evidence against time and for space try to invalidate the chief presumptive mark of their separate and coordinate standing. That is the supposed difference between the here and the now: The here, it is said, is repeatable; the now is not. The claim certainly holds for the mathematical repre· . sentation of space and time, though merely by definition. In a graphic coordinate system with a time-axis the space coordinates can return as often as you please, whilf' · · , ~ SUMMER 1983 �time coordinates must increase monotonically. But is it so plain in life that the now never returns? Is it so certain that a d~jA vue is always a pathological incident? But even if, in publicly corroborable fact, no now is indeed ever repeated because chances are overwhelmingly against the world's passages ever returning to the same state, yet it is imagin· able that we might, by a slightly different route, come back to the same moment. For if events had the cyclicality of a circle, as- Nietsche daims (Note 13), every now would be antecedent to itself and to all others, and if events moved as in a figure eight, the same now would be on different approaches. Whether we then said that it was the same now because its perceptual content was the same, or a different now because it had different antecedents, would depend on our desire to make the configurations of the world tell time or to make the advance of time distinguish its configurations. In principle and in imagination a passage which is an extended causa sui is not impossible, and therefore neither is the return of a now. I leave out of account here that unmodern "defence against Time" (Eliade) constituted by the celebration of the timeless, original, and ever-repeatable moments of myth. Similarly, as far as the here is concerned, is it so obvious that we can always come back to it? It seems to me that there are three kinds of here: There is the local mathematical point given by an origin and three coordinates, which is exactly repeatable but is only the abstraction of a here. There is the physical situation determined by reference to a system of moving bodies which can be only relatively recovered as one system moves with respect to its next larger . containing system (as does the cluster of people on the boat on the ocean in the solar system, and so ad infinitum). And finally, there is the human place of our lives which probably cannot in effect be regained because, no matter how stable, the world's passing affects its colorations and conformations, as well as the mood of the returning perceiver. Therefore it seems to me that, insofar as they are separa· hie notions at all, the now can be as repeatable as the here and the here as irrecoverable as the now-which is to say that time and space are not distinguishable, at least by that mark. That melancholy of the -missed rendevous described above (Sec. I 4), when we come to the right place at the wrong time, is, then, not the unavoidable consequence of the inherent skewness of space and time, but rather a temporal affection, a mood of diminution, the ebb tide of our awareness, when we can take notice of nothing which does not flaunt itself in front of our eyes. For if time is noticed passage, the vitality of our sense of time and of our sense for times past and times future will depend on the scope of our receptivity. The object of the foregoing exercisejn suppressing our image of time as ·bearing onward the shapes of space was to quell our propensity for insinuating time into our speech as an occult nature and into our lives as a flux bear· ing us from oblivion to oblivion on the narrow raft of a THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW present floating out of the mists of time gone into the murk of time to come. It seems to me that the world so purged of time is a more patent world. In it shapes pass by us, but also we, at will, pass by them. Sometimes it is in our power to recognize appearances; we are able to tum baclc, to revisit the scene, to follow its figures as they pass by or to ascend to a higher viewpoint so as to survey the whole panorama simultaneously. Appearances which carry that possibility we call spatial. Some variations, however, we can only remember; they go past us and are beyond perceptual recovery. They back out of our sight, so to speak, by changing not so much their place as themselves, so that we can no longer train our sensory vision on them at will. So the golden solids oflate afternoon plane out into the dusky silhouettes of early evening, and no one can hold them. Such perceptually irrecoverable passings are usually ac· companied for us by a sense of loss or relief or, at least, of watchfulness. These we call temporal. But if we do not care enough about their passing, not even enough to glance at a watch, then, there being no one to feel or tell time, the passages remain untimed. Of course, to attempt to imagine this untimed world is a contradictory undertaking, that of trying to attend while not attending. Nonetheless, we could try to reach untimed passage. It would amount to thinking about appearance in its variability as distinct from being involved in it. It would mean being on the approaches of tl)e mystery of Appearance. Here, it seems .to me, would start the real pursuit: What appears? What principles of self-sameness and ever· otherness can account for the determinate shapes appearance manifests in its endlessly varying variety? Must appearance be perceived to appear? Is it nothing or something in itself? And what is perception? What is space, that field and frame in which, or perhaps, as which, appearance shows itself? What rules, causes, ends govern that distinguishable variation of appearance called motion or passage?-This is the great battle ground to which leads the skirmish against time. The results of a substancial reflection are sometimes a bit bizarre, and their justification lies in their intention. Mine is to give an accou.nt of the three phases of time which lend to human life much of its pathos. 3. THE PHASES OF TIME Let me begin by readmitting the absurdly unavoidable thought which I had earlier proscribed: that if things had not come to the present juncture they would not be here. Sequences of appearances commonly seem to have, if no humanly ascertainable drift or even much recollectable continuity, at least a certain longitudinal connectedness. But how ·do we know of that connection? Space lies open before us in brilliant extendedness. It has no before and after, being, all that there is of it, there. How can it also display the past variety of its passages? How, in short, does 93 �the present worH bear witness to those of its states that have passed, to its past? What lets us interpret a fossil as testimony of life's evolution? What compels us to ascribe a tender babyhood even to the most desiccated adult? What makes a place revisited a place almost regained? What reconstitutes the sherd at the bottom of a Greek well into a goblet from a world gone by? The answer is that we do it, we give the world its past because we have the power of memory. For itself the . grandest mountain range, which to us expresses in its majestic presence the dignity of having been shaped by the passage of aeons, has no past and no world, and neither does the little loom-weight which once put tension on the warp of Penelope's loom. The depth of space is ours because we have memory. It makes time and its phases possible. Not as the poet says: ... only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered. T. S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton" I, from Four Quartets but the opposite: the moments of memory first constitute past and future. What is memory? The past-rriaking memory is of the imagination. (I omit consideration of rote, short-term, motor, and verbal memory, and of those electronically stimulated, hallucination-like replays of the "memory-tape" which attest to the physical basis of the human activity of remembering.) The imagination I understand to be in the first instance the power for absorbing the world's variety into assorted shapes and coherent processes, a discerning receptivity riot at that point distinguishable from the power of perception. It is, in this aspect, a faculty universally and subconsciously exercised. (Kant, in his own context, calls it the productive imagination because it first produces those unities of thought and sense which he calls "phenomena.") Secondly and properly speaking, it is a capacity for holding the form of things without their matter, as Aristotle says, or the object without its presence, in Kant's terms; both formulations come to the same thing when one recalls that for Aristotle the material is a required element of the substantial presence of a physical object. Its dematerializing power is indeed what makes its holding capacity plausible. For one psychic space Qeaving aside the physical basis of memory) seems able to contain myriads of memories. I am not speaking of psychic space altogether figuratively but describing the interior experience of imagining which seems to be primarily visual, or better, pseudovisual, presumably because sight is the sense most adequate to the extendedness of space (cf. Note 35). And although images are extended, they do not seem necessarily to displace or occlude one another; images are, so to speak, transparent to images. How the imagination (and thus the memory) might its work is a question Aristotle tacitly sets aside and Kant answers by saying that it is a rriysterious power hidden in the depth of the soul. It seems to me of all philosophical questions the most engaging, but for another occasion. (See Note 35 for a formulation of its aspects.) In the meanwhile I will mention one-most crucial-feature of its work: In holding objects without their presence it is always intentional, for the retained form is an image of, or intends, the once present thing, and therein precisely lies its memorial power, its ability to re-present, to present the absent. (There may indeed be moments when remembering passes into reliving, when the memory-image intends its object not as an object that was, but as a present object, but such states are, like hallucinations, extraordinary.) How does the memory-imagination bring about the three temporal phases or present, past, and future?__ a. The Present The now is also called the present, and nowness is associated with presence. A "presence" (Greek: parousia) means a being that is by us, a confronting being which is immediately there. Let us call it perceived being, leaving out of account here the whole problem of perception itself. In this phase the imagination works as the involuntary power described above, which shapes sensory mater:-1, into perceived appearances, though some argue that ) world itself delivers fully shaped appearances (Gibson). People whose imaginative power is exhausted in this first function accordingly live in the present and prefer adven-. titious stimulation to memories and projects. It is this nowpresent which Heidegger combats. Being perceptible defines what is in the present, but I think its marks are not those usually stated: vividness, self. givenness, uniqueness. For the present can be dim and dreary, like a city parking lot on Sunday; and sights of things by no means present can come to us unbidden and adventitiously as do phantasms and hallucinations; . and many a present scene is worn out with repetition. What is peculiar to the present, then, is that it is perceived, that it declares itself to us through the conduits of sensation with a normally bland-though sometimes stunningimmediacy. Indeed, it is one of the mysteries of perception that our intermediary senses can leave us with so strong a sense of the immediacy of appearance. Besides being char· acterized by being right there, before us, perception also promises a certain completeness of perspective and detailing. The present picnic includes those garbage cans behind the bushes and the proverbial ants on the blanket which the past idyll has simply occulted. If the present is defined by the immediate presence of appearances and their passages, ·we should speak of the now not as an ever-new moment, but rather as the unvarying condition of being and having a present. This nr :s I ,' 94 SUMMER 1983 �our ability to be in and with the world. That ever-other, ever-same now of the time-flow which is thought of as be· ing at once the leading edge of time and also the cut be· tween past and future arises when we stop the passages of appearance to take notice of our relation to their passing. The present becomes a flux-now when reflection brings the world up short-the now arises from self-interruption. This is the now which our mathematical reason is com· pelled to whittle down to an unextended ·point. Percep· tion, on the other hand, insists on its elongation. From this conflict arises the bastard notion of the "specious present": When we consciously represent our time· consciousness, we do it by means of a line which underlies a set of dimensionless points, while we observe that our actual perceived present is an extended "space" of time, composed of a braid of retentions of just-passed passages. (That the actual present "takes time" accords with com· mon experiences, for example the curious exchanges of present and past at the moment of receiving sudden bad news; the shocked consciousness oscillates for a while between the apprised now of the present and the yet unsus· pecting now of the immediate past.) In sum, when left to its own devices, the present is not now but always, or better: It is always the present. This ever-present present acts nonetheless as a pivot between · the two other phases of time because through it come the images which stock the memory, although the memory it· self integrates and frames the scene. All that we have there by way of distinct forms came first through the senses. (Or perhaps not everything: Augustine regards the memory as a space furnished not only with likenesses of all the world, but also inhabited by imageless memories of intelligible objects. The question really comes to this: which domain is the larger, imagination or memory? All images, it seems to me, are at least in their elements memories, but Augus· tine must argue that some memories are not image-like, namely those belonging to intellectual learning. It seems to me a question not here soluble whether such learning is essentially memorial and I have therefore left it out of account.) In going on to the past, let me say something concerning the relation of flux-time and phase-time. Flux-time, cur· rent time, whose being independent of our attention to passage I am denying, is precisely not, and for just that rea· son has no power to bear off lapsed passages into nowhere, it flows not into the past but into oblivion. Instead, phasetime supervenes: As soon as passages are beyond percep· tion and out of sight, they come to a standstill, so to speak; they are laid away and accumulate as the permanent stock of the memory-imagination, available for recovery, and the more readily available the more we cared at the time. The hidden work of their consignment to this. permanent mode, called "consolidation," seems to demand the inter· vention of other passages, that is, it seems to take some time, apparently for physiological reasons. Consequently the recent past is often inchoate compared to more re· Tiffi ST. JOHNS REVIEW mote events, especially if it has been a monotony of mi· nute differences. What, then, accounts for the being of past passages, for a passing that has ceased to pass? . b. The Past The past is the work of the imagination proper. Had we no such power we would have no past-there would be no past. It is what Kant calls the "reproductive" imagination. It makes a world of re-presentations, of secondary occur· rences, which are distinguished from perceptions first of all in this: We move and have our place within the world of perception, but the world of the imagination is felt to take place within us. (Though there ·are memories which approach the sense of presence of a perception; they are usually triggered by one of the two contact senses, smell and touch, whose deliverances, as it happens, are also hardest to make into memory-images.) Aristotle thinks that we sense time, and therefore that the imagination, which holds memories, also holds their times. The difficulties of this view seem to me insuperable. (See Sec. II 3). For first, it is hard to conceive what such a time storage might mean. Does it mean that to reach a memory we must recount the time back to it, so that to remember a childhood scene we must reproduce the intervening decades? That would make remembering in principle impossible, because while we were working our way bade into memory, the present would carry us for· ward at a clip equal but opposite. Does it mean that we have, as Aristotle claims, an internal time-scaling capacity, a kind of speeding up of the inner temporal flux with an index of its ratio to the actual time? Not only is there, L have argued, no such flux, but pure time (as distinct from · its count) is, unlike space, incapable of proportionality because its stretches cannot be compared to each other by congruence. Precisely that mysterious property of the memory-imagination which makes it capable of containing the world, namely that its spaces can, so to speak, contin· ually be rescaled, that very property makes it incapable of containing the world's time, which cannot be scaled. Besides, the phenomena of memory are all against a temporally flowing memory medium. Memory is notori· ously discrete. The forgettable, a mere temporal stretch· ing, is forgotten. Memory-images float up or flash on in isolation, and time is remembered, if at all, not by being condensed but by being excerpted. At any rate, although the physiological basis for recalling every instance of our life may exist, it would not only be impossible in principle, as I argued above, to recover the continuum of our life· time, but it would be in practice a waste of oilr present to try _o recover even parts of our past temporally; Indeed, I t thinr - is plain impossible to rememb~r the passage of it time through time. . . Consequently, the time-keeping performance of memory is, in fact, quite unreliable. BetWeen the first and the 95 �final instance of a daily routine we merge the recurrent events into one schema; it is that summary foreshortening of an orderly life which is the source of so much distress and so much comfort. We lose days from our calendar, but we also multiply moments and think that we did often and long what we did skimpily and briefly-exercises, for instance. The shades of the remembered dead are nearer than the persons of the unregarded living, and in old age our childhood is closer than our middle age. By the public clock our unchecked memories can be relied on neither for the length or the continuity or the unperturbed succession of time. How then do we through memory constitute our past? Primarily the past is, I think, a series of timeless scenes, obtained by eyewitness or borrowed, acquired immediately by our own perception or through material images, for instance, pictures of historical events. These inner, immaterial sights, animated perhaps by unheard sounds, are marked as memory-images by our awareness that they are of a once present perceived passage, which has done what passages do-gone by. That is why memories, unless we deliberately mobilize them by passing them before our inner vision, have a certain immobility. What T. S. Eliot says of history holds a fortiori for memory: It is "a pattern of timeless moments." We remember not the coming and going of a motion but a representative frame-it might be called its configural gist, something like in feeling to pictorial representation of motion by means of flow lines. Memory-images do possess, secondarily, succession, and duration, which are therefore characteristics of the past. Memories have succession because passages leave various, usually discrete, traces, which we retain in their context. Certainly not every memory is well and accurately fixed, and its relations are subject to outside correction by those who have better recorded, more coherent, memories. But by and large memories lead into each other or hang together. It is this context character which makes recollection possible. Aristotle in On Memory and Recollection dis· tinguishes between this methodical recovery of a memory and remembering itself, which is conspicuously capricious, illuminating and occluding scenes uncontrollably. Remembering seems to be dependerit on fortuitous associative triggers (once much studied by Humean psychologists); the most famous literary example of such a memory trigger is Proust's taste of a tea cake dipped in a tisane which retrieves for him the bliss of childhood. The second temporal effect of memory is that of duration, which it achieves by means, so to speak, of its thickness, its lamination. This way of marking a long or a short time is, of course, highly deceptive by ·the clock, sincethis is the time theme of The Magic Mountain-full and eventful but fast passages leave thickly layered images, while passages long drawn out but eventless leave only sparse scenes. Of course, the order and the measure of memory time is subject to correction by correlation with external clock movements and with others' memories. But 96 the pacing of the original past, our past, can be made e ) ble only by extrapolation and abstraction, since itis constituted in the most inhomogeneous of spaces, our imagina· tion. (I want to add that the reason certain animals show very precisely paced behavior seems to be not that they have, any more than we do, an original sense of time but that they are themselves clocks.) The memory-imagination, then, is what is alone respon· sible for the past, for the past as a whole is what is poten· tially remembered, what the soul has noticed and could recall. The memory-imagination is where the world's passages find permanence and whence the present can learn of its own perpetuity; through the memory, space can testify to time. But even if space were devastated, if the accumated treasury of civilization were annihilated, if the present were a void-as long as human memory survived the past would exist. It should be clear that to say that the past is our doing by no means implies that it is our invention, to be manipu· lated for pleasant or pernicious ends. What is our doing is that there is a past, not what is past. The above-mentioned intentional ch3racter of the memory makes that distinction possible. A memory-image intends that thing or event o; which it is the memory. What our memorial capacity con tains is in one sense something of our own, namely insofar as it is simply a memory, but in another sense it belongs to the object remembered, namely insofar as it is a memory of the object. This double-sided character of memo,.... '--.is just what makes possible-and therefore obligatory )e effort to remember truthfully, an effort which feels, at least, like trying to pass through the memory to its intended object. Something similar holds for that reconstitu· tion of public memory called history. Historical truthfulness seems to me to consist of scrupulously using · the evidence to construct a history-image which is compellingly of something, namely of the way it was. An analogous effort, finally, seems to play a part even in poetry, for memory is said to be the mother of the Muses. Before I conclude by arguing that the past is the most humanly defining and consequential of the three phases of time, let me dispose of the future. c. The Future The future is said to come toward us, and we are sup· posed to face it. This seems to me to be a misleading figure of speech. Wherever we face, we confront the present, and nothing is coming at us or by us but that. The future, I say, is entirely derivative from the past. Huss.erl describes it formally as the inverse of memory. The future is that mode of the memory in which the image anticipates a perception, whereas in the past it follows. The future is projected memory. How is" that meant? ·There are, it seems to me, at least four ways to think of the future. The first defines the future as the realm r r -in. ) SUMMER 198.l �tingency. On the hypothesis that there "are" indeterminate events, the. future is that part of the world about which it is in principle impossible to make true-or-false statements. This is the future understood in terms of the use, in the present, of the future tense. (If, however, the future is supposed to be predetermined, that is to say, if all passages have an absolutely tight nexus, then future and past are indistinguishable: It is in principle possible to · make true statements about either and in fact extremely difficult.) The second way is that the future is an imageless, calculated projection of present trends, a way as necessary as it is fatal to bureaucratic planning; this future is the present elongated according to rules of conjecture. The third is the "futuristic" future. Its imagery bears the marks of a forced attempt to represent the never-yet-seen, the absolutely novel. This future, which comes out of a wilful subversion of the past, is usually antiseptically inhuman and terrifyingly technical. {Note, for example, that recent futuristic space movies, like Star Wars and Star Trek, tend to be humanly hollow and visually weird, while space movies in a contemporary setting like Close Encounters, E.T., and the Superman series are suffused with nostalgically homey, lovingly comic, all-American romance.) All these futures are, of course, present thoughts and images marked, as it were, with a future index. I cannot even conceive what it might mean literally to think future things, that is, to be with one's thoughts in the future. There is a fourth future, our lived human future. It is the projected past, and thus also the past as a project. This future is always a possible image_.:_not an image of possibilities, for that is an impossibly indeterminate notion; nor a formulation of possibilities, for that is merely a logical exercise; nor even a prospectus of possible images, for that is conjecture and contingency planning. The actual future with which we live is a settled envisioning of a scene we deem the world capable of harboring. Such a scene always comes from memory, not only because without memory there is no experience with which to judge what visions are capable of realization, but also because memory is the space in which diverse perceptions are first transformed into coherent patterns. For it is from memory-images that we shape our aim-images. Indeed, Bergson claims that memory is primarily action-oriented, though that "to call up the past in the form of an image, we must be able to withdraw ourselves from the action of the moment, we must have the power to value the useless, we must have the will to dream." However, I hope to show that memory has even deeper work than future-dreaming. Such memory-projections may come to nothing and return to memory, closed out and abandoned: Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. T. S. Eliot "Burnt Norton", I llfE ST. JOHNS REVIEW But if they are held desirously and vividly enough, they immediately go over into projects: Every real action in the world, no matter how modest, has as its formal and its final cause an image, and those acticms are most felicitous whose projected image is at home in a Colden Age. A small but apt example is the making of a garden-every garden is conceived as a comer in the Garden of Eden, though its beginning be with the loan of a pickaxe. (I might add here that it is a blessing for us that every terrestrial paradise requires continual maintenance or we would fall into the taunting melancholy of the completely fulfilled imagination.) One more observation about a projected image which seems to be kind of a limit of our living future and which concerns the one event sure of realization, our death. We come on our death, it seems to me, in various ways, for example, as a shapeless terror before an unimaginable termination or as an imagined scene in which we are called on to play a leading role. That ultimate image will be and ought to be the occasional subject of meditation. But why should we, as Heidegger demands, face resolutely, at every moment, the fact of our own death, understood as the possibility of our not-being, in order for our existence to be authentic? That death is the end of our being is a mere surmise, and it is an open question whether the imagination, which like Dante's journeys in the middle of this life to bring back visions of the next, is delivering phantasies or memories. Be that as it may, the aspect of the great futural fact of our death which is most effective in life seems to me to be that notorious gift of Prometheus, namely our blindness concerning its exact date, and that is how our end governs our future. For death has us on an elastic tether, with give enough, we may always hope, for. the well-paced play necessary to the perfection of any project, .and with tautness enough to snap us eventually back from diversion to work. Before proceeding to the past, I want to forestall an objection which might be raised-that in considering the future as projected past I am attributing the order of my awareness to the order of worldly becoming, with the antic result that things receive their futurity from my projection, for instance that an old place to which I now first envision visiting is therefore a place of the future. But it is not the sequence of knowing and being that, as I argue, makes the future, but my present apprehension of a sequence of modes of awareness: I call future what I expect to perceive. This view, to be sure, detracts from the pathos of futurity, from both its inexhorableness and its contingency and implies precisely that there is no future-being. Indeed such being is an unintelligible notion, for what will be is not. By being in the future can be meant no more than this: that the image is posited as coming before the perception, where "before'' is not a temporal relation at all, for the "coming before" is now; it is in my present "expectation''.. To give the future no beinB is, however,.not to deny that 97 �"shall" and "will" have a strongly effective meaning. To resolve that "it shall be" is now to recover in the imagina· tion an image-appearance, perhaps to modify it, and to will to bring it to perception by the proper action. When the perception becomes actual it is future no longer but present. To prognosticate that "it will be" is now to antici· pate an external appearance and to have well-grounded ex· pectation for perceiving it. We are warranted in such an· ticipations because the passages of the world usually show a certain symmetry about the pivotal present, a symmetry we establish by attending to each memory specifically as a by-gone present. The shape of ordinary passages, we then conclude, is distorted very slowly about the perceived present. In fact, most passages which are important to us are either cyclical or monotonic, and therefore continu· ously predictable. There are, or course, moments of crisis, catastrophic discontinuities which teach us that every "logic of becoming" so far discovered is unreliable. But it stands to reason that were the variations of appearance ei· ther totally monotonous or totally multifarious, we would have no sense of a coherent future at all. What room, one might ask, does this view of the lived future as projected past leave for newness? The present is in a superficial sense always novel, because no matter how accurately it was foreseen or how effectively it was planned, the world's passages will bring out in us and will bring before us the unexpected and the adventitfous. The question really concerns a deeper newness: not whether human beings can put into the world what has merely never been before, but whether they can establish a well· founded new way, a novus ordo seclorum. The vision behind such an epoch cannot help but come from the imagi· nation. (I leave out the element of thought because it is so doubtful that thought is rooted in the phases of time at all.) The imagination finds the materials for such a vision in the storehouse of memory, but its affective shaping seems to come from the power of phantasy. Now both aspects of the imagination, memory and phantasy, are past-oriented. The memory is the very source of the past, while phantasy characteristically works-as a matter of observation-in the mode of "once upon a time," of primeval, ancient pat· terns. Therefore genuinely imagined new beginnings, as distinct from those that are light-headedly contrived, usu· ally take the form of a rectification, renewal, rebirth-in sum, of a return to "that time" (illo tempore) which is to be recovered in a new paradise, a new Colden Age, a New Jerusalem. d. The Past as Paramount Phase Memory-image and phantasy-image, the image arising from perception and the image made in the imagination, are distinguished from each other by certain marks. The intentionality of memory is that of being of an original per· ception of which it is precisely the memory. A phantasy· image lays no claim to being the memory of a once-pres scene except in play, in the well-circumscribed space, whose proper phase, I have claimed, is the past, of "once upon a time." (This distinction between the reality claims of phantasy and memory can, of course, be confounded in very fascinating ways.) Consequently memories have a fairly fixed temporal context, while phantasy and fairy tales take place in a floating time frame. But in certain fundamental characteristics, memory and phantasy are the same: Both are representations without the material presence of the world and subject to the same transmutations that such absence sanctions. With that deep bond between the realm of phantasy and of the past in mind, let me now enumerate reasons why the past, constituted in memory, is the humanly preponderant of the three phases of time. First, the past is, of necessity, thicker in texture and longer in extent and therefore weightier for us than our immediate present. For while we have indeed always a present, not everything that we have is always present. Why then should we be willing, having put ourselves to the trouble of living, to lose our life to oblivion? Even more, the past contains not only all our own accomplished passages but is indefinitely extended by the memories we absorb from the common store, from that derivative mem· ory called history. The past can be an ever-widening pan· . orama, so capaeious and so Vivid that it may sometimes seem as if it were, after all, not within us but as if we wan~ dered in it, as in our own interior space. That is h ·.) Augustine speaks of it: I come into the fields and spacious palaces of my memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images drawn from things of whatever sort by the senses . ... And yet do not the things themselves enter the memory; only the images per· ceived by the senses are ready there at hand ... . For there I have in readiness the heaven, the earth, the sea, and whatever I could perceive in them. [X 8) Whether we think of our memory-past as an increasing freight or a widening space, it must inform our life in action and conversation. The past is present as those se· lect memories which the present has called up to comfort, goad, or illuminate it. From these memories are distilled not only the projects of the future but that experience which enables us to envision the transformation a project will undergo in the course of realization and its unintended consequences: most unsound judgement is, after all, a failure of the latter aspect of the projective imagination. Besides being the source of experience, memory-past has secondly a clarifying and shaping power. It is often said that the present is fact, the future possibility, and the past is necessity; Presence may be called bald fact, though what the fact is, is rarely known in the present, Tue future may be thought as possibility, but it is lived as a vivid picture. . And the past may be in certain gross features unalterable, but the inner sense of passages is revealed as memory P" / 98 SUMMER 1983 �gressively revives and reviews them; just as in space proxi· mate objects are invisible until we have gained perspective on them through distance. So if the past is the necessary, meaning that of which memory cannot be otherwise (for we cannot say that past things are necessary, since they are not at all, being gone), it is so first of all insofar as it has been laid to rest, as when we say, "let bygones be by· gones." Indeed it is yet another power of memory, to for· get the best-forgotten, and the price for not exercising it is the paralyzing repetition of a worn-out present. (I do not mean that we can expunge the brute fact but that we can deprive it of its effectiveness. The religious term for that effort, when it concerns our own deeds, is "repentance," which "seeks to annul an actuality," Kierkegaard, Philo· sophical Fragments, "Interlude 3, The Past.") And sec· ondly, the past is necessary as far as the grossly designat· able events and their calendar dates are concerned: for example I believe it was Clemenceau who observed concerning the shifting interpretations of the Great War, that whatever is said, no one will ever claim that on August 4, 1914, Belgium invaded Germany. With respect to such brute facts, memory merely records. But for most past passages, memory, when it is called upon, shows itself to have been active. It has purified the once-present of its obscuring passions and clarified its pat· terns. It is this shaped and rectified past which most strongly colors and directs the present. It is what the poet means when he speaks of Time which takes away And taking leaves all things in their right place An image of forever One and whole. Edwin Muir, "I have been taught" It is our frequent experience that we do not realize what is going on before our eyes, that the present is shapeless and imperfect, that appearances must reappear in mem· ory to show what they were meant to be. What is ongoing has presence merely, but what is past shows its essence. Third, the panoramic, projective, and purgative capacities of the memory-imagination make it the great propaedeutic power for philosophy. For example, out of its store are fashioned those cosmic visions which complete the ar· guments of reason, as do the myths in the Platonic dialogues. Again as the room which holds the world without its material presence, it provides the field of a first encounter with immaterial form. And further, because of its recti· fying, schematizing, canonizing tendency, the memory acquaints us with ideality, whether in the schemata of geometry or in the types of excellence. Finally, the mem· ory is a training ground for philosophizing, because concentratedly pursued remembering, or recollection, has features analogous to searching thought. Fourth and last, the memory-past has a power of trans· figuration, of enchantment. Its force is such that those un· der its spell may melt with nostalgia even for hell on earth. THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW In this mode memory saturates with feeling what it has purged of passion. Now its scenes float up fragrant with an illumination of inexpressibly familiar mystery and its set· tings are suffused by an enigmatically musical aura. Proust describes these atmospheric colorations as turning the memory-world into a hieroglyphic of happiness whose de· cipherment is an enthrallingly exigent task. Proust is both the painstalcing initiate and the exploiting connoisseur of the magic of memory. His acute temporal sensibility presents him with an absorbing problem: He has discovered that on the one hand, "the true paradises are the paradises we have lost," while on the other, only the immediacy of perception can add the last perfection, that of real existence, to these paradisical memories. He finds that he can su<:eeed in his search for Jost time only when a sensory trigger perceived in the present, and iden· tica) with so.me element of the past such-as that taste of the teacake, revivifies his memory. Then past and present become one and the past is literally relived. This fusion of temporal phases he calls "pure time." There is something fascinating and something repellent in Proust's self-immured pursuit of the past not as a tem· plate for the future but as means to momentary bliss. What he describes is, as it happens, the most magical of temporal experiences-when the past lies upon the prese.nt as a luminous-transparency,or behind it like a vibrant backdrop, or within it like animating music. In spite of, or better, precisely for the sake of, the magic, it seems to me sounder not to importune the past for golden moments but to let them come as they will, and when they come to let them do their proper work, which is not only to bring delight but also to be the source of ardour for a worldly project. So profiting by Proust's case, we should probably avoid . too direct a preoccupation with our paradise-producing power. Otherwise much more might be said, particularly about its dose relation to music. For music is the most memorial of arts. It occurs only min"imally in the present and · the whole burden of its being is on memory, since the apprehension of a musical whole depends on retention, as Husserl has named the quasi-perception of passages just now past, while the recognition of its intention depends on the memory of alJ the music heard before. But mosl to my point here, music is the art which best aids and intensi· fies the significance-producing function of our memoryimagination because, as can no other art, it suffuses space with feeling and vivifies it with intimations of schemata of the body which stand for gestures of the souJ.36 But of such musings there is no end. • • • ·To conclude: The soundness and the fuJness of our existence seems· to me to begin with a right" relation to the three phases of time. Of these the present with its passions is loud enough in its own behalf, and when it is dimmed it 99 �is very often because of our improvident preoccupation with the future. Here I have brought forward the past and its images not only because it is the forgotten phase of our time,3 7 but because I really think that it has the dignity I have ascribed to it: It is the depth of the present and the shape of the future. The wholeness of life and half of its happiness comesand its coming depends on good fortune and work, and above all, on single-minded desire-when the present world is perceived against a deep, luminous background of memory, which is at once also a prospect into the future and a project. That temporal whole (it cannot rightly be · called a present and I have no name for it) will sometimes-not often-submit itself to thought and invite contemplation. That is, I think, the complement of temporal completeness and a consummation of human happiness. Let my witness be, one last time, Aristotle, speaking of that human being-perhaps a little beyond our meanswho will be the best friend and live the happiest life (Nie. Eth. IX, on friendship, 1166 a 14 ff.): He is in harmony with himself and has the same desires throughout his whole soul ... Such a one wants to be in his own company since he makes it pleasant for himself. For he has delightful memories of what he has done and good hopes for what is to come, and finally, his mind abounds in objects of contemplation. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1787) B 46- . ' "Transcendental Aesthetic: Of Time"; A 98-110: the three syntheses; B 150-159: "Of the Application of the Categories to the Objects of the Senses in General"; B 176-187: "Of the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding"; B 274-279: "Refutation of Idealism"; B 399-432; A 341-405: "Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason." II. SUPPORTING ThxTS, STUDIES, COMMENTARIES Samuel Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1916-1918), London 1920, Bk. I, i-iv. Staffan Bersten, Time and Eternity, A Study in the Structure and Symbolism of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, New York 1973, III iii. Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will, English version of An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (1889), F. L. Pogso!'l, trans., New York 1960, Ch. II and Conclusion. Otto F. Bollnow, Das Wesen der Stimmungen, Frankfurt a.M. 1968, Chps. IV, XII. Santa Fe, Summer 1982 Albert Einstein, and others, "On the Electrodynamic-. Moving Bodies" (1905), The Principle of Relativity Dover 1952, par. 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. MAIN TExrs Aristotle, Physics IV 10-14 (time); III 1-3 (motion); VIII (primary motion); On Memory and Recollection I (phases of time); On Coming to Be and Passing Away II 10-11 (cyclical time). Also: Metaphysics IX, XII; On the Soul III; Posterior Analytics II 12; On Interpretation 9. (4th cent. B.C.). Augustine, Confessions (c. 400 A.D.) X 8-26 (memory); XI 10-31 (time). Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927), John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, trans., New York 1962, First Part, Second Section, paras. 65, 68-69, 79-82. · Edmund Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal TimeConsciousness (1905), Martin Heidegger, ed~. James S. Churchill, trans., Bloomington 1964, Sec. II "The Analysis of Time-Consciousness"; III "The Levels of Constitution of Time and Temporal Objects." 100 Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries (1957), P. Mairet, trans., New York 1975, Ch. I: "The Myths of the Modem World." J. N. Findlay, "Time: A Treatment of Some Puzzles," Logic and LAnguage, Garden City 1965, pp. 40-59. Michael Gelven, A Commentary on Heidegger's "Being and Time," New York 1970. James J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Boston 1966. John G. Gunnell, Political Philosophy and Time, Middletown 1968, Conclusion. G. W. F. Hegel, Encyclopedia: Philosophy of Nature (1827) paras. 257-260; Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807), Preface. Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysic (1934), James S. Churchill, trans., Bloomington 1962 Logik (1925-26), Gesammtausgabe, Bd. 21, FranV a.M. 1976, Sec. C. SUMMER 198 �William James, Psychology, Ch. XVII: "The Sense of Time." G. W. Leibniz, "Reply to Bayle's Reflections on the System of Preestablished Harmony" (1702); Third and Sev· enth Letter to Clarke (1716). Wyndham Lewis, Time and Western Man (1927), Boston 1957. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Bk. II 14-15. Phenomenology of Memory, The Third Lexington Confer· ence on Pure and Applied Phenomenology, E. W. Straus and R M. Griffith, eds ..t. Pittsburgh 1970. The Problem of Time, Berkeley 1935. The Study of Time, Proceedings of the First Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time, Vol. I, 1969, Springer 1972, and subsequent volumes. Time and its Mysteries, New York 1962. The Voices of Time, J. T. Frazer, ed., New York 1966. . Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (1924, begun 1912), Ch. 4, 2;.~'Introduction to The Magic Mountain," Princeton Lecture (1939), (Preface to Fisher edition, 1950). IV. TIME IN SCIENCE M. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Colin Smith, trans., London 1962, Part III 2. Sir Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1928), London 1947, Chps. III-IV. Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philoso· phy (16871 Scholium to the Definitions. Adolf Gri.Ienbaum, Philosophical Problems of Space cind Time, Boston 1973, Chps. 8-9, 12. Plato, Timaeus 37-39. Hans Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space and Time (1927), New York 1958, Chps. II, III. Plotinus, Ennead III 7 (3rd cent. A.O.): Plotin ueber Ewigkeit and Zeit, Werner Beierwaltes, trans. and ed., Frankfurt a.M. 1967. G. J. Whitrow, The Naturcil Philosophy of Time, New York 1963. Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1926), Time Retrieved Ch. 3. W. 0. Ross, Aristotle's Physics, Text, Introduction, Com· mentciry, Oxford 1955. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943), Pt. II 2-3. Most of the collections contain articles on time in sci· ence. In particular, Voices of Time: H. Dingle, "Time in Relativity Theory: Measurement or Coordinate?", p. 455 ff.; 0. C. de Beauregard, "Time in Relativity Theory: Ar· guments for a Philosophy of Being," p. 417 ff.; M. Capek, "Time in Relativity Theory: Arguments for a Philosophy of Becoming," p. 434 ff.; R. Schlegel, "Time and Thermo· dynamics," p. 500 ff. Charles M. Sherover, Heidegger, Kant, and Time, Bloomington 1971. Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, H. Oiels, ed., Berlin 1895, pp. 829-832. Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nciture (1920), Ann Arbor 1957, Ch. III. Eviator Zerubavel, Hidden Rhythms, Schedules and Calendars in Socicil Life, Chicago 1981. III. COLLECTI_ ONS ) Bcisic Issues in the Philosophy of Time, E. Freeman and W. Sellars, eds., LaSalle 1971. 1liE ST. JOHNS REVIEW 1. A supporting curiosity: the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations reveals a 24: I ratio of time to space sayings. (Study of Time I; p. 313~ 2. Merleau-Ponty (p. 41 l)presents an analysis of the pu~e. If time were like a river it would indeed appear, on its own, to flow from the past into the future, namely from the source toward the distant mouth, in the di· rection a twig floats. But a river unobserved really has no events or tern· poral direction, for these require ari onlooker's perspective: "Time pre· supposes a view of time." So no unwatched river can represent time. Now introduce an observer, and the "motion" of time is straightaway reversed: The waters flow from the source at the observer and pass him, so that time comes toward him as he expects it and passes out of sight, that is, it flows from future to past. 3. Findlay, p. 41 4. Newton distinguishes "absolute, true, and mathematical time," which is a condition of motion, from relative or apparent time, which is the common time measured by motion. His physical motive for positing absolute time appears to be his belief that rotary motion is absolute, an as· sumption criticized by Leibniz in De Motu. Leibniz speaks of mathematical time as "ideal." It is nothing in itself 101 �but an idea in the mind of God (Seventh Letter to Cfurke). namely that of the order of mutually inconsistent possibilities (as space is the order of possible coexistences); it expresses the order-relations of phenomena which cannot be simultaneous but are connected-note well, the relations of phenomena, not of the substances themselves. His chief reason for objecting to absolute time is the principle that contingent truths, i.e., truths of fact, must have a sufficient reason. Now if time were absolute and instants existed in themselves, one might reasonably ask why God did not create the world a year sooner, and claim that by choosing this particular beginning he acted without reason, arbitrarily. But if time is a mere relation of phenomena, the world made a year sooner is in every respect indiscemibly different from the later world, and the question is obviated (Third Letter to Clarke~ Augustine partly anticipates this argument: If any giddy brain should ask why God forbore creating the world for innumerable ages, the answer is, Cod does not in time precede time (XI 13). Time arises simultaneously with the creation, or better, with the creature. See Sec~ lll. 5. Of course, physically speaking, to ignore the finiteness of the speed of light reduces relative to classical kinematics. 6. Alexander's work, Space, Time and Deity, a very large book of lectures given from 1916-1918, has as its beginning thesis the interdependence of space and time: "There is not an instant in time without a position in space and no point of space without an instant of time." (1, p. 48). Although Alexander had read of relativity theory, his treatment, which is purely philosophical, is quite independently conceived. 7. Wyndham Lewis interprets the preoccupation with time in all departments of human activity as a romantic reaction; he understands by romanticism a fluid, indeterminate, sensation-seeking, sophisticated rebellion against distinctly formed reality (Ch. 1). 8. Phenomenology, Preface, par. 45 (Miller, trans.). In the passage Hegel draws attention to the fact that there is no temporal counterpart to geometry. Space is the existence into which the Concept writes its distinctions as into an empty, dead element. Time, on the other hand, is the pure unrest of life, absolute differentiation and negativity. 9. See "Chronos," Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopaedie. Cronos, the father of Zeus who devoured and later disgorged his own children, was sometimes identified with Chronos, Time. 10. Simplicius is right when he shows at length that time does not move, but mistaken when he gives that as the reason why Aristotle does not include time among the categories in which motion occurs (on Phys. 225 b ;). Aristotle does in fact include the category of "how much" or quan· tity, in which time, as it happens, belongs. \\'hat he omits is "when,'' which is the category not of time but of timing-of which more below. 11 . Aristotle discusses his analogue to space, i.e.. "void" just before motion (213 b ff.). He regards its pure infinite dimensionality as a physical absurdity in which all motion becomes impossible for lack of any natural direction toward a place. For Aristotle things are contained in demarcated places, not spread out over a continuous substrate of infinite extension. 12. When Timaeus-not Socrates-tells how time arose, simultaneously ~ith the heavens, as a moved image of "eternity" (a-ion, the un-going), a "likeness of the ungoing, going according to number," he is giving the m)·thological anticedent of Aristotle's treatment of time in terms of the number of motion and of the heavenly motion as providing the measures of time. 13. The logical possibility of such necessary cycles is given in Post. An. (II 12). Those cycles of becoming are non-contingent whose events imply each other. Aristotle's cyclicality is indeed a forerunner of Nietzsche's "Eternal Return:" "That everything returns is the most extreme approach of a world of becoming to a world of being: Summit of the inquiry" (Will to Power, no. 617). In the Eternal Return the impossible is accomplishedto be in the same now twice and so to be causa sui (if causation is temporal). Consequently every moment is, so to speak, a discrete eternity. composed of all the previous identical moments, and the future comes at the now out of the past. The difference from Aristotle's theory is that this cycle is not conceived as an approach to God and has no final cause be· yond itself, but is intrinsically necessitated. In the Statesman (269 ff.) Plato lets the Eleatic Stranger tell of a yet 102 more curious cyclical sequence. It is a time-fable playing on the possib. ties of time reversal In the primary age Cronos, i.e., Time (see Note 9). takes the tiller of the world. Human beings spring grey-haired from the earth and grow into childhood, fruit ripens without culture; animals are tame and human beings understand their language; there are no families and no cities. In our present age the god has let go and the world uo~inds itself. We are no longer the wards of the god, but are hurnanJy generated, meagre, and exposed. Prometheus and Athena have given us arts and wisdom to make this life bearable. The Stranger declines to decide which age is happier since he does not know what was the disposition of the Cronians with respect to knowledge and philosophy. The fable means that the era of human independence is more diverse and more difficult than the cycle guided by the god and that its temporality is, as it were, fallen and inverted since the phases of imperfection are prior to the states of perfection. Yet the fable also implies that in the Cronian age philoso. phy may be an unwanted superfluity, while in the human age it .is an ineradicable need. A story of immense cycles, repeated through an "infinity" of time, a serial sequence of development and destruction in human affairs is told by the Athenian in lAws (676 ff.) 14. For a fine exposition of Aristotle's definition of motion"See Joe Sachs, "Aristotle's Definition of '.\lotion," The College, Jan. 1976, pp. 12-18. 15. Gunnell, p. 232 16. I use the term perception to distinguish the work of the facultv of sensation from that of the sense organs. As Aristotle does implicitly, so Whitehead explicitly distinguishes between the point-now which he calls "moment" and thr. duration yielded by sense perception. The "moment" is defined in terms of "abstractive sets" of duration. An abstracfo"e set is all the nested durations converging to the same limit, and a moment is defined as the class of all such sets converging to the same limit, each set being a different "route of approximation" to the same moment (pp. 5762). 17. The relation between time and eternity is similarly quasi-contemporaneous; in distinction from the temporality of human thought, div· thought is the same with itself through the "whole" of eternity (Met. L a 11). The scholiast on Nie. Eth. 1174 b 9 wrongly but understandably speaks of the now as an "atom of time," that is, a minimal of time, a moment. This is a notion Aristotle takes pains to reject (Phys. 220 a 27), though he does speak of the limiting point of a period of time as "indivisible" (223 b 34). 18. Aristotle refers to motion "in" the soul in the absence of sensation (Phys. 219 a 6). to -imagination and opinion as "a certain kind.of motion" (254 a 30). and to "changes" of mind (218 b 21). 19. Interestingly enough, such double consciousness is just what Husserl observes in that internal time flux which seems to him the basic temporal phenonmenon (par. 39): While we are conscious of the passing of a tern· poral object like a melody we are also conscious of the time flo,.- itself. 20. Taking his clue from Plato's Timaeus, the Neoplatonic Plotinus elaborates a grand ontological cosmology in which time plays a role quite the opposite from that in "Aristotle (Enneads Ill 7). The two relevant elements from the Timaeus are these: The cosmos is an image of being and the soul encompasses it. Time, says Plotinus, "fell out of eternity" (11, 7) because of an original flaw in the soul, a kind of grasping busyness which keeps the soul from abiding in self-sufficient quiet and causes it always to look to the next thing, to something beyond the present. For the soul is itself a variable and discursi\·e image of the intellect (Beierwaltes, p. 54). Hence it falls into a sort of motion, a kind of self-displacement. As it accomplishes a stretch of its journey, time is produced as an image of eternity. Speaking less metaphorically, the- soul "temporalizes" itself (echronesen, 11. 30), making time instead of eternity. Within time it produces the place of \·ariability, namely the sensible world as an image of eternity. Therefore the world, which moves within the soul, is, not altogether metaphorically, in · time and serves time. Time, in opposition to Aristotle, is not the number of motion but that in which and by which motion is possible (8; 9, -t). Since time comes from a lcind of greed for continual self-exceeding, iUs in its very essence futural; the soul looks ahead and draws the ft ·1 through the now, which by nature always goes out of itself, into the~ ) SUMMER 1983 �it is continually cancelling the now. This passage defines time: Time is the life (zoe) of the soul in a transitive motion from one life-phase (bios) to another ( 11, 44~ But as time is only an image of eternity, so temporal life · is merely homonymous with the eternal life of the intellect (l l, 49~ The time of the world soul and world time are the same, and since all souls are one, the same time also appears in each human soul (13, 67). The first question about time must be: Is it of the soul or of the world, is its source consciousness or reality? Plotinus' grand scheme, in making time the life of the soul and making the soul the animating generator of the world, collapses this distinction: It is precisely in being of the soul that time is in the world. 21. \Vhitrow, pp. 78 ff. 22. For example: that we can reach a memory, either randomly, by a "glancing ray," or systematically, by a process of attention (a distinction roughly the same as that made by Aristotle between remembering and recollecting, On Memory and Recollection II); that the clarity of a presentified object is distinguishable from the clarity of the presentification; :hat there are memories of memories, and also memories of objects we 'tave never perceived such as historical scenes; that every memory is fixed in an unalterable temporal environment even as it runs off from the ;>resent; that the perception of time and the time of perception corre;pond; that memory is distinguished from phantasy by a factor of"positmg," i.e., by being given a definite temporal position with respect to the ;>resent. ?3. I have omitted in this account that connecting of concepts called udging, which is required to complete experience (B 187 ff.). !4. Locke, for example, presents a theory of time in which there is suc:ession without an underlying flux. Our mind contains a "train of ideas," 1 succession of objects of thinking, from which we derive our idea of du:ation by reflection. Duration is "fleeting extension," the perpetually perishing part of succession (Essay II 14, I). The theory neatly takes a middle ground between Aristotle's psychic counting of external motion and Kant's original, undifferentiated inner flux. 25. Aristotle distinguishes, under somewhat shifting terminology, between thought or intellection (n6esis) which is the immediate apprehension of form, and discursive thinking (dianoia, e.g., Met. 1027 b 25). In a comparison with the Kantian faculties, pure intellect (nous) would be contrasted with the transcendental apperception or pure reason, human noesis with conceiving or understanding, and dianoia with judging. 26. In the original Transcendental Deduction (A 98-102) Kant distinguishes three phases of the unifying synthesis performed by the apperception and assigns to each a faculty: I. The synthesis of apprehension in intuition, an original taking-up into awareness and temporal ordering of the manifold of sensation. 2. A synthesis of reproduction in the imagination, an original associati:ig or connecting of representations of objects in their absence which makes remembering possible. 3. A synthesis of recognition in a concept, by which what is successively sensed and then remembered is recognized and united in one concept. On the face of it the distinctive temporal phase-if the syntheses are indeed to be temporally interpreted-would seem to be the past: cumulative apprehension, reproduction, re-cognition. Nonetheless Heidegger makes a fascinating case that Kant has implicitly prefigured his own account of the origin of all three phases in the future by showing that the syntheses correspond exactly to his three temporalizing ecstases of human existence: The apprehensive · synthesis corresponds to "originary presentification," the reproductive synthesis to "repetition" of what has been, and the synthesis of recognition to the "anticipation" of understanding (Kant and Metaphysics par. 33; Sherover, pp. 186 ff.; for Heidegger's reinterpretation of the imagination as understood in the Critique see Sherover, pp. 142, 150). 27. I. Plotinus anticipates Heidegger in the central notion of the selftemporalization of the soul, and in regarding the future as the essence of time (See Note 20~ ·· . Hegel's abstruse dialectical exposition of time in the Philosophy of Nature (paras. 257-260) is meticulously but critically interpreted by Heidegger (Logik, par. 20; Being and Time, par. 82 a). Its gist is as follows. In his dictum that "the truth of space is time," i.e., that space in being thought reveals itself as time, Hegel is opposing the commonsense apprehension of their disjunction. Space, for Hegel, is the indifferent mµtual z. THE ST. JOHNS REVIEW extemality of the manifold of points: "Space is punctuality." Each point in this manifold is a negation insofar as it discriminates a difference in space, although the point is not distinguishable from space. That is how space represents itself to us, to begin with. Now .w hen the point-space is subjected to thought, when it is not merely represented but actually conceived, that is to say, when its truth is brought out, the point, or rather each point, is determined. For thinking is determination, i.e., delimitation and distinction. So each point is distinguished from the manifold and set for itself: It is this point, not that point. Hence negativity, space, has in turn been negated. This negated negativity is the "truth" of space, namely the point conceived, and it is time. For in being so determined for itself, the point's indifference with respect to other points is cancelled; it steps out of its own indifferent condition, although it maintains its indifference to its neighbors. Thus it no longer lies in a paralyzed quietus of space but, so to spealc. gets a move on, rears itself up, outdoes.or succeeds itself: It becomes a now. And the successive determination of this now and that now, the continual negating of spatial negativity, that is time. '1n time the point has actuality," namely as no~. The.complementary positive concept of time is "intuited becoming," by which Hegel means the disappearance of specifo::ally experienced nows. Heidegger is critical of Hegel's understanding of time as the mere nowsequence of which his own work is a critique. (See Sec. V l~ He does note that time as negating negativity is formally identified by Hegel with subjectivity (self-Overcoming~ but he fails to mention at all in the Logik, what in Being and Time (omitting reference to the later lectures on the Phenomenology,) he discounts as a mere formality, namely that in the Philosophy of Spirit, which goes beyond the physical time of the Philosophy of Nature, this identification raises time to an all-encompassing stature: Time is the existent Spirit itself, the Spirit externalized. Here time is no longer a mere succession of nows; indeed, the notion that time is subjec· tivity is at least a way station to Heidegger's temporality as the ground of human existence. 3. Bergson gets short shrift (Logik, par. 21~ but he too anticipates Heidegger in certain elements: A first such anticipation is Bergson's emphasis on the essential temporality of human life which is in accord with his understanding of time as a vital, non-discrete, non-numerable qualitative and interpenetrative heterogeneity called "duration proper." A second is in Bergson's understanding of the origin of quantified, countable time as externalization, that is to say as a spatialization of true duration, brought about when consciousness introduces succession into the dead simultaneity of spatial phenomena. (Spatial phenomena, even when so modified have no vitality of their own; they only have an unaccountable property of presenting to consciousness change at successive moments.) But above all, Bergson precedes Heidegger in the notion of an externalized variant of life which is permitted to unfold in space outside rather than in time within, and iii which "we speak rather than think, we are enacted rather than ourselves act" (Essay, Conclusion). This externalization of time is surely an anticipation of "inauthenticity." 4. Because of the complex transformation of the meanings I merely· mention Kierkegaard's theological terms "repetition" and "the moment." (For Heidegger's acknowledgement of the latter see Being and Time II 4, n. iii.) 28. Plotinus, who has a way with words not unlike Heidegger's, uses the word dillstaris-distance-as a designation precisely of that quantitatively apprehensible succession of time through which its qualitative nature, the unity of its phases, is also displayed as the future continually passes into the present and the present into the past (Beierwaltes, p. 65). In the word ecstasis Heidegger expresses the denial of this diastatic or sequential unity; for him there is no temporal continuu.m since past ;md present both come directly from the future, though of course not through a temporal succession but through an ontologieal derivation. 29. Bollnow (Ch. IV) criticizes Heidegger's existential interjlretation of mood because it posits the "depressed" moods as exemplary and takes no account of the elevated moods. He seems to me to be right, because the understanding of "moodiness' (Stimmung} as a disclosure of "having been" is entirely derived from the mterpretation of anxiety as a being brought back to one's thrownness. But why should the other moOds be similarly grounded in the ecstasis of the past? 103 �30. Heidegger claims that the concept of this vulgar, infinite now-time which he has established is nothing but the existential-ontological interpretation of Aristotle's definition of time (par. 81~ This critique gives no weight to the fact that this countable continuum is for Aristotle only an aspect of motion undentood as the actualization of being and that its infinity and its now-present are precisely regarded as expressing the approach of becoming to being. to its eternity and its presentness. 31. The lack of an imaginative mode shows up especially in Heidegger's discussion of the relation of practice to theory (paras. 15, 69 a, b). Each has its own temporality, but that of the latter is entirely secondary to the former. Do.sein fmds itself always already involved in the world and bound into a context of instrumentality, of "equipment," which is "ready to hand" for use. Heidegger gives the example of a hammer: The less the hammer-thing is merely gaped at, the more Douin seizes hold of it in a primordial relation much more revealing of its being than any contemplation would be. Only later, usually when some deficiency is encountered in the tool, does that speculative stance arise, in which Dosein "presenti· fies" objects to itself as things independent of their use, so that they are merely "present at hand." Recall that the present is the least prestigious of the ecstases. Thus practice is a more primordial mode than contemplati Ve theory. The phenomena seem to me to be misobserved here. From the wideopen receptivity of a baby's eyes to the slow contemplative inspection which precedes any proper tool-using, every appearance of satisfying human activity seems to begin with imaginative viewing. 32. Whitrow, a very perspicacious writer on natural time, concludes that from the viewpoint of natural science time is real (pp. 288-290) on the grounds that the past is determinate, that the present is the moment of determination or becoming, and that the future is a mathematical con· struction subject to correction by observation. Then "time is the media· tor between the possible and the actual." However, I cannot see why this mediating power is called time, rather than, for instance, becoming or the passage of nature (See Sec. VI 2~ Whitrow himself names numerous writers among scientists who deny the reality of time, The general difficulty is that in most of these treatments time is either already defined so as to enter the discussion as real or that the issue of its reality is not even raised. Whitehead, on the other hand, is careful to refrain from using the word time for his "fundamental fact," the "passages of nature," which includes spatial as well as temporal transitions. The passing of a temporal duration is an "exhibition" of this passage of nature, which is also respon· sible for the uniqueness of each act of perception and for the terminus, · i.e., its object (pp. 54-5 5~ 33. The etymology of chr6nos is unfortunately obscure. Both Greek words for time are masculine, and so, naturally, are the representations. In English. time, perhaps under the influence of feminine German Zeit, is sometimes given female attributes: "the womb of time," "sluttish time" (Sormet 55~ though we also speak.of "Father Time." 104 34. A difficulty about making perceived motion precede time might seem to be raised by the well-known discovery in the physiology of perception that there are quanta of perception, i.e., minimal times, below which events remain unregistered or subliminal, and threshold speeds above which the individual position of a mobile cannot be discriminated and its path appears as a streak. These temporal effects might seem to imply that time underlies them and is their condition of possibility, were it not for the fact that this time is itself measured by micro-motions observable to artificially refined perception. 35. The literature concerning the imagination, physiological, psychologicaL and philosophical, in this century is enormous. Of the last the most interesting writings seem to me to be those of the phenomenologists. They take their departure from Husserl's Ideos (1913, especially par. Ill~ The fullest and most original treatment is Sartre's Imagination (1936). The chief and most absorbing questions about the imagination are: Is it a faculty? How can it hold sensory objects without a material substrate? Are images likenesses? Whence comes their special affectivity? What is spatiality such that we can have an inner space-consciousness? Why are images primarily spatial and visual? What is the relation of voluntary to involuntary memory-images? And above all, how is the imagination related to thought: as object, product, instigator? 36. For a lovely study of the dance types of music and how they convey bodily schemata which in tum express the soul, see Wye Jamison Allan· brook, "Dance, Gesture and The Marriage of Figaro," The College XXIV, no. l (April 1974~ pp. 13-21. 37. The past is not given priority, at least not by any philosophical writers on time that I know of. For Nietzsche it is the future with its possibilities that conditions the present, since out of it come all valuations, including the true as that which is destined to be. So also it is in the future that Heidegger grounds authentic human existence. However, for the most part some kind of present is favored. For example, Sartre transforms Heidegger's analysis so as to place the ontological present at the center. He understands it as the phase in which consciousness makes itsr · present to all non-conscious beings, thus originally uniting them as c present in a world (Being and Nothingness II I b). Hume gives primary place to the vivid presence of sense impressions, of which memory and imagination are but pale residues (Enquiry Il~ As for the ancients, Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, they honor an atemporal present, and of them Aristotle with the most authoritative explicitness: Speaking of the divine intellect he says (Met. 1072 b 14-18): Its way of life is lilce the best we have for a brief time. For that being is always in this state (which is impossible for us~ since its actuality is also a pleasure. And because of that, wakefulness, perception, intellection ~e most pleasant, and because of these, hopes and memories. This view of the phases of time as reflecting divine eternity is of course compatible with the claim that the past is primary in human life. � 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. 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Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 40 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/. Title A name given to the resource Against Time Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983-02-18 1983-02-25 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on February 18 and 25, 1983 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1983-02 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/263">Audio recording (part one)</a><br /><a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/316">Audio recording (part two)</a> Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/bc116b6849eb1799c304798798c77304.pdf 24c6130e2736d2ded4b5550a99c58a5f PDF Text Text Plato' s Theory of Ideas Eva Brann* Ny subject for tonight is, as announced, "Plato' s Theory of Ideas". vlhether that subject actually in-terests you, or you think that it ought to interest you-- you \vill, I imagine, regard it as a respectable lecture topic . And yet I have to tell you that every term in the project is wrong-headed. Let me, therefore begin by explaining why that is. I mean that First, Plato' s Theory of Ideas·is not a subject at all. it is not a compact mental material to be presented on an intellectual pla-tter. Plato himself refrained from making it the direct theme of any of the twenty-five or more dialogues which he wrote. Ins·tead; the ideas appear in the context of conversation, incidentally and in scattered places. He gives the reason directly in a letter: There is no treatise of mine about these things, nor ever will be. For it cannot be talked about like other subjects of learning, but out of much communion which has taken place around this business, and from living together, suddenly, like a light kindled from a leaping fire, it gets into the soul, and from there on nourishes itself. (Seventh Letter 34lc). I t follows that my lecture, like all the similar scholars' efforts, is an outsider' s attempt to short-circuit a required initiation, u.n attempt which betrays my lack of genuine participation in the truth I veying as a molded matter. am con- On the other hand, there is also much in Plato' s works \vhich invites such an exposition of his doctrine: much explicit and provocative argumentation and many promises of an externally communicable way to insight. * Friday Night Lecture, delivered in Annapolis on September 14, 1979 and in Santa Fe on February 15, 1980. �-2- I have another reason for thus boldly ploughing in. Last summer there died that man, that teacher in this school, who, as it seemed to many of us, best knew the way into the Platonic dialogues . Jacob Klein . His name lS While he was alive, I, for one, resting secure in the fact of his existence, postponed a bald confrontation of my own with this ultlinate philosophical matter. But now, I thought, the time had come to be bold in acting on tpe advice Socrates gives to his friends in the course of the last conversation of his life. When he is asked where they will find someone to charm away their fears that philosophy is impossible once he is dead, he tells them that not only among the Greeks, but also among the barbarians-- that, of course, includes us -there are many good people who can do this for them. But then he adds: And also you must search for them among youselves, for probably you will not easily find people more �able than you are to do this . {Phaedo 78 a) . We speak of "Plato' s Theory", and let me now say something about that. . . Its chief source are, to be sure, the works of Plato, and he is 1 . J.ts u tJ.mate master . 1) Yet within his works, the·-:-. Dialogu�-��1 it is not Plato but his teacher Socrates who originates and maintai�s the theory . Plato presents Socrates as having.a life-long hold on it, though he speaks of it under continuously changing aspects . There is a so-called "late" dialogue, the Parmenides, in which the elderly author imagines a boyish Socrates�- a wonderful turnabout-- and in which Socrates' ' originating claim is elicited by the father of philosophy, Parmenides, . {130 b) . hlmself. v There is another dialogue, also written late in Plato' s life, the Sophist, in which an old Socrates, just a few weeks away from death, listens silently while a stranger brings the theory to its height �-3- with the solution of its deepest difficulty. And finally there is a "middle" dialogue, the Phaedo, in which Socrates, in the last conversation of his life, addresses the theory more directly than anywhere else. Plato, ) at least, wished the world to think of "Socrates Theory of Ideas". But then, more accurately, he would not have had us think of a "theory" at all. By� theory we usually mean a conceptual construction designed in principle to yield satisfying explanations for every problem . 2) . A theory ought to be falslfiable, which means it should brought to lt. be capable of being made to reveal its incompleteness or inconsistency by strenuous formal reasoning, so that it may be discredited and disTherefore it is its author' s responsibility to present it in carded. the most impregnable form possible. aplenty in the Theory of Ideas. Scholars do find such difficulties But here is a curious circumstance: they are all anticipated in their boldest form in that very dialogue, the Parmenides, which represents a boyish Socrates as first proposing the Ideas. 3) Can you think of another philosophical theory which is pre- sented at the very beginning in terms of a series of devastating difficulties, never to be explicitly resolved? The point is, the Ideas are not a theory. Socrates calls his bringing in of the Ideas a "supposing" (Phaedo 100 b); the Greek word for a supposition is a hypothesis. A hypothesis is, literally, an underpinning, a prop. 4) It comes to him and he comes on it at every departure and at every turning. It is a basis he ackr10wledges _so that he can carry on ___ as he must; not a conclusion presented for verification but a beginning which then becomes the end of inquiry. It is first the condition that gives him heart for a search, by making it possible for him to frame a question that has in it the arrow to an answer. One might say that it �-4- allows him to make a suspect of the unknown. {Meno 8 6 b). Thereafter, however, the Idea-hypotheses--for the hypothesis is not the proposition that there are I deas but each Idea itself--are to be used as stepping stones to their own conversion into something not merely supposed but truly beheld, "seen". {Republic 511 b. ). Such suppositions are surely not fruitfully accosted by formal hammer-and-tongs argument, though they are, of course, amenable to careful and critical inspection. I keep calling these Socratic suppositions Ideas . The word "idea" I is a transcription of a term Socrates himself uses, idea. it is an infelicitous term. For ask yourselves what we usually mean by an idea, for instance when we say: lecture ". Nonetheless "That' s her idea of a good Clearly we mean an opinion or a mental image or a concept, often in opposition to "the real thing ". This modern notion of an idea, the result of an earth-shaking intellectual upset, is that of a mental representation, sornet.):l_ing befm::e _or in the organ of ideas, the mind . The use of the term would cast my exposition into a false, albeit familiar, frame, and I would only make things worse were I to insist that Socrates' I deas are "real", and worse yet, "really exist". , Socrates' own chief word is eidos. - Like the word idea it is built on the simple past stem of the word to see, which signifies the act of seeing once done and completed . Scholars have collected the many meanings of eidos which flow continuously from the broadly ordinary to the narrowly technical: class, kind. shape, figure, face, form, characteristic, quality, But, of course, when we dwell on the multiplicity of Greek usages, we are standing the matter on its head, for they are all revealing differentiations from the dead-center meaning. Eidos means sight, aspect, looks, in that eerily active sense in which a thing that has looks or is a sight presents itself to our sight and our looking. �-5"Looks", then, and, not idea or form, is the most faithful rendering of eidos. 5) of eidos . But it sounds too curious, and so I shall tonight speak simply The plural is eide. for his hypothesis . Eidos, then is the word Socrates chooses For that choice he might, for this once, be called a "Greek thinker", one who cherishes and yet overturns the wisdom of his languageJwhich associates seeing and knowing: built on the stem of "I saw" . "I know" in Greek is Eidos is a choice full of witty depth, for the first of all those notorious Socratic paradoxes is surely that the eidos is invisible . So let me convert the falsely familiar title "Plato's Theory of Ideas" to "Socrates' hypothesis of the eide" . I shall pursue the eidos under seven headings, for it shows as many aspects as there are beginnings to Socrates' inquiry# Indeed, that is what makes his hypothesis compelling: "d that so many roads lead to t he el os . 6) I. II. Excellence and Commonness Speech and Dialectic III . Answers and Questions IV . Opinion and Knowledge v. VI . VII . I. Being and Appearance Same and Other Original and Image Excellence and Commonness "Philosophy" means literally the love of wisdom . Therefore it begins in desire (Republic 475 b, Symposium 204 a) , in desirous love, in erotic passion, the most acute of all passions . . . young beglmung or. ph"losophy . l 7) That is what we might call the It is that love which arises when another human being appears "all-beautiful in aspect", in eidos, as the �-6- Greek phra.>e goes . (Charmide� 154 d) . We might simply say that it arises when someone suddenly becomes visible for us . For beauty, Socrates says, has the part of shining out eminently and being most lovable, and of coming to us through sense, through the most acute of senses, the sense of sight. Beauty is brilliance, attractive visibility . Beauty is sight par excellence, and a sight is that which, without going out of itself, draws us from a distance . But such a sensual sight, such a bodily "idea" (Phaedrus 251 a), which draws us from afar, affects us with an exciting and utterly confounding sense of its being a mere penetrable veil, a mere representation Of some divinity beyond . such love as adoration. That is why we speak of It draws us not to itself but through itself-- the enchantedly attentive fascination with sensual looks goes over into something on the other side of that surface. Desire through distance is called love, and if what beckons is on the further side of surface sight, it is called philosophy . For, Socrates says, there is a road, whose first station is the beckoning irritation aroused by one beautiful body and which leads us to have an eye, first for all kinds of beauty and finally to sight its self-sameness everywhere in the world and in the soul . (Symposium 210 a). And that sight, the very source of visibility, is beyond sense, and is the eidos itself . There is another beginning in what is extraordinary and captivating, but its visible aspect is a little duller, though its luster is life-long . (Phaedrus 250 d) . It has to do with what is outstanding, excellent . Some time or other all of us are overcome by admiration for the fullness of being of certain people and their deeds, or even by an animal or a tool . (Republic 353 b, 601 d) . Such potency of being, such proper goodness, , is called in Greek aret�, which means effective excellence, potent capability. (Laches 192 b) . It is more than ordinary usefulness or �-7- humanity or sincerity. It is rather a kind of superlativeness--its I name is related to aristos, the best. It is competitive, "agonistic", as the Greeks say, and uncommon, although we speak rightly and yet paradoxically of a "standard " of excellence . Excellence and how to engender it is a topic of pervasive fascination . It interests the good, the crafty, the curious, parents, citizens, the corrupt--perhaps them most peculiarly (Meno), them and the young . But again, as in the case of beauty incarnate, every outstanding human being, every fine deed,appears as a mere instance, a mere exemplification of excellence. It is spurious for being only an instance and not the thing itself, deficient in being abstracted from the complete complex of virtues, deformed by being bound to a particular We all know that even the best-founded hero-worship eventually setting. looses its edge and luster as the admirer gains perspective, whereas the longing to see excellence and be excellent is for an ever-bright, undeformable shape, looming behind the tainted earthly example . The beautiful and the best, the fine and the good-- through these is the enthusiastic first access to the eidos . But there is also a more sober beginning, one whose implications Socrates himself was a little put off by in his first youth, feeling its meanness . (Parmenides 130 c) . For besides the high and shining eidos of what is beautiful and excellent, there is also a common eidos, or better, everything, from a small bee to a grand virtue, displays or "has" an eidos . (Meno 72). . Everything we see, everything tha·t appears in any way at all, looks (or sounds or smells) like somethin9;\ excellences, elements, animals, tools . Everything wears the aspect of being of a sort . Unless it has the looks of something, we cannot see it, for it has no �- 8- coherent shape to draw us; we cannot point to it or name it. To see is always to re-cognize; just imagine trying to focus on something -- I shouldn't Whatever even say "something'.!-which is truly unique and looks like nothing. One look wears a look at all wears that look in common with other things . presides over numerous things and that is why we can "identify", that is to say, make out the sameness, of things, of people, elements, animals, .. tools. It is not in their multifariou i and difference that we lay hold ...,c. .. _, , of things but "by their being bees" or beds or excellences, (Meno 72 b) . Socrates is far more interested in this common look than in what we call individuality, that inarticulable deviation from the common which he never thinks of as a source of particular fineness . He pursues the common eidos because it is more revealing than the world's idiosyncracies . For we do not learn of this eidos by looking at individual things; on the contrary, we can look at them only because they display this eidos, this look. For example, Socrates would agree that equal objects- - scratched lines, say-are needed to call u p i n u s the thought of equality. A (Phaedo 75 a) . But they do that only because they take part in that eidos which makes them look equal to us, even though they are but uncertainly, passingly, approximately equal, and from them we could never gather the sharply precise idea of equalitY; anymore than we can identify goodness by watching human actions from now till doomsday . That look of things which not one of them has fully or purely but which is common to all, that is a wonder to Socrates. And so both outstanding and common sights point to an invisible eidos beyond . II. Speech and Dialectic We have a surpassing strange power of reaching the things that share a look, all of them, at once . �ve can say the word, their name. When the �-9- eye sees a sight the tongue can utter a sound which is the sensual appearance of a word, of speech. . (Third Letter 342 b) . · One word reaches, picks out, intends what is the same in many things. word presides over many things. (Republic 596 a) . One A word 1s not a symbol for Socrates, for it does not stand for something by reason of some sort of fit between it and the thing; rather it reaches toward something utterly other than itself: it has meaning . thinks that what words mean is precisely that co�mon eidos. Socrates In fixing on speech he discovers what the panoramic familiarity of daily seeing leaves obscure: that the visible world, particularly the natural world, comes compounded of more and more encompassing visible sorts, rising finally into totally invisible kindred groups . The Greek word for a visible sort is, of course, eidos and for a kindred group, genos . The Latin word for eidos is species. Socrates discovers the organization of the world into species and genus, 8) . and that things can be placed, defined1by thinking about the meaning of names and connecting them properly in speech. All the world seems to be at the roots akin (Meno 81 d) , and that kinship is articulable in complexes of words. Such connected speech is what the Greeks call logos. It is, first of all, inner effort, movement, attention, intention; indeed, it is the same as thinking. (Sophist 263 e) . It is always an activity of discerning and picking out on the one hand, and comprehending and collecting on the other; in fact that is what the verb legein means: to select and collect. Socrates thinks that such speech can reveal the interconnections of the world, but only if it "looks to" (e.g. , Republic 472 b, 532 a) the interweaving of the invisible eide. true speech is speech in accordance with the eidos J.llleaningful and (Phaedrus 249 b) ; �- 10 - names reach for the eide singly and sentences for theit· interconnections. Socrates calls such reaching speech dialectic, "sorting through". But he gives that word another sense also, a wider one. ( 2 6 6 c) . Dialectic is serious, and, if necessary, uncompromising conversation with oneself or with another, argument. (I might say that if the enthusiasm of love is young philosophy, argumentative dialectic might be called the youngest philosophy because bright children make l•�.vely dialecticians. ) Now dialectic does not only reveal the articulated unity of the world. can also shake our easy acceptance of its oneness . the obtuse self-contradictoriness of things . It Speech can rake up Such self-opposition comes out when speech is used in a very original way, in "telling" as the old term goes, in counting. Take this index finger. thumb but smaller than the middle finger. It has both looks at once. It is larger than the It is both small and large . They coincide in the thing and yet we can tell them apart and count them as each one, and two together in the thing . Whoever takes the deliverance of words seriously will find this provoking provoking of thought. (Republic 523) . Socrates can account for this revelation only by supposing that the eidos greatness and the eidos smallness, which are each one and forever separate beyond the finger, can be fused in the finger . are pure and intelligible . III . Even if the finger is confounding, the eide This eidos saves the telling power of speech. Answers and Questions Socrates asks questions, of himself and of others, and he urges them continually: try to say the answer. His questions are not quite the usual kind, namely requests for information or provocations of acknowledgement. Nonetheless people see a charm or a dignity enough in them to try to respond. Socrates' kind of question is preeminently framed to elicit �-11- speech . He asks after that in things which can respond, which is answerable, .!."E!-�£9Jl_$il::>):� The Greek term for what is answerable in that / way is aitia, the responsible reason. Socrates thinks that such a responsible reason -- we sometimes say "cause" -- cannot be some external linkage of events . It is an trivializing answer to the question "Why II is Socrates sitting in prison� to say that he is flexing his joints in a certain way. Although he is too modest to say so, he knows he is there because of his peculiar kind of courage . "What makes this face beautiful"? Similarly, if the question is the answer he insists on is that it is beautiful not by a certain incidental shape or color, but "by beauty". He calls such answers unsophisticated but safe. (Phaedo 100 d) . They are indeed so simple-minded as to seem at first futile�-�hey are answers for those whose a�ition is not to go onward but inward . For their safety is in keeping us to the question, in directing us through its words to a word . To accept that things are beautiful by beauty means that the cause is not to be reduced or evaporated in inquiry but kept in sight and pursued; that granted, the answer elaborated. (Phaedo 105 b) . What is beauty-:-"orexcellence cn-rl then be safely For it poses a new and deeper question: .:X- or knowledge? I should say here that Socrates does not go about idly asking what scholars like to call the "What is X? question" . His questions are not one function with variable objects, but each is asked differently in each conversation for each is ) set differently into Socrates' life and each reaches toward a unique being. We all know that the answer to the question what something is can take many forms. Socrates sometimes begins by showing people that they quite literally don' t know what they are talking about and can't mean what they are sayin� ---a charming but dangerous business for the �-12- young . (Apology 33 c), Republic 539 b, Philebus 15 a) . Sometimes he proposes a startlingly revealing, seemingly paradoxica � and dubiously convertable identification, for instance that excellence is knowledge . And once in a while he does what, persuaded by Aristotle (Metaphysics 98 � b) people think of Socrates as doing first and preeminently: _ looks for a definition by genus and species and differentiae. Mr. Klein used to say: 1a d. 1ogues . 9) he so, as There is no one method for interpreting all the And yet it is equally the case that Socrates is always after the same end, on 1s a trail blaze . a trail of speech on which the one-word answer The trail, however, runs asymptotically to its goal; it approaches it without meeting it . This goal is the eidos named the simple-minded but safe answer to a Socratic question . in Ultimately the eidos toward which the word points cannot be attained through speech but only by itself and through itself. (Cratylos 439 b) Of it is not f . I speech which determines the eidos but the eidos which founds speech . (Parmenides 135 c). :···. ·.::: logos is utterly diverse from eidos since its very nature is to be merely about being; it might be said to climb along the eidetic structure, articulating, so to speak, the lattice of p an impenetrably c rystalline complex. Yet in the meantime the question which is steadfastly answered as it itself directs, focusses the soul on the eidos as responsible cause. IV. Opinion and Knowledge Socrates comes to grips with the strangest of human scandals: that we are able to talk without speaking and to believe without acting. Human life is peculiarly capable of heights and excrucia·ting falls, and it is these heights and depths we most avidly chatter about and have powerfully ineffective beliefs about. Indeed, public talk about them is obligatory,-- It is an incantation to keep spirit of excellence from fading. It �-13.- consists of certain partial lopsided truths whose deficiency is obscured by their familiarity. Socrates calls such speechless talk, such logos­ like utterance without present thought, opinion. (Our favorite phrase signal that an opinion is coming is: "I feel that . . . " . ) He thinks further that it is because we do not know what we mean when we talk of excellence> that we fail to be excellent . By "knowing" he does not mean being familiar with certain arguments and definitions or having a some sort of competence or canniness in getting what one wants. Minor 365 d). what truly is. (Hippias He means that our souls are alight with, are filled with, _ He means a knowledge so live and rich that it goes immediately over into action without leaving room for the mediation of a wavering or perverse will. So Socrated first interest in knowledge is practical, but I should say here that that knowledge vivid enough to pass immediately into deed will also be an end in itself, a realm in which to dwell beyond all action, and that this is yet another one of the great Socratic paradoxes. (Phaedo 66 b, Phaedrus 247, Republic 517 b) . To be cured of being caught in mere. opinion we must know how this state is possible . Socrates finds only one explanation plausible . What we have opinions about cannot be the same as what we think seriously about . (Republic 477) . The name may be the same, but we cannot have the same thing in mind when we talk and when we speak. We are using our powers so differently that they amount to different powers and must have different objects . - That is not really so odd an idea: \Je seem to switch gears when we pass from pontificatin�_; to thinking, and the · matter we have gone into deeply is no longer what it was when we "knew" it superficially, just as the friend well known is a different �-14- person from the friend of first acquaintance. The superficial glance is reflected by a surface that masks the depth in which thinking becomes absorbed. That first aspect of the world which is the object of opinion, whose whole character it is to seem and then to vanish before closer inspection, Socrates calls becoming, because it is always coming to be and never quite what it is . It is what is before our eyes. Our first fascination is with the shifting, inexact, contradictory things before our eyes, or with the obtrusive opinions of our fellows, and these are our unavoidable beginning. (Phaedo 74 a) . But as the visible surface is penetrated and those opinions are searched into, a new world appears, now to the eye of the thought, steadfast in being such as it is, of a powerful "suchness, ". shapely, unique . Socrates calls this world being. He understands it to be all that knowledge demands. For in knowing we have a sense of being anchored, rooted in something stable and lucid for the eye of the soul, (Phaedo 99 d). It is the world of the eidos as that which is to be known, the knowable eidos. (Republic 511 a). And however I have made it sound, Socrates does not regard the knowable eidos as his contrivance to grant himself knowledge. Rather he thinks that we are, all of us, capable of the experience of going into ourselves in thought, led on by the beckoning eidos, a process so vividly like the raising of a memory that he calls it, making pr;�·N>rcl;cd it, recollection, the calling-up of a memory. /'- a, myth of (Meno 81, Phaedo 73). The way to the eidos is by passage through our soul � not by penetration of outer things-- or rather, these two ways are one . I should add that the eidos is knowable but it is not knowledge. It confronts the soul and is not of it. To put it in modern terms: rt �-15- is a presence to the soul, but not a representation within it . He might say that Being is for us irreduceably aspectual: \./e look at it and move among its articulations for it has a power of affecting the soul and being known. (Republic 511, Sophist 248 e). Y7e may even, speaking figuratively, comprehend it, but we cannot pass into it. For Socrates philosophy, the desire for being,remains forever philosophy, an unfulfilled longing. V. Appearance and Being The eidos is steadfast and lucid . us. It is shifting and opaque. Not so the world which envelops Yet the Greeks call what appears before our eyes the phenomena, which means "what shines out", "what shows itself", for the things that appear glow and ensnare us in their kaleidoscopic spectacle; that is �hy we are all lovers of sights and sounds (Republic 475 d) . I should note here that although I cannot help talking of "things", the appearances are not things in any strict sense since they have no "reality" " (which is but Latin for thinghood) , no compacted)concrete character . ness", "affairs" I Socrates sometimes uses the word "busi- (pragmata) for our world . The "phenomena:' sparkle busily, but it is all surface . Now the systematic illusions and the serried variety of appearance can be mastered by various sciences, for example, sciences of perspective and classification, but there is still a recalcitrant residue. That incorrigible phenomenality show itself as a two-fold multiplicity . First there are always many of a kind, many beautiful things, many just acts . And second, no beautiful thing and no just act is that way perfectly. unbudgeably, purely, but each changes as our perspective on it changes in time or place. Appearance as appearance is scattered and shimmering, �-16- fragmented and irredescent. But most of all it is not what it shows, or to put it plainer: hppearance is appearance of something, it points beyond itself. is it whose refracted form is shown to us in appearance? must be for that very reason in itself invisible . What What appears This invisible eidos is what Socrates thinks of as the being behind apperance, and appearance is becoming regarded as a manifestation. This eidos which is a being, is all that appearance and becoming are not: not scattered but o� not '.) multiform but of a single look (Phaedo 78 d); not mixed but pure (66 a); not passive but potent (Sophist 247 e); not elusive and illusory but _ steadfast and true; not for busy show but the thing in its verity, the very thing (to auto pragma); not self-contradictory but self-same (Phaedo 78 d, Cratylos 386 e); not dependent and of something, but itself by itself, absolved from subservience, or "absolute", as later commentators render Socrates deliberately naive term "by itself"; unique, immortal, indestructible (Phaedo 78 d), outside time and beyond place (Phaedrus 247 b). Most simply, Socrates calls the eidoslthe just, the beautiful. Whatever has this characteristic of potent, shapely, and, one might almost say "specific", self-sameness is called a being. It provides , such "beingness" ('Ousia, Cratylos 386 e, Meno 72 b) as appearances have, and it does this by somehow "being by", having presence (?-3.rousia, Phaedo 100 d) in them. The eidetic beings are responsible for the fact that the question "What is it?" asks not only what the thing is but also what it is, that being accompanies every "whatness'.', all. quality. I should observe again that beings are not "real", for they are not things and do not move in the categories true of things, nor do they �-17- "exist", for to exist means to be here and now . 10) But they are not un- ' They are, in the way described, and as they real or non-existent either . (Phaedo 104 d) . appear they give things their looks, their visible form . VI. Same and Other The being I have named so often is not Socrates' discovery . It comes to him from those so prejudicially called Presocratics, in particular from Parmenides who entered{_�� sanctuary of being in a blazing chariot. Thus it comes to Socrates already fraught with .established controversy and difficulties . Even he has an inherited legacy of "problems", that is to say, of questions posed in terms of his predecessors' inescapable Questions posed in this way, as problems, notoriously have doctrines . resolutions which pose more and tighter problems, and so the tradition of professional philosophy is set . Socrates does not escape this unfresh beginning. This is the problem Socrates takes up when still almost a boy; being Father Parmenides discovered is and nothing else. The It is, one and only, without distinction or difference, for we cannot think or speak what is � not. There is no sentence which does not contain, audibly or latently, an1. "is", an assertion of the truth of being. attention to what speech always says is not primitive . Such austere Listen to a contemporary poet, W. H. Auden: Words have no words for words that are not true . (II ·, 11) \Jo(� S . What Parmenides says that what is, is and in merely being is all one� ��:liiOJJl;s:::!;):: is compelling St.?lc.:e. say it nay . I we have no immediate speech with which to But it is equally monstrous, for it negates both our o.,\ OV\5 \A; I 1-\11 multifarious \'lOrld, the one in which we are at homej 2j<;�� the very possibility of articulate speech itself. Because Parmenides' grand �-18- insight brings all articulating speech to a halt, his zealous follower Zeno has taken the clever way of attacking the opposition who continue to talk and say that being is not one but many. He understands this to have to mean that being is at once like and unlike itself, selfcontradictory,· unthinkable. Socrates knows that the visible world, at least, is like that and that yet thoughtful speech canno·t bear such self-contradictions. So he offers a supposition which saves both at the integrity of that which. speech is always about, this "is " once: which is the bond of every logos, and also the manifest multiplicity and inconsis·tency of appearance and its gathering in speech. He saves Parmenides from sinking into the white silence of being. Socrates' supposition is the eidos, which is not being itself but �being. His resolution is that being is many, but not confused. The eide are each self-same, as being should be, but they are also diverse from each other. The appearances somehow "participate " in these beings in such a way that the diverse beings intersect in them and are superimposed. Thus the appearances become self-opposed; they eide save at once the purity of being and the alloy of becoming. "What wonder?", says young Socrates to the Parmenidean problem with multiplicity (Parmeni� -129 b), the universal paean of those who have resolved �� another's perplexity,--An older Socrates will say that philosophy is wonder. Socrates' solution, that there are several and diverse beings, of course poses new problems. The most telling of these is that each being is also a non-being--at least it is a not-being; it is not what the other beings are, so that Zeno' s problem with the self-opposition of the world of appearance has been but raised into the realm of being. A few �-19- weeks before the end of his life Socrates is present at a great moment in the course of philosophy Hhen a visitor from Parmenides' country presents, by way of resolving this higher problem, a momentous elaboration of his supposition which, while turning it almost irrevocably into a theory, advances it greatly. For if Socrates had shown how we can come to terms with the self-opposition of the world of appearance, . the visitor will show how we can account for false and fraudulent speech, and even �or sp being. The stranger's bold solution to Socrates' problem is this. All the eide are beings, and that is taken to mean thay they all take part in being it���f; they belong to a highest eidos, the eidos Being. stranger boldly claims that there lS also anothe� unheard of, eidos which ranges in a peculiar way through all the eide. It is indeed not- being, but not-being rightly understood, understood as a being. 258 c) . He calls it the Other . The (Sophist The eidos of the Other runs through'all beings and makes them other than each other--not what the other is . By being scattered through all being it is the cause of its pervasive distinction and difference. It is a peculiar principle which relates fo\"" by opposition and unifies by diversity, since all have otherness in common; /' their very community makes them different . each other. It makes all beings confront It is the very eidos of relativity. It is not a new name for non-being that the stranger contributes but a new view of the world as articulated and bonded through difference. It is a world in which the fact that we take one thing for another and speak falsely, as we surely do, is accounted for. The stranger mentions in passing also another principle, evidently not itself an eidos among eide, but comprehending, surpassing and beyond all .being. He calls it the Same (25� e) , in antithesis to the Other. u r1ous �-20- It is that which gives the eidos of Being and through it all the beings J ) their steadfast abiding by themselves, their very own nature, the Same gives the eide their self- what they are through and through; It is the culminating principle. sameness. approached, 0.�1'\�\ vividness it is also called the Good, t;,\\·\1r·\C,'/\.:.S� "\ {Republic 509a), l their being Depending on how it is because it gives bein�their and in Plato's "Unwritten Teachings"--recall -t'h c. \�\ 0,\- that he declined to write down central things-- it seems to have been � called the One, because it is the first and final totality. speaks of it explicitly, though in metaphor, but once, Socrates likening it to the sun because it gives the eide their luminous sightlikeness.(507.o). Aristotle told a story of Plato's famous lecture on the Good which > he held at his school, the Academy. People came in droves, hear something fascinating to themselves, power. about health or wealth or But it was all about arithmetic and how the eide are a c ertain kind of number, Good expecting to lS the One. ending up with the just-mentioned revelation that the So they got disgusted and drifted off. Elements of Harmony II, 30). Mr. {Aristoxenus, Klein used to add--as if he had been there--that only one person stayed, comprehending and critical. That was Aristotle himself. What Plato spoke about then was what is called dialectic in the last and strongest sense, 532), thinking by and through the eide attending to their grouping, I (�yrnploke, Sophist 240 c). mingling, Such dialectic, and the philosophical activity proper, namely in the Sophist, it. (Republic' 511 hierarchy, C, "intertwining". the ultimate use of the logos appears in the dialogues but once, and scholars have not often succeeded in recovering I should say that there is a chapter in Mr. Klein's book on Greek mathematics which engages in true dialectic and tells how the eidos Being �-21- can be understood as the number Two. VII. ll) Original and Image There is one greatest, almost overwhelming perplexity about the eide which Socrates knows about from the very beginning. How can an eidos do the very business for which it is submi·tted 131 c) . to us? (Parmenides Is not the eidos-unit, being each one and ever the same and receptive of neither becoming 'A.t>l"idestruction, still steadfastly the same? And thereafter, must it not be posited a.\·t-'-'�v­ as scattered and having become many in the things that are becoming, or �:.etS:" yet whole but separate from itself, which would seem to be the most impossible of all--that one and the same thing should be in one and many? (Philebus 15 b) . hoW Then can the eidos be the source of the appearances around us, how can /' -- it have truck with what is always changing and multiple? This question can be called the "lower participation problem" since it deals not with the community the eide have with each other but with that which is below them . It is the question closest to us: now do we understand the working relations which the eide--once we suppose them to be-- have to the variety, the passages and the contradictions of our world of appearance. Socrates uses a number of terms to name this relation. He speaks I of the "part-hold", the "participation" (rnethexis, Phaedo 100-102) of the appearances in the eidos, but, of course, he does not mean a parttaking, as when people take up a part of an awning they sit under. (Parmenides 131 b) , He speaks of a community of the eidos and appearances, of their being named after it, of the presence of the eidos in them. Phaedo 100 c, d, 103 b) . (e. g. These terms signify that the two realms are strongly related, but they do not reveal what the appearances can have in common with beings, or why they merit being named after them)or how the beings can be with them. �-22- But Socrates does use one group of words which tell more. · He speaks of participation through similarity, likeness, imaging, imitation. (Phaedrus 250 a, Phaedo 74 e, Timaeus 39 e and, above all Republic 510 b). That our world should stand to the realm of eide as copy to exemplar (Parmenides 132 d, Timaeus 48 e) has a certain high plausibility. It conveys a falling off from the fullness of being, an imitative, derivative It suggests that one original eidos will have many image-appearances, mode. and that each appearance ought not to stand free, but be, like any image, in some stuff. (Timaeus 52 c). It indicates how every appearance could be doubly dependent, on the e idos for being visible, and on our sight for being seen. If the appearances somehow image the eide, their inferiority, multiplicity, materiality and sensuality becomes comprehensible--and so does the fact of their inescapably beguiling looks. Yet there are apparently devastating difficulties with this primordial imitation, of which the one most open to formal. attack is this: If the e idos is what is originally beautiful, and beautiful things are copies, and if the likeness of copies to their originals comes from their sharing the same quality, then both have the quality of being beautiful. Then the e idos of beauty is beautiful, as the eidos of justice is just, and Socrates does not scruple to say just that. 210 c). (Protagoras 330 c, Symposium But that way of speaking, that beauty is beautiful, is an insupportable redundancy� called by scholars "self-predication". Furthermore, if the function of the eidos was to account for the fact that anything is beautiful, then another e idos beyond will have to be pos�ted to account for the fact that the eidos itself has been said to be beautiful. Aristotle calls this dilemma the •;Third i:1an", because behind the man and the man-like _, eidos of mankind there must appear a third man-eidos . (Metaphysics 990 b). --- �-23- But in truth, these terrible perplexities, whose various versions and issues Socrates knows about (Parmenides 132 d, Republic 597 c), miss the point. �"-\""'r"'!>t. ' When Socrates so often chooses to employ "the beautiful" rather /' than the noun of quality "beauty", he is not simply misled by the fact that in Greek, as in English, the former phrase sounds as if it meant a beautiful thing, being an adjective turned into a substantive. When he speaks that way he means to make us face the self-same "suchness" of the eidos, to divert our desire from appearing beautiful things to a better but invisible beauty, to convey its greater desirability, to persuade us to "look to" it . The turns of speech that call the eidos verily beautiful, through and through beautiful, the beautiful itself, are philosophical rhetoric. They try to lever us into new way of being enchanted, namely not by that which appears as beautiful but by the very condition of our seeing and saying that it is beautiful. The eidos beauty is certainly not ugly, but no more is it adjectivally beautiful; it is rat�er such as to be itself the sole source of the attribute in others. The word "beautiful " does not describe this suchness, but it reaches for it . How then can beautiful things be images of beauty if it is not, as seems indeed to be impossible, by likeness in the sense of sameness of quality? It is because imaging is the deepest capability of being, the accompaniment of the pervasive otherness which haunts it, of the non-being which dogs every being. Each being confronts another as its other, and its own otherness is mirrored in the others. For the image nature of an image is not really caught when we point out similarities, say of conformation and color, between it and its original . The closest we can come to telling it is to say that an image is, in truth, not what it images, and then again it somehow is . �-24- For example, we are apt to say of a little statue of Socrates looking like a pot-bellied satyr: not. "That's Socrates", while we know that it is We mean that he is in some sense present in the clay--"represented", but not in truth. what it is; For an image is that which in its very nature is not it is an interweaving of being and non-being. (Sophist 240 c). Now among the beings, it is, the eide, each is self-same and truly what and also other than and not what the others are; is with respect to the other beings; But becoming, Socrates explains, (Republic 477a). and being; the interweaving is not a mingling. is an ru�algam of being and non-being. The appearances mingle within themselves non-being they have nei� her steady self-sameness nor fixed difference, and yet they are somehow enduring and distinct. nature not what they are. of being. its not-being They are in their very In that sense they might well be c alled images So here is a formal way of conceiving the claim that appearance images the eidos. But it must be said that it in no \vise solv�s our greatest problem: how the eidos drops down from the context of being to become entangled with non-being in a new and world-making way -- how there can be an eidos incarnate,(Phaedrus 25la). most startling to see Socrates ascribes to us an initial power i in children -- of image recognition (eikas a, we recognize at once the fact o£ in the imitation (Sldb). I Republic 51 �� ), by which a counterfeit and the original lurking In its developed form it is a sense for what I Mr. Klein once called of philosophy itself. \\ the duplicity of being", and it is the very urge �- 2 5I have said what I thi nk Plato ' s Socrates thought, this lecture to be what is, so I must now say what ! but I do not want wonde r fully , cal l e d an " academi c " exerci s e , think . But be fore I do that, let me make mention one las t time of the name of Jacob Kle i n to whom this le cture is mos t certainly dedicated in loving memory and who -- so good a teacher was he -- taught me nothing but what I could strai ghtway r ecogni ze as my own. Socrates hi m s e l f says of the e i de t hat they have become buzz-words ' ( Phaedo l O Q b); I there are even those known , a l i ttle absur dl y , frie nds of the e i d e " ' ( Sophi s t 24Ba) . drawn and fasci nated by Socrates ' them . Tha t kind of thi ng com e s from being s i ghts without havi ng ours e �ves seen �vhat i s more , Plato doe s not reveal, i ndeed conceals , dia logues the answer to the question: di d anyone eve r ? ; i n s hort : as " the in the did Socrate s himse l f view the e i de ? are there acces s i ble e i de ? The re fore our attention i s naturally turned to the Socr a te s through whom we hear of the se matters and to hi s trustworthi ne s s . And I fi nd the man who is commemorated in the Dialogue s trus tworthy beyond a l l others . I trust hi s s lyne s s and hi s s imp l i ci ty, hi s sobriety and hi s e nthusiasm, hi s playfulnes s and hi s s teadfastnes s , hi s eros and hi s dignity . Yet i t is not mai nly hi s character that I trus t , but h i s presuppositions, a nd I think that they mu s t have forme d him more than he di d .them. I make Socrate s ' presuppos iti ons out to be these : i n human l i fe \vhi ch stands out, them , an a s ce n t . that there lS that. that there are heights and there is a way to That what is de sirable i s a t a di stance , by i t s e l f ......., and i n i t s e l f and there fore s i ght· · li ke and yet i nvi s i ble, a n d that there ..___._ must be a means f or reaching i t . That this mediating power i s spe e ch, which �-26 net-orrl-y-r-a-i-ses--tJ. s-·but �Jr ., \· o-x\- � '-') \ .;, � '­ a rouses that irrita bly wonder a t common things . . which wheH-��ulated is ca lled a question . . 1\ . And f irst and last, that where ther e is a question, an answer has a lready been at work , and it is our human task to recollect it _ These presuppositions are not at all n ecessary. Our specific human work does not have to be thought of as arising from en thusiasm about the extraordinary or marvellin g at the common, I 1 does . ( Theaetetus 15 d ) . p as Socrates says philoso hy I t · can· come from a cool , sober sense tha t the ,, •\T$ ways of the world should be exposed and explained, myths dismantled and \h /· depths made plane� that not what is best but \vhat is individual, is common but what is ordinar � should preoccupy our efforts ; should not view but master , not play but work, not ask but determin e , not what that we not suppose but certi fy , not long but draw limits. I am describing that self-controlled matur ing o f philoso phy which is responsible for all that we call modernity . I do not think for a moment that we should play truant from this severe and powerful school . But I do think tha t Socrates ' suppositions are that beginning which can be forgotten but n ever superseded. �N 0 T E S 1. Let me add here that the next mo st important sourc e o f the Theory o f I deas, very difficult to use, is Aristotle, who reports its technic al e laborations and problems and looks at it, as it were , askanc e . I 2. The meaning of theoria in Greek is , s ight s e en , 3. however , that of a viewing, a contemplation, and in that sense the I de as are very muc h a 1' theory " . I am thinking o f the so-called problems o f p ar tic ip ation and separation , o f s e lf-pre dic ation, of the Third Man , and of eide tic structure. Incidentally in the Parmenides Socrate s is portrayed as the s upporter of that very version of the theory -- that the ideas are " s ep ar ate " from things -- whic h Aristotle explicitly dehies he he ld . Aristotle makes this c laim in a pu z zling passage which is t he prime source for all denials of So crate s ' theory . 4. a authors hip of the (Metaphy s ic s 9 8 7b) . A Socr atic hypothe s e s is unlike a post-Baconion hypothe s e s in not b e in g conj e cture to be verified by ob s ervational experience . It is a little c los e r t o an a s tronomic al hypothe s e s such a s Pl ato i s said by Simp liciu s to have fir s t demanded, n amely an inte lle c tual con struction, to " save the phenomena " , a mathe matic al theor y , devise d that is , to display the anomalous appe aran c e s as grounded in regu l ar itie s acc eptable to r e ason . On l� a Soc r atic hypothe s e s is in no way a p o s tu lated construc tion. 5. Nor is the tran s lation " form" quite good , becau s e it is too reminisc e nt o f the Aris tote lian distinc tion between form and matter. ' a form in a thing (Phaedo 1 0 4/d) I 6. The e idos may "work " but it is not its form. I have given this pr e s entation a questionable c oherence by ranging through the dialogues as if Plato ' s works constituted a planned-out whole . then I b e lieve that they do , • 1\ But , and that what scho lars c�nslder the development· o f Plato ' s thought from e arly t o l ate dialogue s is largely the advanc ing o f one o r �-2the other of these different beginnings and aspects. Accordingly the Phaedrus, 7. �minently pr " set out, was once, in which th i<>. beginning of philosophy is probably wrongly, thought to be Plato's earliest di alogue . Of course, 8. the visible things do not constitute the eidos, eidos their concept, that is, the definition which selects the members. I want to mention also that, although does refer to the greatest eide as gene, it is not his fixed u sage , genera, kindred groups indicating that in the highest reaC.111cs eidetic thereby nor is the Plat 9 (Sophist 254h), I shapeliness yields to associative characteristics. I For Socrates _'n1ethodos means a path of inquiry to be follow·ed 9. I 533b), not a pre-set investigatory procedure. ' 10. The word ousia did play a role analogous to modern "reality" in (a) A s we speak of "real" estate, common language. property, Scholars attribute to Socrates the distinction between two u s es the verb "to be", u se "is" what i s Greek s u sed ou sia to mean one's s ub stance . (b) occurs acts as the predicative and the existential. a copula, said of it, as in a coupling between the j not S o c rate s ' aim. "j ustice exits". of discourse and The existential "is" meaning is to be found sometimes, But di stinctions in verbal When we say that "the face i s bea u tif u l " occasion for asking what beau·ty is, I y-c, Greek pp. and when we assert that "justics exists" Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra 79 ff. usage are it is for him the want s to know in what world -- and it will not be one which ha s time 11. of In it s predicative subject "This face is beautiful". in the chopped-off sentence " ustice is", somewhere in the world: 1968) (Republic ( T he he and p la c e M.I.T. . Press, �-3I n brief , i t goes l ike this : Being is composed of two eide, a ccording to the stranger the eidos of I ch!3 nge and stillness � (Sophist 2 5 4 ) , 5ince first I of a l l everything that i s , at once; is either 1n motion or at rest , these eide never mingl e . though n ever both Being i s not either o f these a lone, or their mixture, but precisely both together . That , however, is j ust how number assemblages b ehave ; Socrates himself draws attention to this in that favorite formula : f 4 7 6,a , ! each one, b oth too . 7f (Hippias h\ayor 3 0 a , � I Phaedo 9 a, Republic I Theaetctres l 4 6 e ) . ! Each unit in a number r emains what it was, one, b ut b oth together have a new name and nat ure, is by i tself . Be ing, two ; they are together what neither the highest eidos, would then be the eidetic �wo -- not ' anything above or beyond the two erdetic units, constitute i t , b ut simply thei� � ei�� t oqeth�£· change a nd sti l l ness, Aristotle reports the interest i n the arithmetic organization of the eid e . , a lso points out that the eidetic units a r e not , wh ich Ac ademy ' s (Metaphysics 9 8 7b ) . He l ike arithmetic unit s , indif f erent, capab l e o f being added and " thrown t ogeth er" any which way ( l0 8 l a ) . They can only a ssociate into eidetic numbers uniquely , according to their nature; such eidetic counting, proper . which drives speech to and then beyond its limits, is dial ectic O. >"� J. se � 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. 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Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1979-09-14 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/81b24b3fe4a605a69d36bdc96fc71d7f.pdf 77efc19749a51816a00e1c213b4ee6d3 PDF Text Text , QUX ® ~n RH A FORMAL LECTURE DELIVERED AT ST JOHN'S COLLEGE by Eva 13rann JS' tr ~OD~ x·s s · r ? �What la a Body in Kant's Syat. .1 1. * The reason for this inquiry. I think it. is ray first duty to explain why I have chosen to inquire into the place and meaning of body in Kanta' syst••• I would like to begin by calll~ on an eaaay by Kant entitled •concerning the Noble Tone of Late Raised in Phlloaopaay.• In this essay Kant points to Plato and Pytha8oras aa the partly unwltti~ progenitors of those who philosophize in a certain elevated and enthusiastic mode. •the philosophy of Ariatotle, on the contrary, is work• he goes oa to observe in sober pra1... And he calls Aristotle an extremely prosaic philosopher,• adding that •at bottom, after all, all philosophy la prosaic.• What characterizes Arlatotle'a philoaophical work la that it la an acute and serious analytic and synthetic labor performed by the pure intellect, resulting in a uaable product, such •• a preli•inary table of categories, (B 107), which provides the materials for a later worker to employ ayste. .tically (B 107). * furt Rta1on, First Edition (1781), Aa Critiqyt Ba Critique of P\Jre Re11on, Second Edition (1786). FHMa a( Foundatione of th! Metaphysica of Morale (1785). HFSN1 MetaphY!lCfl Foun4tt1ons of Netural Scienc1 (1786), tr9ns. James Ellington (Library ot Ltberal Arta, 1~7u)~ MFDR1 Hetaphxeical Foundations ot the Doctrine ot Right (1797)" OP1 KOP1 K.ant'a Ooya PoatU!UJI by Erich Adickea (Berlin 1920~ �2 I have begun by citing this essay becaue~ my inquiry will unavoidably issue in the questU>n whether phtlosopy should be prose and work or perhaps something else. And furthermore I feel obliged to set off the spirit of llY present uadertaking from that of philosophical work. For I came on my question concerning body not at all in the orderly progress of finding and accomplishing a task, but in a most unsystematic or anti- aysteaatic waya by attending to certain particular sections and sequence• in Kant's work which struck me with a sense of aaazement and revelation as well as a conviction that through these passages there of Kant's edifice. m~ht be access to the unfounded foundations As a result it now seem• to me that the 11arvel of Kant's thought lies in this very circumstance -· that in the naae of systematic co11pletene1s it throws open depth upon dizzying .depth of inquiry. Let 11e begin by setting out the items of my conviction and by showing how they all implicate body in the crux of Kant's effort. 2. The ends of the Critique of Pure Reason. The f irat of such clues comes out of the very plan and the iap1ied end& of that enco•passing systematic edifice, the Critique of Pure Reaaon. This firat of Kant's three critiques has two great enda. The central end is "critical~ l n the proper, ordinary senaea human reason ie exposed as a faculty system of illusions. f~r a definite and inevitable In etriki.ng these down, Kant aakes a �3 clearing for the poaaibillty of d11illu1loned human actlon, performecl in tile face of tbe defecta of humaa r•aoa.. Thi• po a a ibll ity ls worked out 1n the second crlt ique, the Crltiqyt of fr19tlcal Reaaon. The encoapaaaing taak, however, la bnt'a review of tbe grounds of human knowledge. Suoh a revlev la called a •critique• ln a 1enee aore peculiar to Kallt• and lta deter11laed end la the certlflcatlon of what we call, eiaply a.S grandly, •aelenee•, and ln particular, of pbx1ic1, aa tbe al.ngle trutll•prMuelng effort. To say the ,.., thing ln other vorda; tbe poaltlve critical enterprise la the e1tabllalment of •experience.• Experience la the jolalq of the graap of understanding witb so• •empirical• -tter, -•ing to•thlmg whleb co•• to ua, in part, adventltlouely, · ao•thlng nloh 11 glvea to ua. Thia product, a graapecl give• thlag, - t • preclaely bat:'• quite traditional . .tlon of truth aa •adaequatlo iatellectua rei,• the fitting of thought to thing (I 82). I aall bave to retura to thie definition of truth. The Cr1tigut gf Psgt &••op, then, not only clear• tbe deck• for the practleal uae of our reaaon, .,_. alao provl•e& th• foundations for lta theoretical u . . , and thla latter part aeataina the great positive dlscoverl•• ~ tile book. · It waa in eonaldert.ns thia two•fold poaltlve aat negative end of the work that I hM a flrat f"llng of havlllS oo• oa an •l&M· Let • nplain. The flrat critical 1yat. . , tbat nl.C!b uaderllea theory. 1• aald to be perfectly oomplete. lta ..-tapbyaloal 1uper•atuotUE"e la a .... work of neablllg out, to be lef't: largely to pup1l•· �4 Philoao~ ia essentially finished (B 884). The second critique, the er1tique ot fractical R911on, 110st explicitly contains no nev truth• nor any proaiae of new truth•• it ller9ly toraulatea the full meaning of what, according to Kant, we all know even before any philosophical intervention• that ve auat do as ve ought rather than as ve want if we are to respect ourselves (FHM, sec. I). therefore its effact on our llvea la not to give them a content but only a forma whatever ve do, ve 11Uat do it as beings whose reason ls a ruler. Hence neither of theae two critical systems presents in itself a vorklng project for hUllAll reason. w'vl : c.~ 1 !> 1 The theoretical enterprl1e founded in the first critique, ·' " doee, on the other hand, provide our lives with an infinite and legitl-te bu1lnea1, naaely physical science. Nov having expended a truly enor110u1 effort on well-founding such work and oft showing that reaeoa baa no other, does Kant glory ln its beauty, praiee lta pleasures, deund that its aodes infora public and private life? In Plato's TiMeus, for instance, which, anacbro? - niatically and la.accurately apeaking, also containa a theory of acience, the eaterpriae la acceptetl by Socrates as •a feast of accounta• (27 b) and a celebration. So ooapletely does Kant o•it all com1ent on the human significance of this single vast peraiaaible use of the human understanding that hi.a omlasion arouses auapiclon 'of an ieaue too deep in the foundations of the syatea for pa111.ng explanation. I 1hall atate right away that I "9lleve there to be evidence, not peripheral and flnlcking, but bold and central, that la I.ant'• •Y•t- phyaica •• the aclence of bo41iea do•• �5 indeed play a central human role, 12£....it the one access ~ have .tQ .S2.J.lr .Q.!m souls, and provides all the self•knowledge ~ £!!.n ~· ~ I cannot tell why Kant never explicitly drew attention to this circumstance in all lts pathos, except by noting that all great philosophical works that I know have these telling lacunae, junctures too sensitive, d"ep and dangerous to bring out in words. 3. The grand design for the deduction of physics. Let me now adduce somewhat more external evidence for the overwhelming importance which the science of bodies has in Kant's system by sketching out the intention not of one work, but of a sequence of three works which largely occupied his later years. This sequence contains a grand design for the deduction of empirical physics, an apparent contradiction in terms, which the setti~ out of the design will be only partly able to reconcile. The first of the texts in question ls again the Critique of Pure Reason and within lt the section called the "Principles of the Understanding." understanding isa One form of the principal proposition of the "The conditions of the possibility of experience ln general are at the same time conditions of the possibility !lf the oblects _of experience." (B 197). That is to say, the foundations of science are simultaneously the conditions of its objects, namely bodies, so that physics and bodies are established together. Both are the ultimate result of the same long deduction. The "Principles of the Understand i1'lg" only establish experience and its objects in general. "from the first"1 objects By "in general" Kant are~ means~ priori insofar as they have fro• the very first a form of which we ourselves are the source and which precedes any empirical addition. priori, �6 Such general objects are called things, and in their proper coaplex of lawful relations, they are called nature. -The next work in the sequence, which i.s in the grand critical 'esign parallel to the work on the metaphysics of morals t\~ed Metaohvsical Foundations of the Doctrine of Ri.&ht and Virtue (5), la called the Metaphysical Foundations of the Sclence of Natµre. In this work the outline of the metaphysics of phyeics is laid down. By a •metaphysics• Kant means the plan of a completed system of pure rational cognition proceeding by specification fro• the critical preparatloa. The metaphysics of nature (or or physics -· again, the object has the same foundation I as lta acience) is therefore the specification of the •general object• established in the first Critique by the introduction of an empirical concept, namely !ftter understood as the •11avable in space•. And so we have a •metaphysics of corporeal nature• or a •doctriae of body• (MFSN 469), a pure science resulting froa the application of the transcendental principles to an e11pirical concept. (Here a note oa the terms and •transcendental• seeas appropriate. and mean respectively only this• ~ •pure•, •a priori", All three are privative 2'· before, and beyond all sensation.) I shall give the contents of the Metaphysical Foundations ln brieflest outline and return to the work later. In it . .tter, the movable in apace, is treated under four headi:Dgaa 1. insofar as it is aerely aovable, 2. apace, 3. insofar insofar as it 110vea other utter, 4. a1 i.t fills aot aa lt is an object of exper_ence 1 but as it ls related to a knower, a i subject, and his faculties of knowledge. �7 I should add that the ti,le of thl1 work, of which a reasonable alternative translation i1 the •Hetaphy11Gal Principle• of Natural Science,• also iadlcates a corrective purpose beside thAt positive sy1temat1c one. It is intended to oppose the implications of the title N.vton gave to the work in which he presented the very physics Kant 11 groundings the Hatbelllltlcal Principle1 of Natµral Pb1101oplly. Kant will contend . e11phatically that it is not aatheaatics whloh furnl1be1 the principles of philosoJ*y, but, in a carefully liaited aenae, the conver1e •• mathematics la not usable in natural science without a l'letaphy1lcal foundation. (OP 21, !!.!A•• 72). When we coae to the third work in the critical deaign, there is no longer a parallel text dealing with the 11etaphysica of morals. Thia ls in a moat general way quite understandable, for the theory of practice by its very natures comea t:o an end in deeds, whereas the theory of experience issues in further theory. In any case, ln his old age Kant was preoccupied principally with ...king notes for what he expected to be bla aoat laportant work (KOP, 3), the completion of the deduction of experiaental physics. Thta enor11aue agglomeration of notes, including also much other ..terial, became known as the Qm!! Po•tUllUll• Kant called his projected work the •Transition from the Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Science to Physics.•. Hia great concern was that there should be no jump or discontinuity in the syste.,tlc deduction of the empirtcal investigation of corporeal nature. (I ahould note here tbat the word •deduction' la lllJMt• ..c i.t•a, and that I aa using lt, legltl.aately, I �8 think, ia tba Mn•• in which one •llbt apeak of the deduotion ef EuelidMll ..... projective geoaetry, -nln& a apec1f1oatlon of general prl.naiple1 to yleld a .,re partlaular 1y1t... ) Wllat bat intended to provide in thia •transition• vu an antlolpatton of all tbe possible finding• of pby1lca, an aatl.clpatlon which be considered •••ible bY virtue of lt1 1y1t...tlc character, and neceaaary to, lta preaervat~. Thia 11 certat.nly die place to interject th• long-deferred expoanat ion of what hat -n• by a • •Y•t-·. hnt' a aetaphor for a ayat. . la that of a work of architecture, in which th• foundations, the Aroundvork, deteralne a unified superstructure. The non-metaphorical description la ln ter11s of prlnclple1 and their rullag powers a ayat.. le a universe ptryaaively formed by it1 funda. .atal lava, which deteralne at once the nature of it• parts !ml their re lat ioaa. I vhould add that for Kant thought la such that to tbink and to -.Ile ayateaa are one and the aaae operation. Io return to the •transition to Pby•1oa•. The anticipation of phy1lcal inquiry amounts to an exhaustive claaaiflcatlon of all conceivable forces, forces being the ultlllate ooncern of phy1lca, •• we ahall see. Such a •topic• of forces ls intended to direct and regulate all future lnveatlgatlon (OP 21, A!&•, 640). I 1hall not go into thla claaalflcatlon very far, because there le a aeft89 of failure over the whole unwieldy enterprlae, due both to IC.a•'• falling powers and, again •• ,,. shall .... to tbe lnberently llalCl••• and aelf·•efeatlng ab&raoter of the atteapt to direct •perlmentatlon .! priori. �9' Aside froil corroborat 1ng that the illpulre and coacern of Kant• a ayat• really la the acience of bodiea, the Opu1 Pg 1 t,.,_ i• aoat lntrlquiag for the telling gliap••• it glvea of tbe wotlye1 of thl• concern. \\ ,, The critical aapecta of th• '2lz!.ll. are doainatecl by the theae of 11lf•d1tenirwt1pp, 11lf•tff11tion, aad 11lf•knowleclg1, by the way in which I ayaelf become the •preprl.etor and originator• of ay world. Kant hillaelf •keil an elliptical statement concerning this matter well worth quoting (OP 22, 73)1 Fl.rat the conacioueneea of oneself aa a faculty of representation, second the determination of oneaelf aa a function of oneaelf, namely a force (via) of representation. Thtd the appearapee of oneself ae a phenomenon, ae a 11&nifold of representation• a thoroughgoing deteraination of ·o -.11' 1 but only aa appearance and not aa a thlng in itaelf s · objectively ·• x, but as the aubject 11 affected by the understanding• 1tnowledge 2! ongelf tbrough 1,1lf•dtttr1ination in space IDSl ~·· (ay italic•) The importance of this passage to my •position beoo•• clear if I anticipate myself by stating that aelf•deterat.nation in apace l!lsl ti.lie is preclaely physlce •• the 11ince ~ science 2' 2' l!slll 11 llll• r ·ahall however baae ay argument for tbia atateaent not on the opus Pootuma, but on the vigorous and completed works publiahed by Kant bilulelf. 4. The lllportance of body in the Crltiaue• Raving aketched out in a Vf.ry external way the deduction of phyeica through three worka, I llU8t now return to the t.aportance of body witbla the critique of Pure Rea19n. to -ke ay ~ I aaat give a very brief rnlev of certain f\lltd-tal critical )<, �10 Ia accordance with the not lon of truth set out before, the great faculttea. When I aay •1 thlnk•, I I - n Chat I perfora a flxed nU11ber of deflnlte functlo••• ( v Tbe ayatem ef these operationa of dla•@t't, which Kant teraa •categorlea•, la called the •understanding", vhlch gra9ps or conceives an object. \~ It la the first faculty. second faculty is receptlve1 provldes the form under which what la given to be graaped can be received. ln The ~t•a It la called the •aenslbllttf• and yields, term, "lntultlona•, sights. ICaftt's aost crucial critical discovery. Thia paaalve faculty ls It is not strictly apeaking a "faculty• at all but a formal receptacle for •aeasatlon•, which la Kant'• tera for whatever la adventitious in hllllan experience. a But, agaln paradoxically, it also contains an ptlori given, a •pure intuition• or transcendental material, a pura-acruature of relatlona, aa it were. The aensiblllty, in turn, bas two aspects or faces, an outer and an inner aense. I ahall leave the outer sense, which Kant teraa •apace•, for later and now describe briefly only the lnner, which Kant terms •ttae•. Tl. . la nothlag but our capabillty for receiving our own original tranaoendental self, that ls, our thinking aelf, as an appearanoe. It la •the intuition of ourself and our inner eeaditicm". (B 49). •Every act of atttntion can provide ua an example• (B 157) of the act of aelf•affection la which ve appear to ouraelvea. And when we exaaine the character of our intuition of ouraelvea aa originators of thought ve find it to have the fora of a flow of •nova•a coaac1.ouaneas la precisely the �11 stream we c~ll time1 to appear to myself aeans to activate or determine my sense of tlme. Here I must interject a note on the particular text which I am going to deal with. The part of the Critique which is the prime source of what follows is that section called the "Analytic of Principles" of the understanding. Here those two totally disparate faculties. the understanding and the sensibility, are brought together by a third power, hidden and mysterious (B 181), which Kant terms the "iru.ginat1on." By means of this faculty casts ~lnto, ~he u~~i:ng grasps, or the pure formal material available in the sensibility •• but only into its inner sense, only ~ ~· The products of this injection of thought into ti.lie are called "schemata". Thus schemata are thought•inforaed structures of time, or, equally, temporallzed operations of thought. The example of a few scheaata will make immediately plausible the claim tat they are nothing but the pattern under which our thinking appears to ourselves. For instance, our consciousness is understood by us to be fuller or emptier down to vacancy lere we have the appearance in time of that function of the Jnderstand1ng called the category of reality, which is the thought• function corresponding to a given object1 the resultant temporal thought structure is the scheru. of aomethlng insofar as it fills time. the waxi~ (B 1R2). So also our consciousness itself subsists• and waning materiality of our consciousness •Tiae itself does not run out, but in it the existence of what ie mutable runs on" (B 183) ·- here we have the appearance of the category of substance in t 1Jne, and the ~~·esul tant schema io �12 that ot .,JJftll,,,. t:be peraanence of 10-thing real in ti-· In a like tboee f-11 tar and t11e¥ltable pattern• of our· temporal thtdf\na by wbleh ve d1aoover la nerythlng ve conaider ae~tlou of 110Hnt1 of attention, namely ftU!lber, and tf ,.rJ'.)r.,, cante_.&MOua autual actloa, nuely aiault19tty, and rule- v-rl'IN s(;V\ sc»veJ1ned· 1ucceaa1on, naaely cauoe and effect. With the ach...ta aet out, the prlnctplea of the understanding are then si~ a aet of fund~tal rule•. Thew• rulea d-nd that, and alao tall hov, tbeae time-involved categoriea Mlat now in tura be 1ntroduoed into 1MCe, ae that aa object of •nperl-••, 111bleh - n a of truth or M science, uy ari.ae. they are ttaea, ln accord••• with the prinoiple of prlnc1plea quoted before, at the • - tlae tbe rulea for t:be conatltutlon of tbe objeota of experience am for any poaalble true acoount of tbell. Thia peculiar aequence, ill which the categories are (\rat brought together with ti.lie and only then vitb apace, iadlaatea that tlae ia the een& of aeaaea, the priury fora in vblch utryth1M chat presents ltaelf to us at all ftrat appeara1 •aut el.,e all repreaentation1, vtiletber they have outer thlags a1 object• or aot, belong ln Cbemaelvea, •• ••teralnatloaa of the · aoal, to dle l ...r atate, while ~hta inner atate belo~•·••to tt .. , it follova that t l • la an a · priori conclltio• of all appearance la general, tbat is• the l~ late cond lt ion of the 1tmer appearance (of MUl) and beoauae of thla alao tba ..cit.ate condlttoD of outer appearaaaea.• (1 ~-50). And 19t Chere l• 110 aclence of the aouL ·:appearing in aa th_..- t.a a aolence of the body appearing in apace. t 1- Noalaally, the •iAlllOe of uture, as the atudy of all appearano••• lRcludea �13 both, but hnt Mk•• it very elear tllat there 1• not now and never can be a sclenoe of 10ul, a .payehology, Tbe reaaoa la not 111trely that otb• th1ak1ng subjects will naturally not aumlt to, or lf they do, vlll aot reuin unaffected by, our 1aveat1gatlona, rather it 11 inherent both in the poverty of t 1- lteel f and of tbe lawleaa variability of its contents (A 381). IC.ant c\at•e.(ve shall aee later vby) that 1clenoe la auell only inaofar aa there ia Mtheutlce in it, preferably g•-.try. Nov the geoaetric iaage of t lme is the flowing 1 iae of a lag le di•eaeioa, whieh ehova how poor fsychology auat be . .t1'ellat1cally when compared to three d 1.Jlenat.onal apace (MFSN 471). It follow• tbat no self •knowledge of interest can come through the study of soul u ~ apD!ars. I aust add that Kant forcefully proves that lt is an illusion of reaaon to think that the soul caa know itaelf y ,1' 11. lD it1elf (B 399ff.). Self •kpovledge 1eea1 ,t2 /"< lm alygether preclu4td. And now we auat look at two sections Kant added to the "Analytic Prlnclplea" in the aecowi edition of the Cr1t19ue, the "lefutatlon of ldealiaa• and the "General Note to the Syat. . of Priaclplea•. In theae additt.ona I.Cant endeavor• to aupply a pla09 where we aay look to aH ouraelvea fully mi• aatiafyingly. 'Ehle place ia the outer sense, IHCI• The outer sense ls the aecond face of our senaibility, a receptive fora for all Jlhat is other than ourselvea, for all co-a froa the outalde to affect us, for - •••tion proper. . outer ..... is also. in inexplicit but apt refiectlon of ~t But thi• �14 purpose, the source of the most telling feature of all the objects within it, which is that they have their parts outside and beside one another and are extended in three dimensions. Thus it is the very structure of the f or11 of outer sense which not only guarantees but even requires that spatial objects shall be subject to geometry hence Kant's requirement that natural science be geametric is really the same as his claim that it can only arise in space. (It is of course also numerical, since all the contents of outer sense appear in inner sense or title as well, and number> it will be remembered, is a time schema.) To return to the additions to the text with which Kant decided to conclude the section on the application of the temporalized categories to space. Here he says that it ts noteworthy that "in order to understand the possibility of things according to categories, and so to display the objective reality of the latter, we need not only intuitions, but even always outer intuitions" (B 291). So, for instance, in order to give objective reality to the concept of substance, we need an intuition in space, namely 11atter, because that alone determines permanence, while ti11e ls in constant flux. Even to grasp our own changing consciousness we need to it as a line in space and "the real reason for i11a~ine this is that all alteration presupposes something permanent in the intuition, but that in inner sense no permanent intuition at all is to be 11etwith." (B 292). And Kant concludes/a "This whole observation is of great importance ••• ln order to indicate to us the limitations of the possibility of such knowledge whenever there is talk of self-knowledge out of mere inner consciousness and the determination of our nature without the aid of outer empirical intuitions: (B293). �15 Outer empirical intuitions are, as we shall see, bodies. Kant ls therefore saying that bodies are the necessary conditions of our steady presence before ourselves. where appear !2 ourselves !!!S! in ~ * ~ They~~ sole place lies our substance. It should be noted that this strange outcome is at least consonant with Kant's peculiar understanding of outer appearance. For when sensation comes to us from what might be called the absolute outside to fill our sensibility, the resulting appearance tn no way belongs to the alien source of that sensation and is quite incapable of indicating anything concerning the nature of that source which Kant ·calls the "thing in itself". It is rather the case that the appearance, the shaped sensation, is entirely formed by but the USJ ~ one might say that sensation itself adds nothing of our being affected, the mere activation of t:he subject (B 207). 5. * The use of the term body. At this point I would like to interject an observation on the word 'body' which I have used in posing my questions ts a body in Kant• s systera7 What Kant himself cal l _ the science s founded in the Metaphysical Foundations of the Science of Nature a "doctrine of bodies", so the word seems perfectly appropriate. And yet it ls not a weighty word, or one of consequence, in the Kantian text. (HFSN 525)1 Let me give its definition in the Foundations "Body ls a matter between determinate boundaries (and such matter therefore has a figure)." A quantity of moving .. lllltter ts called a mass, and so a 11ass of determinate shape is �16 also called a body (537). Body is therefore a mere delimiation of matters a110rphous matter 1.s the basic, pervasive object of interest, whose concept is to be expounded. Nonetheless I want to hold on to the word body, for the sake of displaying a consequence of the insistence on founding the science of bodies metaphysically. This is the starting, non- plussing disappearance of that inert lump which move·s by effort, that shapely solid, that handy repository of trust, that constant object of our most solicitous care, that terminus of an attraction or revulsion (wholly different from the forces of si.railar name into which Kant will resolve matter), that whole which antecedes all distinction of form and matter, that possible seat of soul which most of us mean when we say 'body' and which first excites the inquiry into bodily nature called physics. * A note to point up the omission of body in its immediate organic sense from Kant's system. I here mean that body which is a living, sensate center of interpretation of other bodies as alive or dead. Kant never, to my knowledge, treats the relation of such a body as mY Q!!!1 a little work in to the transcendental outer sense, to space. ~hich In the relation of body and soul is indeed - discussed, the letter on the "Organ of the Soul", he says1 "For if I am to make the place of my soul, that ls, my absolute self, intuitable anywhere in space, I must perceive myself through that very same sense through which I also perceive the matter which surrounds me, just as happens when I want to determine my place in the world as human being, namely that I must observe my body in its relation to other bodies without me. -Now the soul can perceive itself only through inner . sense, but the body, be it internally or externally, only through outer senses and so can simply determine �17 no place for itself, because for this purpose it would have to make itself an object of tts own outer intuition and would have to place itself outside itself, which is self-contradictory." Let me first comment on this passage insofar as it seems to contradict the "Refutation of Idealism" in the Critiaue. For in that too there is no indication that I am to determine myself as a human being in a certain place within outer sense or space, but rather the outer sense !!. ~ whole contains the stuff which makes my self-appearance possible. But further, note the problem which Kant evadesa Hy body as an outer appearance has a very special character -- it is a kind of sink hole of sensationr all sensation streams toward it and all existence or non-existence is controlled from it (as when I close my eyes) e This is a difficulty for Kant's outer intuition, s·ince it, like Newton• s d ivi,ne "sensory• of infinite space (Optics, Qu• 28) ought to be homogeneous, isotropic (the same in al 1 direct ions) , and cont iJ1uous, while 11y body and its instrument1 ike sensory organs represent a point of discontinuity, of preference, and a warping of space. Hence it does appear to behav~ like a seat of soul, and this consideration cannot be acco1111<>dated in Kant's system.* 6. The constitution of body. Let me go on now to describe Kantian body as it ts developed from the "Analytic of Principles" of the Critique through. the Metaphysical Foundations of the Science of Nature• is not, of course, temporal, but merely critical. This genesis �18 The functions of the on nothi~ understandi~, insofar as they operate given, enclose in thelr grasp, that is, conceive, an empty object, a mere x. It is only when, next, these concept functions operate on the pure content of the sensibility that a material object arises, and such an object of pure material is a pure object of experience, a thing !!l general. a. "Thing" in the Critique. Let me briefly recount the principles by which a "thing" is established. There are four of them, in accordance with the number of basic concept functions of thought termed "categories". Two of these are constitutive and are called "mathematical" because they assure that all things shall be so constituted as to be extensively and intensively measurable. are called "dynamic", because they re~ulate The other two the relations which all things by their very nature as things must have with each other, and they assure that all things whatsoever shall be enmeshed in one dynamic system, a system of mutual influence. The first principle is called an axioma it is axiomatic that all things have extension, that all are spatial intuitions and hence measurable. The second principle is called an anticipationa it is to be anticipated that everywhere in space things will have some degree of perception, that is, measurable intensity of sensation. Third comes a group of three principles called analogies• we may infer by analogy that even things not immediately available to observation are bound to each other by definite relations, �19 which are spatial applications of the time t. sch~ata, as followsa Time itself as duration is to appear in space as substance so that all things whatsoever will have a steady substrate, a permanent existence. 2. Time as connected succession is to appear in space as cause and effect, so that all things are to be similarly related as causes and effects. 3. Time as simultaneit) ls to appear in space as the mutual relation of interaction, so that all things are in a like way to affect each other conteaporaneously. The fourth principle is called a postulate and adds nothing to the nature of things objectively but only determines their subjective relation to the faculty of knowledge. Let me review ina little more detail the nature of a thing as it emerges from the so-called "Anticipations• and the first "Analogy", for these are the principles most directly relevant to the bodily nature of things. They provide, in effect, the foundation of •reality" and "substance• in Kant's system of nature. In the first analo~y, in one of those amazing junctures which make Kant's system so suggestive, substance is established as ~ spatial representation .Q! consciousnesea " ••• There must be in the objects of perception, that is, appearances, that substrate which represents time 1n general, and in which all alteration or si11ultaneity can be perceived by 11eans of the relation of appearances to the same. Now the substrate of all that is real ••• is substance.... It follows that the permanent, in relation to which all time relations of appearance can alone be determined, is substance in appearance, that ls, the real in appearance, which, as substrate of all alteration, always remains the same." (B 225). When we recall that time as the pure content of the inner sense �20 l• ayeelf l.n appearance, the state•nt that 1ub1tapce i i •Mtiallztd aelf la corroborated. And thus a truly novel ...nift8 baa been attacbed to an 014 ter11 algnlfyl.ng self• •• Subatanee la now the three dt.eu-..1 eube1at11'18 bel.ag. appttrtnpt of soul to itself. In tbe •Anticipations• the alterationa to be predicated of eubetanee are founded, or rather a guarantee la given ~ cbaqea 1n con•olouaneea vlll occur, even though lta qualltt.ee ••ftN)t M eetabllebed A priori. That we -Y anticipate that •ubatance will always be in varying degree aenee-activated, that things will alwaya be ••naatioa•fllled, that neither ti.M nor epace· w111 ner be co111>letely eapty -·this ls the critical requtr....-nt of rglitys re.a llty la the deterainatlon of a ' ' eubatance ae having giatence, that ia, •• being a thing there and then (B 225). bnt'a ayatea requires that the things of nature be . .de quick with aen•ation, that they materialize. b. - Wxl!tJA.--_ Mtt100y1ical Found&tione of the -seience of tyre In th• Metaphysical fqJlldation1 the transcendental structure la realized by the introduction of an •eapirlcal eoacept•, the concept of Mtter. By an ••pirlcal oonaept" Kant actually aeana a •concept of soaetbing eaprlcal", tbat la, a concept which is la 118 vay tbe re•ult of ob..rvatloa (though to clal.a existence for it would require experience), but rather simply a closer conceptual deteraination or specification of the transcendental "thi118" eetabllabed ln the Grltiaue• concept ia ~ ;..a.ut The aetaphysica of such a it.- ful 1 ex pl teat ion. Kant presents the concept of matter aa lf he had chosen one of a l\Ullber of �21 poas ible 1natance1 or specifications of a natural thiag ( 4 70) , But 1n fact, it 1eeas to •• ao other ~botce wae po11lble, et.nee utter turne out to be the tmt.que and nece11uy flrat empirical ooaeept of the aclence of nature. Matter la the na• •• ironically choaen if anyone expects to be presented with .0- sol id stuff -- of tbe concept of the "movable i.n apace•. It t.s poaat.ble to reooaatruct the lit.aet.ag reason why the JIOVable in apace t.a the basic concept of the acienee of nature froa tbia sentence• "Ibe funda11ental deterain• ation of a 1011ethlng that le to be an object of the external senses must be 110tlon, '51£ tblreby UlX affected" (476, ay italica). aa theat 11p111 lll The .,vable ia aiaply that which can excite aenaatien, aeaaation beirg appropriately undtratood by Kant aa tut vho1e very uture it is to be movi..tg am 11&alfold. It r-in• to 1upply another oat.1s1on by conjecturing what epeciflcatlon of the tranacendental I.ant 11 actually perfor111ng1 the 110vable appear• to be nothi~ but the real aubatance of tht Critique, but now_ specifically 0Pn11dert4 ill 11R'ratelx ~ G laa• any otber, truly !WW ~ DSl •ace ~ At leaat it 11 difficult to 4lacover deteralnatlon in the conoept of -tter. The Mtt!Phvt1cal Found!t\ont ooaee in four ·parta which are eo11pletely parallel to the "Analytic of Princlplea• aad are pretenttd in the fora of propo1itlona and proofa follow1Jla fro• those principlt•• the ft.rat part. vblcb derive• froa tbe principle of extmalve quantity (tire Axlolq of Intuition), eatabl ishea tbe geo-trle treatlleDt of polnt •tl.ou. motion• la ter11a of It deals with the 0011po1t.tion of _..t.ng ooordlnate •Y•t••• or •1paoe1•, and, in refuting Newton's notion of abaolute apace, provld•• a �22 metaphysical foundation for so-called Newtonian relativity. (This is the principle that when bodies interact or are all subject to the same accelerative forces, they constitute a space for which absolute motion or rest are not internally discriminable. Principia, Axioms, Cors. v, VI). The second part derives from the principle of intensive quantity (the ~Anticipations of Perception"), which requires some degree of sensation in things and hence their reality. Thie part is headed "Dynamics" because it shows that the essential qualities of matter are forces, and dynam1s misappropriated by physicists for force. is the Greek word Tnis part is the most important to my purpose precisely because it deals with the most intimate nature of body. The third part, which derives from the principles governing the relations of things (the Analogies of Experience), is called "Mechanics" since in it are deduced the laws ~overnlng the interactions of bodies in systems, trose "laws of nature" by . which bodies are held in systems. In this part Newton's "Axioms or Laws of Motion" are, with certain suggestive variations, completely deduced as propositions. Here also Kant draws the physical consequence which follows from his understanding of substance as the steady spatial substrate of all alterations it is the law of the conservation of matter. * A note correlating the Propositions of Mechanics of the Metaphysical Foundations with the Axioms of Motion of the Principia Mathematica. Proposition 21 "First Law of Mechanics", the law of the conservation of matters proved, as just noted, by an application �23 to matter of the first Analogy concerning the permanent in space, or substance. It has no explicit counterpart in the Principia but is an implicit consequence of the corpuscular view of matter set out in the •Rules for Philosophizing• which introduce the third book of the Principia and contain the application of the previous mathematical results to the world of matter. For the hard impenetrable atoms there posited can neither come into nor go out of being. Proposition 31 •second Law of Mechanics•, a fora of the law of inertia, namely that every change of matter demands an external cauae1 proved py an application of the second analogy concerning cause and effect. Its counterpart is Newton's Axiom of Motion I, that every body continues in its state of rest or unifora 110tion unless forces are applied. Proposition 41 "Third Mechanical Law•, laying down that in all coll18Unication of motion action and reaction are always equal to one another1 proved by an application of the third Analogy concerning interaction. Corresponds to Newton's Axiom of Motion III, the law of equal and opposite action and reaction of bodies. Proposition 1 establishes as the operable quantity of Kantian physics the quantity of matter as measured by its •quantity of 110tion•, that is matter compounded with velocity (momentlDI •av). This proposition is formally parallel to Newton's Axiom of Hation II, in which the basic operable quantity la defined as force, coapounded of mass and acceleration (F-raa). Force aa seen in acceleration or change of velocity la simply absent from �24 Kant'• foundation of physics, and this omission coastitutes the aoat ·~•lflcant technical difference between Kantian and Newtonian physic••* Finally, the fourth part, which derives from the principle concerning the relation of things to the faculty of knowledge (the Postulates of Empirical Thlnklng).prescrlbes what propositions of physics are to be asserted as possible or aa necessary. . To returR to the •Metaphysical Foundations of Dynamics•, which deals vith aatter insofar as it fills apace. It ls in filling space that utter asserts its "reality", its power to affect the aenaea. The universal principle of dynamics isa •Atl that is real in the objects of our external senses ••• must be regarded aa a llOVing force." ( 523). "The concept of matter iareduced to nothing but 11<>ving forces1 this could not be expected to be otherwiae, because in apace no activity and no change ean be thought of but mere 110tion: (524). Force is the condition of possibility of matter whose possibility la not itself, in turn, explicable and whose concept ls not itself derivable fro• anotner. As ~ant puts it, force itself cannot be aade conceivable (513). IC.ant provea that matter ia in fact nothing but force by ahowing that all the appearances of spatial objects are accounted for by forcea and only by forces. In the course of these proofs i . abollabea solidity, understood as the ability of matter to occupy apace by reason of . .re existence (498) •• an implicit �25 part, I think, of the ordinary view of body. And he attacka a view he regards as the consequence of positing solidity, Descartes• corpuscular or atomic theory which asserts the l'lystery of mathematical and . .chanical iapenetrability, and requires mere blocks of extension to 110ve each other externally (502, 533). Hatter requires two original forcesa a repulsive or driving force and an attractive or drawing force, corresponding to the two possible directions of interaction between point centers of force (497).* The prlaary repulsive force is the force 11<>re inti.J'lately associated with our sensing of extended things. "Hatter fills space not by its mere existence, but by a special moving force• (497, which in resisting penetration is the cause of palpability. It is, hence, a •superficial" force, a source of surfaces and contacts, which nonetheless conetltutes matter throughout so that it is infinitely divisible -- there is always a new surface. On one force alone, however, matter could not fill apace but would,: by repelling itself to inflnt.ty, become dissipated and vanish• Therefore, 1.n order that body might become mncrete, as it were; 4 cotmtervailing original force it wanted. This seeond f orce cannot be imaediately sensed or even located in a body, out can only be notice<! in its effects. It is a penetrating force which does not need the agency of other matter but acts at a distance even to infinity and precisely where it is not (512). Whereas repulsion provides matter with its outside, so to speak, attract1.on gtYes it its inner cotEs:wace and ._.,. !!tie aegaeata crit:lqm of . 1.ant•a ~ltt la glvea - Hegel (Science of LggiC, Bk 1, See. I, cb. 3, para. 6, a, Mote). . * .A p'll-oH•l•l �26 of aatter close or dense. _ It - is therefore the force which, as it binds a body to . itself. also holds body to body in a system, such aa the planetary system. * The•e two forces equally and simultaneously constitute -tter -- a body b not as in Boecovitch' s Theory of Natural Philotophy (1763) a region in space where attractive and repulsive forces alternate> wit. the repulsive force prevail·ing and going h off to infinity near the center of the body while the attractive force similarly prevails but goes off to zero away from that center. Instead two field-like expanses of force are super- imposed and together give rise to regions of various density variously delillited, which correspond to bodies.* Let Kant himself concludea •tf we revlew all our discussions of the metaphysical treataent of aatter, we shall observe that in this treataent the following things have been taken into considerationa first, the real in space (otherwise called the solid) in its filling of space through repulsive forces second, that which with regard to the first as the proper object of our external perception ta negat1ye, namely attractive force, by which, as far as may be, all space would be penetrated, that is, the solid would be wholly abolisheda third the 1111.tation of the first force by the second and the consequent perceptible determination of the degree of filling of space: (523). Thia last •perceptible determination• is matter, while body is but aatter shaped between boundaries and therefore nothing but a figure inacribed into the continuous expanse of mattera body ••• is . .tter between determinate boundaries~ (525). •A Self- determining solid bodies are simply incompatible with Kant's system. That -tter does fill all of space and fills it continuously, ao that there la no empty space, is a possiblltty df such �27 consequence to physics that Kant concludes the Metaphysical Foundations with its consideration. Within this work the dynamic plenum remains merely a powerful posslbllty, and the ether as a special pervasive · "external" matter Which reali.mes it remains a physical assu11ption (523, 534, 563 ff.). But it seems to me that the fullness of space ts co11pletely deducible metaphysically from the very constltut ton of appearance. For i.t follows both from the continuities of nature requi.red by the principles of the understanding (.B 281), and from the fact that space, as the receptive form of sensation, can never in itself appear, which ls to say -that there can be nothing i.n appearance corresponding to ~mpty space (~, .B 261). I note here only in passing that if a plenum does require an ether, it may, as an ultimate reference system, well be incompatible wi.th the previously established prlnclpl~ of relativity. But this very inconsistency is proof that Kant's metaphysics of nature does not merely ground Newton's physical results retrospectively -on the contrary it looks forward not only to a physics of force fields, but also to the great - ether debate which ended only with the momentous negative experiments performed just a century after the publication of the Metaphysical Foundati.ons. Its sequel, the "Iransition ••• to Physics", shows that Kant was also concerned about the loss of independent body i.n the spread of dellmitable stuff. In the very pages in which he now undertakes to show that an ether of some sort ts indeed not 11erely a reasonable assumpti.on but a deductive necessi.ty of the system, he also tri.es to establish i.ts very contrary, na11ely natural, organic body (~, OP 21, 21R). The effort here i s to lntroduce a body �28 whlch ls not merely_, by a regulative fiction of reason) subjectively interpreted aa organized to serve an end, but which ha&- an objective principle of self-determinat~on (OP 21, 209 ff.), an "1nner force" or proper principle of motion, and may therefore be termed "a self-limiting quantum of matter having a certain fl~ure" (170)~ Kant regards thls task as properly belonging to the "Transition". But he also concedes that such bod 1es might wel 1 be "inconceivable" ( 570), that is, not derivable in the systems therefore, it seems to me, this effort must fails the system of well-founded matter called nature cannot, as Kant himself has shown in the letter on the organ of the soul, yield bodies fitted by reason of their self-contained unity to be the seat of life or soul. -- Indeed, how could nature contain such places, being itself the epiphany of soul1 7. The excesses of the system. Kant considers that the metaphysical foundations of matter and 1ts science have been laid, and the possibility of understood as experience ls forever guaranteed. knowled~e Henceforth eaplrical physics may be safely and infinitely pursued -safely because its principles lie !. priori in myself so that all experience ls self-experience, and infinitely because all of its occasions are excitations which flow to us, with ever fresh adventitiousness, from an alien source. But at this juncture a difficulty arises. In order for the systematic character of physics promised by its principles to be preserved throughout the enterprise, a regulative framework of investigation must be laid down. The great preoccupation of �29 Kant's later years was to assure the •rational coherence• (MFSN 534) of the science of nature by an ever-closer explication and specification of its basic concepts. soul as IUlture seems to require that The representation of the !ll aasuaptl"ODa and hypotheses either be soon converted into deductions or discarded. Less and less is left to observation. To give a prime exaaplea the law of the force of attraction, naaely that it varies inversely as the sqU4re of the distance between the centers of two bodiea, ia a specification, ~ observation, of innuaerable aathematical posaibilltiea antecedently set out in Newton's Princloia (III, i•vlii, particularly land ii). Kant too state• that •no law whatever of attractive or of repulsive force may be risked on a priori conjectures• (534). And yet Kant deduce• the inverse square law from the mode of diffusion essential to his attractive force together with a fact of Euclidfan geometry, namely that the surfaces of concentric spheres increase as the squares of their radii (519). This ever-growing regulation of observation insofar as lt ls attributable to the richness of the system in deductive consequences, might be ai.Jlply a credit to it. And so it would be, were it the case that nature, when arraigned before Kantian reason, the •appointed judge who coapela the wltneasea to answer questions which he has himself formulated• (B xiii)> always willingly and plausibly responded in the required terma. But the fact of the matter, worth far more consideration than has gone into this passing remark, aeeaa to be that phyaiciats have largely by-passed Kant's •topic• of forces and have super- �30 ceded bu -tapbyalce •• for ·exa111>le, its conatlt~tlonally Euclidean apace aa well aa the categories of causality and si11Ultaneity •• preauraably coapelled thereto by nature herself. And yet it la this very excess of doctrinal consequence which ult• the study of Kant's 11etaphyslcs of physics the indispensable pbllo1oph4.ctl CoJIDle11nt to the study of classical aechanics. For in attempting to account completely for all that ls found therein, Kant, even as he falls, unfailingly aide reflection' on the terms of physics. In any case, the failure to preserve the adventitiousness of nature and hence to become a viable guide for experlaental physics la only a derivative difficulty of the systea. . Hore radical and revealing questions arise about it, beginning with the excessive lllportance attached to physics as the sole self• atudy and ending only in questions concerning the nature of philosophy itself. Let . . conclude with the briefest formulation of auch questions by returning to the work with which I began, to Kant's essay invel~hlng against the "noble tone• in philosophy of which Plato la the unwitting progenitor. particularly Kant unalstakably alludes To one d1.alogue (.su.&,:., 1ft mentioning Mttypa, cf. Ti-eus 50 ca.) as the embodlaent of all that he 11Ust disavow in Plato's view of raatheaatlcs, of the world of appearances, of truth•telll~ itself -· the Ii.Jlaeu•• It ls al.,st as if the treatise on the Hetaphya1cal foundations of the Science of Nature were a specific response to the dialogue •• not, however, in the 110de of •i111>le di...trlc contradiction which Kant reserves for his closer opponents like Deecat:t. . , but by way of that aoat �31 radical contrariety which characterizes true alternatives. A parallel study of these two texts would raise the aforesaid questions in some such termsa Kant destroys bod ie@ to preserve the reality · :<~ . ~'Qpearances, and gives up the self-deter111ining coherence of 1 •, a i~ld· al natures for an assured perceptibility of nature • thi~s.. • understoo·.,~ "> ...a system of But may not the articulated and .. d·t:st: inct.,. beauty of natural bodies and configurations require the intellect to forego sensation-filled dynamic reality as well as ultimate 1.mpenetrability in favor of Timaeus' mathematical solidity (53 c ff .)7 Does not the inexhaustible originality of this mathematicised nature coapel us to reconsider whether our sensibility can possibly be the sole source of her f orms7 Kant denies the soul a seat in nature in order to preserve nature herself as the appearance of the soul and the · repreaentation of its rational operations. Thus nature becomes a system, an edifice founded on principles and constituted as well as soverned. throughout by laws derivative from the functions of thotJ8ht. But IWAY not the curious complex of regularity and irrationality which is the visible world suggest yet a third relation of soul to body, expressed by Timaeus as the girdling of body by soul (36e)7 Thus body would arise not as Sll!I. own outer appearance, but as the inner effects of ~world which is indeed intelligible, but not wholly so. Kant regards the continuing study of palpable 11tµre, the science of body, as the most serious hU11an theoretical activity, and its secure foundation in our own faculties as a COllpleted philoaophical labor. But uy it not be that the account of the �32 visible world ts, as in Timaeus' phrase, only .a . •1tkely story• .. (e1.kon mythos, 29 d), and that physics thrives on just those hypotheses., analogies, and likelihoods which Kant disavows in his essay? Then may not this perpetually tentative and open physics be a sort of high amuse11ent with useful effects rather than humanity's central study, and a model-making project -- the •story of likenesses•, to which Timaeus' phrase alludes-- rather than a well-grounded system~ Hence a metaphysics of physics may finally have to yield to an inquiry into the nature and being of models, which may require the playful poetry of mere philosophy as exemplified in Plato's noble dialogue, rather than the working prose of Kant's ayot!!lftic philosophy. �- 33 - Addendum_ to p. 24, top: ThP reason for Kant's substituti8n of mv for ma is, however, not merely a tPchnical matter. Kant's Proposition 3 begins with the words :"Everj change of matter has an external cause" (543). But, as I have noted, this cause is "motion" or "momentum," rather than the force of Newton's Law II. ThP reason forces Kant ~or this substitution is as follows. ~as The two posited in the section on dynamics constitute matter, but do not cause changes Q.f. ™' which is ·~' O say that thev do not affect the motion of "matter in motion." Now for Kant the causes of motions can only be other motions, since a cause is nothing but an appearance wh:i.ch determines another appearance later in time (B 234) -and the same kind as its effect. must therefore be of :But since effect is a change in space of a mass-, the cause must equally be such an "external" change, namely motion. Consequc-ntly in the context of the section on mechanics the dynamic forces function only as mediating mechanisms for the communication of motions. These latter momenta alone are Kant's "motiTe forces o" This explanation was deTeloped by the members of my preceptorial on the Foundations. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c107d87f16723f2051e7142c51c1b42a.pdf 70636d17a0cf68483fb137911cb87cb0 PDF Text Text On Thomae More. 8 u,tO,RiS.* Ev& Brann Among ·the new and most pecuHarly modem disciplines tl)ere is one, to be pb.ced, I auppoae. among the aocial studies, sometimes called 11 fu turology," whioh deals with the art of conjecturing concerning the future. Those who pu.r- sue this art often say that there is a great "need for modem utopian pictures." . · Let me Q .uote a. passage from a founder of this art, Bertrand de Jou.venelr · It im tim@ that exports represented the many different out ocmee which can be obtained by many different uses of cu:r many and increasing poeeibilitiee. Thia repreaentaticn ehould he in pictures aacording to the utopian tradition. Sinae thf.I 11u topian tra.. i ti on" begins with the book Thomas More called d 11 Utopie. 11 e.nd einee it is in human matters commonly the case that the first of a kind iR alao the truest to that ldnd, it seems right to go to More's book ·to connlder what a utopia properly so called might be, end whether such a work can do wha t the atudent of the future needs it for--to supply the ends to be nchicved by our profusion of means. * Lecture ~i.ven at St John's College, .Annapolis, on May 5, 1972 �-2-:- 1. Utopias as Political Poetry Two poems purporting to be by the poet laureate.of Utopia wer,e prefixed to the book by More's Dutch friend Peter Giles, whose house is the setting for the narrative. One of them says: The ancients called me Utopia (or nowhere) because of my isolation; now however I a.m a rival of Plato's Republic, perhaps even a vie tor over it, for what it delineates in words, I alone have exhibited in men and works and the best laws. I dese.ry-e be called by the name of Eutopia, (or th·3 good place). to I cannot resist first quoting from the . original of the other, which is given in the Utopian language and alphabet: n :Bar~l ·h~ magl~mi baocan soma gymnos~phaon • .t\grama· gymnosbphon labare.'ll bMha bodam11omTn. n I alone of all lands without the aid of philosophy Have expressed for mortals the philosophical city. Both poems express the srune point. a.ted in words" by its actuality. in Pl1J.tar.ch's Utopia surpasses other cities "delineNow the original of this claim is to be found Lives where it is made of Lycurgus, the founder of the Spartan polity: All who have written well on politics, such as Plato ••• have taken Lycurgus for their model, leaving behind them, however, mere projects and words: whereas Lycurgus was the author, not in writing but in reality, of a government •• o He by the example of a complete philosophic city raised himself high above the other lawgivers of Greece. It is almost belaboring the obvious to point out that Utopia is riot. actual in quite the same way Sparta was, and yet this observation can serve to introduce the question concerning the way in which a utopia has being. Now the answer to the question is not hard to formulate. Utopias are communities constructed in the imagination and expressed in words, word ·pietures, a< :kind of poetry. Accordingly Sir Phil .r\.. p Sidney includes the Utopia �-3- as a poetic work in his De.fense of Poe ·s.y and s e.ys of the utopian poet: ••• he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description·, which do th neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul so much as that other · doth. Utopias, then, mEJ¥ be called politi cal poetry and belong to the faculty of the i magination. 2. Utopia as Day-dream The first kind of imagining which utopias suggest is day-dreaming, in the case of the first Utopia, a sort of exoter ic dreaming carried on by a company united in a common desire. Certainly there was a great d.eal of channed and longing make-believe among More and his many friends, of which Peter Giles' invention of a mellifluous Utopian language is an example--they were evidently so persu~sive that one benighted cleric conceived a by the Pope to Utopia as bishop. bu~ing .d esire to be sent In this spirit also More wrote Erasmus a letter telling of a day-dream in which he had seen himself as the chosen king of Utopia "marching a long crowned with a diadem of wheat, very striking in my Franciscan garb.•• But this view of Utopia as a day dream is ,inadequate. In fact, More's Utopia and most, subsequent utopian constructions are sober and disciplined places which induce strong misgivings in most readers, especially. more recent readers. These misgivings have to do not with that irresponsibly diversionary nature of utopian writing, which was castigated by Marx and .Ehgels in the Communist Manifesto as an "unscientific~· and ultimately reactionary, buildL'rlg of "castles in the air." On the contrary, the dissatisfaction comes precisely from the apprehension of utopias as practical proposals. cause they are felt ~o Utopias offend be- be "static," : monotonous, regimented, drably uniform, �.-4!"" restrictive. Mumford, for instance, thinks of Utopia as a human machine which he regards as the original social evil, as "dystopia" ·or the 11 evil place", while another writer entitles an article on More's Utopia "A Detestable State." 3. More against his own Utopia The most curious fact, however, is More's own relation to his book. . sh~ll I give an abbreviated list of items in respect to which More expressed . disapprobation of Utopian institutions. It includes almost every feature that is fundamental. He cont~ents in his own behalf at the ve-ry end of the book, where he says: •• aMany things came to my mind which in the manners and laws of that people seemed tt:i\1.'insti tuted and formed of no good reason, not only in the fashion o.f their chivalry and their sacrifices and religions and in others of their laws, but also, yea, and chiefly, in that· which is the principal foundation of all their ordinances, that is to sayt in the community of their life and living without occupying BilY money ••• More in fact regarded communimn as heretical. Yet even more fundamental than the communism of the Utopians is their -love of pleasure: •• ••• they think that all our actions, and in them the yir- tues themselves, be referred at last to pleasure as their end and felicity." But More, who secretly wore a hair shirt next to his body, considered that "a perfect man should abstain not only from unlawful pleasure but from lawful. 0 Again, the Utopians pennit free choice of religion, and thus have no idea of doctrinal heresy. in the Dialo~e .Q!!_ More on the other hand, in several places, for instance Heresies,argues that heretical books should not be suffered to go abroad, and .that the burning of heretics is sometimes lawful, necessary, and well done. �_,_ TheUtopians _permit a rationally planried suicide, _More regards :lt as a devilish temptation under all circumstances; the Utopians permit a divorce under the condition of insuperable incompatibility, More opposes it; the Utepians use no images in their worship, Mare defends their necessity. How did ' More manage to invent an ideal commonwealth whose institutions were contrary to his own views? ~at might seem to be the answer to the ques- tion, that the Utopians are not Christians, while More himself was a moat de' .vout Christian, is not sufficient for it does not' explain .·why More should have imagined "the best state of the .commonwealth" as pagan. 'Ihus it appears that the first Utopia is not a mere dre·am, but a wily and comple~ product of the ~magination, and that, in order to understand it, it may be necessary to reflect on it specifically as an imaginative product as such. 4. Utopia as a Product of the Imagination First of all, utopian communities, because ' they are visually . conceived, are vivid pictures, and hence exhibit brightly delineated styles of life, usually leaning to one or the other extreme of possible publicfonn. Some utopi- as, especially : those celebrating technique, like the old Atlantis of Plato's Cri ti.as, display a somewhat sinister splendour, or like :Ba.con's ~ Atlantis, a mysterious but punctilious ritual inagnificPnce; otheri;;, l _lce Houyhnhnm Land i in Gulliver's Travels are depicted as rejoicing in subdued and sober rustic decorousness. Utopia itsel..f, with its monastic habits and absence of oma- ment, flirnished the first example of the latter style, -and. indeed Swift, who numbered More in the tmmatchable sextw.· \.Virate of statesmen which includes 1 Socrates' name9 made his horses, which have not even a name for the vice of pride• first cousins of the Utopians whose essence ist as we shall see, precisely the absence of pride. �-6- . Circwnstantially pai~ted though they may be, utopias, as beings of the fleshless~ imagination, are "arrested appearances," and as such motionless and Hence a static and two-dimensional character does invariably pervade utopias; it is this in them which offends those modern critics, who regE.lXd social mo- bility and opportunity for experience as necessary conditions for a good soci- ety. Utopias are "quasi-c:rt ~stalline structures" because it is in the nature of' the imagination to arrest motion. Secondly, utopias show modes or place and time which are appropriate to their origin in the imagination. Augustine writes of his imaginative memory as containing images which can be recalled and reconstructed at pleasure: All this do I within, in that huge court of my memory. For there have I in readiness the heaven, ·~arth, sea ••• Yet I did not swallow them into me by seeing when as with my eyes I beheld .them. Nor are the things themselves now with me, but the images of them only. The tmagination then is a power of unreal places which can be visi.ted at will. Most utopias appear to have their origin in such ' voyages within the imagination; they are places of the imagination expressed as imaginary places. 'therefore almost all in fact have the form of narrations of voyages of discovery; the Odyssey is their prototype. mode 1of their fictitiousness. But utopirm voyages differ from odysseys · in the For utopias are not pure inventions but images whose existence is--on one level-ardently desired. Hence their descriptions do not have the ingenious verisimilitude appropriate to tales of adventure. Insofar as utopian accounts are not disinterested in existence, being institutions of desire in the places of the imagination, they intrude the fact of' the unreality of their place purposefully and persistently--the very word "utopia" means "M'1_>lace. " But what most intimately characterizes utopias is that they tamper with time. �-7Thnisbecause . the sole source of the imagination is the past; it is stocked with "perpetual sense impressions" left by what is no. longer present, and so is a power of bringing the past into the present, a commemorative power. Hence the products of the imagination are often ca.st in the past tense, "once upon a ~ime," a _paradigm product of the purifying and simplifying ima- gination being the Golden Age. But since utopias invariably stand as ac. . cusa.tions against a particular present, they are often resurrections of a particular past, . representing_ the pristine community "behind" the degenerate one. So Utopia with its fifty.~four cities corresponding in number to the :Ehglish shires, its capital called the "Dark.ling City," built like a foggy but salubrious sheep-and Londo~, fost~red in and ;i. ts unenclosed count.ry- :i.de unspoiled by rampaging s harmonious . balance with the cities, presents the old and merry England behind that of the fallen present. It seems appropriate to note he.re that since utopias by their nature arise from dissatisfaction with the present, those which do not draw on the past are utopias o_ terror, in which the evils incipient in the present a.re f projected in magrrification onto the future and there depicted with . fascinated and even avid horror. Such anti-utopias are warnings based on a modern no- tion of history as progress, but in this case as pe..rjorative progress. best known examples of futurist utopias are Huxley's Brave~ The World and Orwell's Nineteen Eigl1ty-Four, and it is significant that both, but particularly the latter, understand the realization of their nightmare to depend primarily on the obliteration of the past. 5. The Special Place and Time of Utopia As the expression of a thought-infonned product of the imagination, that ist as political poetry, More's Utopia thus empl.oys special modes of time and place. �-8- Utopia is Greek and means "no-place•. Utopia is a place of the imagina- tion wordly in all respects· but that i t lacks bodily e·x istence, the quality of being there, that is, of real location. More signifies this by having Hythlo- day, the narrator, fail to specify exact geographic coordinat~s. In addition some of the names, especially the place names of this region, are privative, :..:;.. like the land "Achoria'.1 ''Un-country," and the river "Anydrus"--"Waterless". More and his friends engaged in much pleasantry concerning this lack of geographic placement, giving each other ·circumstantial explanations of how it crune · to be omitted in the account and earnest commissj.ons to inquire further of Hythloday, s.o underscoring the claim that More's Uto12ia, al though feigned in the imagination, is a place on earth in contrast to Plato's Politz, a product of the .;intellect, which is a "pa.t tern laid up in heaven." Now, curiously .vague as · is Utopia's locat.i on in place, its settingin time.is vecy precise. Three exact dates are supplied: the date of its foun- ding; according to the annals of Utopia 1760 years before Hythloday's account, that is in 244 B.C.; the arrival of some Romans and Egyptians 1200 years ago, that is, in the beginning of the fourth century A.D.; and the arrival of Hythloday' s company; who were left behind during Amerigo Vespucci 1s last voyage which took place in 1504. Each of these dates is significant. Utopia's present goverrunent was founded just when King Agis of Sparta attempted Unsuccessfully to revive the constitution of Sparta's original lawgiver, Lycurgus. '!his constitution in- stituted a common way of life like that of the Utopians, except that land, though equally shared out, was held as private property,. Agis had begun by re- cindin.g. a law opening the way for inequality of holdings, a law which, Plutarch .says, had been "the ruin of the best state of the commonweal th." Utopia is thus Sparta's successful .counterpart. The Romans and Egyptians--note, no Greeks--arrived just before Constan- �-9- Christi.~i ty tine .made the Roman state z·eligion, so that, while bringing the arts and useful inventions of antiquity and perhaps the occult wisdom of the Egyptians, they came without either the texts of the waning Greek philosophy or the news of ·t he rising Christian faith. And finally Hythloday arrives with a bo,x: of humanistic learning.• The effect of these three dates is to m~k the Utopians as being outside of the tragedies and passions, the rises and declines, of our human history. They live in natural but not in human times, they are not atemporal bµt they ~' to· use a. modern term, ahistorical, that ·i s to say, they are not bound by the conditions which arise from prior human action and passion, in particular from 1!!£ fall . of ~· Hythloday "startingly observes o.f the Utopians that if their ch:ronicles .are to be .believed .,cities were there before men were here." . . . Utopians are not descended from Adam, nor, it seems, are they creatures in the sense of Genesis, namely such as are capa:tJle of rebellion against their creator. 60 More's Utopia as the "First Ci,ty" o.f Plato~s Republic . A very good way· further to define Utopia as a city having its place and time :if1 the imagination, is to see it in the.light of its ostensible source and defeated rival, the polity which is the product of the intellect, namely that set out in Plato's Republic. by Hythloday; Plato is the name :inost frequently mentioned when in particular he speaks of "those things Plato feirgneth in his weal-public or that the Utopians 2£ in theirs;" he is referring to Utopia's communism. In Plato• B dialogue Socrates . aises the question "What is justice?" r The way of answering this question assumes that justice is to be found in the relation of the parts of the hwnan soul and that politic al cornmuni ties are . magnified expressions of these relations,. He therefore constructs a sequence �-10- of three cities each arising by the addition of a part o.f the soul and corresponding to the dominance of that part, proceeding in o~der from the most su- pine and common to the most superior and rare constituent of the soul. Now the city in which a common way of life obtains is only the third city, which is under the dominion of the reasonable part of the soul, that is to say, which is ruled by philosopher kings. And even in this, the "philosophi- cal city," only the rulers and their wanior auXi.l: iaries live communally: "No one wa· to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind. s They we::i;-e to be warrior athletes and gua.:rzdians, receiving from the other citizens instead of annual payment only their maintenance." This is the first 'p rinciple of unity of the philosopher's city; the se·c ond, and as Socrates acknowledges, even more offensive one is "that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children common and no person is to know his own child, nor any child, his parent." Since the social foundation of Utopia is the family, or rather the extended family or household, it cert ainly does not share the human aspect of Socrates' communism. But neither does it share the economic one. The actual title of the book referred to as Utopia is On the~ State . . of ~.Commonwealth. The Latin term translated by "commonwealth" is 0 res publ i ca. 11 Sir Thomas Elyot~ one of .More's circle, in his ~Named the Governor s ,p eaks of the irnplications of this translation, referring to those who "do sup- pose it, so to be called for that, that everything should be to all men in common without discrepance of any estate or condition." once alludes to this meaning of shared wealth. Hythloday more than And precisely here lies the distinction between Utopia and the philosopher's city--the communism of the latter .is an ascetic communism of poverty, while Utopian communism means shared wealth or well-being. If Utopia has anything to do with Plato's polity is not with its third or philosophical city--as Peter Giles' poem had hinted. �-11 ... .Now the first Socratic city corresponds to the desires in the soul and :. has t:wo stages. At first there arises a "city of craftsmen," a small, simple, moderate and merry community based on division of labor for the purpose of patisfying basic necessities. ious, the Then, as desires become mo.re complex and luxur- city of craftsmen, which Socrates c~lls the "true .snd healthy city," undergoes a transformation and becomes, as he .says, feverish.· To the simple crafts are added the arts of the embroiderer; gold and ivory are used, and peo,Ple devoted to "forms and c.olors" ·are .introducad into the city. 'file in- fle.mmation of desire makes the city predatory and brings about the formation of a warrior class whose presence will institute the second city. Now Utopia clearly corresponds to this first city, the "true and heal, thy city" of craftsmen. There is a sign of this in the · following. When Socrates' interlocutor Glaucus first hears a description of their simple and healthy commQn banquets•he exclaims that this is a "city of pigs,'' by which he does not mean that they wall.ow but that they like simple and natural foods. According- ly the lowest official of Utopia who sits over thirty families and whose chief function is the control of idlf!ness, .is one "which in their old language is called the Syphogrant ••• " 'Ihe tennis Gree~ (for the Utopians are said to have affinity to the Greeks) and means "pig-sty elder." The next higher of- ficials who rule over ten stys. are called "tranibors" or "plain (or clear) eaters," meaning, I suppose,. that they eat perspicuously prepared dishes. Furthermore the craftsmen of Socrates' city are limited to fanners, weavers, shoemakers, carpenters, smiths, and merchants. The Utopians also limit their crafts to farming, which all do, and these special crafts: wool B.:nd linen working, masonry and metal working, carpentry, and merchandising. The Utopians too have common banquets with music. But the Utopians never become luxurious. With them that sophistice.tion of the desires which is the occasion for · the genesis of the second, the war- �-12- ri.or, city never e;ripeQ. 1he ·part of the soul which dominates in this second ci. ty is called by Socrates !'apiri tednose, 11 which ia a certe.i.n readiness to :righteous wrath and a di•position to honor. .A.a we h$ve eeen, the warring ele- mont i i directly caru,eoted to euch complexity of desire (whence, as Socrates rmyc, a:r.iae all. evils in oi ties) and J>&rticularly to a taet·e for m48rtificence and apltmclour. Magnificence, however, ie totally absent in Utopia. 'Ibis ia a conse- quenoe of "the co1M1unHy o.(' th.eir l:i.fe anrl living without any occupying of money, · by whi.ch thing only"--to continue More's criticililm of Utopia quoted . a.bove-.. 11 all n~bili ty, magnifi.cence, honour, and majesty, the true . ornaments, au thfJ common opinion 10., of the ·commonweal th,. utterly at.royed." 'lbe Utopio.na :prefer comfort to honour. be ~robe ()verthrown and deBU1', they too make war., though only in defense of their borders or thei:r frlende • rights, for ' they rl!lgra.rd it i"ith loathing as beastly, and they have no spacial claee of 1-larriot'a; their soldiers are tht't ci t:i.7.ene of the land , supplemented by mercen- . ' ThE1ae ci ti~1en soldiers fight bravely, no ta1:1t1~ .for gallantry, nir1g, H' poaaible, alw~e but they hnve preferi.ng to win through calculation and. cun- J.nwng the Utopians only one cle.as of people is rewarded. by ·i11l.dlplay of honour--the virtuoue doad. '(. The Utopians as People wl thout Pride 'lllo next quoatton is what More meano to aigni.f.Y by a.aeoc:i.a.ting his UtoSli.o. w l th Pluto' a city o.f c:r.nftAmen. Plato's firat city ia a natural city which a.rises naturally and who~e ci t.izent·1 11re closft to r1a ture, taken 0J1 the given. and atr ble appearance within .P...nd w:i thout mon. In this aoni::1e Utop.ia too is a. natural. d ty. n.re aa:ld to be partly of Per.•oian ancestry. The · Utopians 'Now the descriptions· of the Per- ai nnttt in Jforodotus' Hifltorz (which, inc:ldent1.1.lly, Hythloduy ·bringa to Utopia) �•ho.,11 ihea a11 wor1hipper• ef nature who · .. Gr~•k• use no 111agtto, and whe, unlike the L"ld Ch:ri•Ua.nt 1 '1.o not believ• that the godm have the euie nature a.e mon 9 iha• ie, i~•i thoy Olli be im&19d or made inoa.rnate in hunum form. All thi• ·held11 o.f the Utopi~•• .cf whom many worship the 11oon or one of 'the :plan- eta, while all 8«1"118 on .th• wor.tlip of a sun god who is the artificer of the u.nivar•• and bear.• th~ Persian name Mithra•. So also .all the ora!tB of Utopla are clooe to nature and• of oourne, par.tiouJ.arly •o the t,U'liv41r•al oraft, farming. Sp1utilac:i1 the Utopiana themeelvM 1.41·t as forces of nature, aa when 1Cing lJtONl!ll; the fa~dex· of .1~tQpi•• out the ohannel which made Utopia into a.n is- l.'mc1, p1· 111han the ohiak• they rdu. ad•:>pt them as m.othera, or when they trana- plant wh.,le t'o. oau to hav• a closer erJurc4' of wood. r ttJeti r w~•llM g1au,Hn ti, And they appear natural;.- for inetance 1 have their ne. tural color, So oven their art:U. ioe ie an lntel1ig1mt &nd familiar lldaptation of nature to their own uso. ' Thua the Utophne ar• not oo ~h pagans ae children of nature. '!hi~ aan be . put another wa,.v, To sey thd , Utopia co:r:rsaponds to Plato'• first city only is to say .t hat 'the lJto11iune are laek:tng in oertaJ.n pri.noiplea of the soul, p·a rtioularly ln thd which g:i.v•o rie• to Md dominates .the aecond or warrior city and ooca ·. 1i .(me in i.t 1a.,p:U':f.oenQ'• honor, and luxury--spiri tedneao, that is, self- auariiol.. !h! ~ Now the Chria t ian traru1lat.lon of the facuHy of spiritedness ia 9..! l?Q'\t.• Pl'id.e, "th• craving fox• undue e:xhaltation," says Augustine in hie City !?.[. Cl-oq, was tho or.i.gin of our evil will, that corruptinn o.f. our nature which u& u1JU18 n 11elt'-aAHrtive craving "forbidden" fruit because i. t is forbiddeno .P1·id•1 h thuo th• ar ig·in of perversion in the nature of man, and as More ln hhl ~ 1!.!1 lbinB! 1 "the very he111l and r.oot of ail sins." s~a Now ae Hythlo- day J1()ints out, th4' Uto.p ians have rio euch perverse pleasure\!; tho.v never pre- .;~ �-14- fer the bitter to the sweet; they have no "taste infected by the sickness of sin; 11 their desires a.re all satisfied by natura.l objects; they do not lmow the inverte d pl ea.al.ire of self-love; they a.re never unnatural.· '.l'hie is the case - pr.ecisely because the Utopians were not created and tharefore do not know that rebellion of the creature against ·i ts creator, called the fall of .mM, which is the original case of perv-eree pleasure. incapable of aalvatio~ Hence they, unlike ou.~ pagans, are by conversion to Christianity, altnough they absorb easily--for . they are facile in absorbing everything pr ofitable--those features of Christianity congenial t ·o then:i. ture · that Hythlodey leavee them 11 So it is by reason of their Ut<>pian na- unchrist ~ned 11 a..."ld only ostensibly because there is no priest among his company. In · his youth More read a aeries of well-attended lectures on Augustine's 91ti of Q2!, so we may well suppose that he considered the relation of hie Utopia tq the two cities of Augustine's work, ~hich •have been formed by two ~oven, .. ' ' the 4'arthly city by the love of self, even to the contempt of God, ·t he heav1iily by the . love of God. to the contempt of self." city; their nature . is nothing~ 'lhe Utopians are of neither absence of perversion; ·they have neither contempt of f,iod, nor as we shall see, contempt of self; they inhabit an earthly paradise--Wld that is. the essential character of · the painted -city of the ~magination; its missing dimension is original human evil, which, as a kind of non-bei,ng» lies beyond the likeness-making :i.magi.na ti on. 8. Utopia as a Communi. ty of Pleasure But i f Utopia is pri va.tiv~ with respect to p~ide, it is positive with respect to pleaaure • . Freedom from the vices of the will leaves the Utopians · to the enjoyment of their goods, and that enjoyment is the end and center of their community. What is · its nature? their education and their "philosophy," To answer that question one must examine �-15All major utopias follow Plato's Republic in tional provinces," bein~ essentially "educa- transforming So,cratea• deliberately :.mage-lPas program of lea.ming· into vivid piot:urea of ideai inati tutions of in1:truction and inquiry. In the Republic itself, education forms both the peliticul beginning end the philosophical end of the city. fut in the island of Utopia education haa a cha.rac ·;eristically diffe+ent . . standing. The liberal arts, are, to be sure, studied in Utop:.a as in the Republic, · for the Utopians have made the same ~iecoveries in leam: .ng as the h"'u.ropee.ne • .'The trivium, which dee.ls with the arts of language under grammar, rhetoric .and logic; ia reduced to one useful art--dialectice, "tlte ways of reasoning which reasoning has observed useful for investiBating th: .ngs." phnsizea their lack of concern with pure· logic. JzythlodB¥ em- They ha·re no universals and have never heard of a "second intentiqn, 11 the ref"lective product of the intellect "which," as More ea.ya elsewhere, "is nowhere." ~hich is nowhere, no intellectual Hoplace .ha.s nothing being~. They possess the full quadriviB!fll, which ooncema t!1e world of nature, and in it especially ·p ureue astronomy, for they regard· tl 1e world as a spectac le made for man--in fact the whole section · on ed1:1cati•>n appropriately comes within the a·e otion on sightseeing. as among the most useful branches They characteriatica:.ly regard medicine of philosophy. Now what characterizes this education is the absen•:e of almost all phiiosophy, and first of all " absence of physics underitood as the inquiry an into causes; they confine themselves to engaging in desu .tory and inconclusive debates, inventing new theories to add to those af the a icienta·. there is an apparent absence of politics; inquiries conc&~rning of the commonweal th'' are absent in the best commonweal th . Secondly "the best state �-16- And fin•lly as fQt metaphy~ics, inquirie~ intri being or god, th~y ha~e nono,. but r,or· · their highest inquiry they conduct debates "in that part of . . pti!losophy" which entreateth af manners and w.i rt us," and their chief quest.i on · is , .. • . in .what thing,· be it ,one or moi~, the felicity ot ~an.~onsi~teth. But in this· point thay seam almost too much given and inclined to the opinion of them which defend pleasure, wherein they det~rmine either all or the chief~st part Qf menf•· feljcity to rest. And (which is more to be marveled at) their defense of ·this so dainty and deli~ate . en opinion they fetch •van from their grave, sharp, bitter and rigorous raligiono Indeed they never have any philosophical di1cussions without resorting to relitj1ous principles; thu~ employing the exact convars• · of ~pr~'• paated cQnton~ion that reason should and can serve religion. often re- The religious principles which they employ are two: . they .Pelif'le in s wise -providence ~hich governs the world end ordaiMs· felicity for man, and in th~ immortality of tha soul and its reward and punishment after death. are .free to choo~e what religious practices In all plea~e ~ther respects Utopians them, but these two prin- ciples .they are strictly required .to affirm, for as we shall see, they aro the requirements of a communal pursuit of pleasure. Now the content of their doctrines of pleasure are 1 as one might guess, · what we · would call Epicurean. Epi~urus It is the notoriously apolitical teaching of modified to become the political philosophy of the most unlikely republic ever davised--a stable community of pleasure. These are tha modifications the Utopians makei the Epicureans believe that the gods, if there are any, . do not guide the worlds fore, the Utopians as~ert as mentioned be- divine providence, presumably because without it the natural circumstance of man would not necessarily be conduOive to pleasure. The Epicureans beli~ve th~t the soul dissolves with the body; the Utopians require·tha immortality of the _soul to assure that the calcul~s of �-17- pl~asures is not so short term es to admit imparmia•ibla or false pleasures. The Epicureans belisve in private property' the Utopians in common wealth, for they. regard all wealth as "mat·erie. voluptatis," the material of pleasure, thaugh they abate their communism 'to tha degree that privacy is necessary to pleasure--this is why they . . ~ase their society on the famJly. As far as the chief doctrine of Epicurus, that pleasure is the highest ~oad, i~ concerned, they agree~ but they think ·not ·felicity to r. st in all pleasure, b~t e only in that pleasure that.is good and honest, and that hereto as to perfect blessedness our nature is allured and drawn even by virtue. It follows that the Uto~ians find it possible to absorb the Stoic position~ that .ts, to obuiate the question Qf the priority of virtue and pleasure as · ends among which a choice must be made, . the ref\tc.tion on ·which choice ennobles the pagan philosophers. The uiitue mQst peculi~rly In this they follows. ~elonging to human beings i~ "humanity," that is to say man's virtue is simply the t~re. ~rgue . as realiz~tion of hi~ essential na- ".Now' the most earn~st and painful followers of virtue and haters of pleasure exhort you to relieve the misery of others,~ praising such deeds es "huinanity." Thus virtue itself is nothing but an argument for a~d an instrument of pleasure, understood however in such a way as to become the basis for a theory of private and social contracts: But in that nature doth allow and provoke men one to help another live merrily ••• verily she commandeth thee to use diligent circumspection, that thou do not so seek f6r thine own commodities, that thou ~rocura othara' incommodities. Wherefore their opinion is, that not only covenants and bargains made among private men ought to be well and faithfully fulfilled, observed, and kept, but also common laws ••• Tn this way the Utopians constitute a political community based on pleasure, t.hat is, on· nature, and therefore stable. Their only requirement is that �-18- · pl~esuras ba true and not false. To te~ch their citizens to make this ~lscrimination is the object of their . educat.ion. Bv false or "counterfeit" pleasures arel of course, meant . tho•e counter to natural desire. for "pleasure they call _every motion and state of. the body or lfrind lilhsrein. man hes actually dalectstion. 11 r alsa · _plaas_ ures are therefore perverse pleasures, namely those which yield no · in,trinsic.ally pleasing state, but are present mostly for the sake of asserting first among th.esa are the pleas.u res which result from a "futile oneself. conopi~acy" d~es~, of men, b@~inning with th~ mistaken pleasure of magnificence in and .going on to the . pleasure tskeM in honor and nobility derived from property. Thus the prideful pleasure of conspicuous consumption is the _car- dinal sin of ~topia. 9. The Uee of Utopia Utopia than is a land of pl•asure without pridQ. -- - Whan --- E~asmus says of this book called On the Beet Ststa of the Commonw,alth, that in it More - - ~----....... "proposed to illustrate the source ahd spring rif political evil," he must . . mean just thie-that Mora in his Utopia has disclosed and eradicated the root of all evil in leisur~ pri~e. Erasmus goas on to say that Mora first,at his wrote the second book (which contains Hythlodey's narrative of Utopia) and "recognizing the need for it" hastily added a first. Where was the . need to prefix this latter book, which at first sight, seams to ' contain mostly an account of the particular political evils of More's En~- l; and 'for which Utopian inst.i tutions are proposed by Hythloday as the cure? Ths answer is in the fact that it is "utopian" in the derogatory sense of the term to paint a pattern of a political community fr.om which human evil is radically removed1 or worse, as e straight political proposal, i t is a culpably futile undertaking. But. when Hythloday solemnly closes, saying �-19- that all the world would loMg ago have been brought under the laws of Utopia "~ere it not that on~ only beast, the prince~s and mother of all mischief~ Pride doth withstan·d and let itH he is . taking a fierce pleasure in vitiating the book by underscoring precisely the futility of' hie narrstiue. Hence the first botJk was wH tten to reh'abili.ta'te the ser;:ond and contains directions for the proper ~ ~ utopias. The first book is so.metimas; appropriately, called a dialogue on counsel. f9r the occasion of Hythloday•s reletirin of ths evils of England !s his da·cided ·refusal. of Peter Gile·s• suggestion that hra should get into a king's court to· iris~ruct · him with examples ~nd help him with counsal. Hythloday allows. that h~ h~s learned in his travels of institutions which would cure the condition~ which he·had so acutely observed in England, put he shows by serious and comical examples how his solutions would never ·be taken seriously· at court. Raphael Hythloday's first name is Hebrew for "tha physician of health," and·his laet name is Gresk for "knowing in babble." vation which is, first, in its~lf impossibl~ evmn to advocate in the places that matter. Hythloday brings a sal• and which he, secondly, refuses He is a babbler on two counts. and . ha knows it. ~ore himself now attacks Hythloday: for whereas your Plato judgeth that weal-publics shall by : thi~ means attain ~erfect felicity either if . philoso- phers be kings or else if kings ·giv•·themselvss to the study of philosophy, how far, I pray you, shall commonwealths ~hen be from felicity, if philosophers will nnt vouchsafe to instruct kinqs with theit gorid counsel? Hythlo.day objects that philos.ophy can have no power among kings. More coun- tersr Indeed, .this school philosophy (philosophia scholaetica) h•th not, which thinketh all things meet for . every place. But there is another philosophy more civil (philosophia civilior) ••• which knoweth, as you would say, her own stage ••• And this ia the philosophy you must use. �-20- . The Citizen and Undar-Sf\eriff of London, King' a Councillor to be and futura Lord Ch~ncellor ~f England then ·9ivas the content of this "more citizen-like philos.o phy," tac!tl v h::tnamuting Plato's most radical proposal into practical wladarn: · If ~~il ~pinions ~nd n~ughty persuasions cannot be utt~rly and quite ; plucked · out of their hearts, if you .cannot even as you would remedy vices which use and custom has confirmed, .yet for this · cause you muet not l~~u~ and forsake the commonwealth. You must not forsake tha ·ship . in a tempe~t because you cannot rul$ and keep down the winds. No, nor you ; must not labor to drive into their heads new and strange information which you know well shall be nothing regarded with them that be of clear contrary rnlndso But you must ~!th crafty wile and a subtle train study and endeavor yourself, as much as in you liath, ta handle the matter wittily and handsomely for the purpose. And that which you cannot turn to good, so o~dsr it that it be not vary ,bad. For it ia not possible for all things to be ~ell unles~ all· men were good, which I . think will not be yet this good meny years. . Many books on counsel~ng · princes, such as Erasmus' Education of ,,! Christian Princs and· Machiavelli's Prince were written in More's age; from these tha --·· Utopia differs in being a book of counsel for subjects and citizens, and its first advice to them is ~ ~ inject utopia ~ their counsels• attack qn radical polities among the advisors of rulers. Jt is an But what then is the profit, not in the book Utopia, but in the land Utopia of the second. book, the ideal commonwealth itself? first of all it seems to me that Utopia negatively proposes a great po1itical principle, true in f~ct · and potent as a conviction: that originally and fundamentally communities are expressions of human nature and that the converse is not so much the case. This understanding of the book is, of course, at variance with. what Utopia appears to exemplify, )')11.mely the reconstruction of numen nature through a perfectly planned society. And secondly, in pointing to human perverseness as the a~oiler of pol!- tics and na.md.ng it pride, . an.d by painting a pattern of a prideleas community, �-21- positively, by preeanting it in delightfµl M~te s~ows it would mean to very. sen~itive tri that • • • detail, what li~e .. in Utopia, w~at the lif~ of pleasure in abstr~ction fro~ tti~ · briginal human c(ln~ition looks like. • imag~nativ• 1 ' in The student of Utopia should become ~rd~osals for new · ~n~ improved ways of life which r~a-lly impila. an · 2lteration of hum~n nature • s Ptnally, Utopia ag~in .. by the negative influence of its imaginative . ·. r11alization, effepts a kind of celebrat.i,on of and satisfaction in the given . . . human condition. In his last long work written in the Tower of London, end :called E_ Dialogue Ef. Comfort against Tribulation) More argues that tribulation is the pre-cond'ition of salvation, a truth which, even when i t is not taken in : lt~ pre~ise Christian meaning, exercises a powerful influence on the politics of · ~hose ~ho believe it. And finally, Utopia iS the beneficial o.c casion of a kind of ·civic festivity. ·An early biographer calls Mor~ "our noble new Christian Sricrates," and More~ ·who ~eeembles Socr~tas bot~ · ~n many particulars of the m~de of his lif~ and the crucial parts of the manner of his death, · resembles him in nothing so much as in his serene playfulness. when he m~ans mer~ily" ~f · ~~re's favorit& It was said of More that he "looks sadly and the "island of Utopia" is written in that way. write~s, One one which Hythloday brought to the· Utopians, . who .t ake special delight in him for "his many conceits and jests;' is the ancient writer of comic and fentastical dialogues, Lucian. Lucian wrote two accounts oL voyages to the moon whenct '1.he foibles of earth come into sharpa•t focus. The Utopians, that"facile and facetious" people, equipped with golden chamber pots and followed about by loving chicks, are just such moon people--in fact the first thing Hythladay mentioris about th~ island is that it is moon-shaped. More can afford such pranks, fbr although like Soctates a participant in dialogues, he is unli~e the latter, a writing Socr~tes. This effects a difference �-22- in · the .form ~t S~cratic ~~d Mor~an itony1 the latter is a~thor end interlo6utor in .one, ~hence he ~an by sob~r spee~h · control from the in~ide of th~ dialogue . Utdpia wh~t me~rim~nt he has set afobt from the outside b~ writing ,it • . Thus fltore h_ . started a. subtle and inviting game·, which has always as dra·wn togeth_.r B in a me~ry end melancholy -inquiry th.ass who - ~ b~ : Citi~en• of the best commonwealth~ WOUld like ta Just t~is is conv~y~d iri the ful~ title . of the book as printed in the first editiont A :Truly Golden Booklet, as Sa~ing as it is restive, on the Best State of the Commonwea~th and the New Island of Utopia~ Now to return to the beginning, I hav~ tried to ~ho~, by looking to the book call.a d . Utopia, that the term "utopia" bears .a ·c ertai"n particular original meaning . to wh.i ch the utopian tradition always beers some relation. But i t is clear that utopias understood in that particular sense are unflitted to fill ~he needs for~ulated by those interested in conjec~uring about and planning for the tuture. You will remember that the demand was for an frnaginativs presentation of a variety of possible "life styles" based on pro- . jections into the future - of present possibilit{aa. t~ be used as an instru~ent The utopian tradition was of the social sciences by means of which a ~ore conscious choice of ends could be achieved. This seems to me inappropriate for . two reasons. no e~ty of First I think there can be deliberate pre-pl~nnad vari~ utopias, for a utopia is not a description of mere style but a vividly . delineated constructiOn·'· in the imagination of political wisdom, and its com.. position is presumably not undertaken until the author has settled his opinions and persuaded himself of their truth. realization of the impossible~ And ~econdly a utopia is an imaginative which far from being a projec~ion possibilities, if it lies anywhere in time, lies behind. of present �-23..;. . . , , · ~ritics of t'1e utopian enterprise quite r _ghtly characterize it ae i essEmtially .nes~a!gi~, b,acioe;111ard~l.~oklng • . Jn . fact i t _ might be said .that the notiqn of .utopia and . . . th~ .' . concept of a . : "r~tura" are incompatible. The urgent . quas.tion is: " the stu·Ciy of. which of these makes for the better state of the ·.· . ' . � 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. 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Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 23 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/. Title A name given to the resource On Thomas More's Utopia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-05-05 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on May 5, 1972, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1972-05-05 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/260">Audio recording</a> Subject The topic of the resource More, Thomas, Saint, 1478-1535. Utopia Future, The Utopias Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a3f0217f2a7fd29b29d8452202164f72.pdf c87307f54d47330a746bd902335468b2 PDF Text Text Ev!I Brenn .. St. John's Callega, Mey 1972 An Appreciation of K•nt 'e Critigue ~ .!:!:!!!.. Reason .. for Students An Introduction ·Pert I. · THE CRITICAL ENTERPRISE a. Tha Problems b. Tha c. Gr~tique The System Part II. THE CRITiCAL HAN 11. b. Tha Pradlc21ta c:: ~ Th• Object · d. (Exp1rience) 11. The Cri tigup The Subject Tha £!! f!.!!!. MQ~rli,,g R!t!!pn in 1ts final f'orm hes 884 pegaa. Of these tho l••t. five ara clevotad tn • history of metephysice. . In 1t Kent c'eete en aya aver ell the efforts prec1ding and eaea·them ell ae structures his~ Then ha cla1ee with these words (my italics): in ruine (8 BBO). critic'l way elone 1e still ap11n. 11 The If the randar hes be11n obliging end patient. anough ta wander over it in mv company, he mev now judge whether, if he le willing to contribute his part in order t _ meka this. foot-path a royal road, a' acmathing which meny centuries heve been unable to accomplish may not be attained before lb!. ct111pletian . gf !b.!, preeent century: I namely, thet human raeson ehall, in thane matters which have et ell times, though before this in vain, engaged ite desire ta know, be given c1311plate aatisfection." The vaer ie 1?87. •A,S : pegin~tion of first end second editions; other works are cited paragraph, where po1eible; P: Prolegcmap] !e, An~ Future Metaphysics. by �I have quoted this last paragraph to establish th·e full tremendousness of this book. It means revolution; more swift, radical, and complete than ' the two great political revolutions in France and Pmerica between which it falls. Kant himself emphasizes this revolutionary character, taking as his paradigm the Copernican Revolution, that change of paint of view which turns the human being from the quietly central spectator of the moving heavens into the circulating observer who sees in nature only his awn restlessness (8 XVI, XXIII, n.). I shall try in this presentation to work out as exactly as possible the effect of our acceptance of this reversal on our humanity, but to do this it will be necessary to try to strip the Critique of those defensive outworks which, while intended to make the newly established position of liberation secure, really turn it into a new orthodoxy •. For like all radical positions, the Critique is meant to be completely and irresistibly compelling, which means that those who yield to its compulsion and join, so ta speak, the party, must come to see their position as given and obvious and in no way wonderful. This lack of wonder is just what Kant aims at when he says that within the next two decades human reason phall have its desire to know completely satisfied. The compulsion of the Critique is expressed by Kant in the sentence: critical way alone is still open.'' "The Therefore, if we want to remain open to the impact of the book, we must refuse to be herded along this road, though we must follow it. We shall try to look at the Cri tigue not "critically", that is, as insiders, but appreciatively, .as outsiders. This has one immediate consequence for our reading of the text -- those compelled to live within the system must tinker with it constantly to make it livable, but an outsider can afford to take it in its integrity. I shall, thGrefore, accept Kant's clear statements to the effect that his system was in every part complete 2 �in the first edition of 1781 and ·that he made no change or addition when he revised the text for the secoAd edition, and desired none to be made subsequently (8 XXXVIII). To avoid the compul_ion of the "critical way" we must see what it i!'>, and s there is only one way to do that, which is to regard the Critigue, as Kant himself does, as a great dwelling, an architectural work (B 736), erected on the ruins of preceding structures, through which we allow ourselves to be led as prospective inhabitants, the while seeing_ more and different matters than our guide intended and thus preserving our inner independence. Let me i~lustrate what I mean by simply launching into . this brief liberating tour of the Critigue. The first part of this presentation will, then, deal with the Critical Enterprise as a whole, under three headings: the Problems, the Critique, the System. Part I THE CRITICAL ENTERPRISE a. . The Problems The outworks and forecourts of the Critigue are the problems through which Kant compelS .: everyone to enter his book. Let me first road them off (B 20 ff.): How is pure mathematics possible? How is pure natural science possible? How is metaphysics possible?, and finally, the translation into Kant's technical language of these three I together (8 19): How are a priori synthetic judgments possible? The first three questions express Kant's two mpin preoccupations for many years before the critical answer came to him, namely the value and trustworthiness of Newton's mathematical · science of moving bodies on the one hand, 3 �en.cf the self'-coritradictoriness ·and uncertainty of metephyai.c s on the other. Vet they constitute not so much the opening of en inquiry as the gates to the straight end nerraw path of a eoiution. unwitting captives of Kant'~ cestle, we must If we ere not to become the ~ecoma ·thoroughly E;11Jere of the constraints the formulations of these .problems impose on our· way. First of ell, whet does Kant imply by asking how such kntldledge is possible? In the case of m~themetics end mathematical physics (Which is sO'iance only as fer as it is methemetic~l (Metaphysical . Principles .E! Ne1turel . Science; Intro.)) the question expresses no doubt whatavar about ite actuality nothing is more cert~in, and requires the reader's assent more es a matter of course, then that methemat1c·a1 ecienca exists end contains binding lewe (8 X ff., 20). What it does express is e· very peculiar Kantian approach to what is actual, namely that precisely bec115uea.iit exists . it must be given a foundation, that we must find the grounds upon which t~et which is actually known can be ours, not only in th13 sense of being ·eveileble ·but else es a firm and certain poe•eaaion (Pra·kegmiena 5). Metephyeics, on the other hand, is not en actual science at ell CB 21), since up tc ' the time of the Critigue there has been, depressingly, no metaphysical ·1ew proved fer whose contradictory an equally convincing proof cannot be constructed; for instance, it can be equally convincingly demonstrated that the world muet have a beginning in time and also that it cannot have such a beginning. Kant calls such parallel opposing proofs "antinomies" or 11 counter-l&.1e" (8 434), and he hed been occupied with the devastating pbssibili ty of ccn_ tructing them long e before he wrote the Critique. Therefore the project of finding the grounde of the poeeibility of metephysice will imply bringing it into being; Kant will have to find the first uneeseilable metaphysics. 4 �:. • . Secondly, what doee Kl!lnt 1mpl'y in using the word "pure" in th11 f'1ret three questions? We must f'iret attand to tha 'vary fact that there.!!, ' ' ' "pure" -- in contrl!et to ca~teminst•d ""... khlJldledge. "Pure" is clear_y a l key concept of the. Cri tigue E!,. f!:!!:!. Reeeon , er:id it does , indeed, es we shall see, meen · 11 uncont$nineted by anything alien" (A 11). · We must expect the irrmsculateness of our conceiving to play a central role in the book. There ·is a further implication: Since pure mathematics and· pure naturel science have indeed long been actual, while msta_ hVsics, by which Kent st this point p understands merely the knabiledge obtained by the pure intellect not yet in ex1etence _ among men, the former mu~t CB XIV), is represent knowledge which . is on the one . hand unconteminat.ed by alien ·eeneation, and on the other altogether inteilectual: !!.2!. the implication is that . there muet be a pure !!2!?,- intellectual knowledge; and indeed, the discovery of a second. faculty of knruledge, tn every way apposed· to the intellect, a nicul ty capable of pure sensing, wee Kant• s first cri ticel find CQ!l !t!!..F~m !!29_ Princlplee Ef. ~. S!npible and Intellectual World, 1770). And finally, what does the juxtaposition of the three questions imply concerning their interrelations? Kant, in expl~ining how he came to the critical enterprise, attributed his awakening frc:m his "dogmatic .slumber", that is, his faith in the traditional metaphysics, to David Hume (P, Intra.). What Kant had learned from Hl.llle was precisely · that his own two orig.inal p;reoccupetione (the success of mathematical phy?ics and the natural human predisposition toward metaphysics) were deeply involved with eech other. For Hume had pointed out that a type of connection between ideas, central to all metaphye1ca, I . namely that of cause .lf'ld effect, could be made neither by mere reasoning, nor by observing events in nature. For no one has ever seen a cause act ar an effect ensue·. · If, for instance, one billiard ball hits enother, which thereupon 5 �begins to. mpve, ·a sequence .of distinct events can be obsar\ied, but no element in this sequence clearly bears any mark of being the "cause" of another which appears as its "effect"; in Hume'e werda: nno object ever discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the effects which will arise from standing IV, 1). ti it;~·· ~he causes which produced it, or (Er!, Enquiry. Concerning Human Under- But if Hume had thus ·showed that the · central notion of meta- . physics is unknowable, he had showed as well that ths central notions of Newtonian physics are superedded to ita observations;. ail our sense experience can give us is that nature seems to be in the habit (Enquiry V, 1) of following certain sequences, b~t that same of the events of such a seq~ence ere the ceusei af others is not an assertion capable pf experimental verification , e,t ell. Hume's attack on metaphysics is also an attack an the certainty and · of science. But because Hume's ~ssault Ttiur aignificenc~ was made with a tw.o-edged &'-'ord, Kent conceived, and so his questions, taken together, imply, that t .he. defense might also secure both metaphysics and experimental science et once; this would be the case if. !t!!!, former physi~were ~nothing .!!!!, .lh!, g_round £!. ~ letter, if the n8W meta- to be pre-eminently what is nbepind physics", its ground (B 8?3). Furthennore, Ht.1ne's peculiar proceeding of elevating experience by attacking its conclueiveneas, conf1:nned Kent in the assumption that there is only one criterion of certainty and that is purity -- nothing that comes to us adventitiously, nothing that is given to us by sense experience from the outsidE can be guaranteed, far yet another observation might reveal an 'alternete eaquenc which will prove our first conclusions to be neither always nor inevitably true, net ther universal !1!-J.r. necessary. certain, then it must procee~ . fran If observational science is to be propositions which are dependent on nothing · alien, which ere pure of aensation, Which is to say : . ~ .!:!!!. !.!:!!!!. first. !!:!! very The Latin phrase fer "fran the very first 11 is "a priori" (8 2-3). 6 �We may now recapitulate the assumptions to which Kant's introductory problems co1T1Tiit us by studying their final enunciation: "How are a priori synthetic judgments possible?" (8 19). We see that this formulaion assumes that there~ a priori judgments, that is, propositions which arise purely out of our own faculties .of knowledge. "synthetic", It assumes also that these are "Synthetic" means "put together". Synthetic judgments are propositions in which, as opposed to analytic ones, the predicate does not merely make explicit what is already thought in the subject, but in which truly different things are put together; we might say simply: new or interesting judgments, precisely of the sort science is expected to contain (8 14). shall leave for later the reason why Kant calls propositions judgments.) (We And finally the enunciation of the problem, in asking about possibility, commits us to the grounding enterprise. This means that we accept in fundamental questions the necessity of perfectly circular argument (8 765). For as Kant explicitly shows, to ground the actual means first to find those elements which make it possible; and when we have, with the aid of a lucky clue, found such grounding elements, to show that on these and only on these grounds we can get what we already consider ourselves actually to possess. Critical grounds are therefore in some sense like the hypotheses, rationalizirg constructs, of astronomy (A XVII) • Here, however, the peculiar aptness of .t he Copernican paradigm begins to come out; just as Copernicus differs from Ptolemy in refusirig to regard his theory as merely another hypothesis but thinks of it as revealing the true nature of the heavens, so those grounds are not intended as mere constructs but as truths (8 800). Thus aware of the constraints under ·which we enter, let us pass straight to the central court deer within the dwelling. on here goes under the name of: 7 The enterprise carried �b. ·.J.b2. Critique E! ~ Reason. Kant uses the word "critique" in a general way to mesn a radical review of knowledge in terms of its grounds (which, it turns out, ere the faculties of . . ., ' knowledge), but in its central use the word h~s precisely the aggressive meaning 1t appears to have. ·. Far in the largest middle section of the Cri tigue, Kant undertakes the negative work which gives the book its nE111e, theexppsure £!:pure reason·, of reeson on its (Hence the title of Kant's book has CliJn. two meanings -- · 1t refers bath to the destruc.t ion of the pretensions of a higher faculty, specifically called the reason, anclthe establishment es a ground of kncwledg. of a lowa1· faculty properly called the ·understanding, though e sometimes cCJnprehended under the general term reason.) The center of the book is, then, ~ha· scene of devastation. Here we sea the ruins of all farmer metaphysical enterprises about which .the new edifice is built. We know fran K nt•e early notee that preeminently this central · a portion .·was called "Critique" and that a suggested title for the whole . work . was "On ·the Limits of Senee and Reason". The critique here practiced is no longer a search for the ground of knowledge but the annihilating criticism of any previous metaphysics. Kant is very explicit about . the centrally negative and destructive · character of the Critique (8 23); it is because of this that Moses Mendelssohn called him the "universal pulverizer". He regards it es a great purification which must precede the new era, as e profound reinterpretation of the Socratic knowledge of ignorance, for while the latter intends to prepare a way into the apparently unkn0bl1, the critical revelation of the impotence of reason is intended to prevent for ever· any venture into the provably unknowable (B 786). In his Philosophy E! History, Hegel, in a penetrating f1 fty page review, calis Kantian philosophy "enlightenment .made methodical" -- the 8 1 �the central Critique is methodical enlightenment. In order to understand why the critique of metaphysics is cast in the f orm of an attack on pure. r e ason it is necessary for a moment to look at the form of the book itself. l ooi c ~ text book of on logic. All but the first part of it is cast in the form of a o vg2~ 1 zed in part like the manual for Kant's own lectures In fact it rec apitu l a t es, with some signifi cant s hifts, the parts of Aristotle's Or !=] c:m-- .. or on - ~· -~ ~ 11 J1 1strument 11 for the acquisition of knowledge. i',s such it deals in orde r with the elements of the fcrms of thought, namely concepts, t heir combinat i on j n ..judgmonts, and finally with inforences, and t he art of argument. Categories, _ On uses the nam 2 (The cDrrr::sporiding Ar :.stotelian treati ses are the Inter' prot a tiL~ , ~} v!J c j: he A nalytics_ and the I_opics ( B 324).) Kant fo:c t\":E! fi rs t two of thes e s ub j Gct matters (which we th c t is, of syllogisns and t h2 c:1 1 of argume nt, in to ;:.he huge middle section -i r .: c1 ? his book which he calls ':Dialectic", or better, wrranscendental Dialectic". The u rd "transcendental " literally mea ns noth i ng more than "going 1n beyond 11 • Jn the language of thE! s chools those terms CJ re called transcendent which intend something bByonci s ens o experience, such as the One, the True, the Good (B 113). Kant chooses t he tradi ti cm; tiJh8t8 11er lJ form of this Lc1ord to ma r k his overcoming of goes beyond experience is transcendent and without r:redi t unl ess it is ;:; trc:msc r:: nd1:2nta l anst<Jer to the c r i t ical question: CJ:., 2 the gro unds of s e:nse exporfo nc e ?" (B 25 , 80). 11 What The opposite of "trans- c i:mdental 11 is "immanont 11 or dtt.1elling "within 11 experience. The critical logic i s therefo re a trans cendental logic, a logic not of the world itself but o f the conditions of knowing it; as Kant says, a logic of truth (B 87). f or the word 11 dialec t ic 11 , Kant completes the degradation which Socratic 9 As �"conversation" had begun ta undergo in Aristotle's Topics (VIII, 1). There the dialectic method of argument is that which addresses itself to the convincing tha interlocutor by likelihoods rather than to the production of · truth. Kant goes further -- dialectic is .simply the logic af illusion (8 349) end transcendental dialectic is the critique cf the production of illusory . argt.nnents in the realm beyond sense experience. We possess, it tums out, a special faculty of deluding ourselves (8 353 ff.). This faculty is "pure reason", reason by itself, without any alien additions: human reason on ite q.m is a faculty for -- illusion. The problems with which the Critique begins, you will remember, could not i~clude th~ fon:nulation "How is metaphysics asa science possible" since no one could exhibit such e science. What I omitted so aay then was that Kant had substituted an alternate formulation based on the human fact that metaphysics has Qlwaya been attempted. Kant therefore regards metaphysics as a universal human activity and asks: "Hru is metaphysics as a natural disposition possible?•• I had in the last section md.tted the very last statement of one of the problems of the introduction, which ia~precisely: "How is metaphysics as B natural disposition possible?" (8. 22). Human beings, this question assumes,· do actually have such an inescapable disposition, for, in the face of never-ending failure, they never cease to attempt to gain purely intellectual knowledge. (I might interject here . the observation that it is a consequence of making a science of the grounds end faculties of human knC1&Jlec1ge that they all become universal; no hunan soul can have a nature basically different in constitution from any other -- this might be c~lled the scientific republicanism of the Kantian revolution (8 859).) We are naturally disposed toward operation of our reason (8 355 ff.). metaphysi~s because of the peculiar The reason, a dubious English substitute 10 �for the German word 11 Vemunft 11 , which originally means a faculty .for "taking in", is traditionally that highest knowing faculty, which sees directly into things. Kant retains its position as the higher of two cognitive faculties, but this ranking is now degraded ~higher means farther removed from experience, from the illll1ediate production of truth -- secondary (8 362). this, its tradition al Latin name, 11 As a token of intellect", is taken from reason and attached to that primary faculty of thought called the understanding which we shall look at later. Reason does no original work of understanding, it merely uses the concepts and judgments which the logic supplied to it and combines them into derivative ones called syllogisms or inferences. This dependent faculty is, however, by its very nature not content to collect and combine the matter supplied but insists an exceeding itself. The Transcendental Dialectic shows haw the faculty of reason, which is beyond experience, is irresistably, by its very ·nature, compelled to lase itself in a definite number of definite fundamental logical illusions of the type of the antinomies I mentioned before. It does this in the fallowing way: . it notices that its chains of inferences seem to run backwards in three ways (B 379): In the first of these, the premises run backward in such a way that each prior premise has a more inclusive subject, as in the syllogism "All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal • in which the i, subject of the minor premise, Socrates, is narrower than_that of the major, man. So also syllogisms regress from consequences to conditions as in "if-then" syllogisms, and from a disjunctions to a collection of possibilities as in "either-or" syllogisms. Now reason is inevitably driven by its own "interest" to do what it is not fit ta ~o; ta originate concepts and judgments which it posits as the principles or absolutely first premises of each of the three types of chain. Thus it creates the concept and posits the 11 �existence of 1• . a vary first and all-inclusive subject, 2. every first; unconditional or fraa condition end 3. a being in which all pose1b1lit1as are contained. Such illegitimBte creations ere called 1deas of reason, after the Platonic ideas CB 370). · Different prcceeeesof illusion ere eaeociated . with each of the three ideea; among them ere those antimonies of metaphysice which had early disturbed Kant. Now the ideas of r'aeon are only the logical f01111Ulatiane . . thraa human . concerns which . together exhaust which itself is or . neve~8'11Bra th~ field of philosophy. For th•t subject predicate belonging to another subject but Which -- rather itself supports ell predicates. is the soul, which belongs only to itself . . while an· knowledge but moves unmo~ed, belongs to it; end the condition which itself has no cause spontaneously, describes freedan; and that being perfect in containing all possibilities is God. wh~ch is · In questions concerning God, freedom · and the soul Kant recognizes the totel content of all previ[Jus metaphysics (8 ·? ,826). He has · just eha.iln that substantial en1111ers to such· questions ere beyond our cOD1petence. lie in All the old constl'llctions .of metaphysics ruins within his a.11 . edifice. Thie;than, le the anewar to the problem: Holil is it possible that we have a natural dispositia~ .t werd a study which . brings us nothing .but undemonetrable, contradictory fictions? as naturally . . to lead to excesses: Uur highest faculty is so constituted lt is the business of B critique of.cur reaeon(a way to eelf-knDldledga which gives us a radically new version oT' Socratic ignorance, nemely certified ignorance (A XI, B 22)), to discipline this prapeneitv by .displaying it clearly • .Kant's promise ti1atour desire to kn°"' will c. ~hQrtly be laid t1:1. ,rest is hence fulfilled. The Sy1tBll) · \iav\\ng .briefly surveyed:. the very beginning al")d the middle . of . the Critigue 12 �the time has now come to look at the blueprint of the whole critical edifice, as set out in the last part of the Cri tigue, which, '. Still in accordance with its presentation as a logic, is called the Transcendental Doctrine In his own manual of logic, Kant says: .E! Method. "Just as the Doctrine of Elements in logic has as its content the conditions of the completeness of a knowledge, so an the other hand the General Doctrine of Method, as the other part of logic, must treat of the form of a science in general or of the way and the manner in which the manifold of knowledge is connected ta make a science." (Loeic 96). A doctrine of method therefore teaches how to handle and how to put together the elements or building blocks of a science, how to make them the mutyally supporting parts of a systematic edifice. logic is in a special position. But a transcendental In mathematics and natural science, as Kant observes in a work which is the precursor of the Critigue, the method is the result of investigations in progress and follows upon the science; in - pure philosophy alone "the method anticipates every science" (Sensible and ' . Intelli51ible World 23). the method" (B XXII). And so Kant calls the whole Critique a "treatise on For the transcendental ' philosophy, defined as the of the system of principles discovered in the critical enterprise "id~a" (B 27), is to serve to mark out and secure the paths of inquiry in all the sciem;:es, to be a Prc.Legomena, or preface, .!£. Any Future Metaphysics Which .------- Can Assume the Part of a Science, and this is precisely what a method is. ~ . ' But the critical investigation itself must also be somehow directed, and this is what the Transcendental Method does; it is a method of method. Vet there is something strange about it, for what trustworthy method can show one the way to the grounds of trust? Note, too, that Kant calls the critical system an "ipea", almost suggesting that it is itself one of those dubious constr< Licts of reason. The art -- note, not the science -- of systems is called, in 13 �keeping with Kent's edifice metaphor, "Architectonic", or ~th• master-builder's art 11 , the neme of the next to lest .section of the book. But be~ore Kant can treat the system of knowledge tie muat complate lt; for an ele""\'t is m1~1lng. This ia done in a prior section .called the "canon liilike Bacon •e of Pure Reason". ~ OrQanon ·or science•: wh~ch is qu. ted at'. the o beginning of the Critique, Kant's new organon of pure raeson ie no~ •n inatrum11nt for positive discovery but for the cure end prevention of error, e negative or~~...,o (8 25) or 0discipline" (8 737), ee the first section of the Transcendental Method, which demands that reason be shown ta have. no iegitimete theorsUcel use, is called. But amewhare, K18nt says, reason must be. a sourca of positive knowledge CB 823). A method for rightly using e faculty, 8uch as the reason, is called e "Canon" (8 8241; the section so named ln the Critique d•1covere the positive use of the reeacn, which is the missing element in "precticel" reelm, 1n morality. in the Critique Critique 2!,~ E!. Ptacticel t~e eyst.-, in the It .is therefore, ea it were, e claaring meda fi!asan for the purpose of laying the foundations of the Ra!!Jln. The possibilities of pure reason era now ca111pletely exµaunded end ~ant . . can give t11a legi timete table of retionel hLltll!ln knowledge or ph1loaophy1 (8 869)1 the transcendental counterpert of the Catalogue or histories Bacon had appended , to hie O:menon, which ie intended ta direct empirical inquiry. I shall recount it only fer enough to reveal eClll'lething significant about the Crit1gue ea a whale. All retional knowledge has aither !!p1r1~1l roots, which mB&tna that it is based on the trial and error cf sanes experience, or it la purely rational; only the letter is considered in the Critique. It is to be noted ff. :L~~· ; ~ { .r : r : r.~ ;- 1 1 '. ' that thia fundamental division is entecadsnt .to the inquiry itself. The philosophy of pure reason in its preparatory or "prc:>paedeutic" stage is celled •critiqua!' The principles there d1acovered, when presented completely and eyetewieticelly, · 14 �may then be called •1metpphyeice". Metaphysics hes tMICJ br8'"1chea, the metaphysics of thaoreticel reason which i .a ~ ea we shall sae, . the sane. as the metaphysics of natyra and the of practical reason, or of morale • . The meta- mataph~eics physics of nature· 18 in tum d1v1dad into two parts, one r:tealing with the . sum Qf all obJect19 given to our faculty of knowledge. Thi~ · part Kant cel;J,11 "physiology", the ac. ount of nature. The other part deals with those faculties c themselves, apart from th•i~ ob.jact. Kant calls it "ontology", the acc~t of being. Hera, in the ~h!.~~*~-~' . KB"lt· in the elmoat ·iranically unobtru'eivt traditional ta?me r&\l&Bl.9 . th• t'ull t'o:rca of his revolution; th• quaation of. ' . . Aristotle's, Metaphvaice (VJI, i) Which has well as nru ever pursued end ever lftiaeed: answered by pointing et the queaticner. but bes~, Jl dhet , say~; '~n es he thtl past is being?•· ~ is now !!:!!. science · E! beinQ 1111 to be !!. Ea."!!!. neth1ng !tl! science g! 1n;Jlliring !!!!!!!.• Tli1s brings us ta the ~~.~!f E.~r~. at' this praeantat1an blhich da-.la witli · the Critical MBn under four mo.tinge: the Subject, th11 Predicate, the Object, and the Meaning. Pert . II: THE CRITICAL M~ · The order of presentation will have the farm of en experi91811t in reconstructing the Cr1tigue which is suggested by· the Prolqganana; Kent's introductory sketch of the Cri tigua , which he wrote between 1ts two editions. .In . thie short book Kant pretends to present .analytically, that . . is by reducing the given ~ problems to the conditions they implf, the same material presented in the Critique synthetically, th11t is by starting with the first and highest. principle, and deducing the consequancaa. ( P, Intro; this use of .these ·ilrme must not be confused with that 1) by which judgments are called synthetic or analytic, as described above, (P 5 n.) or 2) by 11.Jhich the dissection of e faculty is is called an analytic, as seen belCl.il.) ·Now everyone who has read both works 15 �1a perfectly ewe're that they are both equally analytic or '*regressive", as !lny work af discovery would be. My experiment will therefore consist af presenting · the elements cf the fLritigue in that ~ynthatic ar progressive order which Kent I . .. never actually followed, I !dill etternµt, es it were ·, tc reed · the C:ritigue backwards, ta derive critical men from hie principle~ The matters I em about to take up ere drawn mostly from those earlier . . ' • sections of t ·ha Critique which I have bypassed so far and which are generally IlllnBdiately after the Introduction end rightly the object of most intense study. comes, es the first part of the "iranacendentel Aesthetic". . ~EP.!r..1~,! P.~. 9..1!.!!?!l~~.. a section entitled •Aesthetic" caries rrm the Greek. bJDrd eistheeie, . . . . sense, end meeris the exposition of the hunem capability for s~aing. . (B 35 n.)~ "Transcendental", you 111111 remember, means •beyond manse experience". ·The Transcendental Aesthetic therefore tl'9•t1 mf our cepllcity fo~ sensing without sensation. The poethunously published work of Kl!lnt ehawa that tha diacavary of this strange capecity came to dminate hie attention. And well it might, for it .holds the key to his peculiar view of human nature. The ·second part in question, the beginning of the logical Critique (which i11111edietely precedes the Dialectic, the "discipline · of reeeon" discussed above) is called the "Transcendental Analytic". It is a "canon of tha Wd1retendiog" (8 ??)and contains the analysis of the grounds of our capacity rar a priori thinking • . The first book of this is called the· "Analytic of Conc•pt•"· In it is found that investigation in the Cri tigua, designed, aa ~ant says, ·•with soma depth" which cast him the most labor (A 98), tha notorious "Trenscendantel Deduction of the pure a priori concepts of the undarstendin~" used above but a grounding ,procedure in ~hich (not a deduction in tha sense certain· critical .discoveries are justified by being ehcui to be the neQsseery .conditioris of the possibility of science (8 11?)). Considered apart fri:Jn its systematic context, it cen ·be 16. �aaid to establish the nature of the transcendental self, the highaat, or perhaps better, the deepest point of the Critigue. I now ctr&.it lerg11ly upon it for my synthetic .beginning. a. ~ The nane for thet which underliee all alee ie Subject In the beginning there is the "I", and the "l" is by 1.teelf. lt is the highest point of . the Critique ( B 134 n .) ; ell else is founded upon . 1t .. In · English we help ourselves over the enormity of such a reference.to the,!. by eeying !b!_ !!!!!,! er ~ ego, but Kant uses no such eubeti tutes. Were in exactly llea this enormity of the highest critical concept? The pronoun which we very aptly call "of the first person" (a parson being defined by Kant. es something conscious of the . numerical identity of its I (A 361)) is precisely of such a nature that no one else, no outsider, can say "l" for or of another. The word "l" is the pure expression of inwardness which cannot become cur D\IJT1 or another's object (8 .321); thus 1n .. ettamptlng to use the noun for which the "pronoun" I stands, cur name, we are constrained to shift to another "person•, the third, just es say "he" or "it". - Ide Hew then can Kant make the I en object of investigation? For Descartes in hie incubator, such a study was still -------- examination (Discourse on Method IV, 8 422 n.). is, as blS must, in speaking of another si~ply and frankly !!!!- One of Kant's greet innovations shall see, preciee'iy to show in whet respects we can and cannot observe ourselves, in what way the I can become its own object (8 155 ff.). But because the I of the Critique is always presented as any I in general (8 ~O~O, a tremendous fact beccanes blurred: there is !!E,WBY the Kantian self can cane to know of another self (B 405). It is explicitly disbarred by its very· firstness, its radical self-sufficiency, from sharing.in the inwardness of another or even receiving immediate evidence of another's depth, hie soul. (Kant ventures the hypothesis that in the world of. ~ppearance inwardness asslll!es . 17 �the fom cf pure' exte:rnality, that ·saule .when they appear to e:>ther souls do ac as bodias (8 428) .) It is tharetare in the te:t111l!I af the Critique perfectly · indifferent or~ whebr ·1ta ·1is151\e or many; · whsthar Kent is exmdning himself I; eech I is universal, all the world there ia. · (This absolute isolation of the self is connacted with Kent's understanding of language, ~ subject which he neglects almost altogether. Souls can cCl!lnunicete with each ether if language conveys beings of thought from one soul Kent, BS we ' shell see, there is no .such being and no such to another, but for convswing~ We can. see et .once that .t his caste •n uncanny light on the book ltsfitlf -- for 1e it nut conveying to us precisely Kant's thought? -- but for us it is at this moment pl'Clfitable only to allow his thought to come to ue, even. if this very ac~eptenc~ should imply its - ref~tation.) How then does the I, the original I, become knOU11 to itself? Kent points out in the beginning of hie AnthroiJology (I, 1) that the original I is not the first person known ta us in time, for children speak of themselves in the third person .as if they . were one a1J1ong many before they oiecover that all their . judg.ments, no matter what ·they ere about , have one and the verb. s!lll~ subject end For all judgments follow after the phrase •I think• (B 131-132, A 354-5). Thia I which thinks is always present (A 117 n.) noting its preserving its sameness .and s\Y1~\t'1(SS l'.ld"I activity, through all passions (A 108), e final end universal subject which underlies all its awn predicates (B 407, P 46). This universal and original person can be active only in self-concern. The name which Kant borrowe from Leibnitz for "self-activity" (B 130), for selfattention, is "apperception•, or self-perception, self-consciousness. This epperception is transcendental, for in attending to myself as a thinking thing I am studying the radically original iqlawin9 faculty (A 114). ( At the same time, if knowing requirea a attaking :i.n" ·of an object;, as the ,word "perception" 18 �implies, I cannot "take in" the vary •ourca end support of ell except in a special way (8 429-30). mv knowing In em anticipation of the methemet.4.cel limit notion, Kent finds s·uch a way. The I which underlies all knwing is itself. knClill as the limit of all kncwledge, as its pure containing form. Hy root faculty, my pure self, 1• planted in an unknDblable beyond and I can - - know cf it only that it is, but never what it is (8 157). Kant smaewhere calls the LD'lconditioned the "abyss cf reason". Since our 01&r1 original condition is inaccessible to us we live over just such en abyss. But if I cannot know whdt my ultimate nature is, I yet know_eomething of its mode and effect • .. It ehOliJS itself as that absolute end pure original ecti vi ty, lltlich !Aient cells spontaneity ( B 130, ·428) • Spon.tenei ty means wilfulness, radical self-determinatiCYl. The activity which has this character is thought, which works its will according to none but its . own laws. At the root to think and to will are the sane, end it ia this identification which makes the critical man bath the th~orizer of the Critique .2!.~ Reason~~ the doer. of deeds of the second Critique, the Critique !!f. Practical Reason. It is . evident ·by nCld that the I has an arena, a kind of theatre, in which it works its effects. (Why this should be so, why there is a faculty of thought is an unenswerable question (A XVII); exactly equivalent to the question why God created for himself, and c0111nunicated with, a world. go further~ We may the deep beginnings of modernity ere nearly all to be found in bold perversions of Christianity -- the genesis of the critical man takes the form of a \ages, a sentence such 118 that by which the !!E£!. of the gospel of John launches hi111Belf into a world; that is the very model we are using in this develaJDent.) The I ie thus a universal subject in need of completion. therefore lllJBt go on to 19 . We �b. The Predicat'e s - ............iiiioiiioi. . . . . The subject and its ve~b . in the words "I think that ••• • danand a completion of meaning, namely the thought which ·the 1· thinks. Whatever the I thinks is ~ thought end ·l:!e1ongs ta 1,t , but whi.le it 18 E.f_ the I it is eleo !2!: 1t. Our original I possesses a secret paiier, which distinguishes us frtlll the beasts, of doubting i teel f, of holding 1ts a.in launches us on our career es knowers. activity before ·. itself, and. this p0bl8r Anything whetsoever ·which is there for the I is celled its nrepresentetion" (8 376). The word; again borrowed frcwn Leibni tz, is unfortunate slnt:e 1.t implies that emething present elsBaJhere, outside, is imaged by us or in us. But this is not whet K~t means. Re-presen- tations ere simply presentations, or what is present to us; there is no going beyond them, and they represent nothing else. ·(Kant's Germen term, "Vorstallt11g•, which means "something set before" 4.s more adequl!!lt•~> Thare ia nothing .fE!.!:!!. - which is not our predicate. ·The trl!!lflacendantal I delimits an isll!llld realm which hes only internal affairs. The first of cur representetion, that is, those closest to the I beyond, are its thoughts (8 42s..429). These come into the world of representations as the effects of the transcendental I regarded as a root faculty of the soul, of ---- - - ----- as its nmodes of expression" (Battle the Faculties, II, end) which Kant calls the understanding (8 93 ff.). It is that primary cognitive faculty upon which the secondary faculty of reason depends, and which, as I mentioned before, is for Kant the intellectual faculty. of activity within its a.in world. It is a faculty of representing representa- tions, thet is, a reflecting faculty. . The understanding.is the I as a source It carries forth the original unity . . of the I into the multitude of .its representations (8 105). It is the primary faculty because it governs by establi!ihing relations among, by uniting, by grasping, by "taking together~', that is, conceiving our many representations. 20 �Its primary and fundamental relating act is that which unites representations by reason of their carranan relation to the thinking I; as Kant says, it is an act "which brings the manifold (that is, the variegated field) of given · representations under the unity of apperceptian. 11 (8 135). This unity :is expressed .in "judgments" characterized by the copula "is" (8 142)~ When I think that "this body!:!, heavy", I have performed an act by which the singular and single empty representation which is expressed in "I think" has become the vehicle or correlate of two other representations which are united within it. This primary relating function is called judging (8 141-142). There is also a kind of incomplete judgment in which representations are related not upward to the apperception, but downward only; so, for instance, "body" comes under 11 heavy", and many mare representations came under "body 11 • Such incomplete judgments are called cpncepts; these are the isolated acts of the und~rstanding (8 94). · . There are a definite number of cefinite downward unifying functions, called the pure concepts of the understanding (8 102). The fact that Kant will name them must not deceive us about the nature of our reflecting faculty; it is a mere or naked power of arranging multitude,.of operating or functioning; the audible names of its products convey no real meaning (A 241). (As Kant observes in his Anthropology, (I, 18) it is precisely because wards in themselves mean nothing that they are apt far characterizing the results of thinking.) Thinking by itself is a mere functioning, an invisible empty ; grasping (A 245); to~ is not to know (B 145-146). · Its grasp must be filled. At the lower end of the hierarchy of concepts there must be some material, something to conceive. And as the Transcendental Aesthetic, from which the following is largely drawn, shows, there is. We have a faculty which supplies the material for the formulations of thinking. 21 �It la the eans1b111ty. Kent opposes the faculties of thinking and sensing ea "outermost extremes" (A 124). Thinking is active end spontaneous; the sensibility is pessiva and receptive. Thinking is an empty function; the aaneibility hes a pure original anntent (8 160). Thinking runs through a manifold, unifying it, and is discursive; the sensibility contains one singular presentation which is ready to receive a manifold, a matrix of particularity and variety. Kant cells this passive power, this faculty for reception, "intuition" (8 33). The prefix "inll has here nothing to do with any any "looking into" -- for that i~ precisely whet the receptive capacity cannot co -- but has the sense of "looking Gemen ward "Anscheuung". "inelght"~ !!l" intently, a sense clearer in Kant's Intuition is a faculty _or format1"• looking, a f capacity for taking in the alien and shaping it into sights for the soul. Here·, at i ta lower limit, the isolation of the I gives way ta certain intimations fram beyond, from'outeide~' It is an undeniable fact that we ere aware of a multitude of alien and adventitious representations, end that there are far. more i:Jf these then of those that we ourselves produce and control. How can this came about? The sensibility is not an organ of sense rut a formative capacity for receiving the given. but 11 !!l the Representations do not came to us through intuition. The sights which occur in the intuition are called appearancea 11 (B 34). In the cOlllllon understanding the appearance of a thing belongs to ll.; hidden being. it is the · appearenc_ E!, the thing and evidence concerning 1ts e But the appearances ln the intuition are famed and shaped by the faculty itself, they belong altogether to us, are through and through - appearances within us, not from without, from another thing. What then does coma .from the outsidel . Just as the sensibility offers material ~o the forming functions of the understanding (8 87),. BO the eppearancee within the ·intuition are 22 89 forms �for a material which Kant calls sensation (8 60, 207). representation of the "thereness" of something alien. I Sensation is a It is that in appear- ances which gives them reality or "thinghood"~ whieh makes them capable of confronting us as alien and independent 11 somethings" (8 375). As our representation, sensation is entirely and forcefully subjective, but it is just thus that it impresses us with intimations of an otherness which is there, outside. What does it tell us of things outside? 'i Nothing whatsoever about their nature. I. ; ~ ' For the appearances of these i things are not with ~' but with ~' so that these outer things have, insofar as they are considered in themselves, no externality, no covering outer skin, no dress,so ta speak, in which to present themselves to us. Things in themselves, outside of us and stript of their appearance, are pure naked inwardness, as inaccessible by nature as our I (8 339). Such pure inwardness, like our apperceptian, is pure thought and Kant calls such things, things ' ./ of thought, in Greek , amena" (8 306 ff.). 11 naumena" , while he calls the . appearances in us "phen- , - our two root faculties And just as Kant conjectured that Of the noumena we know only that they are, but not what I they are (8 XXVI). might be at bottom one (8 29), ~so he conjectures that the I beyond our inner- . mast limit and the things beyond our outermost ken are one and the same, that we are surrounded by one and the same unknown ocean on all sides (A 379-380). : Here is Kant's description of our inner island and the fate of him who tries to take leave of himself (8 295-296): "But this land is an island and locked by nature herself within immutable boundaries. It is the land of truth, (a charming name), surrounded by a wild and stormy ocean, the true seat of illusion, where many a fog ·. bank and much melting ice counterfeits · new lands, and by endlessly deceiving with empty hopes the sea-farer roving about in search of discoveries, involves him in adventures which he can never 23 �forego and never break off. 11 Our inner island, the scene of appaaren.c e an the ---- ocean of darkness, is by nature the land of truth. '· . . What is that truth? Kant's definition of truth is perfectly traditional in form and abeoiutely new in content (8 82 ff.). . Truth is ned~uetio ' intellectus rei", the approach or fitting of the understending to the thing. A thing which presents itself for the understanding to fit itself about, to grasp, is said to be "something throbin out before it~ ·, en "objectum" or object Truth involving objects, or objective truth, is knowledge which matters, mDterial .knowledge which is neither ~mpty is_ that nor blind (8 75). Empty knowledge :tn: which thinking has no object other then itself, the empty catching of thinking et thought~ blind knowledge is the mere unreflected sight of the object. Truth is therefore the · aecure acquisition of something ·worth having. Kant's name for' the process of such acquisition is "experiencen (8 218), a ward in Latin and English reminiscent of the devices for extracting such knowledge, namely the experiments of science. (Accordingly error is no longer, ae in the Theaetetus, the dapply significant complement of truth, but a mere mismating which arises, together with its pseudo-object, nothing (8 347 ff.), on the secondary level of reflection, end for which the critical method can provide a radical cure. For both Ln1derstending end intuition are in themselves infallible_,and error arises only when the representations belonging to one faculty are interchanged with those of another. "amphiboly" (8 316 ff.). Kent cells such an "interchange" by its Greek name, It is particularly the concepts of reflection, the concepts for thinking about thinking, which are prone to such C!lnphibolies, for since our .-.nderstanding must always grasp something, it tends falsely, to turn its own thoughts into objects. The highest concept of reflection is that of ·"something" in general, ·the others are exact! y those which have 24 �kept recurring in my deductive presei\tation: unity, reality, cause, possi- bility which are both names of categd;ries and of prior critical notions (e.g., 8 131). It is characteristic ;of critical thinking that these must all be used on two levels, properly of true objects, and again improperly to describe thinking itself. But with the critical method to guard us against their interchange the perfect truth of our knowledge is guaranteed. For man to know is to know completely and certainly; there is no place for opinion (8 809), Socrates' human way station between exposed ignorance and hidden knowledge.) We see that if we are to be about anything, then at the center of our soul there must stand c. ~Object We ere confronted with appearance~ filled with the feeling of reality. I The German word for such a confrontation is "Gegenstand", "stands up to'.' us · (8 242). something which Kant's usage is by no means rigorous, but he very often uses this word for something given, which confronts the understanding, just as he often uses "thing" for the hidden source of reality in appearances. This confronting given something is there for the understanding; blind in itself, it is the potential object of truth, that to which the understanding equates its grasp (A 104). And now the understanding shows itself to be functioning for a definite end. For in grasping the appearances, in conceiving them, thinking itself makes objects £!:. ~· The pure conqeiving fµnctions of the understanding have no other purpose but to make the givens of our sensibility .into objects, and since the grasp itself molds the thing, the fit cannot help but be an adequate one; to be objectively valid and to be necessarily universal are exchangeable notions (P 19). · our material knowledge is "objective", that is, 25 �both about something and also true, because we ourselves supply ' its material as well as its form (8 137 ff.). This form is imposed by the subjective origin of the functions of .our understanding, which ensures that they cannot bu dltered adventitiously, so that their enumeration is available to us and can be once and for all completed. This is done in the "Analytic" (8 106 ff.), or element-finding part, of the Transcendental Logic, which is therefore a logic Ef. truth (8 87). Using an Aristotelian term, Kant names the pure concepts of the understanding categories. Furthermore he gives names, taken from traditional metaphysics, to exactly four groups of three of them, but it is of the greatest importance to remember that these names carry no meanings and are nothing but labelling characters. We can know nothing objective of our own thinking functions, for to do that would be to grasp our own conceiving, to treat the categories as if they, by themselves, constituted an object, though this "transcendental" object would be a mere something, really a nothing of thought (A 250 ff.), an empty form. Thus thinking would be attempting to overleap itself, to transcend its own activity. first and foremost; But "critique" means the willingness to forego the impossible. And what is impossible is precisely that we should view our own thoughts, which are mere functions, or as Kant puts it, that we should have intellectual intuition (8 307). The expression of legitimate, material knowledge is the judgment which puts t~gether concepts in themselves disparate, on the baqis of an object in which they are united, and . united priori synthetic judgments. from~ very first -- that is to say, a And so we have come to that concluding point in our deduction to which corresponds the Cri tigue 's introductory problem, "How : are a priori synthetic judgments possible?" It is by reason of our very constitutions, now brought to light by the critical enterprise, that we inevitably make objectiv~ judgments, judg~ents 26 which are both about something �and also certain, judgments which examples of such a judgment: 11 are~- Here is one of Kant's own - The sun warms the stone." (P 20 n.). Abstract from all sensation, from the color of the sun, the warmth of tne air. ~eight of the stone, the What "is left is the assertion that one object is related to the other as cause.!£!. effect (P 29). "Cause and effect" is the name of that, for Hume, most notorious of all metaphysical notions, the second of Kant's three categories of relation. The judgment asserts that this relation is objectively the case, not merely seemingly so, as it would be if it depended on sensations, which are empirical, that is, a matter of trial and error, and therefore uncertain (B 142). But all objects, not only sun and stone, are related as causes and effects -- for that is precisely what we I ~by an abject. So also all objects stand under the remaining categories of relation, for all are permanent substances which have accidents or changing states, as when the stone, though remaining a stone, grows EE.!.£ at night, and so also all abjects are related in a community of interactions, for sun and stone attract ~ other. In fact each abject stands under mast of the remaining nine categories, far in Kant's favorite formula: "the conditions of the possibility of the sbjects of experience in general are at 'the same time the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience" (B 197), which means: we can have material knowledge or worth-while truth only insofar as we have abjects to which to fit our thinking, and we have the latter since our thinking itself ·constitutes them. I have said that to come ynder the pure concepts of the understanding is precisely what we mean by being an abject (B 125). But we must recall that the pure categories have no real meaning and that therefore the pure object has no reality (A 250). became embodied. Dur final task will be to shaw haw the categories can This will be the S?ffie as deducing our ability to learn by experience, ta do experimental science or to be capable, as Kant says, of 27 �empirical thinking. The deductive presentation will be drawn largely from the second book of the Transcendental Analytic, which is called the "Analytic of Principles 11 • Every concept is a complex or cnaracterizing marks or "notes" canvnon to many representations and may therefore be regarded as determining a for putting these together under itself. £!:!!! If such a rule comes from the highest concepts and is one of those by which objects themselves are constituted it is called a "grounding sentence", that is, a ground or principle for fo1111ulating laws (8 188). The categories thus furnish a matrix of laws governing the constitution and power of abjects. The system so governed is called nature (8 263), and the c.a tegories are the sources of the ~ Ef. nature, and these are the results of the legislative activity of the understanding. Thus the sentence "the sun warms the stone" is very aptly called a judgment, for all of nature appears before the court ·of our understanding to be interrogated and judged by its self-given laws (A I 126)~ The highest principle of the understanding is that every object stands under the necessary conditions of the synthetic unity of the manifold of 1 intuition in pos sible experience (8 1~6). This means that we can have exper- ience, namely pronounce objective synthetic judgments upon our sensationfilled appearances, only because the manyness in our intuition has already been ' unified, has been put together in a ·synthesis. The necessary condition for this synthesis which 'first makes synthetic judgments possible is furnished by a mediating faculty whose very nature it is ta be a common ground (A 124). For in order far a representation to fall under a concept it must be somehow similar to the concept. · But the categories differ from the appearances which they are to organize as radically as do the two faculties of understanding and intuition. The "third faculty" is responsible for that 28 �interpenetration of these two which produces a synthesis, a ''structure of , unity". In Kant's words it is "a blind but indispensable function of the soul without which we wouid have no knowledge at all but of which we are, seldom even as much as conscious" (8 103). It is the imagination. As the common ground of the other two faculties, imagination is the same as understanding in being actively unfying (8 162 n.), and the same as intuition in having a given multiplicity of material (8 164). (Hegel, intending to deliver a devastating criticism, describes it simply as Kant's intuitive intellect or intellectual intuition (History of Philosophy XV, 570)). This double character is evident in the fact that the imagination alone is "productive", that is, while itself remaining hidden, it produces sdmething compacted of form and matter, an appearing object. "schemata" of the imagination (8 177). Kant calls such objectsthe Ta understand what a schema of the imagination is, what that "mediating third" which is on the one hand similar to the intellect, and on the other to intuition, is, we must briefly review and complete the development of the other two faculties of the soul. The tinderstanding, the faculty, so to speak, on the inner side of the soul, had two aspects: the transcendental apperception belonging to the single I beyond all appearance and the understanding by which that I grasps the many representations of sense. Now it must be the case that the ·eensi- bility at the other extreme also has two aspects. One of these faces toward the outer limit of the soul and is ready to receive ever new sensations issuing from beyond, under the form of externality, which is, as we shall see the triple extension of space; the other is turned toward the transcendental I and receives it as an appearance under that single intensive . dimension which is most appropriate for its original unity, namely time. The intuition therefore has a form of outer sense (of which we shall say more soon), 29 �and a form of inner sense; the reflective concepts "inner" and "outer•i -- describe both whence, in the topography of the soul, the two senses receive -- sensation and also what form they give it (8 373); so ou~er sense both receives what is alien to us (8 32) and also gives it that form which we call. "being outside'', by which we mean that the parts of the object all lie stretched out away from and outside of each other, that is, .!!::!. spa.c s. But it is the inner sense which is crucial at this juncture. material self-knowledge first becomes possible, for here~ In it appear !E, ourselves; here we can become . our own objects (8 156 f .). Kant regards this discovery of the doubling of the l, .which enables the thinking I to come I appearance~ to itself as an • both as a mystery and the fundamental fact of psychology (8 334), '; since it accounts for the very possibility of such a science. In self-attention I affect myself and em revealed to myself in a sensual appercaption (8 68 ff.). But such attention yields first of all. a representation of passing time. My inner appearances, my feelings, imaginings and thoughts, are borne along an a steady . flux in one direction, from past through present to future. This is the form of every inner. representation and since all representations are to begin with~ representations, all appearances have first of all the form of inner sense -- they are temporal (A 99). nothing b~t As Augustine says: 11 • .".time is a stretching out, but of what thing I know not, and I marvel if it be not of the mind itself'' (Confessions XI, 26). In particular the thinking l casts its timeless transcendental functions into the inner sense, where they appear as our ordinary temporal thinking, that synoptic scanning, comparing, reflecting by which we finally abstract from all the differences of objects to obtain their common concept. It is in temporal thinking alone that· change can be grasped (8 48), for in successive times alone may contradictory predicates belong to a subject (providing they both obey the law of 30 �non-contradiction, the highest formal law of thought, which is that no predicate must contradict the subject (8 189)). Time is here not as for Aristotle (Physics IV, 14), the soul's measure of motion, but its very condition. Now how can the thinking I be said to cast itslef into its inner sense? Each of the forms of the intuition, as formative receptacles, contain a kind of pure content, a pure single manifold which is nothing but their readiness to be determined or conceived in a certain way, a material which is nothing but a potential structure, a system of relations, not altogether unlike the contents · of the receptacle in the Timaeus (50 ff.). Kant terms these contents "pure intuitions 11 , using the name of the faculty for its material as well ( 8 160 n.) • . In entering the pure manifold of outer sense, the faculty of conceiving constructs the empty but determinate objects of geometry., as when we define a triangle and then imagine it, intuiting properties additional ta those in the mere concept (8 271). Thus an a pr. ari synthetic mathematical science i becomes possible, and since in sense experience it is this very same geometrically determinable manifold which is now also filled with sensation, pure geometry is always empirically applicable (8 206). But because the inner sense is the sense of senses, the first and crucial interpenetration of the extreme faculties is that in which the pure concepts of the understanding enter the inner sense, that is, when the categories determine time, or, what is the same thing, when time determines the categories (8 177). Just now it was natural to speak of imagining the construction of a concept in space; similarly it is precisely the imagination which introduces concepts into time, and its ,_schematic products are nothing constructions of the pure concepts .!D_ pure ~· ~general £!:.guiding Clearly the imagination is the central faculty of the soul, because it is nothing but the soul's capacity for combining its extremes; it is the common ground of intellect 31 �and. intuition. And since the inner sense is, as it were, at the topographical center of the soul, it does its hidden first work deep within it (8 181) there showing itself ee the ground and bedrock on which the. island of our awn epiphany to ourselves, ·which l'Dl,lst precede all alien appearances, if founded. The imagination .can introduce the pure conceiving functions into time . . ' •because the pure manifQld, being nothing but a eyetem of potential relations, . is not, as Kant observes in a pre-critical work, so unsimiler to a concept <Q!:!.:!l!:!.!. ~eneible ![!!!.Intelligible World 15). In fact, since the imagination i'e .understood es a faculty of representing in the intuition a confronting a.bJect w1-i~out its confronting presence (a ~Gegenstand" without "Gegenwart" (8 151))t pure time es en ·intuition empty cf sensation, is the inrnediete "ens imaginor°I.UTI" or imaginary being (8 347). Hence, just as Kant calls the . schema the mediating "third" between intellect and intuition (817?) the "third" which, as the beare~ so he calla tirrie of all our representations is the medlun in which they are put together or synthesized (B 194). Thie synthsaie is the work of the ~magination, and its products, the echemeta, , are those general . constructions or pettems into which concepts organize time irrrnedietely and space derivatively. Kant calls them "pheniJrnena" in a special sense (B 186), because they are a kind cf pure appearance, a pure object, or rather object structure, which although it is a no-thing of the imagination, "calling for an object" to be realized in it by sensation, is yet distinguished from the not transcendental object by being en empty fabrication of mere thought, but the "' first ·step in the "realization" of the cataglldes. They are the mediating th~"'~ 'lo which the synthesis of concepts in judgments can be referred, reminding us that an abject is the necessary correlate of the truth seeking subject. If we have not listed the categories so far it was were meaningless; they were mere concepts of reflection. 32 becaus~ their names But by echematizing �them, by steeping them in time, the imagination has endowed them with meaning (8 185 ff.). And now the principles of the understanding which give, as you will remember, rules for using the categories to constitute the objects of experience, can, by employing the schematized or temporalized ca.t egories, also become meaningful .. thinking" We are therefore ready to show adequately how "empirical arise~~or the deductive presentation of its genesis requires only that the transcendental elements already presented be worked out in detail. The following section is therefore somewhat technical. In order to bring out the coherence and even elegance of the critical technique, I will conflate and reverse the developments presented in the Analytic of Concepts and in the Analytic of Principles. The result should be a synthetic account of the genesis of "empirical thought". This is an .awkward phrase by which Kant means that reflective employment of the understanding on appearances which is called d. Experience The genesis of experience has two sides: synthesis of the object by which experimental EI. experience (A 115 s~ience we may develop the step-wise ff~), or we may follow the stages as a system of judgments arises (8 197 ff.). Of course, this does not mean that either the synthesis of the object of truth or the formation of the corresponding principles of judgment is a psychological process of the appearing I going on in time. On the contrary, this synthesis · first makes the analytic work of temporal thinking possible (8 130); insofar as temporal learning has discernable stages, their sequence is apt to be the reverse of the transcendental order, for what is first for us is not first in the order of nature. The synthesis bf t~e object is thus rather a single timeless product of the imagination which, because of the mediating nature of the imagination, has a triple aspect corresponding to all three faculties: 33 �understanding, imagination, sensibility (A 99). The fundamental rM1"8 •f · judgment, that is, the principles of the understanding, themselveQ r1veal these three aspects .,. to u_s, or we would never recognize them. (This correspondence between the genesis of the object and the rules far judging it is to be expected since it is the imagination in fact which plays the role of a faculty of judgment in the first Critigue (Critigue £!!Judgment 212)). Now since the principles of judgment arise when the imagination introduces the categories into time (since they are :,-.> ic , :; in fact nothing but rules for . applying the schemata), their number and nature is determined by the categories. Each qingle category is " a concept of something put tagehter", which means a concept of something synthesized in a definite way, a concept of an object.• But while with ~eference to the sensibility the categories are object concepts, by themselves they are also concepts of reflection. This is indicated by the fact that they come under four headings, which, now that the categories . assumed a meaning, it first makes sense to name: there are three categories each of modality, relation, quality and quantity (8 106). classes are no longer concepts fa~ h~ve These categortcal constituting the object, but concepts for refleftinQ on this cansti tution; they give the relation which the object. has to the faculties of the soul insofar as the single categories in a · particular class have contributed to its constitution. Accordingly there are fol,.!r principles of true synthetic judgments (8 200) which say at the same time what role each of the four categorical :classes plays with respect to the faculties in constituting the whole of possible experience and haw the single categories constitute aspects of objects. reason of being 11 Therefore, precisely by the source of all truth" (El 296) in the material or real sense, these principles are also the transcendental truths, the metaphysical principles of knowledge. Here then is· the new metaphysics, a metaphysics of physics. 34 �Kant's names for the judgments following from the principles are, as we shall see, carefully chosen to trace out the steps of the genesis. It is I there f ore right ta · fallow the transcendental synthe.t ic act and its expression as knowledge simultaneously, which means, as was said, reading the .&\~!Y!!E. qf Concepts, particularly the Transcendental Deducti_ in version A, together an with the ,Rn,C3J.Y.~i~ . !2!. Principles. . I ; In fact, this way brings cut something I fundamental about the critical man and his enterprise: I the constitutive 111ork ' of his soul. and his knowledge are ultimately indistinguishable -~ the Critigue cannot distinguish between a judgment as an act and as an expression, far in view of the isolation of the self ta wham would what be expressed? Let us, then, fallow the 9enesis of experience, ordering it from the Subject outward to the Object~ The I is the original source ' of unity in representations, since all thinking is~ thinking and belongs to one self. identical . in origin. All thinking is therefore This identity or self-sameness first makes possible those diverse unifying functions by which understanding conjoins the many representations of the I, for self-consciousness, by acknowledging all representations as its awn, gives them that vertical unity of which. the categories are different horizontal aspects. The unity of apperception is what necessarily accompanies every synthesis, simply by reason of the selfconscicusness of .the intellect which enters into it. Since it is contributed by the thinking I, this aspect cf the synthetic product is called the intellectual synthesis (8 151, A 103). And since an object is something in whose concept a manifold of given representations is united, this synthesis, in bringing unity into representations, first makes ' cognition of an object possible. Consonant with the transcendental nature of the I, this unity is purely formal, and is therefore formally distinguishable from the synthesis 35 �~tself9 in which diverse concepts together with a sensible manifold constitute a material object (8 131). The intellectual synthesis yields the highest synthetic principle, which, stated in terms of the apperception,is=: · all empirical consciousness, all my appearing representations, must be conjoined in one self-consciousness (A 117 n.). In terms of representations this means that there must be one which comprises all others and that is the general one called "something"; we must first of all know in what ways this something can be in self-consciousness, that hqw a thing may be related to the unity of apperception. i~, These ways are known through the last set of categories, those of modality, namely: possibility, actual existence, and necessity, and their schemata, which are: something consonant with time in general, something actually there at a definite time anq something existing at all times (B 184). The judgments employing these schemata are called the "postulates of empirical thinking in general" (8 265 ff.). They are these three: whatever corresponds to the fonnal C8nditions of experience (namely concepts and intuitions) can exist at some time and is possible; whatever is connected with the material conditions of experience ' (namely sensation) exists at a definite time and is actual; whatever is related to something actual by the general conditions of experience exists at all times and is necessary. The last refers only to relations of. appear• ances according to the laws of causality, and means that if something is actually there, ~we can always make the hypothesis that there must be something else actually existing which is its effect. They are called . •postulates" because they merely demand the genesis of something but do not anticipate its nature. Thus the postulates of modality add nothing to the concept of the object itself but merely relate it to its generating faculty of cognition, for each of my representations is in my self-consciousness in 36 �a different mode, depending on its source. The contribution of the postuia~es is therefore entirely on the subjective side'; in particular, they guide us in employing the most fundamental of all the concepts · for transcendental reflection, form and material. They are called postulates of "empirical · thinking" because they require that all faculties take part in the full . theoretical activity of experiencing. Thus if something is only of the under- standing, it is merely possible; if it is connected with the material of sense, sensation, it is merely actual; but if it is the result of the conjunction of perceptions through concepts, and therefore attributable to the imagination, it is necessary -- consequently the most complete kind of empirical judgment is the necessary hypo~hesis. The second stage is that of the synthesis proper, where synthesis means the product of the synthetic work of the imagination viewed not as the union of the extreme faculties, but independently, on the ground of the imagination itself. This synthesis is distinguished from the foregoing as an objective result from its subjective unifying act. It is a determination of the whole manifold of inner intuition considered as a given pure material, an original ordering arising not so much in the pure intuition as along with it. Kant calls it . the figurative synthesis (8 151), for it consists in the schemata or time organizations which together constitute the pure but sensible structure of objects, that temporal form which relates appearances in a regulated time order; the imagination, in producing this structure of object relations, works that a thoroughgoing ''affinity" (A 122) of appearances which gives them their systematic aspect and constitutes the "form of experience". The categories involved are therefore those of relation, namely substance and accident, cause and effect, and community or interaction (action and passion). 37 Their schemata �are organizations of time into detenninate pennanence, . succession, and simultaneity (8 183). The principle according to which objects are judged in this aspect is: experience is possible only through the representation of a necessary -conjunc.t ion of sense perceptions. The judgments based an it I are called "analogi. s of e experience" ~ An analogy, understood mathematically, is a proportion, that is, a form for finding an unknown; · for instance, a:b = c:x, so that x ~ ~ • Interpreted as a kind of metaphysical algebra, .the sameness of the relations involved is not quantitative but qualitative, hence the unknown term cannot be constructed from the analogy, but the latter oan be regarded as giving a rule as well as a justification for seeking it in experience and a mark for finding it (B 222). Clearly the analogies of exper~ence are really instructions for forcing unknowns to disclose themselves, for experimenting. ( There are three leading principles far making analogies, incorporating the three schemata: in a~l ·' changes of the appearances substance is permanent and has a fixed quantity; all alterations occur according to the law of connection of cause and effect; all substances, insofar as they are perceived in space as simultaneous, stand in a rela~ion of thoroughgoing interaction. An example of an analogy based on the first · principle would be the .judgment: "As accident is to substance so is the altered form of burnt matter to the matter itself" (8 228); this analogy therefore implies that the quantity of matter is conserved in combustions and in general is the source of all coriservation laws. The second principle clearly yields, once matter ha:;i been properly defined, the first two Newtonian laws of motion, th 0se of _inertia and force, while the third yields the law of action and reaction~ And indeed, once the critical grounding enterprise is completed, Kant w rks o out the deduction of the laws of motion in .Tb.§. Metaphysical Principles Natural Science of 1786; the axioms of Newtonian science are thus mere 38 .Ef. �theorems of the Kantian system! The principles of modality and relation are only "regulative", _which means that they rule the relation of objects to the subject and to each other, while they .add nothing to the constitution of the objects themselves. Kant also calls them "dynamic", because they involve those powers and relations which objects . must h~ve whenever they exist, but which, since their existence is contingent, have no being apart from actual experience. principles, on the other hand, are 11 The remaining com;iti tutive 11 and "mathematical 11 , because they do refer to the objects themselves, and because they apply to all possible experience since they concern the pure and the affected material, that is, the mathematical constitution of objects (8 199). This brings us to the third and last synthesis • . This third synthesis, in which the objects of experience are, so to speak, filled out, is the synthesis .Q.f apprehension (A 98 ff.). As the imaginative synthesis includes the .unifying act of the transcendental self-consciousness as a separable prelude, so the imagination performs the concluding act of "apprehending" or taking direct possession of intuitions, that is, of bringing them into empirical consciousness (A 120). Apprehending is the generation of original inner mirror of 11 the action of the subject 11 • motion~ the phenomenal In "running through" and 11 taking up" the manifold of the sensation-filled intuition, the imagination at once activates it and gathers it into a unity of intuitions, a connected inner experience. The categories for this phase are those of the first set, of quantity (unity, plurality, totality) and of quality (reality, negation, limitation). The categories of quantity have the schema of number (8 182), for quantity in time is precisely such ordered succession as is apprehended 39 �in counting. °The apprehensive synthesis may .then be · understood as a connected awareness of the pure manifold of time . and spi;ice, arising in the so1,Jl :'by a kind of original counting. · The principle based on this schema is: appearances are extensive magnitudes. all Extensive magnitudes are precisely . those whose parts lie outside one another so ' that they can be counted. This principle governs the "axioms of intuition". They are called axioms not only because they are the source of the axioms of mathematics (8 204), but also because they apply directly to intuit~ons and are therefore immediately evident, for the intuition is the place of evidence; what is "intuitive" is patent to inner sight (8 762). The combining activity is now complete. There is no additional synt~esis, :·;· but there is one more set of categories, those of quality, which make it possible for the synthetic structure to be filled with sensation. · is that of degree Ef reality (8 182). Their schema "Reality" is that which corresponds to sense impressions, that in our consciousness which convinces us that we against something alien of a definite sort; a "real" object. a~e up "Degree" is the quantity of influence which the outside exerts, a quantity not &uccessively accumulated but all there at once as an intensity of awareness.· The principle . ' i is: I in all appearances the real which is an object of sensation has an intensive magnitude, that is, a degree (8 207). "anticipations of perception". The corresponding judgments are called They are anticipations because of the remarkable .fact that we can know!!. priori one aspect of something which by its .very nature we must wait for and receive !!. posteriori, namely sensation~ For example, when I come on a body in the dark I can anticipate that its coloration will have some degree of intensity although I can say nothing about its particular color before I see it. "Perception" is empirical awareness, that is, consciousness attended by sensation. Sense perception therefore stands at the opposite extreme 40 �of pure apperception; but it is to the former alone that the name "perception" (and Kant's German word "Wahrnehmung") properly applies, for it signifies not an activity but a passive "taking in" (attended · b~ awareness), corresponding ta the unpredictable givenness of sensation. This is the threefold synthesis given in the order of transcendental priority: the apprehensive synthesis pre-supposes the imaginative synthesis as a condition, and the latter, in turn, depends on the intellectual synthesis (A 121-122). Each of these transcendental aspects can now appear in time as stages of empirical knowledge, namely knowledge which is 11 a posteriori", or subsequent to, experience and which uses what is adventitiously given. However, the faculties come into empirical use in an order of imu1ediacy which is the inverse of the transcendental priority: In the learning process of children for instance, sense perception precedes empirical thinking and the latter, the power of making objective judgments, precedes full self-consciousness (l~nthropology c~itical I, 1). Hence arise the various versions of the universal pre- illusion which took the child's course far the human way, and regarded truth as somehow given 1E, rather than constituted ~the soul. To recapitulate the empirical syntheses in the order of temporal priority: When possible experiences are, so to speak, activated, the empirical self first becomes conscious of the synthesis of apprehension as a scanning process consisting of a succession of instantaneous views by which it takes hold of the manifold spatial scene and the sensations it brings with it; this means quickly running over and picking up a series of aspects, for instance, of a house, including its dimensions and colors, ta obtain a synopsis (A 97) of the accessible whale. The synthesis of the productive imagination appears as memory in which past representations, connected by association, are related to the present self, so that it can encompass stretches of time; Kant calls this process imaginative 11 ~production" 41 (A 100). Finally . the intellectual ' �. synthesis, the source of cognition, has its empirical counterpart in our ordinary thinking process in which we scan our representations far what Kant calls a "!£c6gnition" (A103) of their affinity. But such recognition is precisely the proces s of forming concepts on the basis of experience (B 134 n.). ~nd so we.have fina l ly come to actual empirical thinking, which is the temporal beginning of all our knowledge, though not, as we learn on the first page of the Critique (A 1), its source. Empirical thinl.ing is now fully grounded and we have come down to the point where the first problems with which the C!'itigue begins can arise. now we must ask: Wh;L_ did Kant undertake this great grounding enterprise in the course of which the critical man arose? certainty of sciencE? themselves. Was it really to secure the But that was assumed to begin with by the problems Perhaps it is not the certainty but the significance of the new science which is at stake. ~ri tigue And c:;nswers is ; If thot is so, the ultimate question which the "What is nature to us that 1i1e should need to know her?" This is the very question whose answer Kant emphasizes in a short addition he made in the second edition to the end of the section from which this s ynthetic presentation is reconstructed, the Tran_s,c.erid.,ef!.t p l ~n-~~..Y.:P_c. This brings us to ~2. The Meaning Our inner sense is the sense of senses (8 50), but, as the steady unchanging form of our flowing inner appearance, as ~ime, it does not itself appear (8 219). Our one-dimensional temporal self, ever slipping away, is by itself incapable of duration; measurEd time, detc~1inate durations, can appear only against m empirical representation ot' permanence. ;0 Ksnt remc:irks how empty a science pure psychology mus t evor bs since in its singl o dimEnsion that which makes ;; science scientific , ths use of mathematics, is 42 im rP ~ sibl8 (A 381 ff; �Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, Intro.). appearance is needed. For that a substantial The metaphysical place of "phenomenal substances" is outer sense (8 291 ff.). The form in which we intui. otherness is that of t externality, of three-dimensional space. It is crucial to understand that things are not "outside" us because they have a place within space but that they appear spatially because they appear in that sense which is receptive to othernes~ (A 385). Nowhere does critical self-knowledge demand a more dizzying revolution than in making us aware that we do not look out into the outside because it is in itself and absolutely there (A 375), but that our seeing is altogether an inner capacity for receiving unshaped sensations in a spatial form (A 370), for we have the satisfying uncritical illusion that appearances come to us of sight. .f!:E!!!. things through our organs of sense, particularly Our outer sensibility is no such organ but more like Newton's divine sensorium (Optics, Quest. 31) in which the whole spatial world is at once and present !£God, as h:iS self-created representation. iu. The critical man is just such a divinity; a connection of which Kant shows himself aware in the work which is the precursor of the Critique (On World 23). ~Sensible ~ Intelligible Kant's formulaic description, which draws attention to the full force of his revolution, is that space is empirically ~, for it contains intimations of an outer reality in the form of definite given appearances, but transcendentally ideal (8 44), . for it is a mere idea and, apart from being a form of knowing, a nothing of thought. Appearances in space have therefore a certain structure merely by reason of the spatial form which received them, first of all, of course, their three dimensions (8 41), a structure seen in its pure form in the mathematical objects which the understanding functioning with concepts such as "three-sided rectilinear figure" may "construct" in the intuition (8 741 ff.). And this solidifying dimensionality of space, though 43 �not the source, is yet the condition of possibility of a matter anchored in the three extensions of space and pennanent in quantity, and therefore capable. of appearing as a substance underlying all changes 1n state. · The system of all . . such permanent things with their alterations, with their relations of c£Lsality and community is, as we have seen, precisely what Kant calls nature (P 16, 8 263), while its delimitable parts, the things or objects of nature, have the name of bodies. (A 106). Bodies alone furnish us with that pennanence against which we can measure our own duration and flux; bodies, again, teach us all we can know of cause and community; !!:!_nature (8 276). alone . ~~ ourselves Nor ought this to be very surprising, since pure nature herself was constituted by the transcendental I functioning within itself, and is therefore nothing but the diversifying mirror of its unity. Kant significantly uses the same language in describing both the transcendental I and body , as p8rmanent appearing substance, for he calls both the steady correlate of all my appearances (A 123, 183). So also the thin, flowing, appearing I seeks to find itself in extensive solidity (A 381). This is why Kant calls not only the transcendental I but also the question concerning nature the "highest point" of the Critique (P 36). The true purpose of the Critique £!:.Pure Reason is therefore not ta guarantee the certainty of science, for this certainty is itself its mast certain assumption, but rather to insure that science be an ever-lasting enterprise in self-knowledge,~ never completed human activity (A 1), in which alone the self can determine itself, can procure for itself the stuff through which it feels itself to exist, the mirror in which it assumes a shape. For the enterprise of metaphysics is shortly to be completed, and thereupon the human desire to know what is beyond nature will have been completely satisfied by being shown its hopelessness • . There remains the 44 �inexhaustible indulgence of our curiosity, insatiable for that experience which alone makes us appear to ourselves (8 255, 334). This ia :tha final significance of Kent's "Copernican Revolution": that men literally and exactly finds himself in the bodies end their motions which constitute nature, that neturel science alone provides a sort of self-knowledge. fDr in studying the world of nature man studies his own creature and image; here he rinds whet he can ~PP.ropriete, because it is his awn.-- In the poethumously published notes for the work on the transition from the metaphysics of nature to physics, which Kant, significantly, regarded as his most important and final achievement, there,occurs an isolatedphrese, revealing and ' ewe-1nspir1ng. It says simply: "I, the proprietor of the world.'' Schriften, Preueeische Akademis, XXl, 45). 45 (Kent's Geeamialta � 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 45 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/. Title A name given to the resource An appreciation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-05 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered in May 1972 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1972-05 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/ef3f7b57808aa8eac5f6a1b0ef5f62ff.pdf a98918a3c590427f4323a4f0b93edb48 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 8 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/. Title A name given to the resource The Venetian Phaedrus Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered in the Spring of 1972 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1972 Relation A related resource The College, July 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/21695765030a399c5d9c38253cc31fad.pdf 4fad9d8e3a98172ea169d93407ced55a PDF Text Text A READlNG OF THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS Eva Brann Expanded Version · Friday ~ight Lecture 1968 �Final text of the addre•• delivered at th• dedication of the c..etery at Gettysburg Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on. thla continent, an• natlon, o-•tv•d'ln. Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all •en ar• created equal. Now we are engaged in a great eivll var, testing whether that nation, or any nation ao oencelved and so dedicated, can lo'ftl endure. We are 118t on a great battle-field of that war~ We hav• coae t• dedicate a portion ef that field, as a ft.na~ reatlng ptaee fer those who here gave their live• that that natien •lght .live. It ls altesether fitting and preper " that ve ehould do thl1. . lut, in a larger aenae, we ean net d•d1oat• ... we oan not consecrate • we ean Mt ball•w • thl1 greund• TM brave •en, llving and dead, who 1trugsled here, have conaeerat•d it, far a"v• e>ur· · poor power te add or detraet. the world will little n.te, nar long re11•ber tlhat we say h•r•, .but it oan never for get 111h.at they did . here, It is for ue the living, rather, to be dedicated her• te the unflnlahed · werk which they whe fought her• nave t:hu1 far •• nobly advanced. It la rather for us te be her• dedlt!ated ~ tlut great task reaaln.ing before ua - that fr•• t1-•• honored dead ve take lncr••••d devotion t• that cauae for vhleh they gave the last fwll ••••ur• of devotion • that we here highly reeelve that th••• dead 1hall n.t have died ln valn • that this ~tlon, under God, ahall have a new birth of (rHdoa • and that geverna•nt of the people, by the p.. ple, fer the peeple, shall net perl1h fro• the earth. Abrah.,. Llnceln Nov•b•r 19, 1863 1. the Speech •• a Whal• It la probably beat to .begin by ebaerving what la aoet ebvlous about thle "Address Delivered at the Dedioatloo of the Cemetery at Gettysburg" (p. 734)* - its brevity. It . oen•i•t• of t•n eentenoes which can be spoken ln a little over two airutea. It la ao short that on the eccaslon of lte delivery in the open air, before a orovd of more than 15,000 people, though the speaker delivered hla wurds •tn a cl•ar, full veloe.• he d to have finished before his voice had really begun t• car~y. •re.. Perhaps this very (ugltive character of the live speech has something to do wtth its enduranae as a piece of pro••· We know that Lincoln meant the speech t• 1urvlv• as a written tut, since h• ht.aaelf prepared ••.v eral copies fer publl•ation, the laat ene over three months after its dellvery.2 · And although Lincoln punctuated thi• 1peech, aa he did allhi.1 epeeohea, in the . .nner of an orator, as it was to be heard (cf. P• 47), using especially ~ . At'th•• Ltnqf~na {brary, 62. *All page references to Lincoln's speeches co• fro• Speechee !ml ·· Writ:iD&•• ed. R. P. Bailer, Uni.versa H.ll �the ce...s of grammar to . .rk th• ~o. .as o~ 1peaker'1 pau1e• of the rhetorle, yet there ta ••••thlng peoµl l.&rly .•1et_ dew• and permanent about lt. · •· · · · · · · · ' , . ' ·· furtheraore we know fro• Llneoln hl•••lf that h• ohee• hie format quite deliberately. Fer he answered _Everett- vh9 had , generously· written t• bi• that "I ahould t>e'"sl•d if . I could flatter •yself that I ca- as near te the central ldeae! the oeea1ion in two hours •• you did in twe •11tut•a" that _ , M•n In our respective p&rtl Y••t•rday. ' ye~ oeul.d net ha-.. exouaed te uke • ahort addre1a, no·r I a leng on• (pa 737) • • •~ • J Edward Everett, whe had been·· both a ~·t•a:ler ~t Gr•'• k •t Harvard and a d:l•t inguiahed atate1un 1 bad been oheaen to be the t1aln apeaker at the dedication as a national ce-tery of th• piece of ground beught by the eight~-.n ~orth~r~ ~tat~e ;wtio had l••t aen at the battles ef Getty1burg. · · Linceln, aa chief. of aiate, bad been invited only two weeka be!ore the · oereuny and £verett had court. .usly sent hi• his own two-hour 's peech, 3. ctoapoaed _ the olaaat.alzing lp , style. for which he vaa famous, ao that Llneoln alsl\t 'aenelder lt in writt.rg hie own (p. 738). We •1ght then ...-otL1neoln'• speech to be oo. 1POa•d aa a eounterpol••- t• Everett•• 1 ln !apt, ln eplte of 1 Li.neoln'a expressed adalrat1on (p~ 737) • . it ." •ett•s to be, a tacit· and tactful repudiation : ef auoh learned rnetoric. : . .' Everett be~ina vitha re!erence ·to th• funeral cere•niee for tJ1e so).dlers of ancient· ·Athene, reporte~ by thuc.ydidee in the ~-e~ond ·book of t-h• PtltRtoDI• ttn ~ (para a. · 35 ff.) , ..-:td end a by quoting Pericles• speech, ·aa Thucydides givee it. Evk"•tt'• speech wae thus intended to be, and wa1 readily reeognlzed •• bet.ng1 ••elass1cal • ln t&ne. In a aal iolous but not totally inept editorial, the Richmond ~9111)1r had said of Everett'• perfor•anc~a •so f&J! the play was strictly classtc•1 and then o! Lincoln's 1peeoh .. To suit the gert•ral public, ·however, a little ad•ixtt.Fe .e f the •re irregular ro•antlc drau was allowed"• the latt;.,•r tena •ight conceivably be applied te a apeeon which, in its reveal.,ns brev i ty, was 11.ke the aerteua obverse of a Llncoln!ai\ anecdotfh . .Here are certain other points in whloh the twe apeeche1 differed. Everett'• waa heavtlydaotylica a stress verelon ' of the Greek epie _ foo~ of. one , long and two short ayllablea appeared eften, , beginrill18 with the first words 1 · ·· - I I .. . ' Standing beneath this serene eky, through phrases Ilk•• " the .. - I . . · . , ' . I ~raves , o! our brethren beneath our feet;, ,., I • · I . . I . . the -eloquent ·Silence of God and Nature, · ., c~ .,.. I I .. I I It was appeil'\ted by law in Athens;· · to the final wordsa �·l~ I I I that whtoh r•latel to the Battles of Gettyaburg. Lincoln's speech, on the other hand, has the prevallina diayllabic pattern, . . stly lamba, ·natural .to sober Engli1h apeeah. So after the two long beats of a grave and 11e>urnful apondee the pattern sets ina I I I I I Four score and seven year• age, and in the last paragraph partioularl~ sequences of laablo penta•eter are dlaoernible. In respect t• diction, Everett'• prose vaa «=la11loal and Latinate, while, lt ha1 been reckoned, Llnoalil on thi1 eccaaion uaed only 32 words of Latin orlgin9 in contrast to . his praotlae vhtll'l addressing a aelfM!t body, for instance, Congreaa; aa ln th• pererat. lon of his Annual Heaaage of 18611 With a relianee on Providence, all th• 110re fir• and earneat,"1et i•:: t · us proceed ln the great task which events have devolved upon · It ".'., (pa 635) e . . us Aa for eettl~, Everett conaeived hie effo~t ae part ef a 11onumental tradlt1.on of aeldler~ funeral oratory. He: ende by ••belliahill8 upon P•rlolea• . .snlloquent saying that •tbe whole earth ls the sepulchre of llluatrloua men.• Lincoln,,ln aontra1t, asslgn1 to the dead neither the earth wlth which he end1 hi• apeeeh, nor th& continent with which he begin•, nor even the battle field on which he dwells in the slddle, but soberly, a aere . .deat •postlon of that field.• So also Everett, beginnlng •• Periclea had, with a reference to the law in Athena, aakes aucb of the am;t.que 1anctlon for such cere•nle1 1 whla!h included an ebllsatory funeral eratlen delivered by an orator chosen for th• purpe1e. Llnoelft• en th• other hand, in hia first draft aaya brusquely, -•thle we aay in all propriety do" (p. 736) 1 intiaating that such dedication• are an indulgence of the livl~, and aoderates this in delivery to a brief statement of co11aon propriety• It ls altosether fitting and proper that we ahould do thl•• (p. 734, cf~ P• 728), . only to go on to call the whole cere11e>ny in questlan1 But 1 in a larger aenae, we can not dedicate - we oan not consecrate - we can not hallaw • this ground. The brave aen, living and dead, who 1truggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power ' to add er detract. Lincoln ls lmplioitly ..klng the aignlficant point that it is !!IS the l~w tn Aaeriaa to have such oaaequles and such speaker1, that honor, particularly for the dead, 11 not an ••tabll1hed publics concern 1n A••rlca. �In content, · what la ••t atriking t.1 that Everett touahe1 on a nwiber of •attere .on whioh_L1neoln has . not one exp11clt word. Everett re!era te the Confederate "lnva1lon11 of Maryland and · Pennsylvania and ceaparea 1t te the Peralan invaai•ft~f G~•eae. Lincoln, en th• ether band, ~d. ln a letter to General Ralleek, specl.fically objeeted t• a phr••• ltke ·11 drlv• ti. invad•i' tr•• our 1011•. uaed by General Meade ln hla order thanklng the aray for the victory at Gettyabur· . Fer, Lincoln. · aaid, "th• male country g is our soil,• alndful ef the faot that th• opponent vae not a fore~ner • .. Hence h• aaye nethin.g of the _ atratestc a1.roW11tamea of" th~ battle credited with ending th• danger of a Colilfederat• occupation ef the North which aake up:.:, the bulk of Everett' a tut, nor . doea he, aa Everett, assign reaponaib111ty fer· .the var, _ tak• up epeciflc conatltutienal queetiona or aention explieitly the fundaaenta} issues of alavery and Unt.on. It 11 worth ••ntlont.ng th.ea• oal1alone, because, as will be shown, in a way they ahape the apeeea. · Thus Linooln preeenta an alt•rnatlve te the olaa9loizlng atyle, an unde110cratle style daalgned, at bttttoa, fqr the secret and eeparate satle!actlon of the speaker and conn.laaeura. Thi• appears aost cleaaly at a _polnt in Which Lincoln in~e · algni!loant contrast with the claaaloal •delatheaaelvea, vi.th Thuaydt.d•• and his Pericles, net by way ot .E:verett'a learned fllter, but 1. .edlatelyt nor aa a etudent of the P9lo~ont1110 !!II: (there ls n. evldence that ,_he was), but as an Aaerican vth an Athenian 1tate1un. Everett•• ·- cholce of aedel had, after all, been an aead••ic, a polltleally bl ind cholcje, fer in the Aurlaan tradition P•rloles 11, of neceaaity, a dubious figure, the leader whO, aa Al•xander Haallton aaya tn ~he sixth F1de;9ll•~· was fer peraonal aottvea · ••Ille co••• aucber •f tha• fa-.ua aM -ta1*al , war._ wbl~h •• •• tenlnated in the · ruin of the Athenian co..,,nw•alth. ~h• prl•lalv• ~ It is only necessary t• cal 1 that var a o1v11 var to sn" that . Perie lea la Lincoln'• - roper antique antagenl8t. The queet~n here la1 hov p do they contrast with respect to political rhetqric1 · The single sentence or th• 1peech wbieh had the greateet eff'9Ct at the tiae and was aoat singled out for anecd(>te and quetatlon (for instance, by the P~iJ1d1lpbi1 Pr•10 Ind Htrptr'• Wtfi\y) vas the follovln~ generou• alsehooda . The world vl,11 little n0t:e, ner long re11e•ber what we aay here; but lt can never forget what they did here. The word In 5UJl was the only word underecered (F1tet Draft, P• 736). this emphasis on the soldlers• deed, LtncQln, of oeurn, _expresses hie senae of urgency in that late fall of 1863, vb.en after the SWiiier battles of Gettysburg, auch to his dlsappointaent~ · expressed in urgent letters to his generals (cf. PP• 711-12, 726-27), there had been only indecisive 11aneuvering ln the eaat. Lincoln _ �felt oppressed by unf1nlshed buslnass and had said that hia speech would be "ehort. short. ahert." the "unflnt.ahed wark." "the gr••t task reraalning before ua• curtail the foraat of the a~ech, and in the precipitous elllpsea of the last sentence, .affeet lta gr-.r. for the sentence lacks all the conneativea here eonjeeturally supplied a · It t.a rather for us to be here d•dt.cated .to the great taak reaalrit.~ before ua •[vhlch aeana] that fro• th••• homred dead we take increased devott.en to that cause fer whioh they .8ave the last full •aaure of devotion - [and] that we here hl~ly resolve that these dead ahall not have ·dlecf t.n valn • [aoJ that this nation, under God, ahallheue • new birth of lreedo• • and that govern111tnt of the people. by the people, for the people, shall not perish fro• the earth• But the 110re significant aspect of Linaoln'a depreciation of "what we say here• can be beat seen by contrast with a correepondlng sentence fro• Perlolea' open1"8• He says! · Moat of •Y predecessors t.n this place· have ee-ended hia who •de this speech part of the law,. telling ua that it ia well that it should be delivered at the burlal o( thoae ·who fall in battle. For •Y••lf, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds, would be auff\,ciently rewarded by honours also ahriwn by deede1 such aa yeu now see in ·this funeral prepared at the people's coat. And I oeuld have ·Wished that the reputations .of many brave •en were net to be i•perllled ln the 11outh ef a alngle individual, to stand or fall aooordlng as he spoke well or 111 (II, 35). the deprecating phrases barely hide Periclea• persuasion that the dead must rely on hi• fer their life in the elty•s aeaory, !•r ho,,ar,n~· that his speech ia worth a battle; as Thucydides thought hls history worth a war. With that, contrast Lincoln'• assertion that the dead are beat honored by their own deeds, that they do theiaaelvee honor, that the task at hand overshadows all ceremony, and hie avoidance of the pronoun "I". · Hore of the rhetorical character of Peri.el.••' apeech le writ large in Plato• s d lalo~ue . Htgrcenu1, in. whieh Spcrate1 . recitee to Menexenus an excruciatingly ~own-up caricature of Pertelea• funeral oratory, which he elai•a to have learned fro• Pericles' hlgh•elaaa whore Aepaeia. It ls essentially a pervers ton of the •noble lte• of the Republt.c (414f .) • For tn it the Athenians are•·teld that they are all autoebt:henoue, deseended fro• those whe sprang fro11 the earth, their aether, and so share equally in a h1gh and heroic lineage (M!poxenue, 237 ff.). By th• prolonged repetttlen,·of i thla and other false facts, erateri, .a11 Socrates deacribea . lt, bewitch our soul•·•••o that even I, Henexenus, when so lauded by the• feel thoroughly noble, and eaeh tlM I stand and listen enthralled and think that I have becoae suddenly �bigger and nobler and Mre handso•e• •• And this exaltation re-ins wlth ae for •ore than three days (235). Nov co•pare a speech in which Lincoln deals with the aatter of traditional colebratl•n•, his Chicago speech of 1858 (p. 401). He calls attention to the natl.en'• rutn•aboriginal nature, ta its beginning 82 years ~gor he calla th• faundera,"aen we clala ae eur fathers and ~randfathers," not hereee, but •tron aen"t he apprevea of the annual celebratien of the ancestral founder• ef eur present prosperity and saya drily that "we go fro• these 11eetinga tn better humour with ourselves.• But · then he stops and r--bera that half the preaent citizens of the country a,re not blood descendants of the founding fathers, and he finds that the true co. .on •rather• of all Amerloana is in fact a declaration of "soral principle,• and through lt all AMerieana are "blood of the 'blood, and !leah of the flesh, of the Nen who wrote that Declaratien" (p. 402). · In Lincoln's rhetoric, then, general prosperity take• the place si~nificant founding act replaces continuity of . habitatlont •nd a peraanent 11eed of sober self-approbatlcm subatitutee for the 'exaltati•n of the days a tradition e! principle euperoedes a llnea~e of blood, And fer all these reasons together, the Aaerioa.n speaker ls net a •aster aani.pulator, but a ftlitlcal t11g~.al'• the only course open to a man Who believed, ind etinct eppea tion to the thesis that •so.e ••n are too isnor•nt, and too ylgloul to share in ~overnment" (p. 279), . · of proud deedst a that n:. aan .ls ~ood enou~h to ether' 1 c1 naent ( p. 304) • ~overn another -n, · wttl]!ut . ~ The Gettysbur~ Address will, accordingly, turn out to be a distlllatlen of Lincoln'• political phiteaophy, which he, . en thle occasion as on many others, atteapted tG infuse tnt,o t;he natien at· lar~e. a nation distingulahed by the !aet th&t its proaperity ."hae a philesophical cause" (p. 513). It is !or this reas. n that the vrltt•n o versions of the apeeeh have no foraal ealutat ten. - it la addressed to all citizens. And the brevity that aade its ten sentenc•e at the . ti•• so fugitive in the hearing, aake them a "peraanent peea•••lon• , ln later readings. For because ef it the speech is readily learned by heart, and la, ln fact, learned by ·heart by aany aehool children. But that ••ans that it aay aucoeed in lodging in the ~t in the fora of seund sentl11ent, e! "virtue and v1~1lance" (p~fh, theee very propoeltlons, essential to the national life, which are too difficult - and perhaps too dubleus - to be continually kept in !!.lm!• Lincoln reco~nized that . . In this age, in this country, public sentlaent ls everything, since in A•erica si~nlfloant political action depends entirely on such sentl•ent. Consequently, as a republioan stateeaan, he aade lt his continual rhetorical task t• guide it,- that i1, te ••nvert the founding doauaents' sound principles. into the ot.ti&•n•' sober passion, in unoensclous accO'rdance wlth Monteaquieu•a advice in the §piri!= ~.ll the L!n• For he says in the chapter "Of Educatien in a �-7Republlcan Governaent" that the ~ullar republican virtue, •teve of the laws and of our country,• requtr•• a kt.nd ef aelf•renunolation., a "constant preference of public to private lnterest," and that "to inspire it ought to be the principal business of educatien" (II,S). But such love of things public la precisely the product of propeaition transforaed int• sent1aental Llnoeln'• rhetarlc la ba••d en the conversion of politlc•l principle into "aoral sentlaent" (p. 401). ••Y•• · Thus Lincoln, who deprecates what ht aust •ke every word i>nl8n&nt with a werld of -•nlng, a~ hia eonte.porarlea reoo~nized that he did just that. Th• Spr\ng!lfld Rfpubllean ce~nteda Hts little speech ts a perfect g. . a deep ln feeling, coapact ln thought and expreaalen, and tasteful and .elegant in every word and eo...... Turn ba~k and read it over, it wlll repay atudy as a 1t0del apeeeh. Strong feelings and a large brain were · its parents - a little palnataklr« lta tccoucl\§y[• •ad• The be~innlng of suctiatudy ls beat with a acanning of the whole, which will brlng out the g~and fraaevork of this little speech• · In time it spans the past ("Feur score and seven years ago"), the present ("Now we are engaged in a great civil war") and the future ("this natlen ••• ahall have a new birth of freedoa"), ¥hil• in apace it coraprtaes the battle ground, on which it ls delivered (aiddle sentences), the continent on which the nation was ~rn (first sentencE and the earth which it ls to aave (last sentence). · 11. The First Paragraph Linaeln- begln•• Four scere and seven yea~s ago ••• "Four score," vi.th its long •h's, repeated in several assonancea, and the first of 11any alliteratlena, sounds a abre mourttful and solemn ·, note than the wards "eighty-seven years," but th• choice of the phrase is not only a J1Atter of sound1 it also carries a · speclal iuant.ng. It ta· the language of the Btble, as in Psal11 90, 101 The days 'o f our years are threeacGre · yeara and tena and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is th•ir strength labour and sorrow.a for it is soon out off, and we fly away • . With the psala in mind ·the phrase ••ane- jus~ beyond the .ae•ry of 1 anyone new alive, too long ago for living lleaGry. Now ve know that from youth on Lincoln was concerned with a peculiarly Aaerlcan dangers the death of sound political passion. In hie speech on "The Perpetuati•n of our Political lnetltutlons" of 1838,s Llnceln drew a clear parallel with the early cofllltlnlty e! Christians, whose danger lay ln the fact that the first generation of disciples and eye• witnesses was followed by a second which had only heard by word of �-8- mouth, by a third which had begun only to have read of Christ, and a fourth which had begun t• fer~et. So in the Aaerican co11munityi the ecenes of the revolution J2.! so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they _,,the generation juat gone to r••t (p. 84). CtQDlt ..r. The ••n who had seen the Revolution, who were its "l tving history•• are now genes They were the pillars. o! the temple of llberty1 and now, that they have cruabled away, that teaple 11ust fall, unless ve, thelr deseendanta, .supply their places with other pillars, hewn fro• the aolld quarry of s&ber r~ason (p. 84). The danger that the enthuslaa11s of the Revelutlon aight beco11e mere myths .has advaneed to a fact in 1863, the ti•• of the fourth generation fro• that eventa the national edifice has to be rebuilt "fro11 the solid quarry of sober reason." This la the age for a deliberate 11ining of the ft.rat aceounte, for rereadl~ ·the founding docuraents·. Se, then "Feur 1oore and seven years ago" points to that quarry, that alne, ef reasen. Subtract .87 fr•• 1863 and the result 18 1776. Lincoln cen1idera that th~l natt.gn was both conceived l~ and born with . the Declaration .2! ln1'pt_enc§• ·· on July 7, 1863, in response to a serenade en the eccas ctn o the . victory of Gettysburg. under the influence cf the providential coincidence that both the victories of that battler . and Vicksburg had been announced on the Fourth or July, and that Jefferson and John Ada11s had both dled on that day, he had said1 How long ago ls it • eighty odd years • since -on the Fourth . of July for the first tl•• in the history of the world a natien by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self· evident truth that "all 11en are created equal•• That was the birthday of the United States of America (P• 709) • ... And in earlier speeches he had often counted back the et'ghty or eighty•two years to 1776 (pp. 39!, 393)• In repeatedly fixing on the signing of the Declaration as a crucial date, Lincoln ls making a deliberate pelltieal judgment concerning the 'hierarehy of founding events, different for instance fro11 the of Toombs of Georgia who · had begun a speech ln 1850 in this waya Sixty years ago our Cathers joined together to form a more perfect Union. and to establish justice ••• (of. P• 216), refe.-ring the foun<1log Sl[ ~republic to 1790 (the date when the las~ ­ ori8lna1 , state ratified the Constitution), and quoting frora its Preaable. Lincoln's veraien ~ives rather the birth .2.{ Sh!! nation. �- q .. He goes on~ ••• our fathers brought 'fbrth on this continent, a new natlon, conceived ln Liberty, and dedicated to the propoeltlon that all men are created equal. The "fathers" - he calls them fathers, although they are only forefathers, to bring the Revolutlon close - are a very deflnlte group of men. In another context he had said• I suppose the "t:hirty-nine" who st.gned the original instrrn..nt (here the Constltutiona.ay bf!' fairly called our fathers who t'r••d that part of th• fresent Governaent (p. 517). In this speech, then, "our fathers" must be those men, tn .part identical vlth the signers of the Constitution (p. 305), who devlsed and signed the Declaration, ~specially Jefferson. · · . .. These men "brought forth"• thts is again Biblical dlctiona ' the phrase ls used, for tnstance, . ln ~ 1, 31 in the annunciation of the Messiah's birth. They •brought forth on this continent" (all . versions but the last two had "upon•) L ther.e are undertones here of "begot upon the body of this land,• "fathered on thla .fallQv contlnent a1 aother•a the child nation ts safe tn the ' lap of a whole continent, capable ef protecting it from foreign: interference and o! providing those unlimited riches whlch are ita material condltlon. The new nation was •conceived ln Liberty• ("liberty" being the only noun capital lzed beald,,.~, "God") 1 not conceived in love aa are blessed children, but conc,lVed in the love of liberty as are bleased nations \Cf• P• 315)~ Thus the ~gettirut of this nation was a begetting of reason (so. also "bringing f'orth" can mean · "uttering reasons," cf. 11111!} 41.21), primarily a male acta as in Aeschylus• &U!!ent.deo the begetting of the wisdom of Athens, the conception of Athena, is exclusively male (1. 736)1 America ls a fatherland, not a Henexenean aotherland, and this lend' Lincoln's •patriotis111• a special cast. Upon this conception, thtJ nationchild vaa dedicated to a proposition as in a baptism. The proposition, "that all men are created e.ual," was tn quot,tion marks ln the first draft (p. 735) since it com.ra. from the second paragr4ph of the · Declaration of Independence. · I! these are the tmplications of the first, and shortest, of the three paragraphs of increasing length, what ts its sign1flcance7 Consider ftret the continent, the first Qf a nation's three parts, which are "its territory, its people, •nd its lava" (p. 676). The second Federal1et says Thia country and this people seem to have been made for each other ••• �-10- De Tocqueville makes the s&11e point of the United States1 ••• God hlaself gave the11 the 11eans of remaining equal and free, placing the11 upon a boundless continent, ••• (De10s;racy !n A11eric1, I, xvii). · by Lincoln too, especi-ally in hia ·Annual Messages to Congress, spoke . almost with awe of the continent, "the ever-enduring part" of the nation, whose riches give llb~rty an object, whGae 1.11pregnability fosters an unlnvidious patrl~tls11-, and whose integrity makes secession a chlmaerae Physically speaking, we cannot separate (1861, P• 586) ••• the land we inhabit ••• would, ere lo~, force reunion, however auoh blood and t;reasure the s•paratio!l might have cost (1A62, P• 679). Such a contl~nt makes the fittest ground for a aeed of principle, for a continental spac• is needed te safeguard the first e11bodt11ent of the deaGeratlc ldea. Next• What of the blrthdate of 17767 Censonant . with the second Fedgallst, Lincoln held that the Declaratlcan of Independ•nce ·was . ~~te- by the Union, for~ally established by the Arti~les of Assoc atian 1774, and was ft~~ceeded by the establishment of the Constitution in 1787 (p. 5~. This sequence was of the greatest stgniflcance, for 1.t ·aeant - that the nation's birth was a birth of principle, whose issue was •ads peaslble by the ali~htly . antecedent union of the people, and whose nature was kept safe by allowing the practical . lnstruaent of its life to wait on its conception. · Thus, usln~ phrases borrowed fro• Proverbs 25,11, Lincoln, wrote of the principle .. Liberty to all" as expressed in t:he Declaration• · The assertion of that principle, at .tl!!£ ,.t.111§., was the word .. fltly eppktn .. which has proved an "apple--orgold .. t;o us. The Union and the Constituti•n are the pictut:s! of §ilver, subsequently fraaed around tt ,(p. 513). Herf! "subsequently .. 11t1st, ln the case of the Union, mean not later in tiMe, but in pelltlcal priority. Lincoln. then, held the Declaration ta be far more than a declaration ef independence (cf. PP• 574, 577), and lndeed, it would in that case have been a peculiar docuaent to cite in a war to. fight secessi•n• But 1.t 1§. llUCh mores for its wri.ter, Jefferson, had the coolness, t:orecast and capacity to lntroduce 1.nto a Merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, ••• (p. 489)1 and lt is precisely 'by the o•lssion of this truth that the various ' "merely revolutlenary .. Declarations of Independence adopted by the Union's adversaries are characterized (p. 607). And so Llnceln eaysa �J have never had a feeltng polltlcal.ly that did not sprlng frofti the eentlraente embodied in the Declarat.lon of Independence.,. It wan not the 11ere 11atter of the separat \.on of th" Co lonles fro11 the •otherland1 but that sentiment ln th• D•clar.atlon of Independence whlch ~ave 1 t.berty, not alone to the peopla of thl ; ; country, but~I hop~, to the world, for all future time (Adores~ 10 ~Jl~1J11en!"t1nc,; ll!ll, 186 l, P• 577, cf. PP- 362, 513). Now what l8 of pt·lme lmportance ln the speech ls Wu! these pr lnc lplft~, which mark the tru.t beg hmlng of the nation, are hel d . tincqln denomlnatf!~ t h ers "concrp'lgn§'" nnd "Q!oposi~12n~." In the Of!claratt.on the fftthers hact he rl that they were "ltelf-~vid11a.nt Truths .; So11ftthln~ hae happened between the foundln~ and the present: which forc~u Llncoln to c4ll the axi.011s o! the Declaration mere proposltlo n Th la le 'fhllt had happened 1 tpe Declarat: ton had been cal led ln publ lo. 11 a aelf·evlchmt l le, .. a phrase Lincoln often clted with rfl!pu~nanoe (pp • . '314, 331, 489, cf, P• 275), for i.t qreates a f a tal sltu11tlon1 One would ~tart wlth great conf 1.dence that he coulo convlnc any sane chlld that the et11pler proposi.tlons of Euclid are trueJ but neverthole~se he would fall, utterly, wlth one who should deny tho de!tnltiona anc1 axioms. The pri.nciples cf Jefferson Are the de!inltione •nd axi.01110 of free soctety (p!. 489). That Llncutn hac'I 11ade a epecial effort to study t~xte concerned with . itnrt to ponder the natUJ;e of, axt.or1att.c sel!·evtdence and logical conaequeno• is k.nown. In hls short autoblo~raphy he particularly nientiQne that he had "studt.ed &nd nearlv 11astered the six books of F.:uclld tttnce he wae a me1'1lber of' Co~res; .. (p. 549). He understood that melf~evldence le a peculiarly delicate affair. since once impugned, one~ only dented in publtci · a,self•evtdent truth turns lnto a debatable proposition. Yet as the axtom, precisely by reason <>f lts eel!•evldence. was unprovable, so the . proposition has no · rational proof from hi,gher prtnclples, but can be verified only fro~ its consequences or • draadful prospect - from the fatal consequences of ite oontrary. !hie, then, ts the peculiar danger or a natlon which lives on a tradition of expl{clt prl~ctple rather than of ingrained myth, • prlnclple afflr~ed at its very beginning in one event: whose impact no later ones, wlth l:he unhappy exception of 1Jo11n catastrophe, ce.n match· that it grows blind to the selfevldence of lts conceptiona untll a catastrophe opens lts eyes. And now, what.,more precisely, are these principles whose s tandi r has changed? In the words of the Declaratlon they are1 that all M~n are preated equal, that thoy are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rlghts, that among these are Llfe, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Bere equality of creation, equality before God, precedes, and ls the condltlon of, the other rl~hts, of whlch only some are named. One etrlkln~ o~teslon ls of positive importance, slnce wlthout lt Ltncoln could scarcely have cited thls document ln that year which had be~un, ln the Emanclpatlon Proclamation of January · t, lR63, with what was ~dmitteoly a destruction of the property of many Americans ·1. ·.· �-12- (p. 6At). In Leok•'• teeurrent f•raula .. ll!e, liberty and preperty (or eG.. •qulvalent fer l••t• ni. Itt•t~lf .It C1Y.1l ~'!.!,nuot• ••8• par••· 123, 11,, lli),• •r•en•~ 1ubitltiited ?Or prepert:y .,the Purault ef ff•J>plne11, • l••vlns the , erl9lnal p"ra•e to be pt.oked up in the Con1tltutten (p. 524). Exoept fer thi• sub•tltutlen th• Deelaratlen -.euld b.ardly have been •• t• the heart ef Lt.nceln, wtMI r ...•bered wt.th apprnval th• 11 S•J•?f cl••• that ttw Je!feraon party were foraed upon it• ~UP'8••<t 1upet:'ler devetlen t• the peraenal rtfht• ef aen, holding th• rl1hi• •f property te be eecendary en y, and a•••tly t.nferl•~•·•• (p. •&&). But a ••••nt v•r dead epeelfleally • r • reuin, th• ef natlenal erisle and t~• ee•••lGn •f ••••... rating lt 1earoely an eppertune tl•• te ·dwell en the per1onal rlgftts te life and th• pursult ef happlne••• eut et: th• Deelaratlon, tir•t equality •nd then libert1• Nov Llneeln ••••• in thl1 epeech ta reverae tht1 erder in setting l 1berty as th• orla1M1 ··oe'n.eeptlen, •• he had befere tented "Liberty to all," ~ principle of the Deelaratien (p. 513). Jut el eevhere he 1aya a · · 1 I believe that the deolaratienthat "all "'fin are created equal" l• the gr••~ ('und1••nt:al prlnaipl• upon vhlch eur f9M t i.Qtih.~~l- . i"••~ "f ~ 1 ·479) I . l.t le tha feundt.ng prinelple to be kept: tn vlev, !er ln1t•na•, when the terrlteriea pa1a eut ef a state ef nature and the !•undatiena of aeeiety are latd. What do•• Llneeln censider t:• be the real relatton •f these twe prlnclple•? De Tequev1ll• lri th• ohapter inquiri"' .. Whr10. . .oratie Natlana Shew a More Ardent and Enduring Leve o! lqual tty than •! Liberty•. (n. .1yr11y in AMtlll• II, ii, t) een1lder1 lt.berty and equality two d v•r•• aM in •P•ndent thtng1 1 ef vhloh equality pertain• pri-rlly ta th• •••lat, liberty t:e the pelltlcal sphere. Yet he ad•lta that ultl..tely, radlaally, ceneldered the t"t are what weuld be called tn legtoal ter•a •co•..naurately unlveri,t,• that 11, they i•ply eaoh other• · It la pe•alble t• l••8ine freedom and equallty veuld •••t an I extre•e polnt at which and blend. Lincoln take• exactly tht.a '*extr•••" .ul•• · '.ff8, bbit11-'111"r'i1•t• eut hl1 underatandlng of the prlna1ple ef equal1ty with respect t• the alavery que1tlen, whlch would appear to be prt.aarlly a queatlen of 11berty • On the ether hand, ...h•. lnt~rprete equal lty ef ereat; ion t:• -•n •r•ol••lY the .PO•••••l•n'ef 11 unallena-le rlght•"• chief wh1eh le peilltt.eal liberty. The Deolarat:1en. alttwugh by ne aeana declaring •en equal J.n Ill [!lltct1, ••Iii �- 11- At the Srime time> true t:o the openness_ deman<ted by the prtnc.i.ples he usually abstains from the rhetorlcal compulsion of specific pleas, these sentences of his .last public address, deallng with~ burning problem of the moment, are typlcal1 In the Annual Message of Dec. 1863 and accompanylng Proclamatlon, I pre~enterl ~ plan of re-constructlon (as the phrase goes) which, I proml!ied, if adopted by any State,- should be acceptable to, and sustalned by, : the Executive gov.e rnment of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which mi5ht: possibly be Rcceptablea ••• (p. 797). · Instead of att~mptinp, to compel the people t:il ·a co1:itse deduced . dogmatically, in the manner of an ideoloe,tst:, h~ presented in the words of the London Spectator, A poli.tlcal transparency, ln which the nation could see an lndivldual character of great power working out the problems set before them all ••• He manages to make these problems supremely absorbing, and he does it by making almost every speech an interpretation of the founding documents, in whlch he reveals at once their inexhaustible radical t.ty and their enduring applicability - by g.lvlng ,Americans a secular complement to the Scriptures (p. 84). With respect to the promissory character of democratic principles, Lincoln 1mder:scores lt by projecting the . growth of the past into the futures There are already among us those, who, if the Union be preserved, wl 11 l lve to see lt contain two hun<1re<1 ann fifty mll 1 ions. The struggle of today, ls not altoP-eth~r for t.oday .. it ls for a vast future also (p. 635, cf, PP• 681, 75f1). The present is thus understood as being the sponsor of the futures yet the future · ts, 1.n turn, nothing but t[le magntftcation of the past (cf. p• 656). But polttlcally the American past ls of a. pecullar sorta it ts not an extensive, unbroken tradition but t:he memory of a s1.ngle, lntense event - just as a fabric of reason beg.1.ns with a principle from whlch lt is derived, so the history of democracy beglns with the Revolutlon. Lincoln intends to assure that that beelnntng ls present to the futur", that that event remains the tradltion which governs the future. For the prlnciples of the fathers are, by their \lery nature, the r.oot of the future insofar as it ls good. An<l finally, wlth respect to the passive and incurious mode in which the democratic principles of equality and liberty tend to be accepted, it is significant that Lincoln himself never attempts to raise the question of their truth, nor even .to supply a defl.nl.tion, exc.ept in extremely slmple, and negative terms. So he says, �-14- state of nature exists, Cengreae. with the aid ef that "standard •axia for free society" (p. l61), the principle of equall.ty, 11 laya tbe foundations ef society" (p. 479) • pelltlca precedes eeciety, not the reverse (p • . 279). Thua, since 1001.ety ls 1ria~qallf based on pell.ti.cal pri.neiplea, which .theaaelves nave a -r• and, finally, a rtl\g11u1 basia, Aaerican lite depends ulttaately en a higher source. And ••• by his reference to the principlet ef equallty, Lino•ln realnda the natl•n which laeka the earth-born equality of coa•n · blrth, teuted for Athena t.n the Her•QUI• ef a coamn high . paternal origins it la a natien equal •un er God." III. the Second Paragraph Now we are enga$ed in a great ctvll war, testing whether that nation, or •ny natten so conceived and .so dedicated, can long endure. In hie •iddle paragraph Llnooln passes fre• "four acere and aev&n years age• and •our fathers" to "nev" and "we•, fro• the Aeneratl•n of the Rev•lution to the generation ef the ' Rebellion, ef the "great civil war", which, ln its enor11lty, he had in the·daya •f the victory ef Gettysburg teraed, in Hiltonlc language, a "stgantlc Rebell ton .. (p. 709, ala• P• 702). Indeed there was to hi• aeaetht.~ ef the .Fall ln the wanten destructien ef our national fabric, with all its benefits, tta 11e11ories and its hopes, •••• Will you hazard ao desperate• step, ••• while the eert·a1n ills you fly t•, are greater than all the real enes yeu fly fre11? (First Inaugural Addreaa, P• 584) Yet in that very a,..eoh Lineoln aaintained the right of revolution (p. 587), whleh he had already aaaerted in the House as a "sacred right" during the war with Mexico, in a speeeh attacki~ the President fer waging, without. consulting Congress, a leng, aggressive and 1..,ral var (p. 209). · But, he aalntat.nec:t,11 the actl•n of the seuthern st•t•• was not revolution, er aecessien, but "rebellion" (p. 602), · · Why was it net seceaslon7 The word, he declared to Congress, i11plles the legality of states leaving the Unien as statea. But, he had said, I. hold, that ln conte•plation of universal law• and ef theCanetltuti.on, . tpe Union of these States 1s perpetual (p. 582)~ This ls · because the Union represents the fundamental social caapact1 aa Locke says in Ihe S~con!! treatise 2f Ctvtl Goverm1ent1 That which ..akes the coaaunity and brings aan out ef the loose state of nature lrito one politic aociety ts the agreeaent which �everybody has with the rest to incorporate and act as one body, and s.o to be one dlsti.nct commonwealth. The usual an.d almc~t only way whereby t:hl9 union ts dissolved is the inroad of for\.'ign force making a conquest upon them ••• (para. 21 t, of, 243). Secession of any sort therefore does violence to pollt:lcal society itself and ts simply insupportable. But formally lt was a theory of statehood .which allowed Lincoln to maintai.n the absolute p..,rpet:ulty of the Union, a theory which again turned about the date and wordi~ of the Declaration of Independence.. He observed that that document first declared the "united Colonies" "free and independent st:at:es" (p. 603), so that the Union, whlch had preceded independence. hlid certainly preceded statehood. Accordingly he denied that the new Confederacy was right ln claiming that the Art i.cles of Coo.federat: ion adopted by Congress in the year af'ter the Declaration, .according to which MEach state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independencett (Art. II), repreeented a kind of prototype pertod, a state of nature ~ so to speak, for the States, in which thelr original sovereignty · dlsplayed itself. For the Union, having prec~ded the Declaration, . !! fortiori preceded any organic law, as shown by the Preamble of tht: Constitution. which speaks merely of ·establishing " a ~ perfect Unton"' (p. 582). The states had never existed 11 out of" the Uni.on, . but had entered it, insofar as they were entitles at all, only as colonies, or, if territories, from the state of nature' (p. 479)1 Our States have neither 11ore nor less. power than that reserved them in the Union by the Constitution - no one of them ever · having been a state out of the Uniona The orlglnal ones passed into the Union even ~fore they cast off thelr lirltlsh colonlal dependence, ••• ,. The new ones only took the designs.ti.on of States on comtng into the Union, while that name '-ra.s f tr st adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independe < : •••• Having never been States, either in substanc~ 'or in name, outside of t:he Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights", asserting a claim of power to !awfully destroy the Union ltself7 (pp. 603·604. cf. P• 572) • .... " Hence the assumption of the states• power of lawful witttdi:awal ~as a "sophlsm" (p. 603).. Lincoln's term "civil war", i.11pl'les precls~ly the denial of the Confederate view, that it is a "war between the States.• · ' This 1s only apparently an appeal to•er~ dates. · Here history, ln the providential course lt . seeras to run on this continent, dlsplay the nature of the case, for the Unlon comes naturally before the states, b~ing the ground and guarantor of that popular goverl'l.lll,ent which is the incarnation of the founding principles. Thi~ le . expres$ed in its instrument, the Constitution, in two places. Fire ·~.: ln its Preample1 the very phrase, .. We, the people", le meant to ind lcate t,hat only a unlted people, ·speaking in it:e own voice, can sanction republican fundamental law - as Lincoln had pointed out, it: had been precisely this phrase which was altered in the new ,southern �-16document to •we, the deputl•• of the sovereign and independent States•, in aeoerdance with the fact that the new Deelarat1ona had. omitted the words -all ..n are ereated eqwa1.• •Why thla dellberata preaalng eut •f vtew th• rlghta of •en and the authertty ef the pectple7• he ••k• (p. 607). seoendly ln lte bodya the Cenatitutlon provides that "The Unlted St:atea ahall guarantee to every atate ln the Union a republican fora of gever1t11ent• (Art. IV, Sec. 4), •• that if a atato ••Y lawfully g~ out of the Union, having done so, lt uy alee dlseard the relf)Ubllcan for• of Gevern11ont1••• (p. 608, ef, P• 740) • · the Union is reapenalblle not eniy for th• eatabliahaent but al10 for pervasiven••• of republican institution•• But «le T•equev111e ••Y•• Th• •overetgnty ef the Union la an abatract beln.l•••t the sovereignty of the atatea if perceetibla by tho eaally understood, and constantly active {DtlJllC[ICY !D Aurtc1, l, xvltl } , ••n•••• Lincoln's effort ia, without detriment to tho dl1tlnctlveneaa of the states (p. 446), to turn this abstraction into a palpat.le feeling, as 11Uch •• anywhere ln thla speech, ln which out of tactful respect for the fact that .it is a natlerual but not a federal cemetery which is being dedicated, the w.rd "Union• never appears. Now the right ef aeceeaion being rejected, what happens to the right of revelutlen? Lincoln thinks on thi• crucial matter as a radical conservative. That le, when charged with revolutionary vieva he protest• his eeneervatlaa'i What la conservatiaa? ls it net adherence to the old and trl•d• against the new and untried? We stick to, eentend !or, the · identical old policy on the point in controversy which w~s adopted by •our fathers who fra11ed the govermaent ·under which we llve" (p. 528), . · but alnce the controversy referred to is the extension of alavery, which Llnceln opJ>Gsed with all hls ai.ght, his v"ry opposition to change t.1 made in the spirit of the Revolution. ' In other wrda, in this country, whose original government vae cenatituted by revolution, the aoat pregreaaiv• side tries most faithfully to return to the beginnings, so that even innovations are aade in a context of rational arguMent with the fathers (p. 525). It haa once and !or all preeapted the Revolution, embodied in the process of change by majority decision, so t~t henceforth all rebellion is counter- · revolution • . In a well-f11unded pol tty, justice ls almost o•lncident with organic law, and a sense of justice with the intention to preserve it. In practice this means, on the one hand, that bad laws �.. I 7 .. should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they - contlnue 1.n force·, for the sake of exa11ple, they should be religiously observed (p. 81), · even 1.f 1.t is expected that they will be .held unconstitutional (p. 58 ~ and on the other, that no law or decision need become 9• a rule of polit:ical action" (p. 418, cf. p .. 396) until it is judged to harmoniz( with t.he intent ion of the Founders. · The right to revolution does remains however it ls clearly c1rcumscr.ibed, n.nd :tn such tP-rms as to reveal the chief function of the Conatltut'-on in a working democracy c If, by mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a · ~lnorlty c.•f any clearly written constitutional right, le might, tn a moral pob1t of view, justify revolution .. certainly would, if such a !°-ight were a vital one (p. 5'84). The issue mu~t, then, be one of constitutional rlghts dented, or extra-legal action upon i.t constitut~s an upris1ng against the people• So Lincoln says of th~ aecessiqnisttu .These politicians are subt i.l-e and profound on the rlght:B of. mlnoritieB. They are not partial to that power which me.de the Con~t:ltution, and speaka from the preamble. calling 'itself "We, the People_" (p. 606). Thus any sectional or factional uprisif\S, upon a mere feeling of dissent or discuntnet, or ev"n ort a plea of "social just tee", no matter how worthy of sympathy, b~ing dir~cted against that government which ls itself the first living and prospering incarnati.on of the r~volutionary principle, conoucing ~ore essentially to the ends of civil and religtous liberty (p. 76) than any previol!sly known, wi.thout ' vlable alternative, and moreover as Lincoln emphasized, containing the means of lts own a~endmenc wt.thin itself {p. 587)~ ls a catastrophe of a p~culiarly _ allful sort. Llncoln d~cl ined to participate in it even where hla sen•e of jt•stice was completely outraged (p. 3]6). For the man who proposes to abandon such a Government, . would d<.' welt to consider . in deference . to what princ-lple it ls that: he does it' what bette· he i.s likely to get in U:e !l!teach .whether the substltute will 6lve, or be intend~d to give, so much of good to the people? (p. 607). . . The question is thus always, in Lincoln's a<laptat1.on of Hamlet's weighing. of suicide (III, i, 82)• Will you hazard so desperate a step, .... whi.le .the certain llls you fly to, are greater than all the real ones you fly from7 (p. 584). �·18- Thle , v.ar, Lincoln goes on to say., ls a .tJ!.1..k• The oriaia has the nature of a teat, because, aa he had aatd 1.n -iits ..aaage to the Congress vhlch he had called into special session to aeet on that fateful . date e! July .4, at the beginning of the war ln 1861, thla goverruaent ls an experl•enta · · Our pepular govern•ent has often been cal led an experlaent • Two points ln it eur people have already eettled - the auoceaaful t•t•rl19hi~, and th~ eueceaaful 1~11ni•f•{1Dft ef it. one atlll 0 re11a ne • ~. auooeasful 11tifilY'nc1 aga net a foraldable internal . attempt to overthrow 1t (p. . • · . . As a final phase of 4n experiaent the war represents one teat for all cases, a aodel caae of a natl.en established' on expltcit prinoiplea, ln which two rutceasary foundi~ conditions, na•ely the vtade• ef the fathers and the reeeptivity of the contin~nt had been optiaal • lf. this ?14tlon fails then it la de11onatrated that "any natlen• muat fall. Thia ls how the American enterprise had. been underatoed fro• the founding1 lt 1ee11e te have been reserved", says the ft.rat Federal tot 11 to the people of thie country, by their conduct and exaaple, to decide the i11portant question, whether oocletlea of aen are really capable or not, of eetabl iahi"R good govet·!Wetlt fro• reflectlen and choioe ••• , and this very thlng h•d •oved de Tocqueville to write his book (I, xvli9 end). When the Thucydt.dean Pericles calla the whole city "an edueatlen to Greece .. (II, 41)he •eans that Athene 11 the· unique and t.ni•ltable cynosure of the Greeke1 when Lincoln calls the government an experiaent and the present war a teat.1for all natl•n• he offers Amert.ca as a practical poli.tt.cal pattern to the werld. The funda11ental iseue, whlch t.n the course of the war had beoo•e "distinct, staple and inflexible• i1 an lssue which can only be tried by war and decided in victory (p. 787). But how can a war be a teat of anythi.ng? The var vlll, .Llnceln says at lt11 beginntnai, teach th~t when ballots have fat.rly and constitut't.onally decided, there can 6e no succeaa!ul appeal baak te bullet•••• (1861, P• 608). Is Lincoln rutt aelf •contradt.ctory here? How could the suooeasful u1e of bullets tn thi• var preve that there can be ne succeeeful appe•l te bullets in republlca7 Or, lf the argu..ent ia that strength at war ls the converted strength of the ballet box, will it not be necessary to say that every outco•e proves the principle of popular eoverelgnty? Certainly, Lincoln f&und his old "faith that right 11akea might" (e.g., P• · 536) corroborated by the popul.• r aupport the Unlen ' co!Ulanded {pp. 606-7, 764, 786)1 to hi• the solid conservatism of the 11ajortty was a sign of political soundnesa • . But as the war went on �he looked ure often to a higher judge, to .. the God of battles .. of the Revolution (p• 264) ,· who• the theoreticians o! popular governnem: had not been able to aveld invoking. In the Seoon~ Ireatloe g.! Civil Goyer~en;. Locke says, not perhaps with much inner conv1ctlon, but rater driven by the argu. .nt, that where there 1• no judicature on earth te decide eantroveraiea amongst men, God in heaven 11 Judge (par••· 241-242, of. 168). And the Second Inaugural Address (1865) ls a fervent reference to Psalm 19,91 qth• judg••nta of tha Lord, are ttu• and righteoua altegether• (p. 793, of. Letttr ~ A{ G, Qqd111 1. Aprll 4, 1864, Which anticipates · the Inaugura ). . . And in a private ••dtaation on the divine will "net written to be seen of men• in 1862, he ascribes the dlreotlen and the outcn•e of the war entirely te the will of God who uaes the contestants ae his •huraan instruaentalitles" (p. 655, cf. P• 610). While there ls still peaoe, Ged'a juds•ente are ~lven by hie •8Nat tribunal, the A•erlcan people• (Firat Inaugural, P• 587), but ~nee at war, the Almi~hty adjudicates. Frcn• the day Lincoln left for wa·• hington, as Prealdent~e1ect, he did what the A•ertcan people have always expected their fallible fellow citizens who rule the• to do - he co•mitted himself te God, (p. 568), aa the only power htih enough to oversee the tendency •f the whole, and in this spirit he CGnttnued1 I olalm not to have controlled events, but confess that eventa have controlled me. New at the enp of struggle the nation's cenditien la not what either any 11an deviaed, er expected. God alone can clat.11 !2. A, q, H9dge1. April 4, 1864). plainly three y11tars party, or it (LetterI Exactly what the test · was to prove Lincoln had· stated already in his •Perpetuation• speech o! 1838. It was to b~· a practical de•onatratian of the truth of a propositi•n• which had hitherto been cnna1dered, at best no better, than proble11atloal namely, the ~rAtltv 2! A pegple IA gove~n themoelyes (p. 82, cf. P• 1 • "The experiment is successful", he had then added, but as the self• evldence of the axlom · e! equality had begun to fade, se it• practical oonsequence, the gevernaent, was thrown t.n doubt. The more precise forra of. the questlon n.w lsa . ·whether di.scentented indlvlduale, too few in nmnbers to contr•l ad11lnistration. according to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the .pretenses 11ade ln thle case, or on any other pretenses, or arb.ttrarlly, without any pretense. break up their Government, and thus practically put an end to . free goverlll'llent upon the earth •• �-20•ts th•~•· in •11 republtoa, thls inherent and fatal weak"-••T• •Huat a Geverftll8nt, of neoe11lty, be too tor the 11bei:tl•• of lt• own peeple, or Kl!k te •alntaifi?ta evn ex1~teneet• n1ou t•• (p. 598). · That • natien, heir te the •tuM••ental bl•••lna•~ •! th• •falr•et portion of the earth•, lnvulnera~l• t• lnva1l•n• •• ~•11 ••tea fref· gover1111ent, eeuld enly "die by auieide• (pp. 76-77) had lene see1ied plain te Lt.nceln, though at ·the t i - (lRl8) 1'• had tboual\t that thi• internal trlal would take th• fer• of that p•rv•,•l•n of de11c .cracy, whioh he called •ubeeracy•, in vhleh. JtMPl• l.Wt.• vldt1ally forget te ~evern thnaelv••• Nev lt tum1 eut that ln hit century the teat of endurance baa taken th• for11 't elvll war, i n whl<·h a whole a•g•nt of the Mtian refuaea td aubaltl 'i• lte !'.'I t• StY!·~~rtl• t:: . ··~. :-::~ .. Lincoln goee ona We are .•et en a Areat battle•fleld o! that war. But he avoids any particularization of the circu••tancea ef the battle of the great . war 1 iV§tC~.~. tit4 treated that at length. p,re~ . test Lo::·-··.-"·"" -' ··- ·" ,::;: . :... - .~---=a:~..--:r..:::::::.-q:;::.r:;ctr.J•P"' We have colle to dedicate a pertlon of that field, as a · final resting place fer thoae who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It ls altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. A pi.rt of the fi.eld, which had, incidentally, been called Ce•etery Hl11 even before the battle, ls being eet aside as the earthly dom .ln of these newly dead soldier• vhe, ae the father• gave the nat1 .on birth insured lt11 continuing life. IV. The Third Paragraph But in a larger sense we can not dedicate we can net consecrate • we can not hallow • this ground. The third paragraph has features of an incantation, repetition and rhy11e, but it ls a negative incantation. It begins by warding off an 4!rror1 fit and proper though it may be in a narrow sense to comtuct dedication ceremonies, there la danger that the present gem,ration, txhat •we", •ay substitute the redundant rituals of ded~ .catlon, censecrat1on and devotion for dedication in the sense of the fathers, 'that dedication of a piece of ground may take the place of 1:he larger ded'lcation to a proposition called for. by the great war. So one can hear tlhe steady lambs of Lincoln's three-line rhyritng ref'raln perturbed by a warntnge11.phasls on "we 11 • �•21- The brave aen, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add ~r detract. With this sentence Lincoln honors at ol'\ee the Union dead, the Union aurvlvora, and genereualy but tactfully, the enell)', fer the phrase "the brave men, living and dead, who atruggled here", with its intranaitlva. uae ef the verb, applies also . to the other alde of whom about an equal number, 23,000 aen, had died (p. 712). Lincoln, unlike Pericles in speaking to the Greek Athenians, always keepe before hl11 the· terrible fact of the civll war, that Alierlcana are fighting Aaerican1. He aaya not one derogatory werd of the transient enemy a -three weeks after the Addreaa, Lincoln issued a Proclaut;.ien ef Aanesty and Reoonstruction giving tull pardon to all ordinary ct.tizena whe would resuae allegiance to the Unt:on (p. 738 f.). As . always, he ·av•lda 11.aklng dlviaiena, fore Our strife pertains to eurselvea • to the passing generatlens of mens and it can, wlthout convulal•n, be hushed forever with the passing of one generation (p. 679, of. P• 588), 1 and What I deal wt.th ta ~9.9 AIJ'.&! .f9!': malicious deal 11)8 (p. 650) • He goes ona The world will little note, nor long remeaber what we say here, but lt can never forget what they dld here. · as It la. known that Lincoln considered the speech a failure a speken speech, for he h.ad told a friend right after its delivery1 •Lamen, that speech won't ocour. It is a flat fallure and the people are disappointed.• The ea11e thing had happened with respect to hls second moat renowned speech, the Second Inaugural, ·about which he had written to a friend• · I expect the latter ta wear as well as • perhaps befter than • anything I have producedf but I believe it is not ilQlediately popular (p. 794)• In view of Lincoln's correct appraisals of hi& ~peeches, the sentence cannot be regarded as a conunent on the Address1 rather, besides carrying the meaning siven above, it serves as the counterpart of one in his previous Annual Messaget We ~ we are for the we say this (p. 688). Union~ The world will not forget that The state11ent of ai11 has been once and for all made, and now all is concentrated on its mil ltary !9.9.~.!e~..!•~Jlli• t:=,";;:, .. ~ ... __ ...... _ ~· • ••.:.::::.:..• ,; ; .;..:.-:.~~.~:.. ··..:·...~....:;;.. ;;;..,1. ~ ;. ;::-,.-:-..:;~..;.:-:;; =-~:::;,.. : ... And then come the last two sentences, . half the speech in length, wh1.ch develop its expl lcit theme - the second dedtcat\qn. of the �-22· natt.nn, ln this consecrated pl•~· ll!Dt (Lincoln reaoved a fourth .. here" fr•• th• ft.ul veraten), "' " · Tt l• f•r ua the llvtns. rat:her, to be dedlcated here to the un!tnlahed WGrk whloh they vha fou,!ht here hav• thua far so nobly advanced. lt t1 r•ther fer ua to be here dedtcated to the great task r•••lnlng before ua • Practt.cal ly, th• "un!lnlehed work"; .. the great t.a11tk r••alntng before 11 , ta the winning o! thtt W'-1" (ef. Jh 791) • bttt in 1lgnlftcance it . ta ao••tht.~ Ar•ater, tl\e 1ueeeelt!ul .PMl'l•t.en ef the expert.11ent nf ~npular !•v•rn••nt. · tJa - ·;·:,.~.":""'~~~~:~· · :-:.';: .~:. ~~"-~~:-~:!.. · ~~t.: : ." ' ;" :'" .~~·;:.·~ ..;~ .-~-J?-~ .• ~ Th• next two clau1e1 1 ·~•lft in that 1pell•l t.ke .diction which gtvea eucee11\ve cola ldentlcal er n••r-tdentlcal endlnge, give the nat.ure qf thl1 new d8dleatlon1 it •••ns · I that frGa these honered dearl we take lnere&$ed devetlon t• that caua• !ftr whleh the~, ~ave the l•st: ful 1 l'leasure of devothm • th.at we her• hi8hly reaolve that these dead shall nftt have dled tn va1.n .. In invok1"8 the dead, Lt.neoln t.a touohing what ln hla Flrat Inaugural he ttalled the 11)'11tlc ohotc1e er •e•ory;'. atret:chlng fro• every battle•.fi.eld and patriot ~rave, to every 1 lving heart and hearth-etol"tt• •• (p, 5ftA). .. . I 'fe '10 thle hf.It al~lftB the la~U&f';t!t of (!hurch and . legielatlve assemhlye 'fhe dedloat:lon, · the eena•cratt.en, .t h• hat lowing, the .devotion Lt.ncoln i1r••• 1.a ofen a h1.s Rf'ttltch pol ltlcal . sort. He had uried lt .already 1n 1R3R, in "The Perpetuation nf our Polltlcltl Inatltl;ltlons .. , Let rfJv«trence for the lawa.~.becol'le thsJ91\t;1 0 alte11~1on of the natl.ant and let the old"!'and the you ·. 1 the rt.oh an ·the po«n'• th8 ~rave a~ the 8•Y• nf all sexes and tca~ues, and oolai-• and eendltlena. aaorlflce unceattln81Y upon lts altars (p. Rt). · nu•an Llncnln ls dftllberateiy ooneecrati.1\A poll.tlc1, and the ~reat agency of reverenee la , •••ery, wtl~fQ .,1 l th\naa .. Se•• hallowed" (p. 191. The laat: two olauaee !lV• the efteot. of that thi.1 f reedoll - nattnn. undf.tr n,.d, ~he new dedicatlona ahalt have a new birth ef �-23The wonds 11 under God" were not in the flrst draft1 they were .reported in the newspaper verslons of the ap•ech as delivered and incorporated by Lineeln later (cf. 1s. 752). Why did he add the117 ·· I¥• Under th_, heading "Of Clvll Reli~ion", the last in Sogial C1ntr15t, Rousseau describes the clvll rell~i•n of repub cs wh{ch it le the business of the acverelgn to set out, not as retl~loua de1t•a1 but as 11 8entlaenta •f 1octablllty". They ought t• be staple, few ln nuaber, preclaely fixed, and without explanation or co••nt. The existence of a powerful, wlae, and benevolent Divlnlty, vhe fer••••• and prevldee .t he life to 0011e, the happlness ef the . juat 1 the puniahaent of the wicked, the .. sanctity of the aeeial contract and the laws ••• (IV, viii). This la precisely the nature of Lincd~'s faith as continually set out tn hla public pronauncMtente (pp. 65~, 727, 757, 793). The natlen 1.a under a "beneficent Father who dvelleth in the Heavens" (p. 728). . It has a double parent•~• • the !ore-fathers and the F•ther above. Wlth the1e words, Lincoln, then~ tnvokes at once faith, the pe1:sonal trust in a auperlitr betng, and religion, the public obligation to reverence. · · Thia natlonwill have .. a ·new birth of freedo•"· Thoee werds were not, at the time, felt to be at all innocuous• Nor are they, if "of freedo•" la read not as an objective genitive, so that the natl.on is said to ~ive blrth to a new freedom, but as a parallel to •conceived ln Liberty•, ae that the nation itself ts said to be rebnrn. The Chteago ~. tnreperttng on the speech, aald that in thia phrase "Mr. LIJ\COin did foully traduce the 11otlves of the tHm who were elaln at Gettysburg", for· they fousht only to preserve the eld govern11ent. Now, as has been shown, Lincoln in fact &8reed with thla conservative vlew of the struggles he bad sai.d so explicitly1 · I ••t I am exceedingly anxious that thla Union, the Constitution, and the libertle1 of . the peGple shall be perpe~uated in accordance with the ori~lnal idea for which that strt.lggle was aade, and I ehal l be raost happy indeed if I shall be . an humble lnstl'Uaent. · in the hand . of the A1111.ghty, and this, . hls almost chosen a people 1 for perpetuating the object of that great struggle ' {p. 57:>). And yet theChidago Times was right to 1.ntentlon, a ra teal oppost.tlon to the conserv.atta• expressed ln their slogan the Union as t.t was". ln 1R54 Lincoln suspect an underlying radical De110crat!.c party' a klnd of "The Constltutlon as i.t is and had satd at Peorla1 Let u~ re-adopt the Declaratton of .Independence, and With lt, .the practices and policy, whlch har110nize wt.th lt. Let north and .south • let all A•ericana - let all lovers of liberty everywhere .. join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Unions but we shall have so saved lt, as to make, and keep 1.t, forever worthy of saving. We shall . have so saved it, that the succeeding mtlllons of free �-24- kappy people, thft worlrt ovt!r, shal 1 rl8e 1.ip, and cal 1 us blessed, to the latest generatlons (p. 315)" The last phrases are a para.phrase of the Hagnlfleat, the words of the ntother-to•be of the Messlah1 "For, behold, front hence forth all ~e""ratlons shall call nte blesse"" (Luke t, 48). It i8 Lincoln's aweso11e lctea that the generatlon of the clvll war, undtitr his leadership, ls 81: once the savior and the par.ent of the . savior nation,· that America is to pol itlca "all'fto.8 t" as Israel was to the spirit• That means that for th& Union side the war ls a kind of second comlnA, a second brlnglng-forth, after four score and seven years. Llncoln has converted Jefferson's extravagant opinion that "a llt:tle rebellion, now and then, is a gt>olt thing" (Letter 12. Hadlsin, January 30, 17R7)- into a serious view concerntng the perlodlc rP-hir.th of the Revolution - to occur, evldently, in fullest force · ln·the fourth g"neratlon, once ln a century. . In this idea Llnooln recognizes that a country founded ln a revolut\on ls bounc1 to have a Aeneratlonal problell• . For the document. con~tltutl~ lts p;overmaent is ordalnerl and · eRtabllshed. as- the prlnclple of popular government demands, ln the ftrst p~rson plural; lt beglns1 "We the penple." Yet thls can mean literally only the · r.atifylng generation, thereafter the fundamental act . of self· govern~nt ls lnherltec1 - but self-determinatlon by tradition ls a ktnd nf paradox. This dlfficulty lay hehlnd Jefferson's advocacy of · re~ular revolutlona Can one generation bind ariother,·ancl all others, ln succession forev8r? l .~hlnk not. The Cr~ator has made the earth for the living, not the dead..... A generatton may bi.mi itself as · long .a s lts majority continues ln l lfea when that, has dlsap• peared, another majority ls tn place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change thelr lawe and lnstltutlons to suit themselves. Nothlrig then ls unch11n~P-able but the inherent anrl unalienable rights of 11an (Letter~ J• Cartwright, June 5, 1R24). · Jefferson's radical solution to the problem of changlnS. generations was opposed hy Lincoln on the ground that majority rule itself as · well as mlnor\.ty rlghts were guaranteed by nothing but a commitment to the fun<Jamental law and the governmP-ntal institutions. The very raaterial success of "the popular principle applied to government" . acerbates the problem • . Lincoln, on several occasions, for instance to Congress ln 1R61 and 1862, had given exultant accounte of the fanta8tlc .increas., of population, elsht-fold ·. since the founding 11nd contlnui.ng, incredibly, even throu~h .. the )lar (pp. 72R, 761), with the expectation at the sAme rate of growth of 250 nitlllon by 1910 ann a proportionately even greater lncrease of prosperity (pp. f.'34-615. 6R1). But when making up Auch an account a quart?er of a century earl ler, ln the speech "On the Perpetuation of our PolttlcAl Jnstltutlons" he had a<t<leda �-25- We, when 11ountins the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessinss. We toiled not: ln the acquirement or establiahllent of them - they are a legacy bequeathed u1, by a ~ hardy, brave, and patriotic, but ~ laaented and departed race of ancestors (p. 77). · The generational. dileraaa raised by success ls that the epigoni, the successor generation•• bred in that most desirable ignorance, the ignorance of anarchy and despotls11, and 11tatak{ng the drained habits of their parents for the tradition, will in the low ef political passion areuae themselves by giving current problems a cataclysmic cast, that they aay, developing an appetite for unknown terror, be · willing to cure dlasatisfaction by catastrophe. A deliberate return to the founding revalut~on alone can forestall · e~ch an event, or if, as in the case ef the Clvil War, it beco. . a a fact, can turn it into an act of salvation. Lincoln bei\tinually mak&a the effort to . convert the war in this way, even coflparing its financial funding to that of the Revolution (p. 602). , There ls, of course, an assuMption in this which goes beyond Jefferson's reliance on the mere principles of 1776. It is that constitutlonal severn11ent is, in fact, the best 11eans of realizing the11, and ts, therefore, to be equally cherished. .. Lineoln held · this asau•ption ln full awareness of the 11lxed and ma1111ath character which the nation was to atta1n in the next century, and this is why . he saw the incidents of the Civil War as "phllosophy to learn wisdom fro11" "for any future great natienal trial" (p. 764). f a .Z:::st.ftW l llH A - - ..f. What then, 1Mre precisely, does Lincoln aean by •a new birth .of freedo11"7 As ·the nation was cenceived in liberty and dedicated to equality, so it ls to be reborn ln freedort• That 11eanethat . ln this speech 11 freedom 11 covers both equality of creation and the Latinate "liberty•, that ls, civil freedom, which Lincoln elsewh~re calls the jewel of liberty within the fartily of freedom1 it stands at once for ••n's riature as a creature under God and for hls means .of fulfill!~ that nature in civil seciety, as part of a natiop (cf. P• 403). , This means ls self•gavernaient, which Lincoln res~ects equ.lly with its end, calling it •rtgN&~absolutely and eternally right" (p. 303). In fact, he defines it coextensively with liberty, which means for "each 11an to do as he pleases with himself" (p. · 748) 1 I trust I und.e rstand and truly estimate the rtght of self• government. My faith in the propost.tion that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which ls exclusively his oWn, lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in •e (p. 303, cf• PP• , 394) • . I11pli.ed in this is first, that poltti.cally, where there must be submission to a govern11ent, this must be by the consent of the governed, understood as . A 11ajority, held in constraint by constt.Uuttonal checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentilllents ••• (p. 585), �-26discovered in elect1ens 1 for We can not have .free government without electlonst••• The strife of the electien ia but huaan-nature practically applied to the facts of the case (pp. 763-764). And. secondly·, ·~•no•ically, that a 11an ~•t be abl• to acquire and hold so11ethlng of hia own, -.iat have, not the assurance, but the possibility of acquiaitlena Lincoln 11ade this a1Jit")t aelf• govern11ent a subject of hla firet Annual Heeaage t• Ceqre11 ln 1861 (pp. 633, ef. P• 501). . . ·. of ••t Now when Lincoln in the decade before and durlng the war out his vlews on freedoa, h~ did it almet lnvarla)>ly in refarerac• to lts antithesis - slavery (cf. P• 303 and P• 347). By •a new birth of freedom• Lincoln 11eana the readoptlen of the Deelaratlen in a . very specific sen••• a aenae which the ordinary •conae~atlvea• strongly disapproved. During the war Lincoln expressed his views on the slavery · question succinctly in a private letter. They are charaoterletic of the double nature of his politi.cal opinions, rever•M• for the laws combined with radioa11ty •f principle. He ~alda I am naturally anti•elavery. If slavery la not wrong, nothing la wreng" . .I can not r•••ber wben I did .not so thlrik, and f'eel. ·: .And . ·iy•t 1 I, hA•·· never understood that the Pres idericy conferred upon me an unrestricted rlght to act offlclally upen tlhiai judg11ent and feeling (April 4, 1864, cf. PP• 395, 652). For, as he said in his Firat Inaugural, not only did he have under the Constitution no lawful right to do so, but he even held hl•••lf bound by his oath of office to en!orcethe constitutional provtatpn for the reclai11ing of fugitive slaves (pp. 492, 580-581) - it wae more i.11porta.nt . o preserve the very bas 1 e of 11.berty than to secure t iml'lledlate justice. At the sa11e time he found hi•s6lf. able to base his uncompromising public opposition to slavery~on the ~plnlona e! the . founding father3 (e.g. pp• 272-273) and on the found\ng doouaenta io Whether or not he knew of Jeffereon•a "pblllppic against Negro slavery which Congress had deleted fro• the final draf~. he had no question that the Declaration meant . to include negroes, a view he set · out ln his debate with Douglass I should like to k°"w if taki~ this old Declaration of Independence, which declares th11.t all men are equal upon principle, and raaking exo•ption to it, when will it atop7 If one aan says it· does not mean a. negro • why IlC)t another say it does not 1ftean some other man?" (pp.: 402-403, cf. PP• 360 ff, P• 479). And he had equally no question about the intention of the Constitution He often repeated, the argument from .. necessity .. , that to get the Constitution at all the framers had had to compromise, but that they �-27· had found a way to save in the long run the principle which they could not assert at the J'llO•ent (pp. 304, 313, 358 ff., 403, 423, 479), for When ~he . fathers of the goverruaent cut off the source of slavery by the· abolition of the slave trade, and adopted a systent of restricting lt from the new territories wh&re lt had net existed, I maintain that they placed it wh~re they understood, and .a ll sensible men understood, it waa in the OIJHme ef ultimate extinction (October 13, 1858, et. PP• 394, 416). Accordingly Lincoln whe, as a responsible parti.clpant tn political l lfe, could not support the extre11e of abel ltion, became the laplaeabL~; foe of the 7xttn1ion of slavery • thia single ·issue doatnatea his speeches ·be ore the war (e.g., 170, 339) • a net in !act . brought . him, as lt had Jefferson (p. 272 , back lnto politics, t.n which be had been losing interest (p. 512 • It was an lsaue important to him ln some part because it was so peculiarly connected with the question o .f the axiomatic character of the founding prlnclples, namely wlth the question of their uniyersall~y, (cf. PP• 308, 477). Such proposltlona, ·precisely because they are prlnci.plea of hwu.n nature, pronounced concerning •all 11en", must eventually either altogether fall or altogether preva1.1, both in respect to lnetitutlonet p!. I believe thl& government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free (1858, P• 372), and to (ndlvlduals1 This ls a world of compensations• and he who would lll! no slave, must consent to .b.E!.! no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not fer themeelves1 and, under a just God, can not long retain lt (p. 489, cf. PP• 136, 473). Lincoln. did not regard it aa l11poss1.ble that the nation alght fail, that ls, that the false principle might become generally accepted so that the natien would degenerate into despot·tsm (p. 335) t:o prevent this wa.s precisely hla pol it teal task. So, ance the war had turned out tn be the final means of resolving .the question, for . the very reason that his .. para11ount object.. .wa,s to save the Union, and •••I!S!.t. either to save or destroy slavery (1862, P• 652), he recogni.zed, in hts Second Inaugural Address, that the "ei.ghth of the whole population" who were slaves, were "somehow, the cause of the war" (p. 792), and ·that tn giving freedom to the tlave·, we assure freedom to the ~ ••• (p. 688), for slavery was "that only thing wh:tch ever could brlng thls nation to civil war" (p. 759). And he gave this not only a political but, �-2R· as was in the nature of the case, an economic interpretation, on the principle that bad labor drives out good. So he told a labor dele ... gation that ' ••• the exlsting rebellion 11eans more, and tends to 1110re, than the perpetuation of African slavery • that l.t ta, in . fact, a war upon th~ rights of all working people (March 11, 1864, cf. P• 343). . .· Ihis ls why, just after the victory at Gettysburg, he had been able to call the war a gigantic Rebellion, at the bottom of which ls an effort to . overthrow the principle that all 11en are · created equal•·•. (p. 709). . . . Lincoln had s. veral time.s made a point of the fact that the e word Jtal•v•t!Y"' :de's 'riot appear"·tn; the CofteC:ltutien1 · Thus, the thing ls hid away, lri the constitution, just as an afflicted lll8.n hldea av•y a wen a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death1 with the promise, nevertheless, that the cut·t tng may begin at; the end of a given tl.11e (p. 313). • . ·. . or So also this speech does not contain the word, . but for a different reason1 as the founders had to violate their feelings about it out of political necessity, ao the ti11e had come at the beginning of that year, 1R63, when Lincoln couldlndulge hi.a out of Military necesalty. He used what he considered to be the Prealdent•s war powers to put the Emanci.patl.on Precla11&tlon ln force the states in rebellion (p. 691), a mve he defended with the argUJMnt that the black regl11ents were indispensable to ml.litary success (Letters of Apr~l 4 and August 17, 1864)• Since the Union slave states, l'lke Maryland (p. 749), were proceeding wlth voluntary emancipation, it was plain · that the thing was on the way out. The Union was to be rec•nstru~ted without slavery, . nd so the irgclamat1on. 2.( 6•efta A!!!\ Reconstruotio j. a Lincoln issued three weeks a tftr the Gtt~yabµrg _d_rees provided . (pp. 73R ff., cf, PP• 796 ff). The "new birth of freedom" 11eant for Lincoln the re-adoption of the Declaration ·(p, 315) and the amend11ent o( the Constitution (pp. 679, 785) to make explicit their true intention1 it meant "returning . slavery to the posltiori our fathers gave it" (p. 315), and restoring the republican example to •tta just influence lil the world .. , by · averting fro11 it the charge of hypocrisy (p. 291) • . Llncaln made of the war a purlflcatlon1 · the nation was to be p~ged of inconsistency • for . t.. And now the last clausee and that government of the people, by the.people, for the people, shall not pert:l.h from the earth •. �-29How, to begin with, should we i11agine that Lincoln read this phrase concerning govermaent, a memerable expansion ' on •popular governm~nt''7 Did he streaa the preposltlona •ef•, "by"• "for•• or the noun "people'' which they govern? The diaayllabic rhythm of the speech is best pres~rved by reading trochees• I I I I I I of the people, by the people, for the people, a rhythm which gives equal weight to the people and its relation to the governaent. As was the beginning, se tbe. end of the epeechis directly adapted from the American oratofical tradition, namely fro11 an abol ltioni1t seraon siven_. appropriately, en July 4 of lRSR by the Rev. Theodore Parker1 who had 1•td1 . . De110cracy le direct aelf-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people. Besides changin8 the rhythm, Lincoln had, significantly, softened "over" to •or•, avoiding even a hint of deapo.t ism. Thus the people govern 1. by repre1entatives, 2. chosen fro• aMorig theaselves, 3. who rule in the popular interest - a deacription President Lincoln himself exemplifies (cf. P• 756). · . Lincoln does not .say 11 thle government as he had . said "this" nation, for it ia the preservation of popular, that la, elected, govertlllent anyybere which is at stake, though the i..ediate cause for resortil18 te force was certainly the preservation of this . government. But that came to the same _ thl.ngr thus near the beginning of the war Llnceln had teld Congress, called by hlm into special session, again on July 4 of 1861, that he regretfully found • • , J I the duty of e•ploytng the war power in defense of' the Government forced upon hi11 ••• no popular Govermnent can long survive a · marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save ·the Government from iNmediate destru~ion by giving up · the main point upon which the people gave the election (p. 609). Lincoln had begun with the Revolution an~ its statement of principle, the Declaration1 he ends with government and its instituting docUJ11ent, the Constitution. This represents the dl.fferenr in the commitments of the first and the fourth . generations '( As the patriots of seventy-six did to support the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, le·1 every American pledge his life, hts property, and his sacred honora ... (p. 81, cf. Declaration, end). · · It also represent~ the relation of the Declaration to the Constltuttont the latter ls merely the i.nstrument of the former, as shown tn a sentence Lincoln quotes from the second paragraph of the Declaration 1 �.30:.. . That to secure these rlghts, govern11ent~ are instituted among men, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS -!o""ROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED (p. 304). The gover11111ent ts a metns, and thus a compromise of evils • Madiabwr1 says in the fifty-first Feder1li1t1 But what is gover1111ent itself but the greatest of all reflections ori human nature? If aen were angels, no govern•ent ·vould be necessary. and he warns1 Don't interfere wt.th anything tn the Constitution. • That 11ust be . . tntained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties (p. 345). And so the preservation of . popular goverruaent is linlced · to .the defense of the American Constitution~ I' _ _ ...:u; ..--~ ..- ... ~;;.-:.'.!".=:::::.•.- .............,..,.... -- ··· This goverill'lent "shall not perish from the earth",· that is ~he "work", the "task.. , the "cause". Lincoln has ended, as he began, with language heavy with the Bible• The good man is perished out of the ekrtha ••d there is none upright amng 11en1 they all lie in wait for bl•ed1 they · hunt every man his brother with a ne• ~M~cah 7, 2), If . this rebellion prevails, this allusion warns, so that "these institutions shall pert.ah" (p. 609), aen will return to that universal state of war, the war of each against all, which prece4es the institution of government1 the Rebellion would undo the Foundlnga for when men, b4f! entering .into society apd civil govertllllent, have excluded force and 1ntaoduced' laws (or the preservation of property, peace, and unity amongst the~selves, those who set up force again ln opposition to the laws do rebellare that ls, bring back again the state of war - and are properly rebels' ••• (Locke, Second Treatise 2.[. Civil Government , para. 226). �-31- Tn Lincoln's words 1 Plainly, the central idea of secess.i.on, is the eesence cf anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and l~mitation~, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentl11ents is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects tt, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or despotism (1861, P• 585). And finally, there is the allusiDn to ·Jere11lah.tO,tl1 The gods that have not made the heavens am the earth, evt!n they shall perish from the earth ••• False gods shall perish, but the ; government of the people shall perish. ~ V• the Speaker After having, at length, considered the speech, it is leglti11ate to consider the speaker. Lincoln ts, at his height, a publtc mane If ever I feel the soul wt.thin me elevate and expand to those dlmen•••ns not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect. it is when I contemplate the cause of my country ••• (1839, P• 112). But the American speake~r who, like Lincoln, means to put his whole heart and ambition (p. "Ill) in the service of the body politic. has a peculiar problem, rooted in the quality of American life, which de Tocquevil l& describes in the chapter "Of Some Sources of Poetry Among Democratic Nations".· -1 Nothing concelvab.le is so .petty, so lnslpbt, so crQwded with pal try interests . - in one word so anti-poetic - as the lt.fe of a man in the United States (pemocracy 1n America, II, t, 17). ' This ls because democracy has given up ln dlst&ste the source of aristocratic poetry. the past, while its very principle. that of equality, deprives it, by maklng ' all contemporaries equally mediocre, of -the present. There remain, de Tocqueville says. only three sources to democratic poets• the nation, the future, and God - and thls precisely anticipates the theaee of Lincoln's public poetry. But, as he observes in · the chapter on "Why Ameri.can Writers and Orators Often Use an Inflated Style'•,, lt is difflcul t to oresent these themes at the middle distancea · ln democratic communities, each citizen is habitually engaged in the contemplation of a very puny object t namely, hinlself. If he ever raises his looks higher, he p~rcelves only the hnmens., form of society at large or the stl 11 more imposing aspect of mankind. His ideas are all either extremely minute and clear or extremely general am1 vaguea what lies between �-32- ls a veld (.i!?JJ1., lR). For thls American proble11 of the middle void the very nature of U1e pr\nciples of equality and liberty is responsible, Flr1t 1 11no~ they are axioms of ~penness, that is, pro.positiona et reaaon wh \ch are yet not ~ntended ' as the .theoretical bases of a tetal 1yste•• they provide ne specific authoritative "public ph1.1i.iitiphy 0 , 10 that each issue. ,.aust be dect.ded ·anew on the basis of prlnolplea whose nature lt' ls precisely to give no univocal guldanciet ~e b• politically aware is to be uncertain. Second, sin~• they ar• . intended precisely to insure "the pursu_ t of happ1.n•••'', that t.~ ,. 1 i a prosperous privacy, they becoae less palpable the . .re euqoe.~tully they are at work, for, ln echolaatic terms, they are prtnclpl•• of pure potentiality.- the possibility of goods but not theileelvea goods, and certainly not public good.as sigrilflcantly 1 Fr•nch "fraternity" has never co11pleaented 1 iberty ~nd equalcl.~y t.n A•erica. And third, · insofar as they are self-evident proposltlnna •f reason they, unlike objects of faith, · become less .and not ao~e objects of hunlan concern as they are more e!ficact.ously at work, •o that they tend to.drop simply out of sight in the dally conslderatlone of national llfe1 private business induces public apathy. · In his speeches, Lincoln wrestles with just. t:hee~ dlfflcultiea, which might be characterized with the aid of a clasalo•l ter•• by the very nature of their . pol itt.cal foundation Amed.cane tend to act not as a p9l\s, a pol t.tlcal colll1lt1nity held togethfttr by .rrt.endahlp (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII, i, 4), but •• a aoQlety, a col _ection of private persons who jostle each othetr into 11toae eC'rt l of balances his effort in his speeches is precisely to prove this tendency inessential, to persuade the nation that it la held toge~her by •bends of affectlan" (p. SRR) • . To Lincoln, then, the problem of filling the agitated natto~l · void with sober sentiment •hewn fro11 the solid quarry of sober reaaon" represented by the . founding principle8 is ~ probl•• of the natleth Once the spentlanef)us conimit11ent of the Revolution l11 gontt, he aaya ln his speech· on "The Perpetuation of Our Politi.cal Tnstlt ... tiona"• a n.ev situation arises a · Passi.on has helped uss but . can do so no more. It wtlt 1.n the future be our ~nemy. Reason, cold, calculatt.ni, . unt.11pa1u1toned reason. rwust furnish all the materials fer our future support and defense ... Let those materials be 11oulder1 lnto 11ner1} . intelligence, souQd morality, and, in particular, ! [IY!Itnct for the constitution All2. l.!l!l•••<PP• A4-85). Lincoln's solutien of the "historical• problent, thft recedtng t'lf the moment of greatness for ·succeeding generations., h1 bald 1 he .,fffl!rs a new, sober passion, a passion of reason - reverence, a lawyer-llke love. for the tnstrumentwhlch has accomplished the 11lracle of a stable democracy - his rhetoric incorporates, and so ftllclta tt. �At the same tlmeJtrue to the openness demanded by the principles he usually abstains Crom the rhetorical compulsion of specific plea.st these sentences of his last public address, dealing with the burning problem of the mo11ent, are typical• In the Annual Message of Dec. 1863 and acco111panylng Proclamation, pre8ent~d A plan of re-construction (as the phra•- goes) which, I promiaed, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to, and sustained by, the Executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated . that this was not the only plan which might possibly be 11cceptabhtr ... (p. 797). · I Instead of attempting to compel the people to a course deduced dogt1ultically, in the manner of an ideologist,· he presented i.n the words of the London Spectator, A political transparency, in which the nation could see an individual character of great power working out phe problems set before them alt ••• He manages to make these problems supre11ely. absorbing, and he does it by maki.ng al11ost every speech an interpretation of the founding docu11ents, in which he reveals at once their in~xhaustlble radlcali.ty and their enduring applicability - by giving A11eri.cans a secular complement to the Scriptures (p• 84). With respect t<> the pro11iatmry character of democrat le principles, Lincoln underscores lt by projecti.ng the growth of the past into the future1 There are already among us those, who, lf the Union be preserved ¥. will llve to see lt contain two hundred and fifty mllliona. The struggle 2! today-, is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also (p. 635, cf. PP• 681, 756). ' · The present .is thus understood as being the sponsor of the ,future1 yet the future la, · 1n turn, nothing but the maanlfi.cation of the past (cf. P• 656) • . But politically the American past ls of . a peculiar sorts it ls not an extensive, unbrokentraditlon but the me11ory of a single, intense event - just as· a,fabrtc of reason begins with a principle from which it ls .derived, so the history of del'locracy begins with the Revolution. Lincoln intends to assure that that beginning is present to the future, that that event remalns the tradition wtiich governa the future. .For the principles of. the fathers are, by their very nature, the root of the future insofar as lt is good. And finally, with respect to the passive and incurious mode in which the democratic principles of equality and liberty tend to be accepted, lt ls significant that. Lincoln himself never attempts to rai.se the question of their tcuth, nor even to supply a definition ~ except in extremely simple, and negative terruJ. So he says, �-34- The world hae never had a good definitlon of the word l lberty, and t .h e .A11ertcan people, just now, are 11Uch ln want of one. And he provides lt ln the simple tertae of the possibll ity for eelf-real.lzatien - liberty means for each •an ta do as · he pleases wlth himself, and the product · of hl1 labor ••• ( P• 748) ·1 wht.le he expreasea .hie "idea ef del'locracy" in the for11 of the fa11illar rellsloua precept "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you"• As I would not be a §lt'llh so I would not . be a maoier. Thia expresses 11y idea of de110cracy. Whatever d lffera ~ro11 . thts, to the extent of the difference, it not ~eraocracy (p. 427) I Thus he treata the principles af A•eriean politics as s1.11ple precepts for the . happineaa of hu•anity, which are at the aa11e time standards of llOral perfeotlon, and about whleh he offers no theoretical re f'l ftCt ton• I The Saviour, I eupp«t••• did not expect that· any h1,111an creature could be perfect ae the Fat.her tn Heaven1 but He 1ald1 11 Ae yeur Father in Heaven le perfect, be ye also per!ect."·~·so I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be•• nearly reached as we can (p. 403). Indeed, such public inquiries would not be to the point of ht• rhetoric. Fer the strictly rational basis of democracy ls to be found in the theery of wnatural rights" aet out by Hobbes . and Locke, a theory which regards precisely what ls "natural", that ~~. conrmon, in Mn: and not what ie high, so that it is scarcely conducive to a public feellng of plety. What Lincoln does lnstead .ls, by speaking ln dellberate analogy to Christ (p. 403), to ralee these princlple111 fro11 1elf-evld1tnt propoaltlone to arttclea Q{ faith, thu• returning, as de Tocqueville ahow~d (QR• .cit.•• I, ~). to a . foundation · 1n fact deeper than t.hti! rational begrrlnlngs provided by the found lng fathers. _ . . .· · , . · To explain why "the oolr\t g.i rells1on and the ru"?lrtt !lf l tbert\( are anclently lncorporated wlth each other ln A11ert.ca, de Tocquevil l ~: had appealed to the classical tradltlon concerning the nef'td for public pl8ty to support the body politlc1 · Llberty regatcts religion as its companl.on in all lts battles and ite trlul'llphll, a& the cradle of t.t8 infancp and the divine source of tts . clal•s (21?, • .£!..t•• I, 11). · And he had found this theory corrobor~t.ed in A111erlca1 �-35Religion in Arnerica takes no direct part ln the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political lnstltutt.ons (SlQ• ill•, I, xvii). The older Lincoln came to a view which is. the insenuous converse of this posl.tion of expediency1 not religion serves polities, but the reverse - republican government is itself a great religious lnstitution1 in his own words "the only greater institution• ta the church (p. AS). The rock of reason of Washington's foundation has the sa11e basis as Peter'e church. That reverence for the laws which Lincoln calls "the political religion" of the nation (p. 81) derives froN a trans-political faith. It Nuet be urged that this is not an opinion l .. lncoln holds routinely or perfunctorily .. for .hi.a, the Republic, which puts the sood of the whole finally into the hands of a numerical majority (p. 785), ls plausible to the ••ul only as a community of the faithful, protect~d by a kindly provision that few shall be totally without gracP., that of all those who conte into the world, only a email percentage are natural tyrants (p. 301). Were . it otherwise, democracy would be a continual garAble wtth the body politic at stake. Accordlngly the Gettysburg Addrfi2SR begins and ends not:. only wt.th phrases hftrrowed fro11 American oratory but with the diction of the Bible. To Lincoln.the people of the Revolution ls also the second people of the Boo¥;, the "al11ost chosen people" (p. -575) • All 1\mericans, he said in his Second Inaugural, read the same Bible and pray to the same God ••• (p. 793). Lincoln himself was not only, as 110st backwoodsmen, hr. ught up on o the Bible, but he wrote to hls friend Speed in the year .before his deatha I am profitably engaged t.n reading the J:S1Dle, and in the same year he said to a committee which .had presented a Bible 1 It is the best gift God has given to men. All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from Wrong. All things aost desirable for 11.an•s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it (September 9, 1864). Lincoln's commitment to tihe Bible ls not .that of an orthodox Chrietian, for, as he sald, I have neverunited myself to any church, . because I have found difficulty tn.glvlng my assent, without mental reservation~ �-36- to the long• complicated statement 11 of Christ tan doctrine whlch characterize their Articles of Belle! and Confessions of Faith (Remark to H. c. Demig, c. 1R62, cf. P• 186). For h111 the Bible is rather a palit ~cal ••vr•• book, and that in two contrasting respect•• On the one hand it lends hi• a lan~uage at once high and popular, beyond both the de11agogue and the intellectual, a language of salvation with which to ••gnify the A11eri.can enterprise 1 wlth i.ta dlcti.on he speaks as ••Father Abraham"• As the first patriarch of a new generation of founding fathers. And on the other, it supports him in a view of the n•ture of things which, when publicly acknewledged,da11pa the hysterical activity filling the American void, and reduces it to ~hat 11elaneholle deliberateness on which the public buain••• thrivea. F•r Linceln had been fro11 h.18 youth a believer in an inner counterpoise tt> political liberty, which he understood to be called the "Doctrt.ne of Necessity", that is, that the hu•an mind ls impelled to action, or held ln rest by some power, over whtch the raind itself has noi: control ••• (p. 187-188J. . · · . That power ls God who, though •not a person••, can yet directly exercise his will in human affairs• By his mere great power on the 111nds of the now contestants, he could have either eav•d' ( or destroyed the Union without a human contest (Hedltat1.ou 2Ji the . Divine~. 1862, P• 655). This ~od, in who11 Lincoln, by the peculiar power of hla falth, recognizes ·at once •Nature's God" and the God of the Bible, le Lincoln's and the people's political 11B.ster1 he constitute• a direct limitation on the power of hu11an contrivance. 1he humanity . which ls the consequence of Lincoln's view ls embOdled ln Lincoln's last speech to the natlon before his assassination, the Second Inaugural Address, which is evidently the clae~ical American poem drawing particularly on de Tocqueville's third source of democratic poetry, God. · t::.::.;.::.;:;:=.~::;...-..:-:.·- -,........~ .:~::=-~,.::a:=a=::E. '.Z.;l1 The sarne speaker who is so eminently democratic ln theme is, however, the very reverse 1n form. Again de Tocqueville provldes the criteria in h!s chapter on •Ltterary Characteristics of Democratic Times" 1 · . . · Taken as a. whole, literature in democratic ages can never present, as lt does in periods of arlsto~racy, an aspect of order, regularity, science and art1 its form, on the contrary, will ordinarily be slighted, sometimet11 despl8ed. Style will frequently be fantastic, incorrect, overburdened, and lotn!le, almo8t alwa.ys vehement and bold. · Au~hors will aim at rapidity of execution more than at perfection of detail. Small productions wlll be more common than bulky books ••• (Democracy!!! America, II, i, 11). �Now, thl:s oth;:~rwise sn accurat~e .1k~scrtpUon ti:; ci>rH~picnmrnly ~ nc.tppl tcablG to Linc..~oln° s; h'rit i:ngi The ~;~!·.ttY§..hU£t~ t\d~!tS:!il! is small, to he sure., hut: lt W35 not r·aptrny exf ~cuted - Lincoln had brought a worl\~d .. over tlraft from ~va:~hingtonr he rf~-w1n ·k,z·:rd this in Getty sbtff('.; on t::h1:i ~V(~ of dt:~l t Vt?r~·, and h(~ {!mended e<~ch n f · thf;• thr-e .-~ kn.own co'pi1~s he m~de ovn-r the nf:'xt three m{H1l:bs.. A 1 thoor;hf as he sa ld, not: a master: of langt..H:tge nnr tn po:s1H,:ost.o n n f ;1 flne e<lucat ion ( fh 39:3), be !!~~ careful 1 · · Gentlem(mt' Jud iv:~~ noue;Ias informed you tha.t th t. s Spt~f!'Ch () r In tH <'~ was p1:-ohahly ca1:--efully pre{A11.rede T •:hirnit. i.t wan (p .. 392). By thio ca1:·e he SlK'C<-:eded tn glving hi<> thuu-r~hts their almost unalt.Grahle f,n·nh For..· thts purpose he had 1• ~ft·er t:he agB of twenty~ t:hreef Bet lli.mself t i } study~ E.ngltsh 8~:'.f;\lliffi.:U~~ "lmpl"!-:rff!Ctly~ uf COUt:'Ge~ but so as to speak and l~'i'C:t~ as wGll a~~ he does nuw" (l8hll, p~ 5.'.}9). enabli.ng him to write to a man whn had submit.tH1! t:o h1m an ecHt(~ii ve~·&ion of one of hi.n. speedv:.•81 So f;:ff as ·1.t la tnt:ended me.r~.:, Jy to i mprov'1:" 1n gicarn.rnar, .aml elegancE:-~ .zy.f comp•oslt. l&n,. I. am qul t .e agceed 6 hut I do not. w tf~h the st•nsc~ change.•d, or rii.odifi.ed,. to· a hatr~s .breac\t:h. i\nd you, not havtng ntudi.t.~d parttcular points <:>r~ cl:o1.rnly as 1 haV<:"i·· ,can not be qutte sure that you do not at\8.n!';H the , sens~ whl'.:ln :yo_l clo L ,..lif t:''t: ~ . not. ~t.nten'J ~t ( p., .J4J; ct., p .. c:3 8,) ·• . :> :. .· . . Hts style.I> . ton-t ts the very oppu.sltu of that of t: ~1~ typical cternocrat i c wrltert descrthe-d by dt~ Iucqmwi.lle in hiv chaprer on "How AmerlcHn nemoct.~acy ha6 Morn.n .P.·d the gnslioh :Langua.ge" (J.h.!:S:1~1' IIP L; 16) Wh<~t out of lack of . egre ~ lmH~ of chang~ und <lesire fo:r blgn~ss, us~G old words in indeterminate seasen~ i.ntxodue~s vast rn.m1bf~t-s of rn"w wonlslt usually borrowed · fl.'£.'\'.tn technical vt-.cabul.artes, and 1o<ids hl'8 speech wtth abstract ar.ttt gew:,r.a1. expreastor'\s. ne TocqttevU lo had called lawveis t.he ar:tstocr~'its (}f Am~d. ca (i.bld ... J xvi}" and ln part Li.ncoinf s caN'fu1ness tn that: of a lawyei.=-·1nrt~.r:pr~~i-. ln.~ law. But t .he lapidar·y precisi.tH'l of form which earrh;;s the p:n.:ri.a.rcb3l gran~eur of Ltn.coln~ ~ rhe-toric . ... h. e W<'HJ. Lm~1h~e m•rrniy to 1 P.C1:_ur13 . (p .. 54t) - !.~ sometctnng 1~:H"fd~~ it. is a Blf>;n ot a HO\H~l ki..nd of aristocracy ~ republi.ca.n arlstocracy. L\.nenln had t ..~cttly r<~jected Everett• s cold L~lasslc1..sm a.s inapproi:,wiat:e t.n a, democ.r-r.tt'ic speaker, \.-Knse object must not be to dt:aJ17onstrate or 8xert h r.s (lWn. superior ity. Hts amblth1Tt '\>;t,'lSv r«~ttu~r.·, as he told hlo f1-ien1I H'~ tndont "to bi;~ d}. stinct:1y under.·stood by th~! '('ornmon pt:>op1H'' (p~ ti5)~ dnd to U:'>i".: blfl power as had hts mo~fol, Clay, in t:he tHffvtce of d~mot:rat t c d~c; a r'\ll hiE< i:J;ffortn were mad~ for practtcal effect~ Ho new~r spoke merely to l>e l1eard •. H.e never 't~el i v<~red a .Y11iurth or J111\r cn:ation" o.r an eulogy on an occaGlon 1 Lke tbta U'\!19.Bl'. ~,~.Q lfC'nrv f,lay, July 6, 1'852f cf. P• 269} ~ -- Yet hts rhetori.c Hhow~ pn~ctse1y th~ fundamental chH:CiH:'!terist' i.cs of ancient artstocratic wrltt~rs. of whi.ch de Tncquev) l le, i.n thi~ ch;;ptf"'r �') •· ••ll • ,, 1- "Th~ 'Stucty o:r Greek and Lat t n L i.te. .r.atur c ts Peculiarly Useful in Of:mocrat:ic (}o'Tlmuniti.es" wrtt:ese. · ent ltlect Nothing tn thE::ir wol."ks seems done haoti.ly or .at :candomw · eve:r::y 1 inH is writt:e1'1 ft"H: · the eye of the conno lsseur and i.s shapod after .some \.~cmcept ton of lt'.iea1 . b~m1ty • No l it:e.r ature places tht.rne flne . qu~•t itles ln . \4hteh the wr: i.terc, uf democr:-ach~s . <:i:r.e naturally dHf'].cl.ent in bolch~r relief than trH~-=.l. \'.,f 'i:he .anct.ent:t:11' no l iteraturet thm 'efort• ~ ou:.~ht to be rno.r.e -stud s_,.:>d h1 democrat 1.c t: tmt~s 11, t, 15). <w..si . , Llncoln h\rna.elf ls~ 1: h<.:Hl 10 in de Tncqw?.>vtlle' s s.•~m'!'e an aristoeratic writer\\ cwen tu t:he point ·of flndlng hit~ sourceo tn tru:- par.t. The msn who had had f·r·om y'1'uth the .. pecul lil:r amblti(mn · of betng truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rern.1erl.ng myself . worthy o.f the!.r esteem (p~ 57 v ef ~ Jh 48)), and who Ga id he tnped h1~ UW:it?rStO~tri "th~{.t Which CQlll3t itub.HJ the tns ide c•f a gentleman'' (p .. 414-).c · eould have no quC!rn· .'l wtth thp- essence of , " m-i.stQcracy. In faet11 in the weak~1 ju5t before the d•:>ltvery of the · .Qc-tt~yfil.>~ [likh:e~ he had .had vlsi.tot~s whn urged him a.t ~he (rn,r;-1 t~nt occ~tii.on t<:.i prest:mt the Uni.on. to the 'public ~·a_s . ftght'htf.~ the batt1 e of democracy for .all the wor.tdn and th<... war Hs being one ~~ of 't:JH5 people s.ta tnst the arlstocratsv; l .he had accepted the former ~'lnd rejected the l.att:er st.1.gge~th.;1h F'or hl~ w~H hbnself s eorroboration of Jef.fer~on w o contentton, set out tn hlH .cor.re.operndence with Adams (Octob!!.•r. .2H t 1 Al :J) ~ that md.stocracy an6 dsrnocn~cyi' the t~ule (!~ f the best etnd the rule . of the ,peopl~'" have been marle t:o111patlble in the United St~teG, t:hat the: citize'n~ tn fre~· -eleott6n can and will nln ~enaral •• choose from among · thernselvt~s the "rtatural ~ls,t.Q\ , the best by nature" The ~~q;b_ur.,g iHJQ.rgJ}£. ts thu u'Ctr..~r.ance o.f such an §.X.i§tsu~. t <) man at 'the s-ame thnH ex.celle•nt in the arit i.que sense and good in the common um1eratarLding .. 0 �1 · For a desert pt ion of tht~ events of the Gett.y s hurg ded l.cat ion and a collect ion of crnnmentari.~s on the ~meeches see :Car:l Sandburg r Abraham Ltnool.r!t JJt~ l l i ~.• New York ( l 939), Vol. !I~ PP• ~452-4~ 2 For an annotated col lectlon of the vartous versions seL~ Ihe Colle~t;!Zd ~ ~J.~~~l!l Linc9...ln~ ed. Roy · p, Ih"lsl-01-·" Ne;;-Drunewlck 'CT95"3), Vol VII \.l8b3·lJJb4)t ppe 17~·23 . . 3 Edward Evere,ttf ill.:..E!.'tlOfl..§. ill1f1 .S~fil'Jl.~11 liostun (1892) 11, Vol~ IV, }lp. 622~659. see Harold l:ysklnd, ~'I\ Rhet.ori.~a.l linalyE.d;s of the Geti~'sbur.g Addre·s6 1' , J.21!£.lli!l u.[ Q.ene..r~l J~Qn~ Vol~ IV (1950)., PP• 202-212. 4 5 .For an analys ls whtch .doe-s just ioe to the awesome i.mpl icat ions of the,. speech see. H~!l~Y V ~ Jaffa~ ~JJi ( 1 9 :> 9) t pp c l 8 J"' ~ 3 L ~ tl S.~ l:!Q~~ .Jl};y1d~ , , 61 ' n t h' i ng out these paragraphs J. rec~ 'i ved much . i.nk help from Geor,ge i\naat:aplo. ~§ Q.'l th.«r; f.l!:fil~ t\11\endmett..t .t.g .tl!!t. ~2!1~~1.t:ut .!Q!! J2i. the Un .. cd St;at:es· ~ Ductural. Hisser.tat ton,, Univer~i.ty of Chi~go U 64 v ~l\ppentlix I, 6, p .. 600 'ff~ 7 8 Prom a spee< ch lnd irectly repo1i:t.ed in (1890). Vol~ !I, P• lilS. S~e Carl L. Becker., P• 142 .. J!le: ~:.!]litfu.1~§. !JJ.l~Ql nf Chicago ~la!£!~tiqn ~2( !D&~.Q.fill.£!£11 E~t New "York (1958), ... � 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. 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Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 40 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/. Title A name given to the resource A reading of the Gettysburg Address (expanded version) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered in 1968 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1968 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/39bbe47e04fc008ff2c151cbcfe14c85.pdf 45e1f0016e49968cda4828a9c6965b19 PDF Text Text THE STUDENT'S PROBLEM LECTURE ON THE LIBERAL ARTS Eva Brann Collegian Supplement, ~tober 1967 �St. John's College is a small liberal arts school, co-educational and non-sectarian, with campuses in Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Editors. . . . . • . • . . . . . . . • . . . . .George and Meredith Anthony Associate Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • . • • .Richard Sohmer Assistant Editors. . . • . . • . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . • Steve Forman Masha Zager F<1.culty Advisor . . • . . . . • . . . . • . . . • . . . • . . . . . • Eva Brann Cover Design . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . •.•.. Gabrielle Bershen St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland �The Student's Problem Lecture on the Liberal Arts, given at St. John's College in Annapolis on Friday night, September 22, 1967 Eva Brann, Tutor Fellow members of the Community of Learning, There is a sickness, traditionally called melancholy, which is particularly at home in communities of learning such as ours. Its visible form can be seen in the engraving by Duerer called Melencolia Prima. Amidst the signs and symbols of the liberal -arts, especially geometry, sits heavily a winged woman. Her eyes are fixed intently on visions of nothing - she is a figure of "careless desolation" surrounded by unvalued riches. Almost all the older members of this - and any - community of learning, be they teachers or students, are well acquainted with her. So will you be, who are fresh to our enterprise, the later the more devastatingly. However, not only we, but students throughout this country, over a quarter of whose citizens are now entering schools, are subject to this malady which has, in fact, in this very decade reached epidemic proportions. It therefore seems right to take account of it publicly, the more so since its cause is a peculiar version of a fundamental human problem which is just now beginning to cause this nation what will turn out to be, I think, its most characteristic agony. It is the problem of poverty amidst riches. I shall try to talk about its intellectual aspect not in those facile current terms which can do little but give the victims the bleak satisfaction of having a disease at once choice and popular. I shall not mention either "identity crises" or "alienation, " nor shall I talk of "middle class values, " rejected or otherwise, and "trends in society, "rapidly increasing or the opposite. Instead I shall begin by referring to a book which is a compendium of the traditional wisdom concerning the nature of human unhappiness, written when the human soul had not yet become a "field" for experts. In the beginning of the seventeenth century an English scholar, Robert Burton, wrote for his own relief and for the comfort of his friends a book called The Anatomy of Melancholy, in which everyone may find his particular misery acknowledged as a human condition. Burton makes a distinction between chronic suffering, a true disease of spirit, and the occasional type, of which he says simply that "melancholy in this sense is the character of mortality." I -3- �think that by the "character -of mortality" he means the knowledge, implied in every feeling that has any urgency about it, that the time of our life is finite. Melancholy, however peculiar and complex it may be, is essentially the sometimes paralyzing and sometimes frenzying dread of "missing out, " which comes to those who have had tantalizing intimations of earthly happiness. It is the stronger the more remote death is, and so strongest in the young, for in them every day demands the renunciation of a hundred possible futures for the choice of one actual life, and the very riches of this indeterminacy may stymie the energies and induce listlessness and restless sloth. Consequently the opposite of melancholy is riches in poverty, a serene ardour of the sort perfectly described in a : Buddist song of which the translation is as follows (I have, of course, no idea what the original really says): Well -roofed and pleasant is my little hut, And screened from winds:- Rain at thy will, thou god! My heart is well composed, my heart is free, - And ardent is my mood. Now rain, god! rain. · Melancholy is, then, a human sickness attendant ort the in · vestrhertt and expenditure of living time. That this is the case is shown by the kind of reliefthat that part of the youth of this country is indulging in which negotiates its future for an instant bliss and sells its hopes for a high moment, as the slogan goes, "right now." Their prototype is Dr . Faustus, the melancholy scholar who buys "experiences" of the devil at the expense of all time to come; there is,. in fact, a very perceptive novel of student life by John Hersey, called Too Far to Walk, which exploits this very legend of the melancholy doctor in modern dress. This then is the sickness which particularly afflicts students, and I shall now inquire why this is so. Our freshmen will soon lea.rn that the English word "school" is derived from the Greek word ''schole" which means "leisure." A student at school is a · person of leisure, a human being with an abnormal wealth of time free from business, left free to confront the acknowledged riches -of the spirit. And yet he often finds his appetite inept to this food, so that he who must have come because he wanted the life of study as a whole, cannot bring himself to study this or that assignment and spends his time in the frame of mind of which Paul says: "For what I would that do I not; but what I hate, that do I." Why does this happen? -4- �There are certain reasons for student discontent which I shall not consider much since they do not seem to me to go to the heart of the matter. One has to do with the restrictions and con formities demanded by the school as a semi-public institution. A college is a civil association grounded in the body politic and en tirely dependent on it for its survival. Its members, in joining this association, have in fact agreed to conform to the laws of the land. There remains, however, the vexed and vastly exaggerated question of conforming to its conventions. Here a subtle argument applies, and a student's appreciation of it is the measure of his understanding of the nature of a liberal education. For as I shall try to show later, a proper school harbours within itself such depths of true dissent and such abysses of true radicality, that an unobtrusive cloak of ordinary behavior is essential to its internal and external survival. Those who are considering growing long beards and sporting bare feet are, though they may not know it, supported even by classical Western authority, for the last great pagan, the Emperor Julian, showed in his essay called the "Beardhater" that it is a sign of Christian impiousness to despise beards, which are, even when thickets of lice, the philosopher's attribute. And who has read Plato's Symposium and does not know that bare feet are the very marks of the demon Love himself? But it is precisely because he appreciates the significance of such external signs that a serious person can afford to avoid them until he is sure that he knows what he is doing and to whom - to call such deliberate conformity hypocrisy is extremely simple-minded. Much restlessness also arises from the fact that students, who are in these years by the plan of nature at the peak of their sexual desires, are required by serious schools to observe the rites of celibacy. In this, more than in any other respect, the rules of school - life are no mere conventions, for whoever knows anything about the life of learning will not entertain the frivolous notion that it ought to be a very natural or satisfied life, but will understand that it requires a certain tension of soul and body and a certain reserve of deferred desire. µi the Symposium Aristophanes, whose business as a comedian it is to pursue the logic of ordinary and natural human behavior to its absurd end, gives a picture of constantly fulfilled desire as a frontless, faceless "two-backed beast" within which the mediating distance through which Eros needs to move has been closed, with the result that love and its attendant learning are at an end. And indeed, most of us have felt a certain loss of ardour in ageneration which feels free to proceed -5- �immediately to that end. Such then are what appear to me false irritants. There is, of course, also a genuine reason for the universal student disgust, and this has no cure but revolution - just such a revolution, I be lieve, as took place when the present program was instituted at this school over a generation ago. * Let me describe, justly, I hope, what seems to me the position which must be overthrown, the position of the vast majority of those engaged in the vast busi ness of higher education. They consider that there are at hand ready made bodies of information and disciplines which constitute the heritage of human learning. These must be made available to the student, who may, however, be expected to choose among them and who is therefore expected to desire to learn the ones he elects. Moreover, a certain randomness or freedom is granted in the manner in which the subject is to be absorbed, and some resistance to the mental food is not only expected but is actually considered healthy. Incentives such as marks are certainly used, but it is recognized that the best feeders ingest because they are hungry. The finest of the teachers under this view of learning are usually those who have themselves become in turn absorbed in their subject and are contributing.to its advancement. The institution of learning which corresponds to this ·'view is a vast clearing-house for the private predilections of people who are, to be sure, usually very much in earnest. This storehouse of specialist knowledge is the university, with its two major divisions of the sciences and the humanities and its combination of freedom of choice and formalization of presentation. The activity carried on there is diverse and stimulating, and yet efficiently organized, as Kant already observed, like a factory, on the principle of division of labor. It is in the nature of the set-up that the latest, the most effective and the most highly technical and theoretically elegant field is found most captivating by bright and . fresh students, and that the universities should become the breeding grounds of sophisticated theories and techniques. ~ *The program of St. John's College requires every student to· pursue the elements of the linguistic as well as the mathematical arts; and to consider seriously certain books belonging to the reflective tradition. -6- �Now why is it that this veritable smorgasbord of learning is more often than not stale and tasteless for its students? It is, I think, because this view of learning regards everything whichis not the latest technique as rriere history, somehow fascinating to those who happen to be curious and fond of sight-seeing, but not inevitably interesting to all who are human: "For to converse with those of other centuries is almost the same thing as totravel," says Descartes in the Discourse. The effect of engaging in such historical, or "objective", investigations of other people's affairs and opinions can be deadly. Let me read you what the most prophetic critic of our contemporary life, Nietzsche, wrote about the universities of 1873: . . . The young man is kicked through all the centuries; boys who know nothing of war, diplomacy, or commerce are considered fit to be introduced to political history. We moderns also run through art galleries and hear concerts in the same way as the youngman runs through history. We can feel that one thing sounds different from another, and pronounce on the different "effects." And the power of gradually losing all feelings of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the historical sense or historical culture. The crowd of influences streaming on the young soul is so great, the clods of barbarism and violence flung at him so strange and overwhelm ing, that an assumed stupidity is his only refuge. Where there is a subtler and stronger self-consciousness we find another emotion, too - disgust. The young man has become homeless: _ he doubts all ideas, all moralities. He knows "it was different in every age, and what you are does not matter. " . . . No, such study of history bewilders and overwhelms. It is not necessary for youth, as the ancients show, but even in the highest degree dangerous, as the moderns show. Consider the student of history, the heir of ennui that appears even in his boyhood. He has the "me thods" for original work, the "correct ideas" and the airs of the master at his fingers' ends. A little isolated period of the past is marked out for sacrifice. He cleverly applies his method and produces something, or rather, in prouder phrase, "creates" something. ·He becomes a "servant of truth" and a ruler in the great domain of history. Ifhe was what they call ripe as a boy, he is now overripe. You only need shake him and wisdom will rattle down into your lap; -7- �but the wisdom is rotten, and every apple has its worm. . . Thus Nietzsche. But I shall not linger on this genuine cause of student des pair either, since you at St. John's College are not, I think, confronted with it. If the sin of the universities may be defined as the perversion of tradition into history and of the liberal arts into special techniques, then the deeply conservative revolution by which the program of this college was instituted may be described as a return to the tradition of learning and the liberal arts. But as ,the freshman will learn all too soon, this campus too is the scene of much confusion of the spirit resulting in dreary apathy or danger ous wildness. Whatever the particular circumstances of those afflicted, in some central way our program of study is responsible. It too occasionally induces melancholy, and that in some of the most serious students, who sometimes feel a stultifying lack of fit between their human necessities and the store of learning provided, to whom the wisdom of the ages sometimes appears as a grotesque formalization of their vital problems, for whom the course of study sometimes runs aslant of, or counter to, the course of their lives. So I shall address myself now to this particular problem which I recognize as the central legitimate difficulty of the life of learning: Why are we sometimes unable to accept the riches we have inherited? I shall do this by investigating what the liberal arts are and, in connection with this, what is meant by our tradition of learning. For us it is not so important to know that there are traditionally seven liberal arts as to understand why these are divided into two groups, the trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. This division mirrors the double nature of learning, namely that it is always done through words on the one hand, and that these are always concerned with learnable objects on the other. The trivium, the arts of the word, deals with those skills by which thought, that which is internal to human beings, is brought out, expressed and made communal, while the quadrivium, the arts, one might say, of the world, deals with those skills which help us to acquire as knowledge what is in the world, apart from and outside of our speech. The first group was sometimes called "exoteric, "suitable for the uninitiated, since words are that of which all human beings -8- �have sufficient natural know ledge to be ready for artful instruction. Thus grammar, the art of using words correctly is, as Cassiodorus, the sixth century author of a book fundamental for the whole subsequent liberal arts tradition, says, the principle, source and foundation of the arts. The second group was, correspondingly, called "acroamatic," meaning the arts "to be heard," namely by fewer and more advanced students. This distinction goes back to Plato's Republic, in which all citizens receive some sort of education in poetry, while only certain chosen C'>nes study precisely those arts which were later to be known as the quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, dealing in turn with numbers, bodies, moving bodies and audible moving bodies, understood as the intelligible elements which constitute the natural world. I mention this ancient and medieval distinction because, with acertain shift of meaning and blurring of lines, it still dominates the schools. The devotees, as we all know, of the literary fields often think of mathematicians and scientists as practicing black arts alien to humanity, while the latter think of the former quite simply as occupied with "trivial" matters. Now that I have said briefly what liberal arts traditionally exist, let us take a look at their name itself. The liberal arts are the "free" or "freeing arts." But isn't the phrase which names them a contradiction in terms? Listen how John of Salisbury, a medieval defender of the trivium, defines "art" in his work called Metalogicon: "Art is a reasonable procedure which, using the shortcuts proper to it, brings about a facility for achieving the naturally possible. For in this procedure reason does not promise to undertake or effect the impossible, but having in view those things which can be done, it opposes, as it were, to the wasteful circuitous road of nature a short cut, and brings into being, if I may put it this way, a faculty for mastering the difficult. For this reason the Greeks speak of art as 'method,' a 'short way, ' which avoidi? the extra expenditure of nature and makes straight its winding circuit, so that that which is to be done can be done more di rectly and easily." And Thomas Aquinas says: "Art, then, is a method, a set course, whose pursuit has become a habit, a second nature, and whose aim is to do something and to do it efficiently. " (It goes, of course, without saying that the activities of people called "artists" at present can be called arts only insofar as these people are fully in command of their work. But we are, in any case, not now concerned with the so-called productive or with the mechanical arts, but with the arts of learning.) -9- �Now to be able to do things in this way means to be a train ed expert. The notion of efficient theoretical know-how, acquired by habit-forming training, by the internalizing of precepts, which dominates the modern instructional business, derives, therefore, strange to say, from the traditional liberal arts themselves. The arts are understood as curriculum subjects, scheduled and insti tutionalized learning programs, or as John of Salisbury himself calls them: "compendia," sets of precepts governing a range of particulars. Since the body of such precepts needs to be developed and perfected by the concerted and continued efforts of the masters of the arts, arts-learning is always "traditional" in the two senses of the Latin word "tradere," namely of "handing on" and of "betraying" a heritage. For the accumulation of know-how is on the one hand passed down, mostly in books, from generation to generation, and regarded as a valuable inheritance, but on the other hand, insofar as improvements and advancements in learning are made, each generation is very willing to forget and deny the perch from which it took off - and obviously, the steeper the flight, the more vehement the denial. To give an example: for almost two millenia the great tool of learning which tops off the triviwn, logic, had had its most authoritative statement in a body of treatises by Aristotle called traditionally the Organon or "Instrument." At the beginning of the seventeenth century Francis Bacon published, as part of a huge plan for the re-organization of human knowledge, a work significantly and boldly called the "New Organon," in which he writes: "For after the sciences had been cultivated and handled diligently, there has risen up some man of bold disposition (he means Aristotle), and famous for methods and short ways, which people like, who has in appearance reduced them to an art, while he has, in fact only spoiled all that the others had done." And that from a man a good quarter of whose vocabulary is, I would think, Aristotelian! The point, however, which I mean to make is that the arts-tradition, characterized by the conception of art as method, is as much behind the iconoclast as behind the scholastic. Let us take a very brief and inadequate look at the history and meaning of this word, "method. " The Greek word m~thodos means simply "a way to follow" or a "pursuit." In the dialogue The Republic, Socrates uses the word in just this way. He speaks of the "pursuit" of mathematical studies which will end in a unified view of all of these, and then goes on to speak of the "way followed by dialectic, which alone travels in such a way that it gets rid of hypotheses and comes to the source itself . . . . " If someone -10- �were to translate "the way followed by dialectic" by the words "the dialectic method" he would be very much misrepresenting Plato's text, for the way of dialectic, the way of questions and answers about the nature of things, is, as I shall try to show, fundamentally different from, if not diametrically opposed to, the artful, abbreviated, problem-solving procedure which is signified by the word for us. Gradually, largely under the influence of medical writers, who particularly appropriate the word and mean by it a rationalized technique of treatment clearly communicable to an apprentice physician, method comes to be a key word with very nearly its present meaning. An obvious and essential part of this meaning is that such a technique must be teachable, that is, - there must be handy, rationally organized compendia of precepts such as are associated with a program of studies; an art must have "elements," first beginnings through which a student is properly introduced to it. In fact, in time "method" sometimes comes to mean simply "curricular subject, " any organized public presenta ti on. By the sixteenth century interest in "method" as the pedagogi cal side of arts learning had become rampantly exaggerated. An outraged scholar (I'urnebe) of the period says: "Method - no word is more popular in our lectures these days, none more often heard none give a more delightful ring than that term. . . . " And Ramus, the prolific rhetorician whom he is attacking and who is the great proponent of method at this time, says: "But method is used not only in the matter of arts and curricular subjects but in every matter which we wish to teach easily and clearly." Our modern "textbooks" are the consequences of this trend. In the next century the method of method undergoes one of those great betrayals of which I have spoken. Having been so far largely in the service of humanist training, particularly rhetoric and logic, or, in terms of the liberal arts, in the service of the trivium, it is freshly appropriated now for the inquiry of nature, it becomes "scientific," always with the intimation that no previous method was a true method. The work most characteristic of this development and most influential in the new understanding of the meaning of science (although by no means in the actual pursuit of it) is Descartes introduction to three physico-mathematical treatises setting out his own discoveries in optics, analytical geometry and metc:;orology, called significantly a Oiscourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences. It proposes essentially the introduction of quantita- -11- �tive, that is, mathematical, methods into the speculative or liberal arts. Descartes says: "Most of all I was delighted with mathematics because of the certainty of its demonstrations and the evidence of its reasoriing, but I did not yet understand its true use, and believing that it was of service only in the mechanical arts, I was astonished that, seeing how firm and solid was its basis, no loftier edifice has been reared thereupon." And later on: "I have never made much of those things which proceed from my own mind, and so long as I culled no other fruits from the method which I use, beyond . that of satisfying myself respecting certain difficulties which pertain to the speculative sciences . . . , I never believed myself obliged to write anything about it, but so soon as I had ac quired some general notions concerning physics I believed that I could not keep them concealed . . .. For they caused me to see that it is possible to attain knowledge which is very useful in life and that, instead bf that speculative philosophy which is taught in the Schools, we may find a practical philosophy by means of which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, heavens and all other bodies that environ us as distinctly as we know the' different crafts of our artisans, we can in the same way employ them in all those uses to which they are adopted, and thus render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature. " (Incidentally, the phrase "practical philosophy" contains that very self-contradiction I am on the way to pointing out - for what in the world might an "applied" love of wisdom be? - whose end-result is that thorough debasement of philosophy whieh Hegel, with vicious humour, il lustrates in his Encyclopaedia by a new book title he found announced in an English newspaper, namely "The Art of Preserving Hair on Philosophical Principles.") Speaking very broadly, then, ever since Descartes to be "scientific" means to introduce the Cartesian method or to approach matters of any sort as a natural scientist. As one little sample of the scope and pervasiveness of the method, I might quote from just such an application, Emile Durkheim's fundamental essay on sociology, called "The Rules of Sociological Method." In this book he says: "that what the method demands is that the sociologist put himself in the same state. of mind as the physicist, chemist, or physiologist. " I have introduced this insufficient little disquisition on method to complete the description of the arts side of the liberal arts. Arts are rules for the direction of the mind, binding precepts. Medieval writers, who are still much concerned with the nature of the curricular arts, emphasize this by their understand-12- �ing of the etymology of the Latin word "artes" itself. The same Cassiodorus I mentioned before, as well as Isidore of Seville, claims that arts are so called because, in Latin, "artant arte" (translated: "they bind strictly"). Thus the arts appear to be the opposite of free or freeing. Again Cassiodorus - the work, inci dentally; in which he introduces the pagan liberal arts into Christendom is called the Institutes of Divine and Worldly Arts - recognizes this problem by rather shamelessly claiming that "liberal" comes from "liber, "book, thus turning the free arts into the bookish arts, a characterization which does, of course, in view of the traditional nature of the arts, have some appropriateness. John of Salisbury, again, catches another aspect in understanding "liberal" as pertaining to "liberi, " children, so that the arts are here interpreted as the education of children, which also has some truth in it. A last medieval writer, Hugo St. Victor, in his very acute discussion of the liberal arts called the Didascalicon, the "Teacher's Manual, " takes full account of the fact that the arts are con straining and that they are, perforce, taught by masters to. the immature: "They are indeed the best instruments and rudiments for preparing the way for the soul of a full knowledge of philosophi cal truth. This is why they are called the three-way (the trivium) and the fourway (the quadrivium) . . . . Of Pythagoras too it is said that he employed in his studies · a special custom." (I should remark here that the introduction of the quadrivium is traditionally attributed to Pythagoras, a Greek "mathematician" of the sixth century B. C., , the same one who is said to have introduced the word philosophia, literally the "love of, or friendship, for wisdom"). "For seven years," Hugo continues, "obviously corresponding to the seven liberal arts, none of his students might dare to demand of him a reason for what he said, but the words of the master had to be taken on faith until the student hadheard everything and could thus find the reason for himself." With this story Hugo acknowledges that the very arts intended to make the independent search for knowledge possible must come to the student as to a child, in a constraining and authoritative way. We all know that this aspect of the teaching of the arts is usually predominant. At the beginning of the eighteenth century appeared a work which crystalizes the development which I am sketching, and which 0 oreshadows, in an almost uncanny way, the problem of our own :ducational situation, Giambatista Vico's expanded lecture On the Study Plan of Our Time. Vico understands what he calls "the genius of his time, " his modernity, in terms of the menacing -13- �dominance of the scientific method; the whole work is a reaction of somewhat concealed but vehement opposition to Bacon and Des cartes. He describes the method of the latter, which he calls the "new critical philosophy," as intending to be "the common instrument of all our arts and sciences," which "supplies us with something fundamentally true of which we can be certain even when as sailed by doubt." There are also particular instruments such as the telescope, the microscope, the universities, the printing press, which assist in the discovery and mastery of nature and in the wide dispersion of that knowledge. But of all these the most powerful instrument is "analysis," that is, algebra, which represents the method in all its characteristic aspects, in its brevity, ease, communicability, power. Vico, although he acknowledges these virtues, is at heart disturbed by the predominance of training in these swift and certain manipulations in the study programs of young men. He believes that "the greatest drawback of our educational plan is that we pay an excessive amount of attention to the natural sciences and not enough to matters of human conduct." Vico, who delivered this lecture in his official capacity as Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples, wants to lead the university back to an emphasis on the uncertain, understood as the probable, which, he conceives, was taught in traditional logic. He wants the imagination again to be trained by poetry, the common sense by the wisdom of the ancients and the judgement by the opinions of contemporary men. In short, he wants the universities to give more weight to what we call the humanities, which are for him comprised in rhetoric. He is initiating, under the guise of the then current topic of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, the deeply shallow division of university learning into the "two cultures" of humanism and science with which we are more than ever afflicted. Now note what lies at the root ofthis quarrel. It is the difference between method and non-method. Let him who is not to be a physicist or mechanic, Vico says, "not spend much time as a boy or afterwards in those studies which are handed on by method." The founders of such studies are compared to tyrants who scatter the inhabitants of a eity to prevent opposition, who hobble individual judgment with rules, and gravest of all, who know nothing of free speech. The distinction between studies is based only secondarily on the nature of the objects involved, and primarily on the kind of approach used. But this distinction leads to an almost paradoxical classification. The natural sciences alone are artful, in the sense _ being methodical, while all that of concerns not the experts but humanity in common is artless, that -14- �is, free, but only in the sense of having no strict procedure, and being dependent on the taste and talent of each individual. Vico himself does not fail to issue a demand for the unification of the study plan of universities, but, I submit, his own understanding of the di vision of studies makes this unification permanently im possible, as the present state of universities, 250 years after Vico's lecture, shows. For so long as the sciences are regarded as the rigorously reasoned but inhuman business of a group specially habituated to a certain theoretical procedure, while a vast con glomeration of interests called the humanities are in the hands of professors who do not take quite so great a professional pride in their ability to think rigorously as in the meticulousness of their sensibility, clearly no power on earth, not even that benevolent coercion, an interdisciplinary credit requirement, can persuade very many students to study seriously in both divisions. For everyone will plead that his preferences are really the expression of his aptitudes and that he has, as the case may be, that famous "block" against mathematics or against languages. And so the liberal arts disappear, torn apart into the humanly rudderless artfulness of scientific method and the willful freedom of organized idiosyncracy. As I have tried to show, this division, driven to pernicious extremes in the universities, is in fact already inherent in the very notion of the liberal arts and in any liberal arts program, and our problem raises the possibility that the very neces sity of the paradox points to some understanding which, instead oi perpetuating the division, will heal it by showing it to be an indis pensable and yet a merely intermediary phase of a truly humar education. To point out this possibility will, among other things, mean giving aid and comfort to that serious student whose diffi culties with our program are precisely that it presents himat fixed and perhaps privately inappropriate times with prepared problems and procedures, which may all seem to shunt aside rather than meet his own concerns and doubts. In particular, there are those well-known scandals, the so-called classics of tradition, the foremost food of solid schools, which, although presented as containing what human wisdom there is, seem to insist on speaking in terms infuriatingly remote and "academic." And yet every student acknowledges with his act of matriculation that he is in need of an organized community of learning where there will perforce be a set sequence of studies such as can take little account of the con tingencies of the single human soul, and that whatever skills and arts there are can hardly be transmitted otherwise than in the terms of those who perfected them, so that in the beginning, at -15- �least, their rules and precepts and requirements must be submitted to. What troubles him, and rightly, is how he himself fares in this beneficent assault, how the tyranny exercised by the arts can ever succeed in setting him free from confusion and impotence. The problem can now be formulated m this way: how can the arts be the freeing arts? Let me put that same problem one last time in te rms of a simple and pointed formula. Human inquiry proceeds either .£y setting problems or by asking questions. I would by no means claim that the distinction between them which I am about to offer is simply a general fact of language usage; in fact, the Cartesian work which formulates the "rules for the direction of the mind" toward problems specifically terms these "questiones." But it is sufficiently pervasive at present for my purpose. Vico had, very accurately, seen the essence of Descartes' new method in an instrument which he regarded as a great danger to the human spirit, in "analysis" or algebra. Now Descartes himself received this instrument from a great but insufficiently acknowledged predeces sor, Franciscus Vieta by name. His fundamental essay, which has the significant name "Introduction to the Analytical Art, " ends with the following stupendous claim: "Finally, the analytical art appropriates to itself by right the proud problem of problems, which is: TO SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM." We are still or rather, more than ever, dominated by Vieta's immense ambition. We see everywhere and in everything problems which we expect to solve by the application of some general method - that is why we submit to the tyranny of a training. We speak of the "problem of freedom" or the "problem of God." Our griefs a::re called "personal problems, " and if they are expressed in a form annoying to others, "personality problems;" our aches and pains are "health problems," our vices "drinking problems" and the like; our public statements, especially lectures, frequently recur to "the problem under examination. " What is a problem? Again it will be useful to go back to the original meaning of the word in Greek. A problema is simply "something thrown out before" us, anything from an outwork, that is, a defensive structure thrown out before a military camp, to a task set before someone to be done. The word was also used with a special meaning in geometry, where it signified that a construe tion was to be furnished rather than a theorem demonstrated. For instance, the last book of Euclid's Elements culminates in a series -16- �of problems, the constructing of the five regular solids; and the propositions read, in abbreviated form: "to construct a pyramid", "to construct an octahedron, " a cube, an icosahedron, a dodecahedron. An ancient commentator observes that in some sense all problems are theorems, for "we regard the generation that takes place iu them as referring not to actual making but to' knowledge, " and Euclid presents his problems in this theoretical way. But there is a procedure which is special to problems as distinct from theorems and which the Greeks called "analysis;" here is the source of this important method, which consists essentially in imagining the construction as having already been done, and then analyzing it, that is, breaking it up, to discover how it could have been do.n e. The elements which, as the technical phrase goes, wUl "do the problem" are then put back together or "synthesized." Furthermore, Aristotle, using the word "problem" in a logical context, distinguishes it, in his Topics, from the straight-forward interrogative proposition by the manner of the response expected; the problematic form constrains the answer to be an affirmative or a negative, as, for example in the question: "Is it, or is it not the case that animal is the genus of man", while the propositional form simply asks: "Is animal the genus of man?" We see that there are three related aspects to a problem. It is first of all a challenge, a publicly enunciated task requiring a solution in its own terms; secondly, its solution usually has the nature of a construction which may well be a th·e oretical construct; and finally and fundamentally, a problem is characteristically that which requires a solution, that is to say it requires its own aboli tion; a solv;ed problem is no longer a problem, and problems once solved are very legitimately forgotten. Take as an example the famous problem of squaring the circle, attacked in the past with veritably fanatical persistence. When in 1882 this problem was solved, or rather resolved, by being proved to be insoluble, the many clever efforts made in its behalf all, at a stroke, lost their interest except for antiquarians or slightly unhinged characters, like Public Prosecutor Paravant in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, who, laying out a piece of string on the circumference of a circle, attempts to catch the problem napping, as it were, by suddenly pouncing on the string and stretching ,it into the shape of a square. This self-destroying nature of a problem is acknowledged by Bacon and Vico and Kant, who all use for their new method, the method which turns every question into a soluble problem, the metaphor of Ariadne's clue, the thread which lead Theseus out of the laby-17-· �rinth to safety after he had killed the monster at the center. Problems have a fourth aspect, which is the one most relevant in my present context. In the Republic Socrates makes a special point of introducing problems into the quadrivium. He says: "Then in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems and let the heavens alone . . . . " We have some evidence of what he meant by "employing problems" and "letting the heavens alone," since Plato is said to have set for his students the problem of rationalizing the irregularity of the visible heavenly motions by going beyond them to form mathematical hypotheses. The word "hypothesis" as used here designates the solution of the special kind of problem which calls for a mathematical fiction such as shall, without itself laying any claim to being true, provide a rational underpinning for the errant appearances of nature. What hypotheses are produced is never quite so interesting as that they should be produceable. From this point of view Socrates' call for the use of problems by learners, that is, the demand that they should construct hypotheses, is a demand that they should learn by exercising their skills on questions the answers to which are fundamentally indifferent. We are all very familiar with a rather low example of this teaching device: the practice problem. For instance, an analytic geometry textbook may present a student with the problem (I choose one of a multitude): "Show analytically that the latus rectum of a parabola is of length 4a. " This is the very model of a problem, showing explicitly what every problem at least implies. To begin with, the author and i:he student are both aware t,hat the problem is not waiting for the latter to be solved - his solution is in itself of no interest. Furthermore he is to "show analytically" what is required, and he understands immediately that this means "show by constructing an equation, " "show algebraically. " Just as the arts have in them the seeds of the scientific method, so the very notion of problem has in it an invitation to analysis or algebra; you will remember that analysis was originally a geometric procedure in which a construction is regarded as accomplish ed from the very beginning and then analyzed. But this is precisely what the fundamental algebraic form, the "formula" or equation, does for general numbers, for when I write 3x=l2, I am putting down a mathematical sentence which requires no question mark, much as if I already knew the answer, and all I need to do to make that answer explicit is to analyze out the unknown number by re organizing the equation. Now I can simply read off: x= 12 == 4. 3 -18- �The solution, four, does away with and abolishes the problem, for when I substitute it in place of x, the equation becomes an identity, a useless tautology. But most significantly, the unknown is fourid wholly in terms of the original problem so that the solution reaches in no way beyond it. Now, this procedure, although most nakedly apparent in mathematics, may be used in any art, and, as some people think, even in those human enterprises which go beyond the arts, if only their terms have been compacted into recognized obstacles, outworks inviting attack, that is problems. This is in fact our predominant way. Let me now say what a problem is in terms of all that has gone before. A problem is a sham question, a counterfeit question. For a genuine question is the desire for an answer, and it does not dissolve when an answer is gained anymore than love necessarily disappears because its object is won. A genuine question does not demand an answer in its own terms or on its own level, but seeks its desire wherever it may hope to find it, remaining open to any intimation its object might give. Nor will it rest satisfied by a construct or a fiction fabricated only to set it at rest, for it wants only what is in itself worth having. Problems are ultimately exercises, mere means, but questions are the serious and final hu man business. Let me try to formulate this once more. Is there something which human beings have for themselves, which is so very much our own that if we found a creat:Ure that possessed that same ability we would count it as human, no matter what its shape? Or, to put it in the opposite way, a very contemporary way: is there not something that we can be certain the most complex computer can never do? There is such a thing. The most sophisticated machine can never ask a question. For it can never feel the desire to know, which is the heart of a question. This desire, the desire in a true question, is not for apre-conceived x, hidden but present and entangled with all the terms at hand, but for something beyond. If, for instance, I seriously ask "what human learning might be?" I do not want my question transformed into the . problem of describing learning "systematically" or of "measuring it methodically," or of finding its "correlative phenomena, " or even of "constructing an effective theory" of learning, ·· but I want to gr asp what it truly is whenever it takes place. Here my very question implies that everything that is presented to me about learning, in observation or in books, is external and insufficient; I want to know for myself, and yet, in the common langu-19- �age of human beings, what makes the thing what it is. I am not looking for a pre-conceived x, unknown for the moment but so involved with and defined by the problem itself that I need only to re-arrange the terms cleverly enough to get a solution, but I want something beyond these, namely the reason why the thing is what it is, and I want this reason to be freely communicable. Every "academic" search, particularly the kind nowadays called "research, " moves strictly within the set terms of its discipline, and is therefore usually of interest only to the expert specialist, while many others can live without it: the quest of a question alone is after that without which we can hardly be said to live our lives, at least as human beings. So it is the genuineness of the desire in a question which keeps it open, keeps it from pre-judging the answer by setting it terms. There are no "traditional, " inherited, ques tions; every question is my own, and yet every such question is generic to human beings, insofar as they are human. Here now is the place to say something about "the Tradi tion" and its relevance to the quest for truth and the love of wisdom. The unreflective opinion of the times has it that human wisdom is both cumulative and automatically transferrable. We speak all the time of "our rapidly increasing knowledge," "our recent achievements and advances, " "our breakthrough" in this or that field, as if each contemporary human magically acquired the results of the research carried on by thousands of different people. Ridiculously we talk as if human beings were no longer born as naked little babies who have to begin the learning process at the beginning and who have perhaps a quarter century to invest in it. Now the Pla tonic dialogue The Statesman does envision a race of men born old and, perhaps, wise, who return in the course of their lives to a first childhood. But this race lives when the world's time is reversed, in the Golden Age when a god sits at the temporal tiller of the cosmos. In our present, mortally governed, world we have to begin at the beginning. Undeniably, the disciplines of the quadri vium, more modernly speaking, of mathematics and the sciences, are "progressive," in the sense of being capable of becoming more and more sophisticated and potent tools of research and manipula tion. But this does not for a moment mean that the young man who "inherits" such subjects in their advanced state has inherited accumulated knowledge. The wisdom of babes may indeed be powerful, but it is almost always bought at the expense of a re flective understanding of the terms and first elements of the science in question, for such an understanding becomes almost inaccessible -20- �when the beginnings of a disciplinewhich arose progressively, that i's, as a continuous sequence of problems, are relegated to mere history. Most possessors of such latter-day knowledge are, I say, prodigious babies, Peter Pans of wisdom who, incapable of remembering their past, lightly fly hither and thither over their o\vn fantastic islands, · having lost their mother and the groi.ind under their feet. . Those, on the other hand, who are willing, as you are, to go more slowly in order to keep solid ground underfoot, will soon find themselves involved in the dialogue of tradition. It is a telling fact that a work by the very founder of modern physics; the one which introduces ·the New Astronomy tb the public, is itself written in dialogue form and includes among its participants his Greek predecessor: in Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Chief Two World Systems, Aristotle, the founder of the ancient physics, is literally present in the shape of a book in the pocket of one of the interlocutors; this is Galileo's way of acknowledging that thebasis of the New Sciences is the responsive repudiation of the tradition. On the other hand, in those studies which are not progressive in their original design but only insofar as they are forcibly assimilated to the natural sciences, for instance, in psychology, anthropology and sociology (the accounts of the soul, of man and of community) the tradition is yet more than the grolln.d of the present - it is that present itself, for quite aside from the incidental fact that our times seem to me to show a strong decline of wisdom concerning these matters, the tradition, just because it is not progressive, consists of a conversation in which the participants listen to each other, circumvent, re-invent and echo each other, so that while temporal in its parts, it is timeless, or ever-present, as a whole. It is in this sense that it seems tome possible that our West alone. has a tradition, that this strange dialogue of contemporaries who are yet bound into their times, this sequence .of acceptance and betrayal, can take place only through books in the Western sense, ,hooks of arguable "theory" rather than of spiritual practice. This 'conjecture is supported by circumstances of the following sorts: the the Indians , for instance, seem to have no word for philosophy, for that search for a wisdom which is a communicable activity rather than a silent possession. Now how are · the members of this tradition established? This is the general version of the perennial question: how do we choose our seminar books?, for the tradition comes to us through books. What books are these? Are we entirely at the mercy of our -21- �library catalogues? We are indeed. It seems to me just as possi ble that there are momentous manuscripts which are quite unknown as that unworthy books become canonized. But all in all, I think we can trust the consensus of reading mankind as shown in the quantity of the propagation of a book. We can do this so much the more safely because of a human fact which I have always marvelled at - that worthy works attract the professional industry of legions of people who have no interest in their contents. A principal example of this in my own experience is the crowd of classical philologists, those "scientific language microscopists," as Nietzsche calls them, who fill libraries with comment on the attendant circumstances of wisdom. What single trait dis tinguishes the persons acknowledged as belonging to the tradition? Here we must refer once again to the distinction made between history and tradition. The persons of history, if there be such a science, must be, as Hegel says, nations. The persons of tradition are single and special human souls. If there be such an item as "the Greek mind, " if for instance it was the pervasive quirk of canonical Greeks to believe in visible gods, then the authors of the classical tradition have probably overcome that quirk and are certainly not of that mind. For these authors are usually radicals; this is why they are at worst ignored and at best considered dangerous in their own times. So that if, for instance, the Olympian gods appear in the Homeric poems, they may safely be suspected of playing there a role deeply different from that which they played in the mind of "the Greeks, " a problematic, perhaps even an ironic, role. Hence so-called "historical backgrounds" can never help to understand the central intention of works of tradition (except, perhaps, to set off the foregroundofthought by contrast), since history does not make that which is valuable in the tradition - although the tradition sometimes makes history. For the authors of tradition sound a reflective descant on the common opinions of mankind and the peculiar opin ions of their nation - and so these opinions sometimes modulate. The tradition is, then, always problematic, and it is for this reason that no one is born into it. As children we become entan g led in a web of accepted opinions and conventions; in youth we begin, largely by means of books, to break out of this cocoon into the light of the tradition, and this cannot help but be .a laborious but monumentous phase of our lives. Nowadays most of the earliest serious reading done is contemporary, and this raises a question which I -22- �will put very outrageously: Are contemporary writings ever part of ·the tradition? or, what is the same thing: Are contemporary writirigs ever relevant to the hurtJ.an condition? There seems to be no inherent reason why they should not be, though it is, perhaps, as unlikely for a "contemporary" to enter into the realm of trac:lition as for · the camel to go through the needle's eye, simply because it is'. essentially the agreeably conforming, even if apparently shocklng, which instantaneously fascinates and becomes pbpu lar, while the' tradition is always somewhat uncomfortable, not to say repiilsiv~ . .· · Especially at present, the contemporary, with its accent orl the new, the changeable and the young, tends to be sham radfral, and i.t s problems tend to be derivative and, in fact, antiquated. ·. For to begin with, it is self-defeating to insist on newness 'and youth as independent goods, forgetting that newness and youth are conditions which by their very nature have no future. But more important, the easy revolt of the contemporary scene is an opposition almost entirely determined by that which is rejects, a mirror image of common current opinion; conthlning all the flaws of the older opponent in reverse, a counteraction in the manner of ·a brute body whose reaction is equal to the action upon it. Such mere :qehavior is truly "reactionary." . I will give an example. In 1864 · Dostoyevsky published a manifesto of genuine despair over ciV:i.l:faation,calledLetters from the Underworld, in whieh he wrote: hF solerrip.ly declare to you that I have often wished to become an i'ns'ect; but couldliever attain my desire." In this century, over a ~eneration ago; Franz l(afk~ wrote a dreadful story called "The Metamorphbsis, " in which one young man, a travelling salesman, in silent 'desperation over what present day jargon would call ''middle Class values" painfully turns himself into a great cocktdach'; In . the 19pO's, finally, a whole swarm of youngmen turn therhselves into Beatles with the most exuberant facility, and the fuldej:'ground man emerges in amiable companies, his eyes shield: ed' against the Unwonted sun, his inardculate wisdom pinned to him on a printed button, his ways mildly lawless, his uniform complete• ly determined by opposition to rosily wholesome suburbanity, a harmless, institutionalized latter-day version of the prophetic, criminal outcast of the Western traditicn. It is, then, the very radicality of the tradition which mikes it so· inaccessible. For to become absorbed in the tradition means quite simply to break away both from one's own private idiom and the current public jargon into the language of humanity, to com tntinieate; not in the current sense of "being effective" or "making -23- �contact," but in the sense of entering the human community. The traditional authors, who speak that language, must always seem somewhat forbidding, for this human tongue is much more boldly simple and subtly complex than the dialect of our place and time. It takes time to grow simple and subtle and requires a certain willing trust in the wisdom of these initiators and guides, who are as yet untried strangers, but such an expense of present, youthful time is the best way of insuring a future in which ardour will on the whole outweigh melancholy. For at best a faithful student has hope of sharing the experience of Dante in his journey through the world of the soul, when, in the face of hell, his guide and teacher Virgil "placed his hand on mine, and with a cheerful countenance, which comforted me, led me into the secret things. " And at worst he will have learned to make a knowledgeable and dignified retreat into the decent pleasures of the practical life. But, you will recall, I entered upon this consideration of the tradition after I had defined traditional problems as sham questions, almost as if traditional learning of necessity interfered with genuine questioning. For questioning is that situationofdetermined openness in which the soul, willingly attentive to the apparent and the immediate, encounters even in its deepest delights certain difficulties and perplexities which, out of its very love and concern for things, it is determined to face and resolve, or not think life worth living; it is the "ardent mood" of the soul which is well -composed and free. If this enterprise is carried on with a certain trust in its possibility, it is called the love of wisdom. But the traditional questions come to the learner as "problems, " by which I mean as another's question, which is, if anything is, a contradiction in terms. In sum, all formal study, perhaps even all purposeful conversation, must give up living thought to "formulations." Nay more - evidently Western tradition itself must needs progress along the road, which Nietzsche characterizes as leading from the forms of Plato to the formulas of algebra. I cannot resolve this, the problem of my lecture and the question in my mind. I herewith hand it over to you, without,of course, myself relinquishing it. The study of the liberal arts, which are the public and adequate learning procedures, and of their fruits, which are the various bodies of knowledge, as well as the absorption of the reflective tradition which is based on them, can only provide materials, tools and a language for questioning; the love of wisdom itself cannot be gainedby study; and for that portion -24- �of our life of learning in which our unknown source fails us - for it is more arduous to maintain the condition of openness than a state of levitation - we must expect to be sometimes prey to the mortal's malady, the confusion of the soul induced by the futile passing of precious time. But in this understanding of that sickness there is implicit the suggestion of a cure: .to fix stubbornly and determinedly on that present preparation, that acquisition of the problem-solving arts and the problem -posing tradition, which is certainly at least the pre-condition of a questioning life, a life worth living. In the words of the tradition as represented once more by the Didascalicon of Hugo St. Victor: "Therefore it seems to me that first an effort should be made in the arts, for here are the foundations of everything and in them pure and simple truth is opened up; most of all I am thinking of the seven of which I have spoken which are the instruments of all philosophy . . . . But philosophy is the love and the pursuit and, in a manner of speaking, the friendship felt for wisdom; not, however, for that wisdom which is concerned with some kind of hardware and any sort 9f applied science and expertise - he says: quae in ferramentis quibusdam et in aliqua fabrili scientia notitiaque versatur - but of that wisdom which needs nothing and is living thought and the sole original reason for things - vivax mens et sola rerum primaeva ratio." -25- � 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. 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Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 25 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/. Title A name given to the resource The student's problem: lecture on the liberal arts Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967-09-22 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 22, 1967 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context lec Brann 1967-09-22 Relation A related resource The Collegian, October 1967 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d54631506289d9a51f59be2922391da5.pdf b8980e4108eb2b058d456bb17fce181b PDF Text Text THE HORSES OF ACHILLES At the end of the Nineteenth Book of the Iliad, Achilles readies himself to avenge the death of Patrocles. He puts on the armor of Hephaestus, mounts the chariot behind his two immortal horses, and calls on them in a terrible voice: Xanthos and Balios, far-famed sons of Podarge! Take care to return your charioteer in another way to the company of the Danaans once we quit the field: do not leave me there dead, as you did Patrocles. The goddess Hera then gives one of the horses a prodigious, an unheard of gift: the power to speak. Xanthos claims he and his brother, Balios, were not to blame for the death of Patrocles, and though they will bring Achilles safely home this time, his death is not far off. The Furies take back Xanthos’ voice as quickly as it was given. Achilles is deeply shaken by this ominous reply to his insult, but states his intention to return to the war, and drives the chariot on. Xanthos never speaks before this, nor does he or any other animal in the Iliad ever do so again. In order to understand the significance of this momentary suspension in the rule of the cosmos we must acquaint ourselves with the nature of those horses who participated in the Trojan War and the deathless horses of Achilles in particular. Not being an expert in horsemanship myself, I will permit a few others to guide us, chief among them Xenophon, the Athenian soldier and friend of Socrates. The lecture is in five parts. Part One: The Horses The horses of the Iliad, unlike the dogs who lurk at its edges, are full participants in the war. Just like human warriors, they are sensitive to boredom, terror, and honor, though they perceive each in their own equine way. When the Trojans have taken the field, and their campfires are scattered across it, innumerable and brilliant as the stars, their horses watch through the endless hours of night for the return of dawn, just as their masters do (VIII.564). Horses, also like men, can be more or less used to war, as when the newly arrived Thracian horses are too frightened to walk on the bodies of their masters. And horses, like men, are capable of overcoming even great weariness and reluctance when persuaded. Antilochus delivers himself of a complicated speech in the midst of the chariot race at the end of the poem, calling on his horses with a rhetorical sophistication we might think appropriate only for human listeners, though he demonstrates thereby the close bond between warriors and horses, and their sensitivity to honor (XXIII.400). A fast horse is life. As it did for Nestor, a chariot can rescue the exhausted hero and carry him to safety (VIII.85). It can also take him where he is needed most. From the height of the chariot a spear can be thrown or a comrade spotted (IV.306). Not to have one’s horses nearby can mean death, as it did for Agastrophos, whom Homer calls a fool for leaving his chariot team with a henchman (XI.340). Dolon, the impetuous Trojan spy, names the horses of Achilles as the high price for his dangerous night raid into the Greek camp (X.320). He does not acquire them, and the book ends with Odysseus and Diomedes �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 stealing the horses of King Rhesus, an ally of the Trojans. This strategically unimportant and morally questionable raid is a symbolic journey into the dark underworld of the battle to steal something as precious as daylight—hope for the successful outcome of the war. It is as if the theft of these snow-white horses secures the sunrise, and the book ends with the bloody, triumphant heroes bathing in the dawn-drenched waters of the sea. The horses of Achilles did not always belong to him. Poseidon gave them to his father, Peleus, and he gave them to Achilles when he sailed for Troy. Their father is Zephyrus—the West Wind, and their mother, Podarge—a harpy (XVI.148). The harpies, or more literally, “Snatchers,” are winged spirits of the storm, blamed for sudden or unexplained disappearances. Zephyrus by contrast, is the obliging wind who comes at Achilles’ request to kindle the funeral pyre of Patrocles. As with many mythological pairings, these progenitors are opposites but akin: Zephyrus generously comes from afar to help hide the body of Patrocles in fire, Podarge makes mortals disappear with ill will. The horses are as swift as their parents, though their names do not reveal this extraordinary inheritance. Xanthos and Balios refer simply to the color of their coats: Bay and Dapple. The chariot of Achilles is also drawn by a third horse, Pedasos, who is mortal. His name is revealing. It is probably derived from the verb πεδάω, to bind with fetters, and Pedasos would mean something like, “Fettered,” or more figuratively, “Trained.” One also hears the verb πηδάω in his name, which means, to leap or bound. Both these meanings are revelatory of his own duel nature: he is bound to the earth by his mortality, but he rises above his natural station to run with the immortal horses. Pedasos is killed by a spear which pierces his shoulder, and Automedon hurriedly cuts him free from the chariot in the chaos of battle. His is a harbinger of Patrocles’ own death, a mortal severed from godlike Achilles. When Pedasos dies, he screams, and just like any of the other heroes in the Iliad, blows his life’s breath from his mouth. No horse can be handled without skill, but the immortal horses require an altogether formidable rider. Just as a great hero like Achilles is jealous of his freedom to act as he sees fit, inflexibly proud of his peerless excellence, and easily offended by discourtesy, there is something correspondingly perilous in the temperaments of Xanthos and Balios. Odysseus and Apollo agree they are, “difficult horses to ride” (X.401, XVII.76). And being difficult is not the same as being wild or unbroken. A certain kind of horse might well refuse to be ridden by an inferior rider, just as a certain kind of person might refuse to be commanded by an inferior king. There are other similarities between Achilles and his horses besides their prideful unwillingness to be led by any but the most excellent guides. Both are accounted in the catalogue of ships to be the best among the Greeks (II.770). When Achilles finally returns to the field of battle, he attains the cosmic proportions this ranking promised: his eyes burn like fire, he shines like the madness-inducing Dog Star, his shield depicts the entire earth, and he is drawn by immortal horses, swift as the wind. By this time in the poem, Pedasos and Patrocles are dead; nothing remains to remind him of his human heritage, only Xanthos’ prophecy of his imminent death. The likeness between Achilles and the immortal horses is in no way better exemplified than at the funerary games. Neither participates. They stand apart and mourn. 2 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 Part Two: The Charioteer The immortal horses are more difficult to ride than any other, though it is not to Achilles their mastery belongs, but rather, to Patrocles (XVII.475). He is their beloved charioteer (ἡνίοχος), a word which applies peculiarly to him, the greatest charioteer for the greatest warrior (XXIII.280). Achilles, while watching the funeral games, remembers him this way: But I stay here at the side, and my single-foot horses stay with me; such is the high glory of the charioteer they have lost, the gentle one, who so many times anointed their manes with soft olive oil, after he had washed them in shining water. As Pandaros says to Aeneas, horses carry better the horseman they know best (V.230). “To know” in this sense entails profound trust and understanding. He goes on to say it is the longed for voice of the charioteer that calms the terror battle brings on, not the rider’s skill with the mechanical apparatus of the chariot. Hector speaks to his own horses with this intent to calm and encourage. He asks they repay in battle all the care his wife, Andromache, gave them in peace (VIII.185). There is a likeness between Hector’s speech and Achilles’ insult: Hector demands his horses repay the special kindness Andromache showed them, just as Achilles accuses his horses of unjustly not repaying the kindness of Patrocles. In both addresses Patrocles and Andromache are the horses’ caretakers whose memory should inspire them to excellence. This is not the only time Patrocles has been implicitly compared to a woman. In Book Nine, Phoenix tells Achilles an only apparently rambling story meant to convince him to return to the battle before the Greeks are driven into the sea. It becomes clear he is not primarily addressing Achilles. Patrocles’ name means “glory of the father,” and the wife of the angry, recalcitrant hero in Phoenix’s story is Kleopatra, its feminine equivalent. In the story, Kleopatra is the only person who can persuade her husband, Meleager, to give up his anger and save the city, just as Patrocles might be the only person who can convince Achilles to save the Greeks. Gentle and masterful charioteer that he is, he might be able to persuade spirited Achilles, just as Kleopatra did her husband. The epithet with which Achilles addresses Patrocles after he has agreed to let him go into battle is ἱπποκέλευθος. This word is used only three times in the Iliad and exclusively to characterize Patrocles. It distinguishes his horsemanship from the Trojans’, who are often referred to as ἱπποδάμοιων, “breakers of horses.” Ἱππόδαμος is derived from the word for horse, ἳππος, and the verb δαμάζω, which means “to break in, tame; (in mid.) to control (horses); to bring into subjection (political or matrimonial); to wear out or exhaust; to curb or restrain; to overcome, overpower, to put an end to, to destroy.” Although the lexicon suggests this wide-ranging word means something like “bring into order” when it refers to horses, in its broader sense it hints at the forceful means by which this is accomplished, as well as the permanent circumstances which ensure the obedience of the horse. The Trojans do have their horses under control, but rather in the way Xerxes controls his army: always under threat of the lash. Patrocles’ epithet, ἱπποκέλευθος on the other hand, has a very different range of meaning. Its root appears to be κέλευθος, which means “way, road, or path,” and so one Homeric lexicon defines ἱπποκέλευθος as “one who fares with horses,” while another suggests, “making the road on a chariot, chariot-fighter.” Lattimore translates it as “rider of 3 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 horses,” and “lord of horses,” the latter of which nicely captures a verbal echo from the verb κελεῦω, which has the primary meaning, “to command persons, order, bid, enjoin, give orders or injunctions.” Secondarily, it means “to bid, exhort, charge, urge, recommend, counsel, invite.” These two resonances in his epithet—κέλευθος and κελεῦω—imply that Patrocles’ relationship to horses is not one of breaking them to his will, but rather, of commanding them, as one might command a fellow warrior capable of understanding and assent. In his horsemanship, the horse is taken to be a thinking being capable of persuasion and with which one can go somewhere together. Patrocles is ἱπποκέλευθος because he follows the way of the horse. In the Trojan epithet, ἱππόδαμος, the horse always remains a potential enemy, defeated, never moving beyond its subjection. I will turn to Xenophon and a few other horse trainers to show that this difference—between force and persuasion—is a fundamental concept in horse training, and that anyone who would fare with horses must make a decision regarding it. The distinction reaches to the depths of the conflict portrayed in the Iliad. While Xenophon recommends many means of training the horse one might call forceful, he is very clear, the final end of horsemanship is for the horse to act always of its own free will. He means this to be true most of all when the horse is asked to do more dangerous things than it would ever do in the wild. This is a simple but difficult thought to accept. How can a rider ride a horse unless it is the rider’s will which rules? Here is Xenophon in his own words: For what a horse does under constraint, […] he does without understanding, and with no more grace than a dancer would show if he was whipped and goaded. Under such treatment horse and man alike will do much more that is ugly than graceful. No, a horse must make the most graceful and brilliant appearance in all respects of his own will with the help of aids. (The Art of Horsemanship XI.4) A more modern inheritor of Xenophon’s tradition writes, “The thing you are trying to help the horse do is to use his own mind. You are trying to present something and then let him figure out how to get there.” That was the trainer Tom Dorrance on horsemanship, or, perhaps, on education generally. Dorrance also talks about those riders who don’t “get in the way of” their horse (p. 17, True Unity: Willing Communication between Horse and Human). According to these teachers, true horsemanship is not forcing the horse to act, but rather, allowing the horse to do what he or she is capable of and wills for itself. “You need to be the horse’s master, but him not the slave, but rather your willing partner.” (p. 51, Dorrance) Dorrance sums up the relationship between horse and rider as a “true unity of willing communication,” and later, to be clear he is not describing a monstrous melding of horse and man, he calls this state of unity, “togetherness.” (p. 11, Dorrance) We can properly estimate the horsemanship of Patrocles by noting what it enables him to do with the horses. It is not always true that actions are revelatory of the powers which enabled them. Mere force, after all, can induce great and terrible effects all on its own. But in this case, the action in question is so extraordinary that we can look to it as a true indication of his skill. In order to understand its significance, we must remember the precarious situation the Greeks find themselves in without Achilles. Nestor proposes a plan to make up for his absence. First, they will gather and bury their dead in a collective funeral pyre. Then they will construct a wall, fronted by a moat, lined with wooden stakes meant to impede and impale the expected Trojan assault. The project will transform the Greeks’ 4 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 piratical encampment into a more permanently defensible fort, but also anchor them even more firmly in their defensive position. The buried warriors are meant to protect them from their enemies just as much as the wall and moat (VII.327). One might recall the body of Oedipus buried at Colonus to defend Athens from invasion, or the Spartan theft of Orestes’ bones to ensure their conquest of Arcadia (Herodotus, Inquiries I.67). The Greek encampment is founded on and preoccupied with the dead, the dark, and past grievances; Troy is the city of life, and the forgetful forgiveness of Paris’ calamitous theft of Helen; it is the city of Apollo. In the twilight between Greek darkness and Trojan light lies the plain of war, the place of heroic action. When Patrocles finally rides out in defense of his comrades, he turns the tide of the battle and drives the Trojan flood back into this plain. Many are crushed in the panicked retreat or trapped in the dust-choked ditch. Patrocles drives the horses straight towards this grisly chasm, heedless of the danger, and vaults it in one death-defying spring (XVI.380). Xenophon says in The Cavalry Commander, if it is true a man should wish to fly, then he should learn to ride a horse, as it is that activity which most closely resembles it (viii.6). This astonishing physical feat is itself only a mark of an even greater spiritual one. The leap of Patrocles affirms that though human life may only be safe behind a barrier founded on the memory of those who have gone before us, it is possible to leap into the living present and act. While the leap shows us what Patrocles and the horses were capable of, their reaction to his death reveals the great love which made it possible. Part Three: The Grave After the horses hear Patrocles has been killed, they stand still as gravestones and weep. The verb (πυθέσθην, from πεύθομαι, XVII.427) emphasizes that they do not simply witness, but hear of and understand what has happened. Patrocles᾽ death is described elliptically. He falls “in the dust,” (ἐν κονίῃσι) and the horses mimic his collapse by trailing the full length of their manes in the muck of the battlefield. Their desecration of themselves anticipates the fate of his dead body, soon to be returned to the earth. The horses bow their heads to the earth, their tears flow to the ground, and they stand fixed (ἔμπεδον) as a gravestone. “Ἔμπεδον” recalls the name, Pedasos, the mortal horse whose name means “fettered,” or as we might hear it now, “earthbound.” Without Patrocles to guide them, the immortal horses are rooted to the earth, like their dead comrade. The horses are compared to a gravestone not only because they are still, but because their immobility means something, in the way a gravestone does. It means they have lost, or are willing to give up, that essential part of themselves—their speed—out of love for Patrocles. Rather than run away from his death, in body or in mind, they remain with him. The word for remain here, μένει, might remind us of the link Socrates makes between “remaining” and “remembering” in the Meno. The heroes of the Iliad long for immortality in the form of undying fame and they fear forgetful oblivion. When the carnage Achilles wreaks is so great the river Scamander rises from his bed in indignation, Achilles fears not only he will drown, but that he will be forgotten in the depths without a fixed grave marker to remember him by (XXI.315). Patrocles will not be so forgotten. Homer’s simile makes the horses’ eloquent immobility his memorial. Homer notes that the grave in the simile is for either a lord or a lady. This seemingly inexplicable addition suggests the horses mourn Patrocles as if he were both man and woman, which is appropriate, given his dual nature. On the one hand, he is the horses’ 5 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 gentle charioteer, he sets the bread on the table when the embassy comes to persuade Achilles, he comforts Briseis when she is first brought to the Greek camp, and he is compared to Andromache and Kleopatra. On the other hand, he is a great warrior, eager for glory, the best of the Myrmidons. He kills more warriors in the field than anyone else in the poem, more than Achilles and Hector combined. The grave of Patrocles is the grave of mankind, without regard for gender. One might think after hearing their careless laughter at the end of Book One the immortals have no cause to mourn, but we see this is not so. Zeus himself weeps tears of blood when his son Sarpedon dies, and the mourning of the horses gives the king of the gods another occasion to contemplate the sorrow of immortality (XVI.459). He asks himself: why did we give you to a mortal man, the most wretched creature on earth? Their mourning shows that the immortal horses were not made to serve mortals unwillingly, as Poseidon and Apollo served King Laomedon in building the walls of Troy (VII.445). Rather, the horses mourn Patrocles for the same reason Zeus mourned Sarpedon: they have lost, he whom they loved. The horses refuse to leave Patrocles’ body. Automedon uses every kind of persuasion: he beats them, he threatens them with a sharp whip, and he pleads with them. Their refusal is both a testament to their love as well as an indication that the bond which permitted the great leap over the barrier does not yet extend to Automedon. The epithet ἱπποκέλευθος implied that the horsemanship of Patrocles depended on persuasion and willing assent. Without it, the horses are not moved by words, either threatening or pleasing, nor can they be forced from their place. Their power cannot be harnessed by a mere breaker of horses. Hector notices the famous team standing by the body of Patrocles and hopes to add them to the spoil of Achilles’ armor. Zeus emphatically denies him this. Rather than force them to return to the ships, however, he puts great strength into their knees so they are themselves able to overcome their grief and rescue Automedon. When Xanthus and his brother later stand accused of desertion, he does not tell Achilles it was Zeus who aided them or that their first reaction to his death was to stay and weep for Patrocles. But we know that the true reason they left the battlefield was because Zeus gave them the strength to, just as we know that the true cause of their staying was their love for Patrocles. Part Four: Justice We are now in a position to appreciate the depth of Achilles’ insult I recounted at the beginning of this lecture. His scornful request that the horses make sure to return him safely back to camp as they did not do for Patrocles insinuates, that when he needed them most, they failed in their trust. It is as if Achilles sees in their desertion a bitter reminder of his own abandonment of the army. Without Patrocles, Achilles does not believe in the willing compliance of the horses, or his power to persuade them. His command is undermined by its irony: if the horses abandoned Patrocles, why should they not abandon him as well? The seriousness of his insult catches the attention of an equally serious power in the cosmos. That it is the queen of the gods who gives Xanthos the power to speak marks this occasion as significant in more than the world of horsemanship. Whenever a god acts in the way Hera does here, their sphere of responsibility has been violated. And a god always and tirelessly protects that for which it is responsible. Hera gives Xanthos the power to speak 6 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 so he can correct Achilles’ unjust insult. Why this should be any of Hera’s concern is made clearer by looking to the sorts of things that move her to anger and to action. Hera is the last word of Book One, just as anger is its first. This is an ominous intimation of her violent and vocal opposition to the will of Zeus. She is the goddess of the “reckless word” (VIII.210, 461), and—like Achilles—is often angry. Unlike Athena, she cannot control her rage, but pours it out in speech. (IV.25) She urges Achilles to call the many-voiced assembly in Book One. She does this not only to save her warriors from the arrows of Apollo, but also because of her care for that aspect of just redress which calls for an accusation to be heard in public. The first and barest aspect of all justice, including its cruder form in vengeance, is the vocalization “No!” The first word of the Iliad is μῆνιν— wrath, but the first sound—and the Iliad is a poem one is meant to hear—the first sound is μή—the negative particle of refusal—no, I will not. The Iliad is replete with negation: Agamemnon says no, I will not return your daughter; Helen says no, I will not go to bed with him yet again; Achilles says no, I will not fight. Without the power to protest what has been said or done, there can be no balanced reconsideration, no appeal to what should have been, and no fair judgment. The Iliad, by beginning with the momentary vocalization, “No!” indicates it is a poem with justice, and the possibility for justice, at its heart. Xanthos’ decisive “no” gives a sharp correction to Achilles’ insult, and although it cannot reestablish that harmony of horse and rider which existed prior to the death of Patrocles, his speech does make clear the parameters within which the horses are acting. Xanthos states that not they but the gods and fate were the causes (ἄιτιοι) of Patrocles’ death, and thereby indicates that one of Patrocles’ killers is the god Apollo and beyond Achilles’ reach. Xanthos also says it was not through slowness or irresponsibility he and his brother failed to return their charioteer; they were both capable and willing. Achilles should not blame the instruments available to him but look to the true causes. Achilles addresses the horses as “famed sons of the harpy Podarge,” but Xanthos boasts that he and his brother could run with the West Wind, their more benevolent father. The supplemented genealogy reminds Achilles that the horses do more than bring death, they can rescue their rider as well. Their speed is an image of their immortality, which they can momentarily share with the charioteer they carry. Immediately after his boast, Xanthos says, but you (αλλά τοι) are destined to be overpowered by a god and a man, as if to say that even swift Achilles will one day be outrun by death. The phrase Homer uses for “overpowered” is ἶφι δαμῆναι, “overmastered by force,” and cannot but recall the epithet ἱππόδαμος, “horse-breaker,” which shares a root, δαμαζω. The horses are too swift to be mastered, but Achilles will fall prey to force and to death. What the content of Xanthos’ speech reveals is that the immortal horses could not have been forced to do anything. Their love for Patrocles was not hampered by indecision, laziness, poor-timing, weakness, ignorance, or any of the vices which usually keep us from living up to our noblest form. And the highest form of horsemanship demands that we believe the horse is in every way capable of and willing to attain the perfection proper to it. Achilles fails to believe this myth. What he assumes, instead, when he insults the horses, is that they did not wish to save Patrocles, that their bond of willing communication was a pretense which shattered at his death. He fails to believe there was anything more than force at work between them, so when the wielder of that force died, the horses deserted him. What the fact of Xanthos’ speech reveals to Achilles is that it was not simply force which guided the horses, but an unbroken, silent communication between horse and charioteer. The horses have always been able to speak, but only to the right listener. It took Hera’s gift 7 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 to make their voices discernible to Achilles, and to us. This is the meaning of her gift: it is not a magical or supernatural event, except in so far as it is the revelation of a deep truth. Hera gives Xanthos the power to speak, but it is the Furies who take it away again just as suddenly. This makes some immediate sense: a speaking animal is outside the bounds of nature. But the Furies are more than guardians of order simply. If we can see what their sphere of responsibility is in the poem, we can explain why they take Xanthos’ voice. But saying they “take” it is misleading. Rather, Hera and the Furies appear on the scene to protect that for which they are responsible, and they work together to repair the damage done by Achilles’ insult. We know three chief characteristics of the Furies. First, in Book Fifteen we learn they side with the elder, even among the gods (XV.205). This includes not only the elder born among siblings, but parents; in other words, they side with who or what came first, or, put in another way, they side with chronological origins, not consequences, often to the detriment of who or what follows from them. Phoenix is punished by the Furies for sleeping with his father’s favorite concubine and thereby dishonoring him (IX.455) and Athena claims the Furies punish Ares for opposing his mother’s will by assisting the Trojans (XXI.410). The Furies also punish those who break oaths, that is, those who act as if their own past promises do not matter in the future (III.278). Finally, we know the special responsibility of the Furies is to avenge the dead, those who by virtue of fully existing only in the past can no longer effect the justice due them in the present (XIX.260). In this way, the Furies are, like Hera, deeply concerned with justice—the way things should be—which can only be achieved by remembering distant origins in the present. The special responsibility of the Furies is the honoring of the past in the present, and they punish those crimes which might disrupt that orderly reverence. The Furies permit Xanthos to speak because the kind of crime he is accused of would, if he were guilty of it, demand their punishment. Achilles’ insult has, as it were, called them up from Hell by claiming that Xanthos and his brother carelessly forgot their bond with Patrocles and left him behind on the battlefield. The truth, rather, is they remained with him in mind and body (μένει), and the essence of their relationship with him in life was an active holding together of origin and consequence, command and response. The horses were mindful of Patrocles, as he was of them. An audible voice is superfluous in such a subtle relationship, so the Furies take it away to return Xanthos to his true nature. Part Five: The Soul In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates says the soul is like a chariot drawn by two horses— one, beautiful and high-minded, the other, passionate and dark. They are led by a charioteer, whose difficult task it is to put these hostile comrades through their psychic paces. Like Plato, Homer also gives us images of human life constructed out of chariots and horses. It is these images and not their explication we should remember. I have given you one possible explication, and only of a single moment, but the living jewel that is the poem can be turned and seen in a different light. Achilles the warrior, Patrocles the charioteer, immortal Xanthos and Balios, and mortal Pedasos: they make up an image of the mortal and immortal bound in friendship—the single-footed, discontinuous thunder of the horses’ hooves harmonizing with the swift, never-ending revolution of the chariot’s wheels. Like Plato’s, this image evolves. The great leap over the trench becomes the perfect stillness of the mourning horses; the quiet horsemanship of Patrocles gives way to Achilles’ wrathful 8 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 accusation. And the nightmare image of immortal horses dragging a dead human around the walls of a sacred city shows a form of life in which Wrath has triumphed and immortal beings are made to dishonor the shameful weakness of the mortal body. How are we to understand the immortal horses as elements of an image portraying the human condition? In other words, what are they to us? The field of Troy is far away and we no longer hear the voices of the gods whispering over our shoulders, so it may surprise you to learn there are now in your possession, powers very much like the immortal horses of Achilles. They were given to you, in one way, by your parents, and in a more mysterious way, by the gods. They are immortal in the sense that they currently belong to you, but they recur infinitely in other beings, indifferent to your specific quiddity—what makes you you. They have a life of their own which will persist long after you have ceased to be. We do not each possess all of them, though among humans, the inheritance is usually the same for each of us. Over the ages they have taken various forms, been given many names, and been counted in different ways: Vision, Touch, the Powers to Move and to Remain, the Power to Make Another Like Yourself. These are only a few of those who stand in the Pantheon, though Aristotle insisted that for all their apparent diversity they are united by one underlying name and desire—soul. The greatest of all the powers he named νοῦς, or Mind—the power to remake yourself in the image of the world and thereby know it. It is true there is no perfectly convincing reason I can give you to think of these powers as divine gifts—immortal, difficult to master, and not entirely under your control. It would appear, after all, that you can command these willing servants as you like. They can be made to turn this way and that, to carry you out of danger, to take you where you want to go. But perhaps after considering the horsemanship of Patrocles and the mistake of Achilles, you may reconsider your presumption to think of them as mere instruments and see them as powers in their own right. You may also remember that these gifts were not given to you whole and entire, but their use had to be learned through practice, though it is very easy to forget with what care your mother and father taught you to master the art of standing, or the long, dark millennia Nature required to train matter into the intricate shape of an eye. These gifts call for our respect, even our awe, though you may answer that call how you like. Ἱπποκέλευθος Πάτροκλος answered his horses in a particular way and leapt the barrier between life and death. There was a harmony between them which hummed along the web of harness and reins, yoke, bridle, and bit. It was not a conversation you could hear, but it was a physical manifestation of the λόγος. One of the purposes of your education here is to train those powers you have been given. They have a logic of their own which you learn to understand and develop. Seeing, after all, is not as easy as opening your eyes, and thinking may not be simply putting two and two together. One might well grow nervous when someone takes mastery to be an educational touchstone, especially at a college where lectures are by no means the rule. But staying undecided on the role of true authority risks two serious mistakes—and by true authority I mean the kind demonstrated in Patrocles’ horsemanship. The first mistake is simply not to like authority-talk at all. But this is a tacit denial of one of the most fundamental features of human experience: the astonishing way cause leads to effect, as it so evidently does in our universe. Time and again, collision determines trajectory, seed blossoms into flower, and conclusion follows flawlessly upon premise. How do we explain these cosmic concatenations without first acknowledging that one thing leads another? Another way to go wrong in thinking about authority is to go so far as to decide it is such a good in itself 9 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 that the whole purpose of education is to subject all one’s powers to the sovereign self. Sometimes this is mistakenly called freedom. But to what end does the self have all these gifts at its disposal? Authority alone cannot decide what to do with its powers; it must consult the powers themselves for direction. Education enables us to acquaint ourselves with those we possess, to understand their purposes and the way they strengthen or interfere with each other, and to give them rein to act. It may not be immediately clear to you what would be different if you believed that the everyday activities of your existence—eating, looking around, picking things up, tracing the shape of a magnolia leaf, perhaps—were manifestations of immortal powers given into your temporary care. And, of course, I cannot, and would not be interested in convincing you this is necessarily the case. For one thing, the mere shift in your intellectual commitments would not be enough. You would have to live with the myth, forge a bond entirely your own in the intermediate space between you and those immortal powers you’ve been given. That space between is where you cultivate what is uniquely you. Patrocles lives with the myth that the horses are immortal: the cultivation of his unique bond with them is based on it. I call it a myth not to disparage it, but to indicate its power to change your life merely by thinking about it. That is what a myth is: a story you live with, and by letting it repattern your life, a story you live in. As far as he knows, Hector has mortal horses; no one could convince him otherwise. His myth is different, diminished, and because of its limitations, he is unable to do with his horses what Patrocles could. The last word of the Iliad is a now familiar epithet, there used of Hector, ἰππόδαμος. Hector is a supreme breaker of horses, but when his chariot approaches the black maw which separates the Greek camp from the Trojan plain, his horses start back in fear, and even though there are four of them to Patrocles’ three, they are unable to leap its terrifying distance (XII.50). There is no explicit mention in the Iliad of the defeat of Troy by the Trojan horse—it is, after all, an Odyssean ruse which wins the war—but the failure of Hector’s horses to leap the gulf intimates that in spite of their celebrated horsemanship, a horse will be the downfall of the Trojans. Apart from a clever trick, what does the image of the wooden horse tell us about the nature of the Trojan failure? We could say the Trojans were deceived by the Greeks, or, that they did not understand what they were seeing. Their deception was in truth a failure of horsemanship: they did not see those powers Wisdom had hidden within the horse. The excellence of the horses of Achilles is that they need not fear death. They can outrun it or leap over it. But we, in the end, cannot. Like Pedasos, one day we will each take a spear to the shoulder and trade our life away. I believe it is a good thing for mortals to hate death. As a wise person once said, it is by the strength of the soul’s desire for immortality—for deathlessness—that its health is measured. Immortality is just another way of saying, being there for it, always, and perfectly. What would Achilles give to be there in the light of the sun for one more day? —to watch it touch the world, touch the faces of those he loved? We hear in the Odyssey he would give a great deal, perhaps more than he can afford to and still remain himself. The desire to remain in the delineating light of day is not only for the sake of remaining with others, but for remaining our selves. Self-preservation, no matter how coarsely interpreted, is the spirit’s insistence on the integrity of those clear boundaries of flesh and blood which outline animal individuality against the indeterminate many. What are the immortal powers Aristotle enumerates but manifestations of the soul’s desire to become and be forever itself, immortal and ageless? 10 �The Horses of Achilles St. John’s College Robert C. Abbott Jr. September 9th, 2016 So it is good to desire immortality and to shun death. But Socrates suggests in the Phaedo it is wise, though very difficult, to learn the art of dying well; that is, to yoke and then unyoke, when the time comes, the mortal and the immortal parts of us. In a Homeric formulation, we should learn to put the reins of the immortal horses into the hands of Patrocles. One of the immortal gifts given to us is the power to speak, and this is perhaps the most difficult gift to accept, as we often identify our voice as uniquely and always our own. Your voice is what you try to develop in writing or find through political participation. But the opening line of the Iliad reminds us that in its highest form, language speaks through us. Ἄειδε θεά! Sing, Muse! Language is never simply a personal expression; if it were, we would not know what each other was saying or care we were trying to say it. This does not mean Homer or we never say what we mean, only that meaning is difficult to achieve. Your voice is what your breath becomes when you mean something by it, and it takes time and mastery to effect the full transformation from living life to meaning it. The alchemical conversion of your breath into your voice is implicit in the Homeric word ψυχή. Ψυχή is that warm, feather-light quickening at your nose and mouth, a mortal incarnation of the bright, endless air which spills down from Olympus into the mortal world. We say it means life’s-breath or soul. It is what flies out of the mouth or a spear wound at death, never to return. There is, though, a way for it to leave the human body behind without killing it. Speaking transforms the soul—gives it wings—so it may leap safely past that most animal and mortal part of us—the sharp barrier of our teeth—and in some proximate way, as the Voice, experience an immortality and fellowship known only to the gods. 11 � 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 11 pages 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 The Horses of Achilles Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 9, 2016 by Robert Charles Abbott, Jr. as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Abbott, Robert Charles, Jr. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College 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 2016-09-09 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1078">Audio recording</a> Language A language of the resource English Greek Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Abbott_Robert_2016-09-09_Typescript Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/7b11c6a2c4d4f26d593271becd8f0c0d.mp3 8ab7abea533291557f03ba7cd6930831 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data wav Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:50:57 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 Who Should Elect the President? Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 16, 2016 by Steven Crockett as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crockett, Steven Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College 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 2016-09-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Crocket_Steven_2016-09-16 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/3c9500e41e7010b4316d1fc6322da363.pdf ef9323fe205dcec69b722d3b996d8e66 PDF Text Text ON THE RELATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION* Laurence Berns St. John's College Annapolis The problem from which these reflections begin is fairly straightforward: Although philosophy came into the world by separating itself off from religion, in modern times, it seems to be trying to incorporate within itself what, in my opinion, properly belongs to religion. The representatives of moder~ philosophy I have in mind are chiefly Nietzsche and Heidegger. In order to understand better how and why this change came about I will sketch out a very general history of the relation between philosophy and religion, for ancient, medieval and modern philosophy. (It is, incidentally, clear from this that I am speaking of what some call Western Philosophy.) First, a preliminary distinction: The title of this paper is not "On the Relation between Philosophy and Theology," because there are traditionally two kinds of theology, of discourse about God, natural theology, discourse about God or gods based on natural reason and naturally acquired evidence, and revealed theology, theology based on special and supernatural divine revelation. The two kinds of theology are not always kept separate, as the famous saying of Heraclitus illustrates: "The only wise thing is one, it 9oes not wish and it does wish to be called by the name of Zeus." An illustration might be ' useful. The Declaration of Independence of the United States asserts that the laws of nature and of Nature's God entitle all men to certain natural rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What is the basis in nature of these natural rights? The traditional and correct answer, I believe, is the natural superiority of the rational animal, man, to non-rational animals, beasts. But that may be only half the story. We notice that God is referred to in the Declaration at least four times in the following order, once as legislator of the laws of nature, once as Creator 3 , again as Supreme Judge of the World and finally as the executor of Divine Providence. In the divine Governor of the world legislative, executive and judicial powers are united. The Founders of the United States, like intelligent men of all times, disagreed about many things, but if there is anything they all seemed to agree about it is the necessity to separate the powers of government. Humanly speaking, the uniting of legislative, · executive and judicial powers in the same hands, they declared, is the very definition of tyranny. Only a divine being with supreme wisdom and goodness, with no truth-obscuring and excessively selfregarding passions could rightly possess such powers. The natural 1 �theology of the Declaration is then an extrapolation from the idea of good government to the idea of perfect government, and the perfect governor. No human being can measure up to such a standard. No human being is sufficiently godlike to be entrusted . with such despotic power over other human beings. The natural rights of the Declaration then stem from human superiority with relation to the beasts and human defect with relation to ·God. All men are equal in that they are neither beasts nor gods. Does such a God exist? That might require faith to believe. But the natural theology of the Declaration, the idea of such a God, clarifies what it is meant to clarify whether one conceives of such a God as existing or not. By its reference to the Creator and His Providence, however, the Declaration brings both traditions together, it combines its natural theology with the revealed theology of the Biblical tradition. 4 I THE SEPARATION OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY FROM RELIGION--THE INCORPORATION OF RELIGION INTO MODERN PHILOSOPHY The lovers of myth, Aristotle says, like the philosophers, wonder about the first things, the things whose characters and actions govern all the rest. The first philosophers distinguished themselves from the lovers of myth by no longer speaking of the first things as gods, but as nature. Science and philosophy come into She world, Aristotle suggests, with the discovery of nature . There were and still are people who have no distinct idea of nature. The words natur5 and natural do not occur in the Hebrew Bible or in the Gospels . The prephilosophic equivalents of the word nature seem to be the words way or custom. Before the discovery of nature men spoke about the gods ordering and commanding things to go in their customary ways. The way or custom of fire is to go up and burn, for the earth to bring forth plants, for human beings to speak, for one tribe to bury its dead, for another to burn its dead. At some point a curious and thoughtful person must have noticed that some ways are always the same no matter what anyone does about them, and others vary from time to time, and still others would vary from time to time more if men did not make them happen the same way. Such a person begins to become aware of the distinctions between the necessary and the accidental or contingent, the necessary and the customary and the necessary and the artificial. The ways that vary from place to place, from city to city, from tribe to tribe, must have been most striking at first because they most contradict "our way". Herodotus tells how horror-struck Greeks and Indians were on learning of each other's diverse burial customs. (III. 38) These divergencies extend to differences about the nature of the gods themselves. The suspicion begins 2 to arise that the ways that are �everywhere the same are primary, permanent and fundamental and those that differ from town to town and from tribe to tribe are secondary, transient and derivative. The man-made things owe . their existence to forethought, the ways which are everywhere the same seem to occur by themselves automatically inside the things characterized by them. Way or custom splits up in70 nature, on the one hand, and convention or law, on the other . That human beings can speak is natural, that this tribe speaks its particular language, that tribe its particular language, is conventional. Impersonal nature replaces divine ordination. The good life is no longer determined by divine law but by the quest for what is right by nature. In Plato's Republic the torch race in honor of the goddess, which they were supposed to watch, is forgotten in favor of the discussion in quest of the life that is good according to nature. Philosophy and science come into the world by separating themselves from religion. To illustrate the other pole of our initial problem, the incorporation of religion into philosophy, we turn now to the man whom many regard as the greatest philosophic thinker of recent times, Martin Heidegger. For Heidegger, philosophy, or what he would rather call Thinking, cannot be academic or isolated from the spirit of society, from the spirit of one's own times, from history. The deepest sense of what things are, he argues, depends on History, and History, in German Geschichte, he connects with the word Geschick, that which has been sent. The sender, this mysterious ground of existence, or ground of the relation between being and human thought, of human fate (Schicksal), he sometimes calls gods, sometimes god. The great danger of our time, Heidegger argues, is that we are so overwhelmed by the power of scientific, mathematical, technological thinking that we have begun to think of human beings as just one more product of scientific laws to be serviced, used and conveniently disposed of. In contrast to the focus on the depersonalized, the dehumanized, the cybernetic, he argues that the deepest truths about the world reveal themselves to thought and to thinkers that are caring, committed, concerned with what they regard as "mine" and ours, with home and homeland. Even the standard for human conduct that he erects as a replacement for ethical virtue, authenticity , reflects this emphasis on the personal and particular. The German word Eigentlichkeit has no direct English equivalent, it means "one'sownness". In working out what amounts to his replacement for ethics the notions of conscience, anxiety, guilt and "fallenness" play central roles. That our particularity, our individuality, like that of the fallen sparrow, should have ultimate significance makes sense, it seems, if we and our world are the creations of a loving, caring omnipotent God. Heidegger, an extraordinarily learned and thoughtful heir of the philosophic tradition has incorporated 3 �Christian religious ideas and sentiments into his thinking without articulating the theological presuppositions that could establish their plausibility. Through a sketch of the history of the relation between philosophy and religion I hope to show that in so doing Heidegger is fulfilling one of the deepest tendencies of modern philosophy. In fairness to Heidegger, however, it should be said that he emphatically rejects the account of the origin of philosophy out of religion and myth as a Platonic-Aristotelian prejudice. "The fall of thinking into the sciences, on the one hand, ang faith, on the other, is the evil, fateful sending of Being." Religious mythos and philosophic logos "became separated and opposed only there where neither mythes nor logos could maintain their original essential presence. This happened already with Plato . " He denies that logos could destroy mythes. "Nothing religious is ever destroyed by logic; it is destroyed only by the god's withdrawing himself." 9 THE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN II ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY For our sketch of the history of the relation between philosophy and religion we distinguish three positions, ancient, medieval and modern in terms of what each takes to be the ultimate source of meaningfulness in the world: ancient philosophy as nature-centered, or physiocentric; medieval philosophy as God-centered, or theocentric and modern philosophy as man(human)-centered, or anthropocentric. I do not imply that each is only valid for its time. They arose at different times and each late.r position presupposed the existence of the earlier positions, but they are accounted for here as permanent alternatives. how To illustrate these differences we consider representatives of each position deal with a fairly common phenomenon, the appearance of purposiveness or end-directed activity in nature. The primary prescientif ic or prephilosophic meaning of the Greek word for nature, phys1s, is growth, which includes that into which a thing grows, the end or term of growth, the state in which the thing is most capable of doing the work, or, as we say, the function, characteristic of that thing. End-directed activity is most characteristic of living things. The acorn becomes intelligible as a possible oak. The structure of the eye becomes intelligible with a view to its function of seeing. Aristotle speaks of such an end as the cause "for the sake of which," or in the later latinate form, ·final cause. (In this discussion of ancient philosophy I will concentrate on Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy, the most influential ancient philosophy.) Aristotle 4 �defines nature as a principle or cause of motion and rest in that to which it belongs primarily and not by accident. The end of natural growth is a potentiality inherent in the living thing . from the beginning, in its constitution, so to speak, in its very matter. He frequently compares natural end-directed activity to the end-directed activity of human making. The crucial differences are that in artifacts the final form of the work of art exists primarily in the mind of the artisan, both the end and the formative action hay5 their source in the artisan, external to the thing produced . The unapprehended ends of natural activities like respiration, metabolism, animal instinct, etc., do not require an external mind intending them as purposes. They are simply inherent in natural things as potentialities. For Thomas Aquinas as representative of the theocentric view there is no end or final cause that is not intended as such by some intelligence, as the artist intends the completed work of art. If the being in which the end is being actualized does not have the intelligence to apprehend it, it is apprehended by the intelligence of another, namely the intelligence of God. We quote from his discussion of natural instinct: "the sensitive appetite of dumb animals, and likewise the natural appetite of insensible things result from the apprehension of an intellect, just as the appetite of the intellectual nature ... called the will. But there is a difference, in that the will is moved by an apprehension of the intellect in the same subject; whereas the movement of the natural appetite results from the apprehension of the separate Intellect, Who is the Author of Nature; as does also the sensitive appetite of dumb animals who act from a certain natural instinct .... in the actions of irrational animals and of other natural things wci obs~rve a procedure which is similar to ... the actions of art." According to Immanuel Kant as representative of the modern anthropocentric view the necessary and universal laws which constitute objective knowledge of nature are not found in the things themselves, but, in his language, they are prescribed to nature by the human understanding. When we come across phenomena like the phenomena of living organized beings for which the laws of mechanical cause and effect do not seem adequate, the reflective judgment of the investigator should supply the phenomena with purposive laws that make sense of them ~ if some intelligent cause, a God, had produced them . Like Thomas, Kant argues that ends in nature only make sense when they are thought of as intended by some intelligence, namely God. Teleology, he argues, finds its consummation in theology. But this God cannot be assumed to have objective reality. We produce and supply the idea of such a being to ourselves in or~2r to satisfy the subjective needs of our cognitive faculties. The ultimate source of the 5 appearance of end-directed �activity fin irrational nature for the ancients is the nature of things in themselves, for the medievals the God, for the moderns the human understanding itself. inherent mind of III ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION The Platonic-Aristotelian, or Socratic, way of seeking the primary, permanent and fundamental things that are nature (among other things, by thinking through the implications of human speech) culminates in a doctrine that the truly fundamental is the intelligible. For Plato it seems to be the eternal ideas, or forms, or species; for Aristotle the thinking, or active intellection that is the life or energy constitutive of those forms or ideas, or as he sometimes calls them, the universals. If there is to be genuine knowledge, or even true opinion, of things in themselves, these intelligibles must be able to exist at one and the same time both in the things they characterize and in the mind kn~!ing them, in the things as enmattered, in the mind as thought. Corresponding to the intelligibility in things, then, is the power in all rational beings to apprehend it, the power called nous, intellectual intuition. There is another way to put this: for the classical philosophers the intelligible is the divine, and the concern for the truly divine is philosophy. The self-sufficiency of the intelligible is the standard for both theoretical and practical life; in this respect there is a harmony between theory and practice. But the intelligible is manifested in universal or general principles, or as we often say, in general laws, and every practical action is a particular action, an action of one's own. It is true that every human action is more or less permeated by the intelligible, by unde-~standing, but it is always a particular action mixed with thI accidental and the contingent, the inherently unintelligible. 4 According to this philosophy then, it is impossible for any particular or contingent event to be absolutely sacred. There seems to be a tension in our souls between the love of the good recognized by intelligence and the love of one's own that guides our spirited part. It is the natural favoritism of parents for their own children and its conflict with pure justice that leads to the unnatural family arrangements of Plato's Republic. Since both poles, the love of one's own stemming from our particularity and the love of the good stemming from our intelligence are rooted in human nature, the tension can assume tragic proportions. We have no choice about the genetic make-up with which we are endowed, the family and country in which we are born. Yet to be bereft of pride of ancestry is barely tolerable, a deficiency which~ furthermore, usually deprives its sufferers 6 �of sufficient energy to pursue the goods that intelligence might discern. As individuals also, with regard to those basic goals, virtue and knowledge, it is clear that virtue is not virtue, knowledge is not knowledge, until it becomes one's own. Both poles are ineradicable or equally primordial. On the highest level, according to what Socrates says in the Symposium, the love of one's own and the love of the good are reconciled, the true object of love is "to have the good be one's own forever." (206a) But for most of us most of the time the words of Plato's Athenian Stranger seem appropriate: "In truth the cause of every failure comes to each person each time through excessive love of oneself. For the one who loves is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges the just and the good and the noble things badly, believing that he is 1 ~ound always to honor what is his own before the truth." This consequence of our particular needs, this tendency to sacrifice the truth to the love of one's own, points to moderation as a key virtue in moral and political life, even the moderation of our highest hopes. The sublime Alenu prayer sung at the close of almost every Jewish religious service calls out: "We therefore hope in thee, O Lord our God, that we may speedily behold the glory of thy might, when the abominations will be removed from the earth when the world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty, and all the children of flesh will call upon thy name and all the wicked of the earth will be turned to thee." Compare this with Socrates in the Theaetetus answering an enthusiastic Theodorus: "But it is not possible for evils to be done away with, Theodorus, for it is necessary that there always be something contrary to the good." The moderate Socrates, however, does not silence the voice of his heart; he goes on to add that of course evils cannot be established among gods, just that necessity forces the evils "to haunt mortal nature and this region here." Flight from these evils, he says, partial assimilation t9 the divine as far as possible in justice, holiness and intelligence, may 1 ~e possible for some individuals but not for society as a whole.· That moderation is the virtue of the philosopher's action, but not his thoughts is exhibited by this statement of the 10th century Arabic philosopher Alfarabi on the relation of classical philosophy to religion. "There are two ways of making a thing comprehensible: first by causing its essence to be perceived by the intellect, and second by causing it to be imagined through the similitude that imitates it. Assent, too, is brought about by one of two 7 �methods, either the method of ... demonstration or the method of persuasion .... when one acquires knowledge of the beings or receives instruction in them, if he perceives their ideas ... with his intellect, and his assent ... is by means of ... demonstration, then the science that comprises these cognitions is philosophy .... if they are known by imagining them through similitudes that imitate them, and assent to what is imagined ... is caused by persuasive methods then the ancients call what comprises these cognitions religion Therefore, according to the ancients, religion is an imitation of philosophy .... Religion sets forth images [of the ultimate principles] by ... similitudes ... taken from corporeal principles and imi~ates them by their likenesses among political offices ... " Further, to enable us to overcome the passions bred by radical selfishness and the love of one's own, counteracting law-abiding passions must be bred by the sanctification of norms, in order to enable us to live decently in society with a modicum of freedom. Such sanctifications require divinities that can address us passionately, individually and collectively, here and now. Classical philosophy never considered itself able to become a substitute for public religion. If Aristotle's treatment of religion is t~ 8 be found anywhere, I believe it is most of all in his Poetics , and in scattered remarks in the Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric and the Metaphysics. For Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, it is much clearer: religion is classified in the Summa Theologica as a part of the moral virtue of justice, religion is the worship which is properly due and paid to God. IV MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION Medieval philosophy is characterized by the attempt to reconcile classical philosophy with revealed or scriptural religion, with the religions of the Bible and the Koran. For the most influential medieval philosophers the natural world, as far as natural reason unaided by supernatural revelation could comprehend it, was to be understood through the philosophy of Aristotle. The fundamental presupposition for medieval philosophy is belief in the truth of the revealed word and in the God that is its supernatural source. This assumption entails important modifications of and deviations from Aristotelian doctrine. Aristotle evidently held that the visible universe is eternal, at least, in agreement with Plato, that its intelligible underpinnings, the forms, are eternal. All philosophers seem to have accepted what has been called 8 �the principle of causality, namely, that nothing comes into being out of nothing. The positive consequence of the principle is not: Everything comes into being out of something. It , is rather that: Everything that comes into being comes into being out of something. Those "somethings out of which" have either themselves come into being or have not come into being, that is, are unchanging. The task for scientific and - philosophic knowledge then is to discover the permanent or unchanging somethings, or principles, underlying change. As Thomas Aquinas says, "that the world did not always exis! 9 is held by faith alone, and cannot be proved by demonstration." The Bible tells us that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. If the ultimate principles are unchanging or eternal, philosophy tells us, there was no ultimate beginning. To meet the challenge of ancient philosophy, religious or scriptural philosophers declare that Almighty God super~aturally, miraculously, created everything out of nothing. The Platonic and Aristotelian forms are thoughts in the divine mind in accordance with which He creates the laws of nature. Unlike any human artisan He is not bound by the limitations of his materials, for all material limits also are grounded in his will. There is no eternal order independent of divine will, no source of principles for human guidance apart from that will. If the God of the Bible is omnipotent, He is also omniscient. Not the least action of the least of his creatures escapes his notice. In practice He is a caring God, a just and loving God. There is no necessary conflict between the love of one's own and the good, if the love of one's own is sanctified by the ultimate principle of the universe. Particularity is not disparaged: the ultimate principle of the universe reveals itself in personal address to particular men, particular families and nations, on particular occasions. If their souls are immortal, each individual is of everlasting importance. One can be fully at home in the world when the world is one's Father's house. On the other hand, one might say that the gulf between man and the God of the Bible is unbridgeable. In the Hebrew Bible the mutuality of the Covenant and the gift of the Law bridge the gulf. In Christianity the gulf itself, one is tempted to say, is overcome by the mystery of God's becoming a particular man, by the very notion that full divinity can exist in a particular man. The pain of the moral gulf between man and God is relieved by Jesus's assumption of the world's sin, for all those who are justified by believing in that sacrifice. Morality for the Bible as a whole takes on heightened importance when error and perversion become sin, an ungrateful personal affront to the loving all-powerful source of all goodness. In explaining why divine law was needed in addition to natural and human law Thomas Aquinas says that because "of the 9 �uncertainty of human judgment ... on contingent and particular matters that man may know without doubt what he ought to do and what he ought to avoid, it was necessary for man to be direc~ d by a law given by God, for ... such a law cannot err." 0 This, however, is moderated by the arguments of philosophers like Thomas that the great bulk of morality is given to men through the natural law, the law of reason. Virtues are habits that perfect natural powers in a world so designed as to allow reason to discover the ends implicit in most of nature. Something like classical moderation, the moderating of unreasonable expectations, is also preserved in the medieval distinction between this world and the kingdom of heaven, the world to come, the "other" world. How can classical and medieval philosophy deal with each other's fundamental assumptions? Thomas's harmonizing formula is that revelation goes beyond, but cannot contradict, reason. Because revelation is superior, philosophy is the handmaid of theology. That is not acceptable to Alfarabi's ancient philosopher: religion is an imitation of and therefore subordinate to philosophy. The possibility of Creation, Revelation and miracles seem to rest on the assumption that God is omnipotent and his will is unfathomable. Can reason refute that assumption? Is it self-contradictory? Can revelation refute reason? Can they even agree about what would constitute a refutation, what would constitute evidence? A rational proof demands suspension of belief, or doubt, until all the evidence is in. Revelation claims that its truth requires faith in the revealed and revealing God in order to be accepted and to be understood. From the point of view of rational philosophy, faith or belief is simply insufficient knowledge. Each can refute the other only by begging the question in dispute, presupposing its own canons for understanding. It appears that they are mutually irrefutable. Faith, Thomas Aquinas tells us, is an act of the intellect wherein the intellect is moved to assent, not by the clarity and evidence of the intellect's proper 2 ~bject, but by the command of the will, the practical faculty. This subordination of the theoretical to the practical faculty is another fundamental difference between ancient and medieval philosophy. v MODERN PHILOSOPHY The mutual irrefutability of philosophy and revelation, Leo Strauss has suggested, has created a tension that is perhaps the secret of the vitality of ~estern Civilization, a civilization that will not allow the mind to silence the voice of the heart, nor the heart to drown out the voice of the mind. This tension must trouble philosophy more than faith. If faith in the 10 �omnipotent God of Creation, Revelation and miracles cannot be refuted, does philosophy itself rest on indemonstrable premise~ just a different kind of faith, or at best, disputable opinion? 2 To free itself from this unresolvable tension and uncertainty, Strauss suggests, a new kind of philosophy, modern philosophy, comes into the world, rejecting both the idea of nature of classical philosophy and the omnipotent God of medieval philosophy -a new philosophy with a new basis, that is, man: the ultimate source of meaning for humanity's understanding of the world is the human understanding itself. "If one wished to refute Orthodoxy, no other way remained than to attempt to demonstrate that the world and life are fully understandable without the assumption of an unfathomable God. That means that the refutation of Orthodoxy depended on the success of a system. Man had to prove himself theoretically and practically the lord of the world and the lord of his life. The world he created had to make the world that was merely 'given' to him disappe~3· Then Orthodoxy was more than refuted, it was 'outlived.'" In the introduction to his Logic, Kant says that the basic questions determining the basic divisions of philosophy, "What can I know?" (Nature), "What ought I to do?" (Morality), "What may I hope?" (Religion), could all be referred to the single question, "What is man?" The classical understanding of nature is opposed by the modern idea of the conquest of nature and its practical goal, in Descartes' words, of making men "the masters and possessors of nature." The classical and medieval standard for morality, virtue, seen as natural fulfillments of natural powers, is replaced by freedom, or more precisely, autonomy. And last in our sketch of modern thought, the idea of history as a determinate process rather than a certain kind of study, becomes a secular substitute for Divine Providence. a. N~~ure, Bacon declares, cannot be conquered except by being obeyed. The nature to be conquered must be different from the nature to be obeyed. The nature to be conquered is nature as it presents itself to ordinary prescientific experience with its apparent purposivity and unpredictability due to chance. The nature to be obeyed, through which the conquest is to take place, is the nature to be discovered by methodical experimentation keyed to (following Galileo and Descartes) mathematical laws. Final causes are to be excluded from physics. To prepare the way for the new science the classical reliance on, or "idolization" of, natural experience and natural speech is to be refuted by a critique or refutation of the natural human understanding. This critique culminates in Kant's assumption that there is no intellectual intuition that permits us to gain access to the 11 �nature of things in themselves. There is no natural harmony between the natural human understanding and the natural world. Nature is not a kind mother, she must be tortured by methodical experimentation and forced to reveal her secrets. Furthermore, the ideas of chance or fortune and the subordination of art to nature must be rejected as breeding a "premature despair in human enterprises." The Aristotelian notion of unstable matter, pure potency, underlying the notion of fortune is altogether to be rejected. Matter is to be understood as acting in accordance with fixed and unwavering laws. Above all, Bacon insisted in opposition to medieval philosophy, physics must be separated from theology in order to avoid fabulous philosophy and heretical religion. With Bacon clearing the way, Descartes' "I think" becomes the exemplar of finding a beginning for thought that in no way depends upon anything outside of man. b. The new philosophy was obliged to find a new moral standard that would be compatible with a non-teleological physics. Th~$ standard, again, is freedom, autonomy, selflegislation. Rousseau was the first to define freedom as selflegislation, but it is already implicit in Hobbes's theory of sovereignty and the social contract. According to Hobbes, we must obey the sovereign because each of us through the social contract has agreed to allow his will to represent each of our wills. His legislation, because of the social contract, is, legally considered, our own self-legislation. He is our representative. Hobbes also formulated the more fundamental principle underlying this conception: there is "no Obligati~g on any man, which ariseth not from some Act of his own." This is all made even more . explicit in Rousseau's doctrine of the general will. Freedom in society consists in uniting oneself with all the rest under the general will that declares the law, while at the same time remaining free in so far as one has contributed to the making of that law. The process that makes the will general also makes it moral. Being compelled to express one's will in such form that it can become a general law, so that it can coincide with the wills of all the others, moralizes the will. If I generalize my desire not to pay taxes in a law that no one ought to pay taxes, I am compelled to see that then the police, public schools, courts, and so on, would disappear, and the irrationality of my original desire becomes manifest. The idea is fully developed as a moral principle in Kant's doctrine of the categorical imperative: So act that the maxim of your action can become a universal law. The truly free or moral person, according to Kant, bows only to the moral will or practical reason within him or her self, and not to any standard imposed from without, either by nature or by God. 12 �Hegel extends the notion of freedom as self-legislation beyond politics and morality to make it a logical and metaphysical principle. The life of the concept, the life of that Spirit or Mind that forms and informs the human mind, human History and the objects of human knowledge -the mind of Godproceeds in accordance with the principle of freedom, selflegislation. Hegel begins his "Doctrine of the Concept" with these words: . "The Concept is the principle of freedom, the power of substance self-realized." And later: " the concept is the genuine first; and things are what they are through the action of the concept dwelling in them and revealing itself in them. In our religious consciousness this comes forth in such a way that we say God created the world out of nothing, or, in other words, the world and finite things have issued from the fullness of the divine thoughts and divine decrees. Thus religion recognizes thought, more exactly the concept, to be the infinite form, or the free creative activity which can realize itself without the help of a matter that exists outside it." 27 At the same time modern ethical and especially political thought is said to be characterized by a certain Realism associated with the name of Machiavelli. Classical and medieval political thought, they argue, failed because it aimed too high. Because they based their political doctrines on exalted notions of virtue and societies devoted to the formation of virtue, they made themselves ineffective. As Bacon put it, their discourses are beautiful like the stars, which give little light because they are so high. Effectiveness can be secured by lowering one's goals, by accepting and exploiting those lower motives that move most men most of the time: pleasure, comfort, acquisitiveness, and especially that all powerful negative motive fear, fear for the loss of one's ~~fe and fear for the possible loss of what one already possesses. c. We turn next briefly to that secular substitute for divine providence, History, the meeting place of modern morality with modern realism. One of the first signposts on the way to the idea was Machiavelli's observation that the conflicts between nobles and plebians in Rome, the vicious civil strife universally deplored by the philosophers, actually led to the greater good of Rome as a whole. Adam Smith extends the notion: private vice, public benefit, to the economic sphere. Merchants intending only their own gain increase the annual income and well-being of society as a whole; led by an invisible hand they promote beneficial ends which are no part of their intentions. Kant calls for a history that will show how the antagonism of men in society, their ambition, lust for power and greed cause them to develop their talents and, consequently, their moral 13 �discrimination so as to prepare them for citi29nship in the perfectly free and moral societies of the future. Hegel, as it were, takes up Kant's call, finding Kantian freedom and reason, linked up with his own doctrine of logical opposites, operative everywhere in History, making Smith's invisible hand visible as the self-unfolding of the human spirit and Spirit in general. This self-unfolding culminates in the self-consciousness that all spiritual goods are produced not by any external source, but by Spirit itself. The idea . of History and the modern idea of freedom seem to be inextricably linked, history allegedly showing that man's freedom is basically limited only by the ideas of those limits that human consciousness has imposed on itself; man's freedom is limited by his earlier use of that inchoate freedom, and ~ot 3 By his nature or by the whole order of nature and creation. VI PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION If to want to be fully at home in the world is a religious motive, perfectly appropriate for a world governed by an omnipotent, beneficent and loving God, then perhaps we can speak of a religious motive permeating modern philosophy from its beginning, even in its anti-theological stances. If this is correct, one can say that this motive begins to become explicit with the formal acceptance of philosophy of religion as an accepted branch of philosophy. The modern scientific conception of nature, according to Kant, is incapable of supplying ethical and political standards. Morality is traced to a source independent of nature, namely, practical reason. The realm of nature and the realm of freedom or morality, according to Kant, do not contradict one another, but like parallel lines simply do not meet. This thorough-going separation becomes a special problem for Kantian philosophy. How can natural man and moral man coexist in one and the same man? How can the two realms be brought together in systematic unity? Kant experimented with a philosophy of history, but finally settled on a philosophy of religion. The Critique of Pure Reason established, according to Kant, that we have no knowledge, positive or negative, concerning the existence of God. Religion within the limits of reason alone establishes what in the absence of knowledge we are obliged to believe in order to strengthen our capacities to obey the moral law. Religion is unambiguously subordinated to morality, moral reason: "pure moral legislation, through which the will of God is primordially engraved in our hearts, is not only the unavoidable condition of · all true religion whatsoever, but is also that which really constitutes such religion." True religion, he argues, "is a purely rational affair." 31 14 �His position is brought out dramatically by his interpretation of what he calls the myth of Abraham's sacrifice: Abraham should have replied to this supposedly divine voice that even if your voice rings down from heaven, if you order me to kill my good 3 ~on, contrary to the moral law, you cannot be the voice of God. Some might regard this as superficially rational; but would the story of Abraham's sacrifice have had the influence it has had if Abraham had indeed sacrificed Isaac? Hegel's thought aims at absolute comprehensiveness. It aims not only at comprehending and superseding all previous philosophies and theories, but also the truth not only about but within practical life and reality as a whole. It's allcomprehensiveness will allow it to supersede all finite standpoints. One most impor3~nt part of that reality is religious life and religious thought. The incorporation of religion into philosophy reaches its culmination in Hegel. "Culture has," he declares: "raised this latest era so far above the ancient antithesis of reason and faith, of philosophy and positive religion, that this opposition of faith and knowledge has acquired quite a different sense and has now been transferred into the field of philosophy itself. In earlier times philosophy was said to be the handmaid of faith. Ideas and expressions of this sort have vanished and giilosophy has irresistibly affirmed its absolute autonomy." Kant too, he argues, tried to accomplish this synthesis, but his notion of reason was too narrow. Alongside the narrowly intellectual and rational "religion has its sublime aspect as feeling, the love filled with eternal longing ... it yearns for eternal ~5auty and bliss ... it seeks ... the Absolute and the eternal." Hegel's philosophy must encompass the full range of religious experience. For Kant, Jesus was a representation of "the Idea of Humanity in its full moral perfection." For Hegel, Jesus was the epoch-making revelation that the universal divine Spirit, God, that permeates and enlivens the universe dwells in and comes to full self-consciousness in man, in the human spirit. This consciousness goes through stages,the highest of which is the conceptual. "Every philosophy sets forth nothing else but the construction of highest bliss as Idea." "The sins of him who lies against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, a~g the lie against the Spirit is that he is not a universal .... " The expected transformation of human life, including political life, Hegel's rational kingdom of heaven on earth, according to his schedule, is long overdue. Kierkegaard, revolted by Hegelian rationalism, turned to revelation as intrinsically irrational. Nietzsche continued the modern project of finding the source of meaning in, rather than outside of, man, however no longer as reason, but as will. Heidegger urges us to be resolute without clarifying what the ends of that resolution are to be. 15 �The classical and medieval dependence of morality on nature and natural law is replaced by an exaltation of human "creativity" coupled with despair of finding a rational source of ends to guide that creativity. However, even if modern thought should have proved an inadequate candidate for articulating the meaning of human life, there is one area in which its success seems indubitable. I refer to the natural sciences. The question for those who lean toward the classical or medieval alternatives is: Can modern natural science be integrated into those allegedly more comprehensive frameworks? One indication, certainly no proof, of this possibility is Werner Heisenberg's turning to Aristotle's concept of potency and Plato's Timaeyf when he tries to make philosophic sense out of quantum theory. The unanswered questions raised by this broad survey might seem overwhelming, but it does seem to be clear that we are faced by three fundamental alternatives, and that the attempt to dispense with or transcend the ancient and medieval alternatives is highly questionable. If, as Heidegger says, questioning is the piety of thoughtfulness, the piety of thoughtfulness requires that we do justice both to philosophy open to the claims of faith and to faith open to the claims of philosophy. NOTES *A revised version of a lecture delivered at St. John's October 28, 1988. College, 1. Heidegger has been discussed in greater detail with a brief discussion of the relation of modern scientific philosophy (Husserl) to religion in my "The Prescientific World and Historicism: Some Reflections on Strauss, Heidegger and Husserl," forthcoming in The Humanistic Legacy of Leo Strauss, ed. Alan Udoff, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989). 2. Diels, 32. 3. The reference to God as Creator follows closely on the reference to "the laws of nature and of nature's God", suggesting that the Creation is carried on in accordance with those natural laws. 4. Cf. Harry V . .Jaffa, "What is Equality? The Declaration Independence Revisited," The Conditions of Freedom: Essays 16 of in �Political Philosophy, (Baltimore: The 3ohns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 149-160; and George Anastaplo, "The Declaration of Independence," St. Louis University Law Journal (Spring, 1965), 390. 5. Metaphysics, 981b 27-29, 982b 11-983a 11, 983b 7-984a 2, 1014b 16-1015a 19, 1074b 1-14, 1091a 29-1091b 20. 6. In Homer the word nature occurs only once, in the Odyssey. (X. 303) The first and only man to use the word is Odysseus who had seen the cities and learned the minds of many men, who had learned how men's thoughts differ from place to place and from tribe to tribe. He uses the divinely given gift of natural knowledge to defeat the baneful magic of a goddess. 7. Aristotle, Physics, II; Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 78-97; 3ohn Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1892), Introduction. 8. Holzwege, (Ff. am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1950), 325. 9. Was Heisst Denken?, (Ttibingen: Max Niemeyer, 1954}, 6-7. 10. Nicomachean Ethics, 1140a 1-23; Metaphysics, 1032a 12 ff. 11. Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 40, A.3. Cf. also Q. 1, A.2. 12. Kritik der Urteilskraft, Einleitung. IV, ## 75 and 76. 13. Plato, Meno, 72c 6-d 1. 14. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1027a 14, 1036a 9. 15. La~'ls, 731e-732a. 16. Theaetetus, 176a-b. 17. Alfarabi, Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, translated and edited by Muhsin Mahdi, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), Part I, sec. 55. Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1252b 24-27. 18. Laurence Berns, "Aristotle's Poetics", Ancients and Moderns: Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. 3oseph Cropsey, (New York: Basic Books, 1964), 7478, and 81. (The last section, p. 82, should be marked "Epilogue".} 19. Aristotle, De caelo, 298b Theologica, I, Q. 46, A.2. 20. Ibid., I-II, Q. 91, A.4. 17 14-25; Thomas Aquinas, Summa �21. Ibid., II-II, Q. 1, AA.4 and 5; Q. 2, AA.1, 2 and 9; Q. 4, AA.1 and 8. The will, in turn, is moved by hope and charity: hope of attaining the ultimate happiness of a supernatural vision of God, and charity (friendship for God) in the desire to honor God by the acceptance of his authority. Ibid. Q. 2, A.3, A.9 ad 2, A.10; Q. 4, AA.3 and 7; Q. 23, AA.1 and 6. 22. Leo Strauss, "Progress or Return? The Contemporary Crisis in Western Civilization," Modern Judaism I, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 17~45; "The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy", The Independent Journal of Philosophy, ed. George Elliott Tucker, (Vienna: 1979), 111-118. (Those lectures [in 1952] provided a most important impetus and inspiration for these reflections.) Aristotle,Topics, lOOa 30100b 23 and especially lOla 36-lOlb 4. 23. Leo Strauss, Philosophie und Gesetz: Beitrage zum Verstandnis Maimunis und Seiner Vorlaufer, (Berlin: Schocken, 1935), Einleitung, and especially 21; translation by Fred Baumann, Philosophy and Law: Essays toward the Understanding of Maimonides and his Predecessors, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1987), Introduction and especially 13; Spinoza's Critique of Religion, (New York: Schocken, 1965), Preface to the English Translation, 28-31; History of Political Philosophy, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 296 and 297. Note that on 297 Strauss does not say modern political philosophy. 24. Novum "conquered" Part VI. Organum, I, aphorism 3 (Spedding mistranslates as "commanded".); Descartes, Discourse on Method, 25. Cf. Sophocles, Antigone, l. 821. 26. Leviathan, chap. 21. 27. Enzyklopadie, I, ## 160 and 163; translation by W. The Logic of Hegel, (Oxford: 1892), ## 160 and 163. Wallace, 28. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, 178-183; Laurence Berns, "Aristotle and the Moderns on Freedom and Equality", The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective, eds. Kenneth L. Deutsch and Walter Soffer, (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987), Corrected Edition, 148-151. 29. Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicher Absicht, Idea of a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent 30. Leo Strauss, "Progress or Return?", n. 22, above, 32-33. 31. DJe RelJgion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Akademie-Textausgabe, VI, 104; Religion within the Limits of 18 �Reason Alone, translation by T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), 95; Der Streit der Fakultaten, Akademie-Textausgabe, VII, 67; The Conflict of the Faculties, translation by Mary J. Gregor, (dual language), (New York: Abaris Books, 1979), 123. 32. Ibid., note, 63 (German); 115 (English). Cf. Emil L. Fackenheim, Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy, (New York: Schocken, 1980), chap. 2, "Abraham and the Kantians: Moral Duties and Divine Commandments." 33. Cf. Emil L. Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension Thought, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), 15-23. in Hegel's 34. Glauben und Wissen, (Jenaer Schriften), (Ff. am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), beginning; Faith and Knowledge, translation by Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris, (Albany: SUNY Press, 1977), 55. 35. Ibid., 290-291 (German); 58 (English). 36. Der Streit der Fakultaten, 39; The Conflict of the Faculties, 67; Glauben und Wissen, 292; Faith and Knowledge, 59; Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der Philosophie, (Ff. am Main: Suhrkamp, 1971), I, 95; The History of Philosophy, Introduction. 37. "Planck's Discovery and the Philosophical Problems of Atomic Physics," Lecture, Sept. 4, 1958, On Modern Physics, W. Heisenberg, M. Born, E. Schrodinger, and P. Auger, (New York: Collier Books, 1962). 19 � 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. 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Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 19 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 Berns, Laurence, 1928- Title A name given to the resource On the relation between philosophy and religion Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-10-28 Description An account of the resource Revised version of a lecture delivered on October 28, 1988 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 57330 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9f30d9dedce7e126628cad52c4dd947b.pdf 3f77f010c5c261f0ca471cdd8776e62b PDF Text Text SPECUIATIONS ON LIBERAL AND ILLIBERAL POLITICS BY Laurence Berns A revised version of a lecture delivered at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland May 24, 1968 Now he [Socrates] was not eager for his companions to become able speakers, able men of affairs and able contrivers, but before these things he considered it to be necessary for them to acquire moderation. For he believed that those who are capable of these things without being moderate are both more unjust and more able to work harm. First, indeed, he tried to make his companions more moderate about gods. Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV. 3. �Speculations on Liberal and Illiberal Politics* by Laurence Berns** We live during a time of vast and rapidly moving social, political and economic changes. This most obvious fact seems to shape the back- ground and foreground of almost all academic political discussion today. To enable us to become well-informed about this most complex of societies new techniques of sununarizing, condensing, tabulating and distributing information have been developed. Corresponding habits of rapid reading and machine-like memorization, reading with a minimum of reflective thought, seem to be appropriate for the imbibing of much of this material. These changes, changes in the conditions of political and social life, are, for the most part, consequences of progress in the medical and technological sciences. They confront us with apparently unprecedented practical problems, increasingly complicated interdependence, relative affluence and overpopulation, the control of nuclear weapons, to mention only a few. causes. However, a distinction may be drawn between conditions and The conditions delimit the range of alternatives possible for human action. The primary causes decide which alternatives are chosen. They constitute what is called human nature. It is in no way evident that human nature, in the decisive respects, has changed as have the external conditions of political and social life. Among the causes which account for human behaviour are reasons, and Bcise<l on a le(;CW..:: delivered at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, May 24, 1968. ** Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland; Ph.D.,The University of Chicago, 1957. -t �even those causes which are not reasons, like appetites, passions, and desires, are rarely unmixed with reasons. Reasons can be right or·wrong, more or less right or wrong, true and false, etc. Human behaviour cannot be understood adequately without understanding the adequacy or inadequacy of the cognitions guiding, or accompanying, the behaviour, the prejudices, or opinions, false or true, or the knowledge guiding the behaviour. An adequate social science then, one capable of distinguishing between knowlege, opinion, and prejudice, would have to be a philosophic social science. The study of human nature, of the persistent causes of human behaviour, has more to do with meditation and reflection than it has with technique and technology. One learns about it from those, regardless of when they lived, or live, who are most of all masters of reflection and meditation. It may well be that, along with misguided scientism, the habits of study and thought, formed in pursuit of solutions to our most urgent problems tend to make the reflections of those writers from whom illumination is most needed less and less accessible. sobriety is easily lost. Freedom without This attempt to articulate certain sobering re- flections, that once were much more the common property of educated men than they are today, is undertaken with some sense of urgency. Such re- flections could never be brought to light by any technique cir manipulatory skill, however sophisticated. The aim of this paper is to arrive at an adequate notion of what it means to be liberal. It is divided into five, sometimes overlapping parts: 1. Classical Liberalism, 2. Historicist Liberalism, 3. The Radicality of Classical Liberalism, 4. The Conservatism of Classical Liberalism, Liberalism. s. American �3 CLASSICAL LIBERALISM By classical liberalism we do not refer to the doctrines associated with Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, laissez-faire economics and what historians frequently call individualism. liberal as it is used in classical Greek. 1 We refer rather to the word The liberal, the e~E.U IJ{fU) $ (eleutherios), belulvwa like a free man in contradistinction to a slave • . But true slavishness is baseness, being enslaved by the baser parts of one's nature. The liberal man is liberated from control by the baser side of his nature: he is free from the love of money, free from domination by bodily desires and from domination by fear. He is free from vulgarity. Freedom from, however, is not enough, and one of the Greek words for vulgarity points to what the liberal man has been liberated for: that word is ' \ C(1t£'f" I<. «.1. <./ ci( (apeirokalia), literally, lack of experience with nobility, with beauty, lack of experience with things noble. The liberal man does what he does for the sake of the noble. a devotee of the Muses. He is a cultivated man, a liberally educated man, 2 1. On the grounds of modern, as distinct from classical, liberalism, see Laurence Berns, "Thomas Hobbes", in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey,Rand McNally, 1963,pp.359-63. Cf. ibid.,Warren Winiarski, "Niccolo Machiavelli",pp.273-75; Stanley Rosen, "Benedict Spinoza", p.417; Robert A. Goldwin, "John Locke" ,pp.453-64; and esp. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History,u. of Chicago, 1953,pp.181-2. 2. Cf. Plato, Republic,403 C; Xenophon, Memorabilia,bk.4,ch.5; Oeconomicus, 1,17-23; Aristotle, !!.• Ethics,1099 a 11-20; Leo Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and Modern,Basic Books, 1968, chs. 1 and 2. �4 What has all this to do with politics? The cultivated men, for Aristotle at least, are not what one would call ae$thetes, they form a definite political class. of. virtue. They are not non-partisan, they ai:e partisans They are united not by common social origins or common eco- nornic situation, but by their common goal, the love and pursuit of excellence, of virtue. They look forward to a political order that encourages and fosters this love and this pursuit. HISTORICIST LIBERALISM This characterization might be accepted by many who call themselves liberals today, but only as partial descriptions of themselves. For the word as it is most often used today points not so much, or so directly, to the noble and the base, and therefore implicitly to the good and the bad, as it does to another set of distinctions. to conservative, or reactionary. Liberal is, of course, generally opposed We frequently speak of men and proposals as progressive or reactionary, assuming automatically that to try to go back to some older way or older idea is bad and to move towards the new is good, or that "forward looking" is good and "backward looking" bad. The conservative is thought of as incapable of appreciating changed conditions and the need for corresponding political, social and economic changes. It is as if the distinction between progressive and reactionary were to replace the distinction between good and bad. But the term progress, of course, implies not only change, but change for the better, the term reaction, as it is used in politics, usually means change for the worse. These terms often suggest that the issue of good- ness or badness has been prejudged or is trivial, the decisive consideration is the attitude towards change. The new distinctions are time- ~T hi~tory- �5 oriented. The power of the historicist assumptions underlying them, at least in the .intellectual community, can hardly be exaggerated. almost all of our discourse about practical politics. them is usually taken as a sign of lack of cultivation. They pervade Not to respond to The inadequacy of an approach that identifies rightness with change and wrongness with opposition to change would seem to be obvious as soon as it is made explicit. Its persistence, however, is a sign that perhaps some more serious concern or issue underlies it, or is reflected in it. that more serious issue later. We shall address ourselves to 3 The classical liberal, if not every reasonable man, wants to conserve what is good and to eliminate what is bad, to promote change for the better and to prevent change for the worse. He will be conservative, progressive, and even reactionary (in the sense of going back to an older policy), according to what is called for by the circumstances. From this perspective the simple opposition between liberal and conservative makes little sense. To take another approach to this problem, Book Five of Aristotle's Politics is frequently called the book on revolutions. But somehow the word revolution is too fancy for what Aristotle describes. The word rebellion, the word used in the Constitution of the United States, is probably closer to Aristotle's meaning. Rebellion is old-fashioned, common-sensical and personal. Revolution is more scientific, impersonal necessity is suggested. The term is a scientific term in mathematics, physics, and astronomy: a sphere is generated by tj_ie revolution of a semi-circle about its diameter; Copernicus writes about the revolutions of the celestial spheres, the revolutions of inanimate bodies. 3. See below, p.20. �6 The word rebel is usually associated with the image of a man who strikes out against the government, the word revolutionary with an intellectual fighting for an elaborately articulated cause. Aristotle in Book Five was, one might say, concerned primarily with rebellions, those political controversies and conflicts of beliefs and opinions, those conflicts about justice, which arise, so to speak, naturally between political men, that is, from the consideration of political and personal issues alone without any explicit or direct intervention of theory or science. When appeal to higher authority is made in non- philosophical, non-theoretical, political life, it is usually to the gods or God generally accepted by the religious conununity of the country. Aristotle articulates political arguments in a political spirit, and, as far as I know, only in his Politics introduces oaths to Zeus into his arguments. 4 The notion 4. 1281 a 17 and 1281 b 19. Cf. Abraham Lincoln, To the Voters of the Seventh Congressional District, July 31, 1846. Fellow Citizens: A charge having got into circulation in some of the neighborhoods of this District, in substance that I am an open scoffer at Christianity, I have by the advice of some friends concluded to notice the subject in this form. That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrepect of religion in general or of any denomination of Christians in particular. It is true that in early life I was inclined to believe in what I understand ts called the "Doctrine ef Necessity"-- that is, that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power,over·which the mind itself has no control; and I have sometimes (with one, two or three, but never publicly) tried to maintaift this opinion in argument-- the habit of arguing thus however, I have, entirely left off for IN:>re than five years-- And I add here, I have always understood this same opinion to be held by several of the Christian denominations. The foregoing, is the whole truth, briefly stated, in relation to myself, upon this subject. I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at religion.--Leaving the higher matter of eternal consquences between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the IN:>rals, of the community in which he may live.--If, then, I was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a �7 of revolution is usually tied in, not with popular religion, but with what has come to be called ideology. Ideologies have been called, not inappropriately, secular political religions. In the post-Kantian development the distinction between progressive and reactionary usually plays a role, because the ultimate appeal of these ideologies is to . a theory, or an alleged science, of history. Revolution rather than rebellion seems more appropriate to a modern technological society, a scientific society, an enlightened society. The movement called Enlightenment could be considered as the attempt to replace revealed religion by popularized philosophy. The two most outstanding characteristics of ideologies, at the risk of further oversimplification, are: 1) as regards their theoretical foundations, history replaces nature as the standard of right and wrong and good and 2) popularized philosophy replaces revealed religion. bad~ and One way to under- stand the origins, if not the rationale, of our IOC>dern theories of history might be to see them as attempts to surIOC>unt the difficulties consequent upon the radical separation by Kant of thought about freedom from thought about nature, of the IOC>ral realm from the natural. Theoretical history aims, so to speak, at bringing the two realms back together again and at relating them within a doctrine of the whole of human life. 5 charge in circulation against me. Cf. also Winston s. Churchill, letter to Lady Randolph, 14 January 1897, in Winston~ Churchill, by Randolph s. Churchill, Companion Volume.!_,~~' 1899-1900, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1967, pp. 724-25 5. "ldee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbuergerlicher Absic1rt.• "Kants Werke, Akademie - Textausgabe, B. viii, pp. 15-32. "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View." in I<ant, 2E_ History, ed. Lewis Beck, Library of Liberal Arts, pp. 11-26 �8 The more general problem behind all this would seem to be the difficulty for a science of human nature based on modern mathematical natural science to account for morality and science. 6 A passage from Kant's "Conjectural Beginning of Human History" may serve to illustrate the spirit of the Enlightenment. Kant presents his account in that work in the form of a commentary on the book of Genesis, chapters two to six. at every point to He invites his reader to consult the Biblical text see whether the way that philosophy takes coincides with that of Holy Writ. Towards the middle of the piece he speaks about how man became aware of how nature has raised him above community with animals. "The first time he ever said to the sheep, 'nature has given you the skin you wear for my use, not for yours'; the first time he ever took that skin and put it upon himself (3:21) - that time he became aware of the way in which his nature privileged and raised him above all animals." He refers to, but does not quote, Genesis 3:21, which reads, "Unto Adam and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them." What the Bible attributes to the action of God, Kant's philosophic conjectures about history have man do for himself. Ideology is supposed to incorporate Enlightenment within itself. Enlightenment looks forward to a vast expansiop of man's power to control his own destiny, a vast expansion of human ambition. relation between ideology and ambition. Let us consider the The Chorus in Oedipus declares, "I pray that god may never abolish the eager ambition (the rivalry), that keeps the city noble." 6. Ambition is a subtle passion: it can drive a "Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte';ibid., pp. 107-23 cit., pp. 53-68. Sophoclei;-necrrpus Tyrannus, 11. 880-81. Trans.,~ 7. 7 �9 hardy soul like Macbeth to raging tyranny and, on the other hand, as Sophocles's Chorus says, keep a city noble. The craving for glory, for honor, is a selfish passion, yet a passion that attains its objects most readily through public service. A public man might think that he loves the people because they are loveable, but he also might think that he loves them because they have the power to bestow what he really loves more, fame, honor, or glory. Ideology and the philosophy of history tend to focus the attention of the educable away from the analysis of the lives and the souls of individual men. Nations, social, political, or economic classes, "cultures," societies, trends and movements become the individuals concentrated on. Such concentration makes it easier for political men to disguise their own personal ambition from themselves. How much demagoguery and political fanaticism might be prevented, if the politically aspiring, or their educators, were once again to be educated by those classical authors who made it their business to try to train political men to appreciate the subtlety of their own ambition, to train them to master their master passion? 8 It might be instructive in this connection to compare Jack Cade, the rebel, as Shakespeare presents him in the second part of Henry the Sixth, with the revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler. Cade, one might say, is the demagogue according to nature, Lenin and Hitler ideological demagogues. Cade is stubborn, courageous, enduring and clever. Secretly set on by the Duke of York, with pretensions to the royal title of Lord Mortimer, whom he resembles, he leads his Kentish rebels into the heart of London and almost wins the city. He seems most of all to want the title Lord, and is ready to grant a Lordship to the first man 8. Cf. Xenophon, Meioorabilia, bk. 3, chs. 6 and 7; bk. 4, chs. 2 and 3; bk. 1, ch. 2. �10 who addresses him as Your Lordship. 9 He promises his followers that "all things shall be in conmen," money will be abolished, the price of bread will be lowered by two-thirds, and that he will destroy their enemies, that is all scholars, lawyers, courtiers and gentlemen. 10 In this connection it is interesting to note that the late Senator Joseph McCarthy was relatively successful so long as he confined his attacks to government officials, lawyers and academics. He began to lose his following and to consolidate his opposition when he became so reckless as to extend his attacks to the military and to the clergy. Cade has no way of fulfilling the first promises, but enemies, or material for erunity, is always available. Henry the Sixth's Treasurer, Lord Say, for executing policies he did not initiate or even approve, has become a particular object of popular hatred. Besides, Cade charges, Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the King his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill. It will be proven to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison; and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them; when, indeed, only for that cause they have been most worthy to live. Say denies the specific charges and goes on: Justice with favor have I always done; Pray'rs and tears have noved me, gifts could never. When have I aught exacted at your hands But to maintain the King, the realm, and you? Large gifts have I bestowed on learned clerks, Because my book preferred me to the King; And, seeing ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to Heaven, Unless you be possessed with devilish spirits, You cannot but forbear to murder me. This tongue hath parleyed unto foreign kings For your behoof. 9. Henry the Sixth,~~' 10. Op. cit., 4.4.39. 4.7.4-5 �11 Cade replies, "Tut, when struckst thou one blow in the field?" He orders him to be beheaded. Say speaks again: Tell me wherein have I off ended most? Have I affected wealth or honor? Speak. Are my chests filled with extorted gold? Is my apparel sumptuous to behold? Whom have I injured that ye seek my death? These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding, This breast from harboring foul deceitful thoughts. Oh, let me live!" (11) Cade is Ioc>ved by these words, but bridles the remorse that he, but not apparently his followers, feels at Say's words; and sensible that for . . . most men the most potent mark of authority is t h e power o f execution, 12 has Say put to death. However, shortly thereafter, confronted by the force of the old and clever Baron Clifford who wins away his followers by granting them pardons, invoking the name of their hero, Henry the Fifth, and appealing to their patriotic hatred of the French, Cade is forced to flee for his own life; not, however, before he observes, "Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this multitude?" Where the scientific ideologist sees masses moved by necessary and scientifically determinable reactions to objective deprivations, Jack Cade sees a flighty multitude, ready to follow the man most skillful at arousing and shaping their expectations, at transforming their notions and feelings about what is tolerable and intolerable, just and unjust. He knows that the same men in the same conditions may be led to endure, or may be led to rebel - and sometimes by being made to expect by right what no one can ever provide them. His impressive final scene, the scene of his death, begins with the line, "Fie on ambitions." 11. 4.7.32-46, 69-82, 101-08. 12. Consider the implications for the question of capital punishment �12 For all his villainy, Cade can still feel remorse and he is aware of his own ambition: he wants to lord it over other men. His counter- part, the ideological demagogue, learns from a science, or pseudo-science, of history to identify the ultima~e good with the practical and necessary success, the "historical" goals of his revolution. I quote from Lenin, "The great world-wide historic service of Marx and Engels lies in the fact that they proved by scientific analysis the inevitability of the downfall of capitalism and its transition to communism under which there will be no more exploitation of man by man." 13 This seems to be some kind of corruption of what in Kant's religious philosophy and speculations on history is called rational faith, i.e., what, in the absence of knowledge, we are obliged by reason to believe, in order to strengthen our capacity to act in accordance with the moral law. It is not too difficult for a man to be misled by a doctrine, which successfully propagated would place him in a position of highest authority. The ideological demagogue consci- entiously disciplines himself to stifle and discount any remorse or scruple that might impede success. Since for him moralities are all products of history, whatever scruples he might feel can be dismissed as discardable vestiges from a discredited past. ance. He identifies his opposition with ignor- He learns, apparently, to forget about himself. ambition from himself. He disguises his He seems to combine worst parts of intellectual, demagogue, and religious fanatic. Men like Cade and men like Lenin and Hitler, share in common the natural qualities of the talented and dangerous demagogue. What distinguishes the ideological demagogues, we suggest, is the fanatic intellectuality they add to the character. 13. 2!!.!:!!!. Theory Lenin was the author of a philosophic book like of Marxism, International Publishers, New York, (1948). (cont. on foilowing page) �13 Materialism and Emperio-Criticisrn. On Contradiction. Mao Tse-Tung is the author of Hitler could say, "It's against my own inclinations that I devote myself to politics.... philosophy. I'd have chosen the arts or 1114 New communications technology and the tastelessness of the news industry have made it all too easy for too many to be seduced and carried away by their desires for fame and notoriety. The craving for distinction, however, takes on many forms. Between mere exhibitionism and the craving to be distinguished for ex- ellence alone, c but certainly closer to the latter, is the hero. There is much in modern life, not to speak of any life, antithetical to heroism. Aspirations for some form of heroic nobility would seem to be behind much of the political and moral rebellion of our times. Some, alarmed by what corrupted and perverted heroism can lead to, recormnend the elimination of heroic ation from the world altogether. ~spir- If heroic aspiration, expressed in some form or another, is ineradicably rooted in human nature, and if nature can be fulfilled, corrupted, or perverted, but not eliminated, the only course left would seem to be to direct one's efforts towards the cultivation of taste for, and understanding of, authentic heroism. Merely debunking is hardly sufficient: again the balance of classical liberalism shows itself in its ability to articulate together both the nobility and limits of the Cf. Karl Loewith, Heidegger, Denker in duerft1ger Zeit, Goettingen. 1960. chs. 2 and 4; Stanley Rosen, "Philosophy and Ideology: Reflections on Heidegger," Social Research, Summer, 1968. The common ground, from our point of view, of these doctrines can be seen in Hegel's remark: 11 For WorldHistory moves itself on a higher ground than that on which morality has its proper station •••• " "Denn die Weltgeschichte bewegt sich auf einem hoehern Boden, als der ist, auf dem die Moralitaet ihre eigentuemliche Staette hat, ••• " Vorlesungen ueber die Philosophie der Geschichte, Einleitung. 14. Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-1944, Signet Books, p. 252 �14 hero. There may be no better way to begin this refinement of taste than by studying Shakespeare and The Iliad and The Odyssey and by trying to understand the differences between Coriolanus, Brutus, Henry v, and Prospero; between Achilles, Agamemnon_ and Odysseus. THE RADICALITY OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his letter to fellow clergymen from the Birminghan Jail, refers to Thomas Aquinas's "T.reatise on Law, 1115 in order to justify his advocacy of disobedience for segregation laws. An unjust law, Thomas cites Augustine, seems to be no law at all. Every human law is binding as law only in so far as it is derived from the natural law, the law of reason. To the extent to which it deviates from the law it is a perversion of law. n~tural The right to rebellion enunciated by Thomas is based on the distinction between human law and natural law which is in turn an interpretation of Aristotle's distinction between natural justice, ' ' (' I or natural right, TO fUtrlt<OV olK.d..lOl or conventional justice, (to physikon dikaion) , and legal TO TOi'ot l K ~ V l/i<f!f..toi '(to noI!Ukon dikaion). 16 The highest law, higher than any law promulgated by a political legislator, is the law of living reason. In Question 96, article 4, Thomas qualifies the right to rebellion, as the Declaration of Independence does, by pointing out that the possession of a. right does not automatically license the possessor to exercise the right. Whether a right ought to be exercised or not depends upon the given circumstances of the situation. If it is likely that the evils attendant upon the exercise of a right would outweigh evils justly complained of, for the sake of avoiding the greater evil the just man yields his right. In the exercise of his rights too, man is responsible for the 15. Summa Theologica, I-II Q. 95, A. 2 16. ~· Ethics, s. 7, 1134 b 18 ,.. U35 a 15 �15 foreseeable consequences of his actions. The right to rebellion as found in Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln and others serves as a reminder that no government of men is as important as are the moral principles of good government. The beautiful balance of Thoma.s's position can be seen in a passage where, pointing out that rebellion is always a serious matter for conscience, he quotes the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans: "All human power is from God; Therefore, he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." But in the middle of his quote st. Thomas adds the decisive liberal qualification, "in matters that are within its scope." The quote then with Thoma.s's addition reads, "All human power is from God: Therefore he that resisteth the power, 'in matters that are within its scope,' resisteth the ordinance of God.' ;,l 7 Why reasonable radicali ty must be accompanied by reasonable conservatism can be seen by considering the fact that he who speculates about the principles justifying all government is in that very act speculating about principles which could justify the alteration or abolition of any government that does not measure up to those principles. THE CONSERVATISM OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM Why is government, why are human laws, laws which compel obedience through fear of punishment, thought to be necessary? Why is the natural law, which appeals to reason alone, not sufficient? Federalist fifty-one notes, "what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels no government would be necessary. If 17. Q. 96, A. 4, ad 1. Cf. John Calvin, Commentary ~ the Epistle ~ the Romans, ch. 13, secs. 1-4; Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. 4, ch. 2o, esp. secs. 16ff. Cf. John Locke, ~Paraphrase and Notes ~ the Epistles of St. Paul •••• Cf. note p on Romans, 13:1, with the end of oaragraph 2 of Locke's introduction to this section, and cp. the latter �16 angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Men who are primarily devoted to learning and to teaching, concentrating on the strengthening and development of their rational powers, are prone to exaggerate the part reason plays in the lives of most men, men not so concentrated and so dedicated. Although it leads to some squandering of forces, as a practical rule of thumb in the profession of learning and teaching, if one is likely to err, it is better to err on the side of overestimating rational capacities. In politics, however, this generous, and in that sense liberal, tendency can lead to consequences far worse than mere ineffectiveness. Those who expect too much from reason are bound to be frustrated; then, like disappointed lovers, overcome by a despair that can easily turn to contempt and hate, they are liable to begin to reject reasonable procedures altogether, to turn to pressure, intimidation, dire c t action and force, thus depriving political life of that limited but saving 'b . part that reason can contri ute to it. 18 Although it is certainly not universally true, and though it does depend upon the books, it still might be said that in general readers of books are more rational than those who do not read books. Thus, to make reason more effective and to correct their readers' characteristic error the great tradition of classical writers taught the limits of reason. Herman Melville, comnenting on More's Utopia and Plato's Republic, wrote with the tables of contents of his Two Treatises on Government. 18. Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 89 C ff. Cf. in this order Turgenev's novels Fathers and ~and Virgin Soil, and Dostoevsky's Possessed, for an account of how Russia's political intellectuals turned from populism to terrorism. �17 a small poem entitled, ~ Reasonable Constitution. What though Reason forged your scheme? 'Twas Reason dreamed the Utopia's dream: 'Tis ·dream to think that Reason can 19 Govern the reasoning creature man. Plato and Aristotle, I believe, would not disapprove of that poem. Aristotle's Metaphysics begins with the assertion: "All men by nature desire to know." This passage is frequently misunderstood. He never said that for IOC>St men the desire to know dominates the other desires. ones for whom this is so are rather rare. Those blessed In the preface to the Politics, the last chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues that while all men do desire to know, IOC>st men desire other things more. The presence and the power of those desires make political or human law necessary. We might, following Thomas and Aristotle, divide the purpose of human law, or government, into maximal and minimal purposes. The maximal purpose is to furnish man with the training, or discipline, (and perhaps the conditions), which he requires for the perfection of virtue, for excellence, that is, education. And because they are most inexperienced with it, most in need of it, and most capable of acquiring it, this discipline, or education, is primarily education of the young. For those whom Aristotle calls naturally free or liberal, that is with good and uncorrupted natural dispositions, words, arguments and discourses, especially parental admonitions, can provide the ethical part of this education. But most men, living as they do by passion, prone to vice, are not easily moved by words. 20 The minimal purpose of govern- ment is to restrain these men from evil by force and fear of punishment, to restrain them from harming themselves, and especially from harming others, from 19. The Selected Poems of Herman Melville, ed. Hennig Cohen, Anchor Books, 1964, pp. 169 and 257. 20. Aristotle, N. Ethics, 1179 b 5-18. �18 disturbing the peace of others. peace. The minimal purpose of government is domestic Thomas also refers to a purpose intermediate between virtue and peace, which is coordinated with a type of character intermediate .to the types mentioned before: this would be the purpose of educating those who have been habituated by force and fear of punishment, to do willingly what before they 21 . d i.d f rom f ear, an d thus to b ecome virtuous. Human law, or government, if it is to be enlightened, does keep the end of the virtuous in view. But law must be adjusted to the capacities of those for whom the law is intended. There are limits on what one can reasonably expect from the law in the way of moral improvement. Being framed for the illiberal majority, the law, according to Thomas, should not forbid all those vices from which the liberal can abstain. The illiberal majority should not be burdened with precepts too far beyond what they can be expected to live up to. For, as they violate them, they are likely to come to despise them and law in general. Thus, from contempt they are likely to break out into transgressions worse than those they began with. Thomas quotes Proverbs (30:33): "He that too vehem- ently blows his nose brings out blood." The law should forbid only those Jl'Ore grievous vices from which it is possible for the majority to abstain. It can promote, but it cannot prescribe that men be virtuous, that is, that they not only act virtuously, but do so willingly, habitually, and for virtue's sake. 22 When the conditions presupposed by laws have changed, the laws may or 21. Swmna Theologica, I-II, Q.92, A.2,ad 4; Q.95, A.l. 22. Aristotle, N. Ethics,1105 a 26- 1105 b 1. �19 may not thereby be rendered obsolete. They might still be applicable, in whole or in part, to the new conditions; if not, they ought to be changed. As the need for new legislation to adapt to rapidly changing conditions grows, understanding the complexity of the problem of change becomes increasingly important. The conservatism of classical liberalism comes to a focus in what it has to say about change in laws, the subject of Question 97 of Thoma.s's Treatise on Law. We quote from article 2: Human law is rightly changed in so far as such change is conducive to the common interest. But to a certain extent change of law itself is detrimental to the common good. For custom has great force in the observance of laws, in as much as what is done contrary to common custom, even if it should be in itself light, seems to be grave. Thus when a law is changed the constraining force of law is diminished, in so far as custom is destroyed. Consequently, Thomas goes on, human laws should not be changed unless the good attained by the change outweighs the harm done in this respect. The first objection goes as follows: It seems that human law ought always to be changed whenever something better occurs. For human laws are devised by human reason as are the other arts. But in the other arts that which was held at first, is changed, if something better occurs. Therefore the same ought also to be done in human laws. Tho mas answers: Rules of art derive their efficacy from reason alone, and therefore whenever any improvement occurs, that which was held before ought to be changed. But laws derive very great force from custom as the Phi,losopher says in Book II of the Politics, and therefore they ought not to be readily changed. In the passage referred to Aristotle points out that the strength of law with regard to compliance, depends upon the compliance becoming habitual, and, he notes, it takes some time to form habits. 23. 1268 b 23 - 1269 a 28. 23 Unlike what goes on in the other �20 arts and in the sciences, what reason alone would dictate is not simply applicable in political matters. Reason, even wisdom, must compromise with and thereby be diluted by the requirements of compliance and consent, that is, by habit, prejudice, and custom. It is unreasonable not to make due concessions to irrationality in political affairs. What seems then, to underly the common opposition between liberal and conservative is a more fundamental difference of opinion concerning the relative strengths of rational and irrational powers in most men, in practical terms, concerning how much rationality is to be expected from most men. The distinction between conservative and what probably should be called progressive would seem to be more adequate: both make serious claims to be called liberal. This disparity between what is appropriate for the sciences and the arts, and what is appropriate for social and political life is treated more dialectically in Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics. if not the fundamental theme of both books. It is a fundamental, Arguments for aristocracy and kingship, the rule of living reason, in Plato and Aristotle are accompanied . 24 b y arguments b y ana 1 ogy f rom th e arts an d sciences. The rank orders of the regimes in both books could be understood as being based on the degree to which the peoples of the respective regimes are capable or not of receiving more artistic or more scientific political forms, the degree to which they are capable of being governed in a liberal manner, the degree to which they are capable of conforming their lives to the rule of their most reasonable fellows. The idea of the rule of living reason functions as a paradigm, as a standard of improvement for politics. 24. It moves us to continue to search for governors who, E.g., Aristotle, Politics, 1273 b 10-12, where flute playing is paired with shoemaking. The former addresses itself to the soul, especially the passions, the latter protects the body. �21 as The Federalist (number fifty-seven) puts it, "possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the coilUIIOn good." It reminds us that institutions ought ultimately to be judged not by technical standards, but by the kind of human beings they encourage and tend to produce and by the kind they discourage and tend to eliminate, that is, that ethics is the architechtonic part of social and political science. The idea of the rule of living reason gratifies reasonable hopes by clarifying and articulating fully their ultimate goals. At the same time, however, it presupposes con- ditions which are so impossible, or so rare, as to preclude it as a practical political possibility. possibility.) (This would not automatically preclude it as a personal By clarifying how rare, or impossible, the pre-conditions for the perfect political order are, writers like Plato and Aristotle save idealism from fanaticism, they teach men to moderate and to civilize their hopes. They prepare men to accept the implications of the distinctions between what is best in itself, that is, what is best in the best possible circumstances, what is best in circumstances that most generally prevail, and what is best relative to any particular set of given circumstances. The chief political alternatives open to Americans and Western Europeans would seem to be the rule of reasonable law or some form of despotism, benevolent or unbenevolent. also. This seemed to be the case to Herman Melville in 1863 In July, 1863, riots protesting the draft broke out in New York City. The rioters turned to attacking Negroes and burned a Negro church and an orphanage. Melville reflected on these events, and more, in a remarkable poem called The House Top - A Night Piece - : �22 (July, 1863) No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air And binds the brain-a dense oppression, such As tawny tigers feel in matted shades, Vexing their blood and making apt for ravage. Beneath the stars the roofy desert spreads Vacant as Libya. All is hushed near by. Yet fitfully from far breaks a mixed surf Of muffled sound, the Atheist roar of riot. Yonder, where parching Sirius set in drought, Balefully glares red Arson-there-and there • ••• All civil charms And priestly spells which late held hearts in aweFear-bound, subjected to a better sway Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve, And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature. Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead, And ponderous drag that shakes the wall. Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll Of black artillery; he comes, though late; In code corroborating Calvin's creed And cynic tyrannies of honest kings; He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed, Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds The grimy slur on the Republic's faith implied, Which holds that Man is naturally good, 25 And-more-is Nature's Roman, never to be scourged. The rule of law, it must be said, cannot by itself produce nobility of soul, but it may go far towards producing the best possible conditions for the cultivation of nobility of soul. Most informed citizens in the English-speaking world pay lip-service to the blessings of the rule of law. But those who would most directly and severely feel the loss of liberty its weakening would entail are those whose very calling presupposes freedom of speech, those for whom learning, study, teaching and serious conversation are habitual and regular occupations. How ironic it is then-- we hope it is not just--that the spirit of Draco should be receiving some of its loudest invitations today from institutions that are 25. 2E..!. cit., above, n. 19, p. 24. Cf. Acts of the Apostles, 22: 24 and 25 �23 avowedly institutions of higher learning. We cannot avoid considering the implications of Melville's words, "Wise Draco comes": suffer an unwise Draco, or to deserve a wise? Is it 'WOrse to It is altogether possible to suffer both conditions. The irony referred to, however, may not be something only peculiar to our times. It would seem that now, in the beginning, and always, science and philosophy come into the world with the awareness that a distinction can be made between nature and convention, or between the reasonable and the conventional. Wherever there are philosophers (a class which can include erring philosophers) there seem to arise imitators of philosophers, men who are aware of the distinction between nature and convention, but who never sufficiently reflect on the reasons for the conventions. Some would say that such men, sometimes called sophists, sometimes intellectuals, are more attracted by the honors of philosophers than by their true objects, or that they somehow confound political ambition with philosophic ambition, but whatever their motives, the problem is that they abuse the instruments of philosophy, they abuse the distinction between nature and convention, so as to undermine all conventions, so as to undermine ordinary decency. One permanent task of Socratic philosophy then would seem to be to defend ordinary pre-philosophic practical wisdom from sophistical attack; that is, to prepare, if necessary, a theoretical defence of ordinary decency against sophistical science. To avoid misunderstanding, it should be said that such polemical activity does not mean that one ceases to -U-y to understand or to learn from those one attacks. 26. We need only consider the Socrates of Plato and Xenophon. 26 Cf. Note 4, above, and Leo Strauss, On Tyranny, The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963, esp. p. 199 �24 AMERICAN LIBERALISM "It has been frequently remarked," writes Hamilton in the opening paragraph of '?he Federalist, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.27 It is hard to conceive of a better solution to the problem of political stability and change than the American constitutional system. The Constitution provides a point of veneration and the fixed and stable framework within which the various departments of government are granted broad and flexible powers to deal energetically with the problems arising from changing conditions. The reasonability of the constitution itself is attested to by its ample recognition of and reliance upon the indecorous, but never failing, springs of human selfWe recur to Federalist, number fifty-one: ishness. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. Those auxiliary precautions are the check and balance system and separation of powers. Finding the right balance between the enabling powers of government and restrictions on governmental power is the permanent problem of American government. If one focuses not on the needs of liberal learning, but on the ordinary concerns of most men, it might be said without too much oversimplification that the most prevalent and persistent forms of injustice are bullying and cheating. 27. Footnote on the next page �25 The English-speaking peoples by means of the rule of law seem to have concentrated on preventing men from bullying one another. Like our Conunun- ist rivals, we have also been greatly concerned with preventing cheating, but have taken the precaution to deal with this problem in such a way as to avoid concentrating too much power in the hands of our governmental protectors, so as to avoid putting our protectors themselves in a position to bully us. The reasoning behind this choice seems to be that, although the two are often connected, injury to dignity is worse than injury to material well-being. In addition, he who is in a position to bully is usually in a position to cheat as well, whereas the converse is not true. What the right balance between enabling powers and restrictions on government is depends upon the given conditions of material life. Along with the introduction of large-scale technology, a new system of administration and ownership of peoperty developed in the West, devised to coordinate the resources of large groups of men in a manner appropriate to new technological possibilities. We refer to the rise of the depersonalized, that is ethically irres- ponsible, ownership of joint-stock companies, organized for profit and with limited liability. 28 The inequities engendered by this system might be traced, at least in part, to the fact that the system was developed under the guidance of a philosophy, or social science, that either minimized or denied the significance of ethics for political, social, and economic science. However this may be, the principle seems to be generally accepted now that the inequities resulting from the growth of large-scale non-governmental corporate and 27. Cf. George Anastaplo, Book Review, Levy: Legacy of Suppression-Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History, 39 New York University Law Review 735 (1964), esp. p. 741; Laurence Berns, "Two Old Conservatives Discuss the Anastaplo Case," 54 Cornell Law Review 920, July, 1969. 28. Cf. R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society, ch. 5. �26 institutional power can be effectively remedied only by a enlargement of goverrunental powers of regulation. corres~nding In addition, the licen- sing of _ government corporations and agencies has been expanded in order to perform necessary public services that privately owned enterprises could not be relied upon to supply. The American system is peculiarly well adapted to solving the problems brought on by new conditions without sacrificing, or at least with a minimum 1oss o f , l 1'b erty. 29 New ways are continually being found to combine justice and liberty, public responsibility and private initiative. By the skillful use of tax laws an amazing proliferation of private welfare and cultural agencies has been induced, performing needed social services without concentrating power in the hands of goverrunent. Large corporations under threat of increasing regulation and taxes, and guided by an increasing awareness of the insufficiency of an unmitigated profit motive, are tending to follow more public-spirited policies and even to take on a semi-public character. Within government itself the institution of specialized relatively independent corporations and authorities, in addition to the regular constitutional separation of powers both within and between Federal, State and local governments, all enable us to address ourselves to new conditions without that concentration of power in the central government that less sophisticated structures of government cannot avoid. The principle behind the American Union and the Constitution of the United States, in Lincoln's words, "entwining itself more closely about the human heart," is the Declaration of Independence's assertion of "Liberty to all." This prin- ciple in Lincoln's mind is inextricably connected with the Declaration's assertion that "all men are created equal." 30 The great and no longer tolerable failing Cf. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. I, ch. 5, last section~ vol. 2, bk. 2, ch. 7 30. "Fragment: The Constitution and the Union" 1860 or 1861, Collected Works 29. of Abraham Lincoln, Roy Basler, ed. Rutgers u. Press, vol. lV, PP• 168-6 9 • �27 of American political life, the failure to guarantee Negro citizens equal rights of citizenship, is not, according to Lincoln, a failure of American principles; it is rather a failure of men to act in accordance with those principles. Lincoln commented on that statement in his speech on .the Dred Scott decision: I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal--equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which could be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despoti~m. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocatio~ they should find left for them 1 at least one hard nut to crack. The difference in nature (the Declaration speaks of the "Laws of Nature") that these natural rights are based upon, rights which all men share, is the difference between rational and irrational animals, between men, animals capable of thoughtful speech, and beasts, animals incapable of thoughtful speech. This difference both for a classical liberal like Aristotle and the Founding Fathers is elementary and fundamental. 31. fo~ Aristotle goes on to Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857, emphasis in original. f �28 divide men in terms of the different ways and degrees that they possess this capacity, but the differences of ways and degrees can never be as significant as the difference between animals lacking the capacity entirely and those having it in any degree whatever. Part of what Aristotle and the Declaration of Independence mean was spelled out by Kant in the work referred to before, where he uses the book of Genesis to speculate about the various stages man might have gone through 32 . . . in h. progress t owar d s un d erstand. is ing h. uniqueness among t h e anima 1 s. is Kant minimizes the importance of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. fig-leaf. For him the epoch-making event was the institution of the He interprets it as follows: this removal of the object of inclination from the view of the senses reflects man's first awareness of a certain degree of mastery of reason over impulse; that he is a moral creature. this was his first hint His partner's similar action, this implicit refusal, forces man, moved by sensual desire, to become aware of the moral qualities of the objects of his desire, the rational and moral qualities of his fellow human beings. Thus he becomes able to be moved not only by sensual, but also- by more inward spiritual attractions; he becomes able to move from animal desire to love, from the desire of possessive enjoyment to the simple appreciation of beauty. Through self-restraint and refusal men come to deserve and to recognize each other as worthy of the dignities befitting free men. St. Jorrn•s College, Aunapolis, Maryland May 24, 1968 32. ~cit., above, n. 6. � 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. 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Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 29 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 Berns, Laurence, 1928- Title A name given to the resource Speculations on liberal and illiberal politics Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968-05-24 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on May 24, 1968 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 53004 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9ce8fc344f0288ef0b23555da32b3bc2.pdf 7d663c3b4e2138c937f2adb547233b25 PDF Text Text RArIONAL ANILlAL - l'OLlflOAL ANIMAL: . . · Natur- and uonvention 1.n auma.n Speeoh and Politics• bJ Laure.noe Berna•• In tne beginning of his Poli tioa Aristotle argues the. t "man ia b7 nature a politioal animal." .· In faot man ie more a politioal animal than a111 bee or a.n;v herdin~ anim!il, for "man alone of the uimala ha• apeeob, 11 "man alone of the &nimala baa reason," "man alone of the an1JD$la haa loaoa." A word should be said about this word logo1, whioh oan be translated ae ward. speeoh. aooount, • araument, rat1Q, or reaaon. Logos ie oonneote~ to the verb l~,:2 whioh mee.na to 1peak .and to piok out, to seleat, to oount. ·words oolleot, aeleot, and eleot are oonneoted with the Our a~me ~erb. Logos la aeleoted, eleoted, and ohoaen speeoh, meaningful apeeoh, thoughtful B.Pe•oh. 'When people •peak of Arie totle' s definition · ot man aa the rational animal t hey are referring to hie statement that man alone of the animala poaaesaes logos, possesses thoughtful spee r«·.· ~riatotle goes o~ to say: Uow voiae funotions us a aign of pa i n ~nd pleasure ~nd thereforo is possessed by the other animale too (for their naturehd& gone ~s far as having eenaat1on of *"' leoture diven at ~t. John's College, Annapolis. May, 19'10. ••1utor, St. John's uollege, .&\nnapolia; Clliougo. ot Ph.D., 195'1. rhe University �2 pain u4 pltaaure ·Uld 1lgnifJ't111 tb9•• thing• to • • e.noth••). a.s h&D. i• to• aald.q ol• u th• a4••'aa•ou• a.n4 the h&l'lltul~tllereto•• •1•• th0 jaat and th, un- ju1t. Por thia_ l• a.,.oial to • • alo~• 019pare4 wlwl\ ·t h• otbar entaala; h• alont has 1.u ,~ tioa. or soo4 ci:;. 4 1 bad. and. jut an4 • j u t and tba Uk•. 4D4 th• o~t7 et th••• tbtq• ...... a houa•hel.11 UMl a 1IJ.&•... · (12$l• 9-18) -- a po11t10.i ~' .•ltf• !!IP• au.. · 01•u 1'bl•h P••tuppo••• an anr.n••• t~.• h~, th• uvuitq•f)U and ot tlbat ' 1• 1004 tor . . . •4 llhat 11 bd, 1d11•h tor Qilatotl·• ,. ..., 11bat la in &o,or4 , . I . With nat••• --·~ ·11atue, an4 11bat l• .oontr..,. to :natwa·• · f'bla a~p.,l .ill rouab~. apeeoh1 uul ;Mqbthl 11Wt~ -.tai~a aw..euaa la h...,• . . th1ak1ag aboUt bw .• at la.. abar•4 la · toi.be 411tr1bu.ted., . . -. ' th• ahariq ot thl• a•a•n••• aak•• lt ·po••ib1• tor a.n to · ~oui4er . . •' . .•' how tll• a4Ta.nta1••• 1n4 th• h&Ntu1 ·. . - ~· ....._t ·t• be 41•t•1ntedi '.•bared., amt ·e.ppo,.,u.one«, lti •••• lt po••t•l• ,,,. • • t• eonattu 1'• ,Jut' nity,, er· ·•M~iq, aa4 41he unjaat. .ft• ee: aa4 unju.at . •Ak••..a bou••hol4 ·&114 . a . ;a•llt • •t th•t ·. 10•4 an4 b .. , ju.at.· 1•. what . . . . • .oeaT antt7, an4 a polt,toai o• ·, unltJ pr-Ula11J, la ita ~-r " 0~21 tq a ', i . .. - ' . 1004, . that goo4 11 ju1t1••, nuel.J, awaell••• .r i.&9... ..,_t ia oon•etiY-4 ·ot . •. .. u ih• rilbt . 41•t•1b~t1on ot . a4Y•taa•• . - huu • Po11t10.i .a· ot9tl•• o •a·'.·then. b•. oharaotei-laed in t...U ot th• oonoept:lau ot jut.toe, I tbG . . . ·.. . . • •~-i>tiou ot the •~lht 4tatrlbutlon ot a4nntaa•• &n4 ati•• or authoritatiYe, in eaoh. 1 . .. . t•• baM io I Moat of *1; -·· '~~ 1'al'31 ••l4, J; h-1e>1, S.• nt~ . ua4er1tand. •. Bu.tabO'lll.4 "'not b• bothered. l>J at lea1t k•~ t•l'N ~u~' ~J•f.P4T . '1-~' w . J .... u.a,. of... ••of~' purti•~Nl7 ~u ttN nat~~- ·: ~tu• ,,. 4o ,1tb. goo4 . ~4 l,);~f . .~ ~ J••tlt• Q4 . ln~1t~••., .. ~ I• ·not th• b1atote11Q oonoeption ot natue obaol•t•T Do·•'* •' not . .. tean what nature tPCm 11•4.e rn n&ttµtal aoiene••, aDd traa· ••an• !~~~; ii~i :9lAt! 0f·J~ 1t1!23t J1b-1it3J~ 9af. 1i.;. 2f13J2Z'~c! ! 012. b l; '•' �.3 the aooial aaienc•a t hat model themselves on them? But before taking up the theme natur• and Ari•totl• 1 a unde:rstan41iag trr Ntture we should, perhapa, explain wh7 we oonoern oUl'a•lves with Aristotle I sball try to deal with taat queation under t'j.ve heada, at all. 41aouaaed ·in 1nor•aa1ng order ot importance • . 1) Ariatotl•'• a;pproaoh to nature and philosophy- was t he approach oppo1ed by th• found.era ot the modemaoientitic approaoh. a1 •••ing what they ••r• reaoting againat, what they rejected, we come to underatand better the point ot view dominating our tb•usht an4 O\U' tlm••; we aoa• . to under1tand ouraelvea b&t.t e:r, Pi'em thia point ot view we approach Ariatotl•'a philosophy aa a hiatorioal datu.. 2) Aooording to the view ~hich trie• to understand modern lit• in 1uob • vay,; ·they olaim, as 11 appropriate to the unique- ness o~ our situation, the Exiatentialiat, or HistoriQal Relativist, or Radical Hiatorioi•t, or Heideggerian view, world views are pri- marily creative projeets ot ditterent ages or different men in 4itteNnt as••· True openness, openness to determine the way which would ba the •ut~entia impoaed upon ~· were •oat way tor ua, requires treadom trom the blind.er1 bf our tradition. deol•i~• in torming the A.r1atotl• wa1 &DlOng tr~ditiQn. thoe ~ To clear out. who ~he cobv•ba, to liberate Oiu'aelvoa :rrom th• ti-adition fn ourselves. since it la a tradition of thought, requires µnderstending it. _ Liberation from the · tradi.t ion, baaed on undars tariding 1t, ia require., in order to · open ourselves to the broader perapeotivas that a unititH planet requ1rea. 3) · There· ia what oan be called the of the Modern View or Nature. Cr~sia of Modern Science, That is, modern scienoe, the :m.odern �4 vl•v et aatuae ••- . te b• ua'91• to aaJI• liqae ot .._ ...-u •t th••• 111d.ll9• wbl•h uaa moat :•o ua,t i.-.'betn1•t 1•04neaa • batl.a:aa·a , ~d.Jia••• • uafalNe••• n•1Dl1U•J,• bu.uaa, be1.11117 • ql.:ia•••• _. ·aeten•l•tie •••ial ••i..o• ••-b'-b uazdq, ol po•t• that ••1entitlo r' ~· ••U• •._otJ •••"•~la•• "•due juq--~~.• .. . Inatea4 ot r•ti..-1 J•l••ipl•• et aatt.. guitaaoe ar 'WUlea••• ·• J.a1•*•t1•'• v:l.•-ot I•• 111• l• · abtuil4""•• to wul•• ; _ at .be•t1 wo ,.u.:Ltl•• ot 9~•41•97· ••._.and. JnilU. t:.&.9•• •"'•1• th91e 4!atln•"1•• nieh.v• flD4 ......... uaad.neJWl. t • . . pr•.. ••'•'itt.o ·1•aottea1 'between go04l · U14 ba4, ,souild view li•••· •taillaetlcma • •*• aeue. ·o t h"taail Jit• v• 1111• th• 41ataw'l•· ~ itJt.• ...., _.., .upporwtq a look t~ ••• it pel'bapa AIPl~tMl•'•­ viev. ot ria,ua 1• aet to lte alt•s••h• Ua Q i:teti I· •' t•'·· . 'Qll:der the h•a4 ot tlb8 C-S"i•i• · ot IH4-. · ••ii.ea• . th•~• l~. ' ..i.e ~~ prob1• of tshe lntelli..,lli'r . et mo••• •tlb...atl.oal Pbl'•ioc, 011 ••••ta41na tlbat . 1,,....... au 1111.at ltj --~d· p .......... . ot und.w.1tan4tng.how it »olatea .t o ou.· lu4.._11d •"l>•l•o•. ~ a •lp, 'but OlllJ' tlh• clullioal ••tan, •f '1b.at ·• • .,... ••• ~-t U. oout•e Oza•• WGl'4 ,_ •o'•··· ft1p,ti'ilt\:. . IP'•tw'i 4P•• · aaaa •Oien~·., but ic alilo lile.a JmoW1e4a• . and ude•1faanitl.q • . Theugbtt\ll 1tdu.ta ot oluaiaal O.ei.k nOlf uattat4' :b•tOll'• tliUltt• lat;" •Ri•tilli wtth tU wo1'14 aoien••• beeau• ·to ua. 1oien::lai· · uuall,- uana _.. . ••tenoe, pr•-.t.••ntl7 ~t.thematiloal ~•1••·· I.DA .,hla aoi~n•• d••• 8" • • • to 1>• n.e......s.17 acoc..,anle4 "' lllJ.dat-atandtng. 4) Some look to u11totl• with a Yia·E to tM aeed OQ!ll'•eh•naiv• natu.iral pb.iloaephJ' llhleh aoul.,,t u b •11puation ot ae4•ftl . r.. a •en.a• a.tt ot the ••t.ao• hCli 'ih• vu14 ot tnaan uaalag b7 �s relating both within a unified view ot th• natural vorld. 1 .$) We atu47 Plato and A.riatotl• beoau•• we auapect that th.~y may have articulated and claritled moii• ad•quatel7 than •llJ'On• •l•• the preauppoaitione and prinoipl•• ot tbenatUl'al human underatandlng, that ia, pre-aoientitio or pre-pbiloaophio thinking, . that order ot un4eratancl1ng with vbioh ·•very aan muat begin all ht• thinking, that order ot underatanding which the ditterent ot, kinda ot aoi•nt1t1o thinking are neoeaaarllJ aoditic·ationa that order ot understanding ot thing• Wb.ioh la :r•••aled through our 41acou:r1e about th• object• ot ordinar1 experlenoe. .. . . 'I'hat aen . ue oampell•d to think about .thiqa · in certain preaorib•d va7a . ; doea not ••tal:tli•h that th• tliqa thought abou• ln th. .elv•• are, or are not, •• they are thought to be. It ve want to a9'o14 dogmatic t14ei.am (th• unp•tloaophioal faith tpat~ t~nga a• ju1t a• ve experienoe them) or 4opatic •o•ptioi•• (th• dOf!'Pl& that we know that thing• 1n th ... elv•a cannot .be u v• e.q>erienoe th•) a mu.oh more povertul dogaatlam . .ong· the lea.med ot our ve au.at be open a~ · ieaat to the poeaib111tJ tha~ tilll••• th• orientation ot the natural human understanding e.nd h\llllan diaoowae ma1 be that inatrum•nt ot 1.•arning, underataDiing m d oaamnm.icaticm. · ope~ emplo7ed by vhat ia perhapa th$ only animal and to the eaaeno•• ot things. to the whole Ve turn to Plato and Afl•totl• tor help in exploring thi• po1aibilit7. Ariatotl• take• hu.mftn ap•eoh very aerioual7 becau1• the ••aning .of, th• · lmplioationa qt, ordinary apeech, properl7 refined, aore . than an7thin; •l•.• , aooordins to hia, aoJte, ••Y• than a,.ltelio 11atlh. .atsics, . -.-.-g-.. . . . ••7 lead u• --.2..- ."!""uf""" ... .... . J. A. W•i•ll•ipl~. . , . , "R'l Jl!:t•\ lfeio,. M&linua L:yo••• BJ.••~ ~··~· Ill. t 9SJ, · · . I Al,.bertu11 �The 14•• ot nature hu . al~•J• opcn1pl•«S1 a, it not· th• ·~ k•f position in Wbat we o~l th• •••t;•r" tr-41tion ot thollgbt •. . ·. . .. .·· . . .. · at v•at•:rn Tbroug1lout tbe ·h111i91"J , . thC)\lpt tbe ~-enta.). la fuel v•r• ~su•4 in t•"'8 ot oppo11itlpu ela•: Hat'Ul"• an4 ~aoe, ~Jtw-_. · and aoa,t).l.inc_ b•tw•• . . . Jfatiire an4 Supernatui-e, th• nat11zt,i ~ · the 41vine; b•tv-.i.1 Hatur• all4 AJ-t; b•tv••n JI'~~- and Con••ntiPlll . between NatUJ'• anA- Pr•,4Qll; between ~ft~• an4 Spt;1,, ·an,4 ~•twf•D BatUJ1• and Hi•to17. 3 •ons ocm.e, l~to th• . ~- tact Aria1io11•• eno•. thema•lv•• . ; other•, f~f•1;• .,hi~~aoptiJ ~d r;o!- world . vfth the 4l•oov•l"J ot ~·~\11'•.4 There . v•r• and. at1ll ~· . P•OPl• Who hav.- ~ ,,.. 4l•t1not ~d~a.. "of ' D.~'W'P· . .. •. , . . . . . . -. . . . . . . ,. ..... ... . ~ . ' . ' I .' • • •• . ' •· , '. ' . ' • ' • The_10or41 nature . an4 nat\11" ~. ( Gre.-k Vi{.~l• and . $J•llf~~ 4() 110~ · . oootQ" in th• Ol~ .' . . . . Teat. .nt, or in the ao,pel'. -~•f oooQI'. t~~,\·~~ thl•• in th• l•tt•r• ot th• mo•~ aophl.i;io-tecl ~~ 'h-. ••nt vritera, th• .J.po1~le th• lf•V fa\ll_ ·a¥ , ~'1 in T•ilt~ent.5 He;. tf v•·o1;her 'l'~:JtiJ• . · pl$<fGf1 iJl Betol'e nature vu 411oove:r•d, vh•ii _Q,ouahttul m•n von4eed t an4 ·41•oourae4 mbout about th• soda~ logoi. · The why thin&• The theoiosot. are tbe ·vai th•7 are, tb•J talk•d th• gt!}olo.ot. - ~r•o•ded gods ordered and oomand•d thing• to wallc : o~ . to go 1:':: th•il' ouetom..PJ' W&J'8• The word way_ (4erek) oooura over: 1700 3-• . The iut··:·~•• ~•t1.ll"al 1foieno• -'d 4~ tu -~1!0t~ ·oppo1:it:Loti• ·Pl'.•\\PP~•~ -tb~~aatur.• -. .,t .ao4••· oQ~•ot•4 wt~la _"o•c"•~t ot J'latw..Y~." . ~1• . diaouaa:l.on.: .la ~u.ad '. pbt*P11f \on; :th• cllaoua•lon in' IA• o• "1'.'•· Strau••a Hf!t!p!J. Rlftf P4£!'tlf,(041o.~J -1953),. oh.~. _. . S. · miese ·:. en•••~ ena, ,. ;I) '.i4 : _,iii - qw t.t: i1HQ1t\1fl.· Otnttr• J !.mo• to the Bibl• • . ll!ePdaana,· (1955). . �7 ....a th• 014 teataaent ·and (ho4oe) ••·leu•: 83 time• in the lev ut.it. ~••t­ Th• god1 ordained that tire ebould bura. olouda gi'W'• rain, that th• earth ahould bri,.ng ,.torth crop•• that voaen .a:t).ould bear ohildr•n. that aoae 1hould · ot eat pig ••at n ~ others ahou14 not kill oowa, that ••• ahould bury tb•ir .dead &n4 that other• •hould bUftl th-, that . 'JltbdU'era •hou.14 b• put to death, or that th•J should pa7 thett- vlot1• 1 • relatives at lea.at one ox. the gods -ver• deli••red to tba The oomwan.4• o:t' anoe1tora· who were, oloaer ·to th• an4 tranaaitted by elder• to th•i:r ott1pring bJ word ot ·mouth or b7 . writt" :reporta. Authority went v1th age, Vltb nearn•aa t• the Of IOUl'O. authority •. At a certain polat ••• eui-1·eu.a uut thouP,•.flUl. aaa 11111•. ll••• not1oe4 that . •o•• th.tn11 an• aome wa1• are alva71 ••• ••• ao 1Utta. . . still oth••• would var7 hca tilll• to ttae thea h11ppen th• ••• · wa7. between th• .n•o•••&PJ" and t•- 11.m• tao ti.at -- : ' what any one doe1 aluM.1t th-, an4 eth••• v.., .ao•e if aen B• b•1in1 ii• be•Qll• •'-a»• th• aooidea~al. th• aa4 · ,. dU or 110· 1 ll&1M the 41a.ttr ,~ ti · a•o•••U7 an4 tllle cu.;. tcnary, and the n•o•••UJ ·and th• urat:flioial. ••Z-• to beocae .a .tra.v•ler, lit• &l.•o notice hov •*• wa:ya are tho . _ . •••l'J It the .... ·aanor one like bia Herodotua, h• then von14 Vb•••• -tor u-.ple, ti•• b'lirna tb•••• ••7 -both b-1'• and in P•Mia. ud other va7aYar7 1'P• plao• t• plaoe ua4h1111 -uibe, to ~,lbe • . ·..- What •1U1.t . hav• be•Q. laQJ.~ . •~r1k.1q , at tt:rat; b,t c•q•· th•J' uat oontradiet · ••ov ••J• ". '11ii-e th• wa.7a that •UJ' trait tribe to tribe, the way• :that depend aoat on d•oiaiona aacl op1rl1Qna ot ,,,.,~; �8 beeau1e th• optnlou ..n hold about the wa7• *hat VUJ .t'!'ca plaae t~ plaoe oont~a41•t eaoh others ·••I•, the deacl au.at be b•l•dJ theJ au1t not be burl••• but bUJ!"ll•d· !b••• oontra•iotion• l•a4 to even •o:re 1\md•ental oontradiotOl'J' opin1on1, oono•rning the veP, originl ot th• 1041. on• JlrQI poi~t ot view one lea.ma th• truth about auoh aatt••• . ' . li•t•nini obed11tntl7 to th• aqthor1tat1v• voio•• ot the -.1dem1 ~,. 1 tram an'ther o~• l,~arn• aoa~ alv.,-1 in th• . t"'-th l»J aat,•r• hav• aad.• a 41ati.Qat1on •v14•n•• and •••1"1 tor on•••lt. that eat one oan~;·~•1iie .: '.· b• : •an•at an4. •••inc t• on•i•lt. tund.-~-al . . au ••naient an4 , 4••1•&t1-.e. ~·~v••n h•ertaJ 'lb:• ,u1plolol\ .b4tlim to a1•• •••.,.•I'• •• ,_. '" Dl!it\df, •tla•• tkW• tba- ilbe " . 1_ 0 •••* i-•~ •••-.4.ti ~1'£n1• J\~th•r-, 0'1~ ditteitent, P•rllap1 tb•ir •o V~~~t. »•r- &Jt• ••aon4~, o•• their ••i•t•ao• te t•r•ihoupt1 £! la• nqa\•Q4d• u• Han aut •ti • ...- .· t~•ir -.a1• ••1•tl•no1 '• lo••"' Thq1e illlin11, wh:\cala • • eya""'*•ltl t)t• ,._., tda1oh i i not •vi,•ntly dep•nd ppoa 4eo1atona ot •an ••119 t• do ¥ha• tq•• do b7 th•••lve1, thPough e<m• internal power ot th.air own. I aan Who h•• b•oOlle ·aware ot IUi•b betwe•n that th••• dlatinotiona begin• Th• .• ' vbJ.~h 01.11" W&7 11 riS)lt and !bl· V&J1 .~ the W&J to 41stln· aooording to nature, food· in it••lt beoaus• it i• in aooord with nature and that wb.$.oh 11 rigt:lt and goo4 beoauae it ·bd been in1tltute4, l•sialat•4 etr ooma111d•d b7 . Th•l'e.tor•. to IU9lll'i&e, o~ on the bMili autborit1ea • or the dletinotiona between that wh1oh 11 ever,t.here th• • _. and that which varios from place to plao• and trca time to t.w and trom tribe t o tribe, �9 l»oitv•• W.at • • .IM .••• . . .. . . .-. '·: · - - ;e-4• on Qn•••lt U\4 vb.at one Jl.•u• trcm authoii- tQI" ' - Q..'\ totion• qt 4eo1•i~ > i;o ••• in11o an4 r-..J.p. :ln . ,1~ts 'f•f ·~~J~ -- Oll· th• bull -.~ - • b•i1:11 1 bet.'-!~en qur 4'14 ••7 MA 1;~ . . Qt th••• 4i•t!Ji•tj,on1 th-. ~~1,ll•Yd q4'tiot) tu t~.a. ~O. ·~i.~nt;l•t a, ~tl1• t~. 'tbJii1': !~1J••Qnµ -.••••ltr, ·ozt - ll7 In ·~ol\)V,l\t18'' • - u'••• ••• ·~ nft · ~Wq iao•1i n••cltul~ bt pt\M'• a:n4 •at 1• ·_ ·4o~v•:ntlon.; good ~'''-~' Oi'\J.O~al it JI po•it•f• q.t~ - po:l.~t,,.qtl • tthi~rJ. Plato•• ll!z!blio, 1n 'th• - great-· debate abCll t th{'! ,, nature and worth ot juatioe~ . ia truly good -arid what tnl.7 C\9epit• peat 411as:r•-•nt1 .. · in acooaMllo-•vith nature, oonventiona an41ava tr• thil point l&OJ'• are ot view ' ... llhat •ha• th• Humu. ooBAuota evaluated not -in . oo~ona .Ol' ab~·::. ,apeo1.tioa117; :i.a _that or goQd b7 nature. . terma t.t Vheth•r tb•J' '· bu, all th• interlooutora premi•• that the good, Wh•t•v•r it •1 be whioh ia Qt •••~• or v~ 1• ,.,11t tbat ~kno•l•4&• f't thia 11t.ppuaatl7 l•s1•1•'''' b,•.,.... leld down, or .philosophy. . •. ,_. o,.. ,o .b• 'al.1~4 ~wa·o~-· _ 'l'h• 4i•ti.U,.~1Q~ -ll•tvetii 1')1.a.~ ~· - goq4 gQ04 ._J l•lf, • . .-,.t""-'•' t , aq. 1iht qr•• h~, . ~d nD~1... •t 6 ' o_ th• ot-... • · 0•1'taia -JND1 n up i~to · - . 11 ' - not 140 di.vine iav, but are in aooord with, •• agi.in•t, nature;· aln b•o••a 1"'.!:>:~tha th.,- p~v•ra:t~. Philo,ophy, b-qma th1• po~t of ,vlfli, beo~,. - ~e •f~ .,~iO\d ot _ -lwll.4 Pu.l"•ult,. - But . w~t-•v•r 1illare - ~• ~h~loeopb'r'' a clua all vhichcan lJaolll4• •r•l!1$ p~~P•~••• ~lltr• •~f'l' , t~ at-1~~ ~tatora, or - magea, ot ·pi,J.1o8QpAe,a, ••ii 'llho Ar~ •W~• At tb• 41,at~potion i between l\.tQJ'e and Q(m\'Jl91\tion, l>ut .6. L. · Straua•, . ~· o\t. tJ P• ·*Q ~·v•r ·~ti.c~·n~l.1 ~~t,).eot on 90. �10 . ·oan th• rea•ona tor th• oonventiona; tlho tail to under•tand hov it be natural !or aen to live in aooordano• with oonventiona. Suoh .. ••n, oall•d aophiata or int•llectuala, abua• th• diatinotlon between nature and oonventlon ao aa to und•l'min• undel'mine ord.1D.U"J 4•e•o7. undepatood 1D thi• ••'1• a ~,l oonventloaa, ao u to On• peraaaentt••k ot philoaopft7, then, th• Sooratio va7, I believe, voul4 b• to 4•- tend · ordlnar7 pre-philoaophio practioal ·w1a4-· h'Gm ~:Qphlatlcal at• tack'; to pr.par•, it n•o•e••l'J'• a theeretiea1 4•1'•noe e:' ~•t1u~197 4$.;. o•noy agai]\at 1e:phlaticai aolenti•• .·~theraere, Plate'• 4t.ale8"•• voul4 ••ea to auggeat that vh•r• there 1• 11toorru,pt1on ot the 701UP)l," aophiata produce lt, but both aophiat• an4 philoaophera pa7 tor it. One task ot politloal philoaoph7 then wuld b• W. edtatt•• philoiaoph7 trait the opprobrium brought upon it bY its 1.aitatora. II Ve r•turn to 0\119 thtm•; ality, hi• having ~~goa, In hil di•cuaaion ot ~b••-,o~eotiQD. ~at\ir• and hia being by th• •ooial and between eOC)DOL- 1!. 0 -.ii'• :ration- a political a~1mal. preoon41tiona ot polit• · lcial 11t.e .&J'ia·totle ret•r• . twioe to tba Oyolope ator7 in bo~ U.•.o' Tb• Cfclop• 1toi-y migh~ be thought ot •• Bom•~,•• the : 04>•••1· 7 anticipation ot Karl Marx • . ••11•4 on, 'l'h•noe •• 8J'i•v•4 at heart, and we cam• to th_ land ot th• C7olopea, an overv•en1ng .c d 1.awl••• . • tolk, Vho, trusting in th• illlnortal god.a. plant noth1ns with their _ an4• nor plough; but all _th••• thing• apring h up tor th• without ·~11ing or ploughing, . Wh•at,e.and . · barley, and vine.a, 'Whloh bear the rio~ oluater ot wine, ~ the rain ot Zeua g1vea tb . . increase. Heither ...... bliea ~or oouncil have they, new appointed lava, but tba7 dwell on th• peak• ot lofty m.ountaina 1n hollow oavea; and. eaah one la lawgiver to .·b1a . ohildren arid hi• vlvea, . . . 7• . fo11tlot. . 1252 b 22 ..: 23 and 12.S.3 . . a .S. · �11 u "'4 ~•J n~t t;.-.,b~_• kn.ow~ 047•••ua not a,t;4!)•t • • ~9t~~· - _ I th._•lv•• (11. 105-11, .. ) . al.l that yet want• "to go and JU.k• trial ot tho•• aen, - to l•un 1dlether·th•7 are both inaolent uid wild and not juat. or 'tihether they love atranger• an.4 -ue go4-.r•u1ng .1n thought. " -( 11.· 174-76.) 9 - The OJ'olop1, Polnhemu• vaa a . aonatroU. •an, •who •h•ph•~d•4 hi• tlooka alone an4 a.tar, and DliDgl•d not with othqa, but lived apart v1.th hi• heart aet on lawl•5eneaa." 187-89~) (11. Odyaa.u1 oave. -v!t~ twelve ot hia beat OOIU'a4ea He aupplioatea the C7ol~p• en~4ra th• Oyolopa• in th• nan• ot Zeua, the go4 ot atrangera and gue1ta. h"• _ •mm so I apoke, e.nd h• atraightv-.,. 11t.ade anaver with pitil••a b•art: 'A tool a,~ thop, atr~g,r, pt 0(90 lf-ff.18, •••ing tbat tbau-bid4eat ae .eltb•r to tear or to th• 1"-' • P• ~· C,ol~P•• t~• ~o · t~cn~lJl• tos- z.,,., Q" Who beara th• aeg1•, nor of' th• .blea11t.1d goda,, ainoe . - v•r11~ wi. b•ti4•r t~ tb91l t ••1"' N'-Ir, ..\ll.d l, ~P '~ the wrath ot Z•ua, · apar• eithe- th•• · .Ill' th7 OOlll"ade•• r u• ~·~t •bic>ul4 pld ••· (~l. 272~7a,) Sho~tl7 tb•r•~ter. havlAg.blop-•4 o~~ i:fb,• w:t.l,•a MY QtlQl CJ~lops kill• Ind ••i;• t!•o ' oa•• o.-•4••., ot OdJf•tnW • .. -..:t~,,~1 ~· ~·• Qle$.f th&t h• int"14' t~ UQ ~~· ~Ml• ~~ - •11 ~t ~~.., - <>41.1•a•iw ~~•~v'~ .• :p:J.'° t<a P¥t out r-..IJlda ot hi• •M q~l ...,. Qµ~ tti, Of~l-,P•' .,~, •::.- 1'}l~1.- . 1-•· ~-~ - I, ~· - J1-•tp,10 ft>,, A• . ~ wi,t~ tnt •f~•' out a.ad. Q~Jl~ to ~av••· •ll th• QJ'olqp~ l1ytns .ftt'tifbJ Th•Y tb,rpng ~\'>out outa149' "~ ~~v' ~ Nf Vb.ether some ~ t• - k~lliN ~ ·bJ ~~~ .·I... Q79lf»pll 1~ th'~~ '4l"f .•il• W l'J· f""Q~, ~' ~Pwf ~. ·· !':4 ~~ :.:-:traula:tiontiP,An,taett.. ..1Lof1b;:Olu.._,••1: .td.bJtu,... . 9. _ Inaolent and vlld ••_. 'o ha tlalanoe4 . 96•1nst . lOT1ng . WUangRa ..... ,qt;::: Jmt .a•:tn•tl b•iN .....,,• ...._ ... t . . . .t. . 10. Coneider Buripides• addition to the atol"'J', C1clo.£!, 11. ~Jl- 43 ,_··582r4. _ · �12 OctJ'CJe\UI b.aO. tol~ !Wa that hie nam• i• M--., h• repl!•a, '' . .1•n4•, Hc:iaan i• killing me br guil•tnot by toro~.· no aan le 4o1~ 'l'h•f anawer that it' 7ou violence, p•rhap• it 1• Zeua, ao prq to om :tather, . Lor4 Po••idon; and then th•7 leav•. 04J•••ut later oon- trlvea hi• eaoape tr• th• oave. The uoilOlllio needa ot the C7olopa ue provided tor bJ .the soda. Co.naequentl7 eocncaiopr•••ur•• do not pl"od th. ., aa pr1ait!v• u• uauall7 pro44ed, ••n into ~o~ing larger oa•untti•• tor th• liake . ot mutual aid, .ooopera.tion and. uoh~•· · Bttoau.aethe7 ·eenever moved to tora • · l~ger 11001ety, th•J never 4•v•loP IJrt arte or ora.tta be7on4 the JJinimal •kill• needed ttr a 11tl•pherd 1 a lit•. live in oavea, ~ot have no •hip•' .and 'fl167 houau, ·and, HOlller •f•Oitioall'J' -.nttona, they no ••n to •ale• 9h1f~' •o.tmat; the sea and viait the oitiea ot otb9• folk u moat. ~ortantl7 b1 never rOl'llling oitl••• th•J ~t oro••· oth9r aen 201•!•• '°· But ce~ioti••• p°'itloc.l they n•ver .davelpp th• utaot .olvili••• cl!•oourae, the uts8 .or cc.matm.l.oation. 1 ~ Th• C)rel(;pa !a toelecl b7 a man .aJdllet in th• . . art· ot uaing wor4a ~ . !'lleii' laok of aldll; 01' . uit ·with V.Aa make• it iapoaeil>le tor .th- to cooperate, . ,o a i 4 their teµov . n hi• . i time ot nee4. Wot .on17 are tha O)"olopa tiTated, but deapit• th• t'aot entire!.7 to th• · aeda~ ~hat b~utal,llawleaa, tt~4 th•7 owe th•:l.r material p18!1t7 th•1 -ar• imlJioua. and, :lno14enta.11J. ·oonoo1ted. A.a the Cyolepa•i!a7a _we "pat a• h••• ••.• to th• t!'Ul.7 we are better ~'Y uno'11- tar ~leased, goda, •lnce than theJ• 11 (11. 2TS-76.) 11. One ot tM •oat ecmaon .etjaGJ.ocl•• 9t tl\t .JIOJI~ octlllllU?ij.•ation · traoee it b&e>k to ~oota . .aalq llUri.at a11&U, ·QM.;.11P1Pi1, • . fS.tJ• wall. · �. 13 In hia GU"JU.ll Ideolog Marx give• •n all too bri•t gl1apa• at hla . picture ot ~he tinal OODllllW'liat · aoeiet7 1 1'bere not the 01J11Pian. goda, but machine technolog7 and oomau.nlat ·organization will ~ro•id• . - a•vyman wit~ · all. hi• · •oonc:aio need.a t~Treb7 making poaaib~• ~h• tinal treedoa, tl-••4oa t'rCllJ the diviaion ot labor~ or d1Yia~on· ot . tunotlon, or I ~lvia~Ol\ . ot nature it••lt. ~ttr It vlll be •poaaibl• . . to do one thing toda7 and another tcaorrov, to hunt ill th~ · .m orning, ti•h in th• atternoont rear oattl• 1n the •Y!ln1ng, oriti. 011• atter dinner, juat aa I • ti•~ •• h•rd•••~or 1 . .. 11~•. w~tbout •••r beo.Un• a hunter, a.oritio.•12 . Boli.w•.;;Qll th• oontrQ7, p••••117• ·uMa 41-.•lpline o:r eoonomlo neoeaa1t7 .and ~at .1ou· vlll ••t 1• qot a new :hl~ti'l•f ¥- augs••t•: .Liberat·e .-11 aen troa the .•au:il7 :t'ult1lled. bre-4 ot ·~· ·but a rao• ot CJo~of,• . In one ot th• .. many plaoea 'Where he touoh•• on the relation between uonoaio n•c11a• •• • "' . .l 1ity and the 4•velopaent o:t aan•a higher taoultiea, A.ri1tot~• •P•illr• ot how .t h• polia, the politioal. o.-unlt7, the c~i ty la . the ' com.plat• ommmtt7, ·111 !oh, att•r . th• toll7 all4 the village, haa o•• to tho ' point ot tull aelt-aut"tloiene,-: Be then aay• : "1nd~ed it baa \•18' to• th• sake ot lite, ·b ut it (12s2 b Jo. >13 ~ tor the 1ake of the f,,• .~ ~ood lite.• · · a••·· ' . Deuta~ 13ao1011•t a.I.A.I. 1D D" ' Pr\\hacbritt~~, p. 1, iitijj "'aaoh ·-· ,... ueh· lJ. Hom.er•• treataant in tba Cjalopa atar7 ot tht tll.at of •h••"• on th• ona 9'Ult, ••••ua \ille• •f aet.1 and! am ol 12. ble .,.a..r, I9JJ, •h• the ait7, on tih• •-••• lbnll. be . oont~aatad •i·~ 1111.t Blb11••l . a~4&Nnt et C._in u4. Abel • . Ot. •ea11sJ ellap. 4. ci. !aaao tl, 1 · "Comaenta1'7 on the Bible," ~ v • ~•11.tio 1 Plail•• , ecla • . · Ralph Lerna.: uid Null•ia _,.1, • ·· , & • •. ao•'1, "".O... · potnte ot 'Yi_,, V• ·t9 _,. t~ S~ riatJ, !£;:": , · A - 6 ti. D, . 781 I - 78l A. CB tae la•taP- ••• L•• ••aut4 , L~ll•l&,I' AISJ.12' ~f, "Mod.•r~, Ba1111• ,.,,11., 1968. PP• l.,.~. . . �III Tho•• .,.rk1 ·ot Ariatotl• oall•d logical reoeived that name beoauae th•y ar•, in general, 4evote4 to th• underatan41.na, th• di•o1pllne,. ali4.. .taaa ~••tton -ot logo•.14. In th~ tl••t ohapter . ot Op · Int•rpretttlog : Ariatotle ·upl&!m that;. l) •.itt911 vorda are . •111bol• ot ••1oecl or apoken vor4•, 2) . apo.ken word• are aJllbola an4 aigna ot exp·e Flqoea, OJI pa11lon.1, . ot th• ltoul, . that _1• peroept~;.i?IU)• thought• and aenaationa, an4 )} the.experiea.oeaoot the aoul are liken••••• ot thlqa • . '!'he vor4 .1Jmbol . oc:mea trm .two Greek worcla . .uiing to throw or to put together. put together b7 ••• SJllbola are alwa71 made, or The 1°1rat. thtq .Arlatotl• not•• about vrittea and apoken •Jmbola ·11 that they U• not the••• tor · all aen, '6hereaa the upe•~•no•• ·~ . h• t tor all. aoul . and the thlngil ~heaa•lvu are tM · .... Ve nee4 onl.7 to think ot what h & ppem ••el"J till• w• uiaAei-- •tand •C!ll»thlngwittan or apolcen 1li a -~eip language . Th~t • ouncla r•t•rring to· the aaae thil\I• titter trca tribe to tribe or nation to nation polnta to th• taot tut the 1oun4a Ao not ot th•- . o ~lvea aign1f'7, or r•.t•r to, the 9.ZPerl•no•• ancl thins•. theJ' are • t 1D11 ot, that 11. the7 ar• not aignitiout, or aeaningtul, b7 nature, th•7 are aignitloantb7 &1r!8••nt, b7 OC111Paot, 1>'1 convention. ' Oon• iu ft•t..ln ..t. . .1. l'll••-tiM&it, tMIR• ··. ·~· -u.U. ..... '·I t!.).-.· , .... · . f:Jt-.. .ttiui..W•dlJ' ••••l-.9t1...•he li.Uio· teria and the ~ ~ Altuab1~ ~l!t . :· 1 . ·: ~- •. ·. ·~ · ~t~· u4 4••a•t baok iilto . $~ Platon1o ea-y-. ar•. t• l>• ._., Mt. .. . :. l afloonoa •@••••ting ·t• •ll•a1-t.1''f • • •· ,ef; ·-~• ·91MfR&: tM· ..~•1'1'1 · W '·U4M'·• · .. . by . ~an• or . the Cat!S!1'1~1• . On . 1..i~ . ... ~~·(Cl lllf. ~ ietlc 3tK~ ona~i.i\4 cloa to tiu. . l!•tj.g • . - ~ · .,. P. BOgg•••, . ara i ..and · • etQric 1 tu., Ca'ta,•v.'fit.t.., l' Pbzt!B- . !•1•, Vol. xv, 110. 1, 1970, pp. 86-90. al•o ThOlnaa AQ.uinia,::sem'iire:q on the Poaterior Anal ztioa o.t Al'itcotle, Magi Boolca, Albm7, 1970'; orevord, pp. ·1-3. · , itm1•!-JiiJ' .· · ! ••=:: ., - .,,Prw. ·.·.:tm:. ' !l'ofiio• . ·S••. �1$ trarivtee, · th• .xi:»•rienoea ot the soul, th• peroeptiona, though.ta and sensationa are .the aale tor all md do not depend upon human agreement tor th•ir ·aeanlng; · the7 reter to Whitt · they signitJ' b'f tha.aelvea,not tbro\18h th• ••41at1on o:t anTth1n8 else; thtt7 ar• . . 1~ a1gsd:t1oant, or ••anlngt\11, b7 nature • . . Let uw anal7•• the ap~k•n a~ol material ot th• •Jabol i• yoioed aore olo••lf. aoun~, . whioh ia . b7 au. The medium or produoed natuiaall7 . Th• peeuliu . o-'tination, o'l'ganisa~ion and ·to'.1"lat1oa o:t ·the · voioed aound.• ·ao · a• . ~ ' to aignifJ' tbt• 'xpe:tiaoe, ·:.tald118 ·th,a• ~ particular aQUDd.a to •1pitf · that , patloular experience, · th• :tom!ng . · ot th.• aaterial of th• •Jmbol depend• . upon human inatitution, vp':;,n oonvent~on. "°'' · .Other 1oun4a 'ould. clo aa : v,1~, but o~qe the aoun48 tor a pu-tioular oonoeptiqn beo~a .'aett1•4 it ar• •sr••d onoe th• deciaio.ri i• a a1atak• to ua• tho•• aounda. another wq, to . point to acil!llething el••• . Unli~• . . "'oana ot th• aiok. ao?'•ma ot t.n-o• .~ laUght••, •P••oh ·aoa4. at-.U• th•~ aign1t1oat1on through · . . . . . ' .. ' ' ·' .r. ' . .. : :- . :: ct &l•totlli ·'ftMau t!·tS. II, •.pp. 23-29. ·.; ftt•9~•t!jtp· it h~• An4 ~~t·~~~~··•. Ol'.Jetu• . liQICI ; ·eM!llS?.·bl iaon '!he vor4 ·~~ol •• ua•4 ~ t~A 41'7~ 7.i«r~e'Urr,- tett with it• ult!Jaa-• reraren~ and•ratood aa naturall7 ~1v•n ahoUld be diatinguiahe4 · t'r• th• "od•rJ> aatheaatiof.1 •1l'~ol lob Ot\o m•~1! . . . i• 4~t•Jlllin•4 P•lll&11i17 by •ho•e •ul•• or aetbo4 governing th• • olgenerating 1ntell1gen ce ~ a elf and th• a7at91Jatiq 00'1-t~ o-r •J11L Qi.t1l thin 'llldoh U7 PU'tiollial' •Jllbol 00011Pa. ISH Jacob Klein, ~1' Hath!!!atioal ThorJJ¥4~ t~lGi! ot~~·~t-• M.i.T. iap.,Clia\)t'D' 9.1 • ;i T ,W, ,lia • 12, · A and 8, pp. l ! J178, 192·211. · Por Vieta 'l'h• lett•r •tsn deaip~t•• the ~tent~OJV' l obj•ot ot a iate~\ion• ••• , n ...17 ot a concept Which it••li · direotl,- inte!lCla another Cl'9no•ft and. no.t • 1l~J b•W•" 'l'h4t ret•Jtent th• lett•• alil'f o 'the •Jllbol in ita merel'j"JIB'••ible · 4•'b•nalnat-en•11•, · ia aooord•4 a oert•in ,i~ep~clenoe vb.lop J>•~t .. · i • to be the ·aub j•o• et 'ca1ou.lat1on.al' dperation•." The•• aJmbol:to ·t:oaatlon• t.J!•, t~---• itq.th th• &14 af... 1l1la'. w••1n•t!•n bf : tbt :tr:;:""1~ol. goaora•1D8 int•13 tgenoe aa .. dir.aet.1 7 .. .Ppr•henaibl• .b eingi "whose merelJ ~otential - ob3aottvit7. l• . nderat.ood..aa · an llOt'q41 ob.j~o.tivltJ. "· ~•ip, . u lbl4. 174-75, . 20f-08J; . Th• .Val' 1• open•d .. tor a spbol-g•n•ratin_s. ln~ . , 'titrigeno• which in a ·~·~ 'Preacrib•• to natv• ita .Q>o~•~J,e/ l,va t. in order to 41aoo•er lava Which voul.4 never be . given" to th• h1D1.ttn " under• tanding by nature 1 ta •lt •. · o' ••••eacl ;e' . Pr•••• t;sn �16 The illpulae to f'Ol'9l hu,.p 1?l4·tit\.•tlon, anJ to •hue 8peeoh ari••• natui-aUy among aen wherever the7 a.r• tound to ~Jmbola exi~ t. 'l'h111 natural illpul•• to 4•v•lop thWl J.hat.ru.a't:ali't t.n that allow tor the COllalUDio.at1Qn and. ahu~~ ia perhapa the moat ~•ing ot thougbte and t••l1Dga, et experlenoe, 4•~1•iv• ot thoao ph•n01aen4L that :point to man• e; We have returned to b7 nature a aooial an4 pol1t1oal animal. th• th•• w'lth 11b.loh •• began. '11111• natural impul•• coupled with . th• deair• -tor mutual uncleratanding• &lil()ng other thing•, poi~• to th• enda or tUnotiona ot the 11peeoh 1)11bol: living togethe:P, l•arning ·togethe:P an4 -.utual under•tanding. In aua, tbr•• ot the tour oaua•• aooounti.ng tor th• 1119bol are natural, th•7 ue th• matvial oauae, vooal aoundJ the ettioient cau••• the iapulae; and th• ttnal Th• to....i, er organ- oau1e, th• and, . living and leal"nlng to1•ther. ising, oauaa whioh give• each •Jabol 1ta 41•tillotiv• a·ign ia conventional. c~aoter a.a a To generalize: aan i a req,uir•d b7 natur•, b7 h1a natur• a.a a thoughtful, apeald.ng an4 poli tloal an1lnal to · tol'a oonventiona, th• ao•t iaportant ot v:hi.ob are -tho•• conventiona tha• 4••lgnate 081't-lu 4etin1t• oClfbUiatto•• 1i •o1Pl4• •• r•r»e1911.ta·ttv• or a1p1titant -.r ~•i-t•1n 4•tln1t• aot;iou ot th• atn4. u.tur• 1• ao _oODit1t"t•a u to r•q~• th• t•~ kin4 ot Qal:y.•1• it• tulttll»ept. · Th• ·~ Huaan to.--.tto11 ·ot •oa•a11ou · poiii~ina to t}J.e ua4 t• -the ooopeJ:1"atio11 ·at na~ve and •DllYWlltotL' a~pt b• aae4 •to 01. .1.f )' · .Vi1totl•'• view ot t~• · J?P\ll• ot the po;\it.lo.t.l. o~lt7, 1.t••li'. HatuJ-• proYid•• th.• a.;.terialt the •••• 11atuall7 Utteienti•t•cl in . their oapa.o1t1ea to .ta.ltill the1r o• . ~4 eao)i alao provide• th• •tt1o1•iit 0&\18•, ·vtth1n th• m~; to• otb•»-~" n••d1; pol~tioal au4 th• ttnal o•ua•; tht g&od natna• ud •ooi~l 11QlJJ.1·t ~: l~t•, the lit• •Q~o:rding to natur•• 'l'h• toraal 0&1Ml8, howevel', tbe lava and SOV0Dlll81lt-1, inati ... �tuttan._ whi•,._ 17 ~ailg•• organise and o:r:d,•r t h• •en towarda th• •4 1.1"• .aupp11e4 by ut, · th• l•si•lato:P 1 • art, and convention. · Thia, h0wever, •• au.l' earli•r ' diaouaaion qt 41atrlbutiv• ' juatio• •howa, 4•.., enough • .· Po• law• ue aa4• by and U G 4o•• not go »•tlactiona of\legialator1 . lele, OP 'llhat kliul .er aen, ue to b• l•gi•latta•• ant\ gOT•~nc~• 1• · 4•t..-in•~ b7 tha ..... lund.. .antal OIMler o~ dtaurlbuti~• B•o• flk• aabigultr ot l)elltJ', or r•.s..... 1hap•1 th• ap1n101U1, laalt•t• and ••~nta 11 juat loe, th• leg1elatoi-". to-. h• who -. wioh the OIHl•r ot •••per •.PAD4a 1• a l•ai•lator in a ••n••· The aort tun4•111Dtal. . t1oa •t th• polltleall o• a entt.,,, •o th• extent that Alotl"ibutive ju•~le• ba•·• . ' . it 4•t.S.Uit• f"9 aa• 11 not all.. .• 4 ••1•17 ~7 otr•uaat~oea, t 1 4erlvat1v• hi• av.oh a l•ai1latiY• ut, aa a.rt vllloh it aight h~ said 11 111.S .alatiYe prtau-111 over loso!.16 Let ua try to b• aor• preoiae a.bou.t th• oha:aoter ot tho11e .ex• peiencee or pa11ion1 ot th• 1oul•. wbioh · aooording to th• pa••-.• have been analysing. are lik•n••••• and thereb,. natural aigna . o·t Wo are .t alking ab cut what V• ar• aotualizing. what wo underata.ncl .. ancl do not ••rely h•a.r, . expertanc•• or the wh.~;1..t we ·~- ,. . · t~ und-~atan4; . when . ac:aeone .1s •"7in8• The .. •oul; J.r111totl• ••,.., f):r e the . . . . tor .a ll • . It v e are oo:rreot .in · the ueumption . that un4erl1ea moat ot our pral\tioa1 · . 0 d 1&cour••· that When •• talk to eaoh other we are .talking about, or •Ul• intending to talk abo11t. th• thing1, there muat be something a.bout thing• whioh can be the same tor all men, that 1•. according t o . . . --~'Xr&~.---0P-o~n-.~1~a-er, tor ~~)G What oone.titutea the unity '. . ~·in Plato' 1 Re l:tlio, ' b d. We are ignoring illitinotion between o 01 · and !lthoa. S•• Le.urenoe Bern11, 415 ot tho her" tbe . Ariatotl•' " e . , •4. Joa•p),l ~Cl>• ey • Baa ic Bocka, l~9'.h pp~ 77 ... 7 • • on· pp~ 8!) ..86; note l. above; Mont ~1J qui•l ·~ \ 1 §!Pt1t !1U: -lo1!, ~1vr• XXIX. ehap. XIX; and Abraham Lincoln, Pragmenl on tlie Con1tttu.tion and th9 Union,'' 1860 or 1861• 1:n l•oted Work•• Baal•r ed •• Rutsera Univer11ity . Presa. 1953, vol. I 1 · · PQ •tic•, " in a 11 t 301.. . pp. n>B-i9. I ' . �18 ~l•totla, ,_•1• 1ntelltgibl• _._. point to ~· charaot•~· What c:rur wor4• •llllifV ot th• liken••••• e.r aotualiaatlona 4.n ua ~ iiitol- J.iltlbl• chq1.&lte:riatlo1 or things. · To. put ,i t in another 11a1r !.t · th~• ia s•Uln• Jm«*l•ds• ot thillg• 1n th...•lv••i or it v• u• tso · avold talld.q abou.t Miat •• know ot unlau>wable ~inp in ~h~~lv••, aoocw41ng to A.11totl•, thiqa -.et lut.1'1.Y• s.ntelltgibl• ohuaotulatt,.Ja : . •ioh laiitJ+icibl• •Q'ao!b•Pf..•tlc• or ia_.4 41h•ir llkena•••• o- b• aow.s.1- al.Ute bJ all w1J. ..1tunotlontng hwaan int•ll•otia. 1 7 9'• -blte111&1.;;; bl•, -beoe.v.•• it •I . t .. •iC\11, ••I• tl'Ul.v the .... in r\l:·•t·•t... ·hca•-*1• .•oi.nt 11 th• ao1• ~- .. :aoat a~.t.1• ttklq aooea1tble to Jn•t• b•lDC•· ,., tM• !l•UOll 11t11tu.lllM•»•tu4im.a ot th• thing• l~Pi-tb~l-:bt - ~:w..aas~- idtlH. the hmllia e--.m!tJ a oo :uniom more 1nt'1mate than t~at e>t .any othel' ant.aal..18 :H•• til~ on• ••U.wle I ll?V•l, Ol" 4caeat1o tor it• ett•qt l,lpOD tragedy, not to unt;1o~ 4•Nt1o ~••4J 1 th•t eaeentialit " P fta.J'tnttt that int!maoy oan ·onl7 ooa• ti-ca •utual \U14tf•tqcU.J1$11. 1•11•• t1)•·4ter;,••t � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 53003 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c5bc8027630bb866b754661a6baf700e.pdf b8e87c27e75385f2ef4cb986f5936413 PDF Text Text NOMOS AND PHYSIS (An interpretation of Euripides' Hippolytos} Gisela Berns St. John's College, Annapolis The na_ tural order of presentation might seem to be reversed in a title which focuses on Nomos and Physis as ·two related aspects of one and the same theme. Is not Physis (Nature) an indispens~ble ground for Nomos (Convention) and therefore a key to its unders,tanding? The · the seemingly natural order can be found arising from ~uripides' play ~ippolytos, rea~on ~n the for reversing suggcs~ion, that, in the case of man, Nomos is as indispensable an end for Physis as Physis is an indispens~ble ground for Nomos, that Physis provides the potentialities, Nomos the actuality of man, and that therefore Nornos comes to be the key to· a final understanding of man's Physis. II Immediately following Aphrodite's prologue (1-57); the play presents Hippolytos, offering a wreath of ·f lowers· to Artemis (58-87). In th_ dedication of the wreath, preceeded e by an enthusiastic hymn to the goddess's beauty and exaltedness (58-72), Hippolytos reflects on the'possession of �-2"olllcppoodvn" and its connection to his companionship with Artemis. ' "ooL tdv6~ . lcLµQvo,, ' 1lcxtov otlcpavov it &xnpdtou 1 6lo101.va, xooµ~aa' cplpw, lv&' o~tc 101.µ~v &t1.ot cplpBcLV Sot~ o~t' nl&l 1111 a(6npo,, &11' axnpatov µllt.OOa lELµQv' npt.V~V 6t.lPX£Tat. al6~' 6~ 1otaµCaLOL xnxcdcL 6~&00~'' .. , . ' ,;, '-'to owcppovctv c1.lnxcv tt.!; ta xavt. ac , _, QA).' I Wf(An 6l0101,VQ, XP00la!; x&µn, ' I \ ava6nµa 6lta1. _ xc1.po' -'· µ cS v w 1. yap ; £• o t' t. T o0 t • &10. c~acSoo, • .I c µ o '1. y &:; p a ' . Bp o T Gh.1 • ' ' .f ' .I • 001. XQL tuVCLPI. XaL loyoL, aµc1.Soµa1., # \ .f x~uwv \ ~ J! µcv auu,.,, oµµa 6 0 ;i_ 0 ,I oux opwv to oov. 0 I - \ The dedication unfolds in two parts. Each part begins with an appeal to the goddess and ends with a reflection, the first one on the possession of "owcppoodvn" ,_ the second one on Hippolytos' companionship with Artemis. Both parts, though they correspond to each other in structure, differ from each other in tone: the second one · applies to Hippolytos personally what the first one elaborates in general. In the first part of the dedication, Hippoiytos claims �-3- that only nature and divine allotment can truly account for the possession of "aw,poadvn". This claim is ~xpressed iri ·three, increasingly abstract statements: first a description, then a poetic image and finally a philosophical discussion. The description of the inviolate meadow, where the flowers for Hippolytos' wreath were gathered, distinguishes not only · between flock and iron on the one hand, and the roaming bee 1 on the other hand, but also implies a·distinction between the flock, something in nature, and the iron, something from nature, developed by art into something again.s t nature i tne sickle. This increase in supposed violation of the meadow, inherent in the sequence of examples which are set off from the example of the bee, has two opposite effects: its immediate . effect, supported by a grammatical "a~>.'" (76), is separation. Furthermore, the repetition of the watchword "ax~patov" (73; . 76) · ties the example of the bee rhetorically to Hippolytos' offering of the wreath, and sets them both off from the examples of flock and iron. Yet the · interp.o sition of those examples, implying violation, between the examples, implying no violation but rather fulfillment, suggests at the same time a separation between Hippolytos' offe~ and. the example of the bee. This more subtle effect is to be weighed carefully, since the description of the roaming bee carries ove+ into the poetic image of "al6111~"· The extension of the one into the other is grammatically effected by the implicit continuation �-4of the direct object 11 A£ l.).JiiiV) ax~patov" (76). In keeping with the ambiguous character of the link between Hippolytos'-offer and the example of the bee before, the granunatical conjunction \ . "6t" (78) between the example of the bee and the image of "at6c)s" can at the same time be understood to connect and to separate. Furthermore, the image of "al6<.3,", gardening the inviolate meadow, contains in itself a strange alloy of .wild and tamed nature, of nature and culture, and therefore seems to question Hippolytos' claim that only nature and divine allotment can truly account for the possession of "awcppoa~vri", the theme of the final discussion of the dedication's first part. Mentioning the gathering of flowers ~n the end of this philosophical discussion however suggests, that there is one continuous interpretation of Hippolytos' offer, which is consecutively exp-ressed in des~riptive, poeti'c, · and philosophical language. The key term in Hippolytos' philosophical conclusion . \ is "To awippovetv" (80). Like the center of two concentric circles, it.is surrounded by two pairs of correlated terms: "ev tf,\ ,,Soe1." and "er>.rixev" in the inner circle, \. ~ri6ev" and "To~' xaxoto1. o' opposition between the 11 ' 61.oaM'tov 06" in the outer circle. The accept~nce of 'the 'bee and the rejection of flock and iron from the initial .d escription repeats itself . . \ in this final stage of the argument as the rejection of "to 01.1>1ppovetv" as "61.oaxt~v", against the acceptance of correlated with "Tot' xaxoto1." 11 't'~ oooqipovetv" as "ev T~ ftfoe1.", correlated with "eC>.rixev". The opposition is emphasized rhe- �-5- torically through closeness to the center and affirmative statement for what is accepted, remoteness from the center apd negative statement for what is rejected. Grammatically, an "a>.>.'" (79), like an echo of the one above, which isolated the example of the bee from those before, isolates the inner circle from the outer one. The connectiQn between the poetic image of "at6~i;" and the philosophical discussion about . "T~ owq>povttv" is controversial. The two possible constructions are: one --"'at6~i;' gardens with river dew for those to whom it is not taught, but in their nature· allotted to be 'owcppwv' with respect to all things all the time, for those to pluck, but for the base it is not right;" the other --"'ot6~i;' gardens with river dew; for those to whom it is not taught but in their nature allotted to be 'a~cppwv' with respect to all things ali the time, f9r .tho$e to pluck, but for the base it is not . right." In both . readings, the sentence structure is highly complex: In . the first reading, where "at6~i;" is supposed to "garden for those, to whom it is not taught but in I their nature allotted to be 'o~cpp(l)v' things all the time, for those to with respect to all pluck~ · the repetition of the indirect object, once in relative, o·n ce in demonstrative form, seems to overstress the connection between "at6~i;" and "T~ awcppove:tv." At the same time however, the iength of the relative clause separates the repeated terms more than appears natural. In the second reading, where 11 ·•at6~s;' gardens with river dew; for those, to whom it is not taught but in their �-6- nature allotted to .be 'a~•pwv' with respect to all things ba~e all the time, for those to pluck, but for the it is not right", the lack of any_grammatical relation between the first sentence and the followi~g relative complex poses the problem as to the connection between "at 6~ s" and In addition to that, _ the necessity to supply "to\ho1.s; opl1ca601." from "ou 11 "t ~ a <1Hp p ov £ t v" • -&lµ1.s;" for .&lµ1.s;" predicated for "xaxota1.", makes the whole relative clause with its discussion of "t~ aw,povctv" rather suspect. 2 The problematic character of the.dedication's first part will become clearer through an analysis of the second part and the correlation of the two in their respective three levels. The introduction of the second appeal to the . goddess by "aA.A.' 11 echoes those passages from the dedication's ,·first : part that stated the basis f~r acceptance·and thus prepares the _ground for the more personal character of the second part. The _goddess, now addressed as friend, is bidd.e n to accept a gift that previously was only offered. The justification ftxc1.p~s; cuac~oOs; im~gined &10 11 recalls the po~tic image of "a[6~s;", as . gardening the sacred meadow. The account of Hippoly- tos' companionship, closely linked through "y~p" to the mention-' i~g of his piety, seems to correspond to the discussion of \ "To awq>povetv" in the dedication's first part. ·1n keeping with the positive and 'more personal character of the second part, _the emphasis, indicated by the order of discussion, is now rather on the supernatural gift than on the natural en- �-7- dowment. The correlation of "iv t~ 9t1a&1.tt and "tC>.nxtv" from above, which centered around "t~ O(l)cppovetv", seems to reappear in the correlation of "yip as" and ~Tl>.os 6~ 1i~µ<1;a1.µ • ~al:tP eCou", nptcl\Jnv which center around the description of Hippoly- tos' and the goddess's companionship • . 'l'here is . nothi~g in the second part that corresponds explicitly to. the negative references in the first part, though the "i:ots xaxotoi. 6' ou " seems to be implicit in Hippolytos' exclusive chosenness, the "61.6axt~v µn6~v" in his wish for concord between the beginning and the end of his life (a notion, that is supported rhetorically by the position . of "tt'>.os" at the beginning of the statement and contrasted. granunatically with "6~" from the implications mentioned). The central account of Hippolytos' devotion to Artemis is puzzling in so far : as it describes a companionship'. which is characterized by the exchange of ">._ yo 1.", & the mortal hearing the voice but not seeing the eye of the immortal partner. This detail beqomes significant, if one recalls that the rational aspect of "T~ owcppovttv" had been que•tioned, if not deniedJin the first part's negation of \ . and its correlation with "JC.a>eotai.." Apart from the fact that "01.11cppoo~"Vn" is to be expla.i ned etymologically 3 as "61..6axtov" "thinking sane thoughts" or "saving one'~ . good sense" and therefore implies a rational aspect, the question arises whether the excha~ge of 11 .A.&yo1." can base itself merely on divine. gift, allotted to one in his nature 4 , or whether the �-8- . qualification "xA.Jwv \ µEV \ au6f\', !µµa 6 'OUX . ' op&'rv TO OOV 11 does not suggest that Bippolytos lacks insight 5 into the nature of his companionship as well as of the virtues connected with it. Ju~ging from the correlation between the two parts of the dedication, Bippolyltos understands "t~ awcppovttv", meaning chastity6, to be aided by "f&L6~~". meaning shame, and both to be equated with "tua~tltLa'~, mea~ing pious devotion to Artemis. 'l'he lack of insight, supposedly indicated by Bippolytos' not seeing the e~e of the goddess., vould pertain to three· : related aspects of his - understandin,g:.First, the meanin,g of the virtues . 11 . \ . at6c3,, To awcppovttv, tuallitLa": second, their origin; and third, their interrelation. The fact that Hippolytos understands the meaning of these virtues exclusively in terms of his companionship with Artemis 7 , determines at the same time thei,r origin and interrelation •. Yet the ambiguity ' of. grammatical and rhetorical links in the dedication's first, more. general, part seemed to question the interrelation between the virtues and therefore also their meaning and .their origin. The unarnb~guous character of the ~orresponding gra.mniatical links .in the dedication's second, more personal, part only reinforces the impression that Bippolyto~ the complexity inherent in both the \ of "to has ineani~g ~ost s~ght of and the origin G~fPOV&tv". III 'l'he issue in question might be articulated most clearly by considering some philosophic texts, which are concerned �-9- with the relationship between "at6~'" and "awcppoa\SvJl", the terms most problematically related in this cruci~l pass~ge of Euripides' Hippolytos. One might object to the attempt to clarify a dramatic statement through the analysis of a philosophic text. The objection however can be met by the fact, that Euripides himself employs philosophical language in such a way that it becomes an integral part of the drama. In Plato's Charmides,,a dialogue about "owcppoodvtln, we are {>resented with a .number of definitions that are discarded, one after the other, as insufficient.·Though all insufficient in themselves, their order of presentation fJ:'.om a less ra·tional to a more rational understanding sugge~ts the possibility .that . . " all of them play a part in a definition which, though never . . . reached, might comprehend "ow9poodvn" as ~whole.a S~gnifi­ cantly for ou~ purpose, Ch~rmides, in his'second attempt, defines "awcppoodvn" ·as tt~~ep at6~'" (160e). The refutation, which is based on a very inappropriate quote from Homer, ends with the assertion that "at6~i;" is neither good nor bad (l6la-b) and therefore fails to define "oll>11,i:>ool1~1l,., admittedly something. good. The questionable character of the refutation reveals itself in two aspects, which are borne out by the drama of the dialogue: When Socrates, after comparing Charmides to a beautiful statue (154c) , first asked him whether he posaessed 11 awq1poa1'vn 11 (158b), Charmides blushed and looked even more beautiful than before, since his shame became his youth (158c). Tracing out this apparent connection between 11 at6~'" �-10- and "01.11,pood"n", Charmides pronounces his second definition after courageously looking into himself (160e)., an act that later will supply the basis for one of the highest definitions of "01.111ppoad"n" (167a). A closer examination of Socrates' - or~ginal question (158b-c) will provide us with an answer, as to why Charmides' second definition was nevertheless refuted. Socrates considered first, whether Charmides was by nature sufficiently endowed for 11 011>1ppoo1Svn" (158b), then, whether· he was already sufficiently "a~fp11>v" (158b), and finally asked him, whether he would say that he participated sufficiently in "ow1ppoadvn" (158c). The stress on a natural presupposition that, oz.i .the one hand, is fic~ent nec~ssary, on the other hand insuf- in itself, explains the statement that "at6~c" is neither. good nor bad (16lb). The comparison of Charmides to a beautiful statue ·might point to the fact that he possesses "a1.111ppoo .~vn" only in the static form of its natural presuppo- sition9. The last chapter of book IV of Aristotle's Niccmachean. Ethics deals with the same problem in a more elaborate form. "At6~'" is not considered a virtue, · because it has to do with the body (1128b 14-15) and therefore . is rather a a "ltL~" "~d~o~" than (ll28b 10-11). Concerned with the same issue, Aris- totle.' s Eudemian Ethics (1234a 24-35) provides the criterion for the distinction between ''11d~n" and "ltt1., 0 : the former are "!vtu 'lpoaLplatw'" (1234a 25-26). This however does 1'ot mean that there is no connection between the two: _he "11d-&n", t �-11bei~9 "tpua1.xcl 11 , can be understood as leadi~9 into, "ipua1.xal &peTaC", which are distinguished from "apeTa\" proper thr~ugh the latter's being "lltT~ fPpov!faew'" (1234a 28-30). The example of ''at 6..,, .. , / leading into "011Hpp oa.Svn", is commented on in pa- · renthesis, that for that reason people define "awcppoadvn" in this genus, namely "at6~s;" (l234a 3.2-33). The difference . ' ' ' between "fPU<H xa" apt Ta 1." and "ape T<H" . proper is made even more explicit in book VI of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics by calling the latter "apeTa~ xdp1.a1. 11 .(ll44b 3-4) 10 • Now applied to virtue in. general, the passage in book VI not only . '. · tries to clarify the similarity ("1&01. yap 6ox£t lxaaTa Tiav ~-&ii>\I U1t.dpxe1.v cpdat1. t(l)s;", 1144b 4-5) and dissimilarity (xa~. y~p 1a1.al xal ~np(o1.' at tpua1.~al U1tdpxoud1. l~&L,, &11" &v~u voO SlaJh:pa\ ipa(vovTa1. oi'oai.", 1144b 8-9; _.,cf. H.A. 588a 17- 589a 9) between the two forµis , of virtue, b'ut also. understands their distinction to be based on a highly rational principle.· While the two passages from the Eudemian Ethics spoke successively of 11 1tpoa(peat.s:" (E.E., 1234a 25-26) and "cppdvnai.s;" (B.E., 1234a 28-30), the passage from the Nicomachean Ethics speaks of "vous;" (N.E., ll44b 8-9). Significantly for our purpose, the example illustrating the lack of "voOs;" shows a man of strong body (the natural presupposition), who lacks s~ght;. (the rational component) and. is therefore likely to fall heavily (ll44b 10-12; cf. lll4b l-25). As the passage frQm the Eudemian Ethics warned of confounding virtue with its natural presupp6sition (e.g. defining "awtppbadvn" as �-1211 at6ws;"), so the passage from the Nicomachean Ethics warns of confounding it with its rational component (ll44b 17-36) and suggests that it be understood as "oux av£U tppOV~C7£ws;" (1144b 20-21). The fullest treatment of the question is to be found at the beginning of book II of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: 11 .tt Out • .t .If \ .f • ' • I apa lpu0£L OUT£ wapa 'uOLV £YYLYVOVTQL QL apttaL, • t alla ' •£fUX&OL \.l~V nµtv oltaa~aL auTas;, T£A£LOU\.llVOL$; 6~ OL~ Ton l~ous;" (1103a 24-26). What in the passages quoted above was . distinguished as '11 aptta\ 1pu0Lxa\ 11 and ·"cip£·ta\ xdp1..cu", is here articulated in terms of "odvaµLs;" and "cvlpytLa" (ll03a 26-28). 'l'he difference between the two stages has to be bridged by "l~os;" and "6L-6aoxal{a 11 (1103~ 14-18), their proportion depending on whether the virtue is "n~hx~" or "6Lavont1ox~", though the aspect . of teaching - and learning, ~·:hich is illustrated by. examples from "tlxv11" (1103a 31-34 1 ll03b 8-13), seems to become more and more relevant even for.the moral virtues (1103a 31-1103b 2, 1103b 13-22), for instance "aw1ppoadv11" (1103b 1-2, cf. llOSa 17-llOSb 18). If matters were different, Aristotle ' points out, there would be no need for teaching, . . · but we all would be either good or ba. (1103b 12..;.14). d In such a case, as Plato's Protagoras remarks (323a-324d), one would never praise nor blame a · man ·for the presence or absence of a virtue, since only nature or fortune would be responsible for it. Significantly for our purpose, the passage directly preceding this one, Protagoras' Prometheus_ myth �-13- tella about how Zeus sent Hermes with the. gift of "aL6~'" and "6C•ll" .(322c) to all men in order to prevent the threat of their mutual destruction. What the myth, appropriately for a d~vine. gift, called "ato~s" and "6(xn", the following dis- cu~sion about political virtue calls a11uppoa.Sv11" and "61.xcua.Svn" (323a ff.), representing the addition of a rational component in an ending indicative for abstract nouns.11 The one feature which is common to all the texts, quoted in this excursus, is the rejection of exclusivity in the account of virtue, be it .by teaching, ~Y training, by nature, ·or in any other way (Plato, Meno, 70a). The last possibility most me~ni~gfully would con\bine all three ways~ 12 'l'he one passage that not only brings lthis·· whole '~.discus'sion into focus, but also opens up new perspectives to be followed up in the analysis of Euripides' Bippolytos, is the fundamental definition of man in the opening pages of Aristotle's Politics (1253a 1-39): "tavcp~v, St1. ••• 6 &v~p~•o' tdac1. ~ol1.t1.x~v ~;o~" (1253a 2-3). The "'dat1.", which is replaced, in thee~ laboration on the definition, by "61.~ ,do1.v" and in that form set off from "61.~ Tdxnv" (1253a 3-4) ·, states man's being political as inherent .necessity and differentiates thus the species "man" from others within the same . genus "animal". . . Bei~9 ' political, on the other hand, does not seem to be an exclusive differentia, s'ince ~t applies to other animals as well. (Significantly for our purpose, the examples chosen are· the bee and herdi~g animals, thus linking together the two �-14stro?gly contrasted in Hippolytos' dedication to Artemis. ~f Hippolytos' acceptance of the bee against the rejection the flock might be seen in the l~ght of Socrates' myth in the Phaedo (82b), where those who possess "awippoadvn" without philosophy and in thinki~gwill, a later life, take on the form of other political animals like the bee). Th~ difference, which girll'es the differentia "q)\fo£1. 1ol.LT .1.lCdv", added to the genus "tijlov", differentiati?g power, is a difference of degree ("61.dt1. 6i 1ol.1.T1.lC~V o &v8pC11•os tll'ov xcfons i ~d -~'t~ll~ .:,.:a.\ · •1:1\>'t~S &y&l.aCou t'ou µa~l.ov, 6~l.ov", 1253a 7-~; cf. H.A. 588a l7- 589a 9), based on man's exclusive possession of tt>.&yos" (">.&yov · 6~ µ&vov av8p(l)IOS lxt1. TWV '~(l)V", 1253a . II \ \ . fY • \ \ . - ta µEV ouv QAAa tll>V ,. If t~~\I . . A \ • · \ µuAl.OTa µEv 9-io, cf. 1332b 3-8 ill ty _f . ,u~EI. ' ill l';y, . ' µ1.lCpa ~ ' ' c ' ' 1;V&.C1 lCa.&. Tot' t;-&£01.v; av-&p(l)IOS 6£ lCal. . l. _Sy..,1 µ&vos yap . 6' t;XEI. A&yov' WOT£ 6ct Ta0Ta au~,wvc?v aAl.~l.01.s. ~o>.>.~ y~p nap~ TO~!; ' \ ' . \ \ l81.dµous lCat. Tnv ,da1.v 1pdttoua1. 61.a tov ~&yov, ·' Eav 1c1.aema1.v ch.All)!> f)(e1.v all.tt.ov."). This natural possession of "l.dyos" (1253a 9) allows for universalization with respect to the sensation and expression of pleasure and pain, shared in by ~ll animals (1253a 10-14). While the sensation and expression of what is pleasant and painful is always occasioned by and bound to some particular occurrence, Which involves one individual and takes .place in one present time, the possession of "l.cSyoi;" allows foruniversalization of both through the notion· of what is convenient and harmful (1253a 14-15) This �-15notion, that is based on abstracti~g .from a particular present as well as from a particular individual, leads over into the notion of just and unjust, good and bad (1253a 15-18). The connection between the two prominent forms of the dif f erentia ' "tdoe1. 1tOA1.·ri.xov" and 11 . Adyov cxov" has to be gathered from the contrasting examples of the be~st that is unable to, and the. 9od who does not need to share in the notions of just and unjust, . good a~d bad (1253a 27-29) 13 • The reference to man's being the best of animals, if and when perfected, the worst, if and when disassociated from "vc5µos:" and "6(x"" (1253~ 31-33), . suggests, in contrast to either beast or. god, the capability for perfection on the basis of having "Adyos:". The difference in wordi~g . between "being political" and· "having AcSyos:" mig)lt point to the likely 'f act that having "Adyo.s:" potentially makes for bei~g poli~ioal bei~9 actually,.but that political actu- ally .makes for having "A6yos:" actually. The difference between bei~g and havi~g would .become apparent in the possible lack of having "Adyos:" actually, in the possible failure of man to . ' use his natural .weapons for the intended purpose: "9pdvna1.''' \ . . . and "apetn" (1253a 34-35), a failure .that would cause him to remain 11 UVOO 1.fh<ITOS: \ JC.CU ayp 1.chCITOS: 4Vt:U mp etl\S:" (125Ja 35-36) • IV The thematic passage (73-87) from Euripides' Hippolytos, if it is seen in the light of this and the above discussions, . seems to be concerned with one fundamental problem: the connection between Physis and ' Nomos • . Hippolytos' rejection of �. -16\ ""to awcpp ovctv" as "ch 6aM "tov" can be interpreted as a rejection of the natural weapons, with which man is born and which are intended for the perfection of his nature, i.e. for the perfection of Physis through Nomos. Hippolytos' fault then would lie in his failure to recognize the fact, that what is natural for all animals is narrower in content than what is natural for man, the only animal which is by nature endowed with the possession of "Adyo~" "A&yo~"· His failure to rec~gnize the role of in human nature leads him to neglect the fact that .in the case of man NomoS is as indispensci.ble an. end for Physis as Physis is an indispensdble ground for Nomos, that Physis provides the potentialities, Nomos the actuality of man, and that therefore·Nomos comes to be the key to a 'f inal understanding of man's Phys is. Hippolytos' wish for concord between the be-. . ginning and the end of his life reminds one of the description of Charmides as a beautiful statue, a description which indicates Charmides' insufficient possession of following an~lysis "awq>p oa\S.vn". The of the play will attempt to show that the play can be interpreted as a development of the thematic passage we have been concerned with. Indications_ given so far by Euripides as to the insufficiency of Bippolytos' view of himself and of human nature can be detected in .content as well as in form: in content - from his bei~g together preferably with beasts and a_ goddess; in form - from the grammatical and rhetorical analysis of Hippolytos' dedication to Artemis, which revealed the implicitly ·contradictory character of the ex- . �. -17- notion that "T~ a111q>pov&tv" is allotted to plicitly stated one in his nature by divine gift. The fact that the paradigms for acceptance in Bippolytos • dedication, t~e example of th.e bee, visiting, and the image of "atof.11'"• . 9ardeni~g the sacred meadow, imply a fulfillment of ·natural potentialities_- questions . Bippolytos' understanding of the origin ot 11 T~ ac.1Hppovctv". · ... \ Moreover , that "a t 6111 s " . and " T' a (.I) cp p o v e: t" " • equated with " ·c uo l Bc 1. a" , o seem to be at the same time grammatically disconnected and very closely connected, questions their relation meani~g. ·of the i~9 as well as their The climax of Hippolytos' dedication in the description excha~ge of. ").cSyo1." with Artemis, Bippolytos only hear- the . voice but not seeing the eye of the:. goddess, reminds . one ()f Aristotle's example of 'the man with strong body, but without sight, who is likely to fall heavi~y. Aphrodite's characterization of the · rel~tionship between Hippolytos and Artemis as seen in the "µc(l;t11 BpoTc(as 1pocncawv 0µ1.).(a!;" l~ght (19), if it is of the Aristotelian simile, would suggest that Hippolytos' hearing the voice but not seeing the eye of the goddess symbolizes his failure to appreciate the role of "Adyo'" in man's nature and the li.J<elihood .of his fall for . that reason~ The failure to appreciate the role of ").dy()!;" in man's nature would show itself in the failure to appreciate the ways in which man's nature, perfected by convention, overcomes nature simply (cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1253a 31-33) 14 • �·-18- v In the prologue, Aphrodite proclaims her vengefuln~ss towards anyone who dares to affront her with "µlya cppov£tv" (6). Hippolytos' companionship with Artemis, yet even more his der!Jgatory attitude towards herself ("Alyct. xax(a'tnv 6a1.µcfvwv 1t£q>uxlva1. 1511 , 13), strike her as falling beyond any human bounds ("µcCtw BpoTc(a, 1poo1ealilv 0µ1.A(a~", 19). Artemis, in turn, refers to the fatal revenge Aphrodi~e takes on Hippoly- tos by accusing her of wrath over his "01.111ppoodv11" ( "K1hp 1. ~ ••• aei>ppovoOv'tL tixae'to, 1400-1402). When Hippolytos finally X'.eal- .izes, which divine power destroyed him, he expresses his recognition with a verb that represents the neutral component of . ' 6~ 6aCµov" n µ' &1~A&acv", 1401). Between t.he two characteri- zations of HipP:olytos, as "µ,ly11 cppov&iv" by 'A phrodite, as "a1A>1ppovGv" by Artemis, stands, like the fulcrum of a balance, Phaedra's prediction: "awcppovctv µa.e~oc'ta1." (730-731). This prediction appears to be in striking contrast to Hippolytos' own . understandi~g ., . \ ' \ . of nyo a11><ppovctv" as "µ11 61.oax't&v", where "61.6axtov" was rather correlated with "xaxoto1.'' (79-81). In accordance with this notion, Hippolytos' claim to .b~ "or!cpp(l)v" se~ond revolves around the task to prove or disprove, in the half of the play, whether he is base natured or not ("ct xax~, ~lcpux' &v~p", 1031, 1075, 1191; cf. lb71 "ct 6~ xaxcf' · ye cp a (vo µ a ~ 6 o H ii\ t £ a o (" ~ , l lf. 5 2 " b> cp ( 1. 't a .e , w s y £ vva t o ~ € xcp a ( v ti \ 1la'tpC "). Together with the thematic discussion of "'to awcppovctv" �. . ' as "µn -19. 61.6c:un~v", the triad "µlya ,poviiiv" - "awq>povctv · µae!fac-ra1." - "awqipovwv" s:u9gests the question whether the center separates or mediates between the two opposite characterizations. Before being able to answer this crucial question one would have to explore three related aspects: first, the broader context of Hippolytos' rejection of teaching in the \ . ·. case of "To Oll)q>povetv", second, the internal and external causes behind this rejection, and third the meaning of Hippolytos' predicted learni~g to be "a~eppwv". The last consideration, concerning itself initially with the relation between teaching and learning (cf. Plato, Meno, 70a}, will be decisive for the final discussion of Hippolytos as tr~gic hero. In the scene (88-120), which follows Hippolytos' initial address to Artemis, his old servant involve's him in a conversation that aim~ at questioning his exclusive devotion to one . goddess. At first, the cautious question is, whether the "vcfµos" of "cu1tpoanyop(11" (95), established among men (91) and supposedly ("eCu:p", 98) following the "v~µo1." of the gods, has obliging force even where there is no inclination, as in the case of Hippolytos towards Aphrodite (106,113). The old serlord changes. significantly _ from "!vat" (88) to "1at" (107) 16 in order to indicate that. Hippoly- vant•~ appeal to his yo~ng tos' attitude of mind ("To~s vlou~ y~p oo \.IL\.lnTlov q>povouvTas o~Tws", 114-115) has to be accounted for with his youthful (118) immaturity and therefore to be fo:rgiven (117). The final postulate of superior wisdom on the part of the immortals (120) �-20- does not promise fulfillment, since both, · Aphrodite directly . (99, 103), Hippolytos indirectly.(93, 94), . are charactel;';i.Z~d by one and the same epithet; ''a ell\> cf, n • Aphrodite' s enmity 17 ~gainst Hippolytos in her prologue was not so much provoked by his companionship with Artemis, as by his haughtiness,, which expressed itself ·in derogator:v statements about .herself (13, cf • .~, 330-342, especially 333-334). Bis attitude appears uniquel~ provocative, in that he alone of the citizens of'l'roezen (12) does not acknowledge Aphrodite's claim to .all pervadi~g fame (1-2, cf. 103, 445, 1268-1281). In acqordance .w ith the emphasis on what she is called or said to be (2, 13), her qualification "µ&vo~ 1tOAt.Tiv" recognizes the worship of the gods to be .a public matter·, closely · tied in, ·w ith 'the· ''-..J4...a;o "" of the "'lcH" '". In contradistinction to that, Hippolytos ·' , stresses not sq much the ou~st.anding posi t:i:on he has amo~g the citizens as among all mortals (84). This abstraction of himself from conventions, bound to time and place,. and understanding himself as mortal in relationship to immortals, shows a radicality that, goes both beyond and against the "v&µo'" in question: beyond, in so far as it tolerates no compromisel 8 of principles; against, because through this lack. of tolerance his attitude points to the meaningless superficiality of a "vcSµos;" which is indifferent to the principles i'nvolved. Hippoly- tos• · answer to the old servant's challenge to conform to the 1 "vcSµos;". of "cu1poanyop (a" with respect to Aphrodite; • ' ' ' autnv ayvo' al ~v "11:pcfolll~ev • I • aa1a,oµac." (102, cf. 113), indicates that one �-21cannot, at least not uncompromisingly (104), worship at the same time Artemis and Aphrodite •. (The close connection between 19 the two goddesses , Artemis being not only the goddess of but also of childbirth, completing, as it were, vi~ginity, the work of Aphrodite, does not render their incompatibility less striking). The sequence of the first two scenes, Aphrodite's prologue and Bippolytos •. address to Artemis, presented, ·as thesis and antithesis, the principles o1 the play. The third scene, the conversation between Hippolytos and the old servant, poi~ts, · as to a synthesis, · to a possible though improbable untragic solution. The fact that Bippolytos' only reply to the old ' servant's final exhortation ("·uµata1.v, xpe~v", ">' ' c.i •. '!tat, o<uµ&v(l)v xpt\a-&a1. 107) is in turn an exhortation to .his fellow hunters . (108-112) is ("xpe~v", u~derlined by ~epeati~g an expression of necessity 107, 110); the old servant speaks of the necessity to use the gifts of the_ gods, Bippolytos of the necessity to have his horses prepared for exercise. The insistence on necessity in both cases, one implying immortal, the other mortal will, appears to hint ironically toward Hippolytos' terrible end, the destruction through his own horses. Hippolytos' last, con~mpuous .I . • \ ,, ~ " . ' \ \ .f 1 ine ( "tnv .c:rnv 6e Ku11p1.v 'ltQAA • ey(I) xa1.pe1.v 1\e;yw, 120), together with his n~gative attitude towards acquiri~g "aw<ppoalSvri" through teaching, defies the old servant's hope that his young lord may mature and come to his right senses ("vouv lxw" oaov a~ 6£t", 105). The question, which arises �-22· from the unity of these three introductory scenes, is, whether the appearance of debunking .the tho~gh H \I cfµ o s;" of "£ u po o ray op 'a" , even · it it involves incompatible principles, is compatible with the possession of "a.wippood\lra", claimed by Hippolytos, and whether his attitude towards 11 \ldµos;" in. general is significant for the truth oi: untruth of his notion about the origin of VI Th~ "vdµos;" of "tultpoonyop(a", which was discussed in the final scene of the introduction, comes to be treated more specifically in the conversation between the nurse and Hippolytos (601-668) , on the one hand, and Hippolytos and Theseus , '. (902-1101), on the other hand. The two conversations are. grouped .around Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos, "awcppo\lttv µa-&!fot-rcu" . (731), and spe1:1 out what Hippolytos' .rejection of the "vdµos;", specifically what his rejection of Aphrodite, means in a broader context: Rejecting Aphrodite, on the one hand, means rejecting family, on the other, rejecting political society, the one being the basis for the other and both an expression of man's · 11 ,do 1. , .. ., represented thro~gh "vdµo1. 11 .; This representation has its roots in the possession of 11 ).dyos;", which enables man to perfect his nature from potentialities to actuality. As a speculation, one might say that a rejection of Aphrodite, the . 90. dess that initiates, even if unintentionally, family and d political society, means, even if seemingly the opposite, a rejection of th~ perfecting role of "A&yos;" with' respect · �-23- to human nature. Seen in this light, Hippolytos' negative . attitude towards Aphrodite leads directly to his denial ~f \ . "To ow,povttv" as "61.6axT&v", as result of a process of per- fection rather than as a gift allotted to one in his nature. The correlation of the two aspects of Hippolytos' rejection, the rejection of family and political society, suggests itself both in form and in content: In form, the synunetry of the play (with Aphrodite and Artemis providing 'the frame 20 and Phaedra's prediction the center) .• keeps the two scenes be~ween the nurse · and Hippolytos and Bippolytos and Theseus in balance. In con• . tent, both are inextricably related through their exchange of roles: In the earlier scene, which points toward the rejection of family, Hippolytos accuses , and condemns, and Phaedra, . through the nurse, is accused and conde..mned. In the later scene~ which points toward ;the rejection of political society, Phaedra, thro~qh Theseus, accuses and condemns, and Hippolytos is accused and condemned. · aippolytos' condemnation of women as universal evil (608, . 616, 629, 632, 651, 6.66), with its ironic c6nclusion "~ vdv TL' aoT~' OWtPOVttv 61.6atdTw, A x&µ• ~dtw Tatcr6' l~tµBa(v&l.V a&\n (667- 668), ix:onic 21 if seen in the light of his rejection of teachi~g ' as source for "-ro awcppovetv" (79-81), shows a fundamental flaw in his understanding of human natu:t:"e: . His ju~qement women are alike in nature, ruled by passions, ~heir that all passions served by reason; his suggestion to surround women with mute beasts rather than servants in order to avoid corruption through �-24exchapge of . words (645-648); and his absurd recommendation to buy one's children rather than to continue the human race thro~gh women (616-624), all three attest to his .failure to appreciate the role of ''A&yo'" in man's nature. Judging all women to be alike in nature makes .him misjudge Phaedra through the nurse, Phaedra's nobility thro~gh the nurse's vulgarity, Phaedra's reference to the Nomos as criterion for the struggle of reason over -the passions thro~gh the nurse's reference · to · Physis as criterion for the triumph of the passions over reason. Towards the end of the conversation between .Phaedra and the ·nurse, the nurse had tried to persuade Phaedra of the senselessness of . fighting against love, a drive that is natural to all creatures of all elements, including the gods (437-439, 447458). Only to have been different decrees and b~gotten diffe~ent . ("tpuTe~e1.'1", 460) under gods would, in the nurse's eyes, justify Phaedra's uneasiness with respect to these "v&µo1." (459-461). Phaedra's attitude, on the other hand, points to the essential distinction between all creatures of all elements, including the gods, and man: his not being fixed in his nature by universal powers but being responsible for the fulfillment of it on the basis of having "A&yos" 22 • Hippolytos' absurd recommendation to buy one's children accordipg to financial ability in th_ temples of the gods e would be a solution to the problem of continuing the human race without..women, but it also would be a way to avoid all · responsibilities that family life naturally imposes on men: �.-25- Responsibilities between husband . and wife, between parents and children, that form .men in their fulfillment of human nature, in their perfecting themselves and eac;h other through "v~µo1. 11 , bringing to actuality the potenti~lit;ies. . '~cpda1.!;". of . Despite manifest disagreement between the riurse and Hippolytos, . ' . . there is a strong resemblance in their fundamental vd.~w' of · . . human nature. Though the nurse acceptsandllippolytos rejects .· . . the triumph of . the passions over reason, both . presuppose that · man's nature is fixed and therefore not to be . altered by education. The nurse takes her standard from all creatures of all elements, including the gods, Hippolytos his from most men, close to -beasts, and himself, clo.s e to gods~ Yet this similarity in form between the· nurse's .a'rt.d Hippolytos' view should not obfuscate the dissimilarity in ·content between the two. Hippolytos' intoleranc~ of baseness arid his radical 2.3 . understanding of morality not only separate. him from the nurse, but also bring him close to Phaedra. Both Phaedra and ' Hippolytos are driven into tragic conflict by the moral choice 24 between violating a sacred "vdµos" (in the case of Phaedra the "vdµos" of yielding to suppliants, in the case of Hippolytos the "v&µos" of keeping one's oath) and saving themselves from shame and death. The fact, that both preserve the "v&llos" rather than their own lives, becomes the stepping stone to tragedy for both of them. Yet this similarity in character between Hippolytos and Phaedra should not obfuscate the dissimilarity in tragedy between the two, shown by _the difference �. -26. of their deaths. Phaedra is conscious of her fault and the,ref.ore ·kills herself., while Hippolytos is not conscious of his and therefore is killed. The ,similarity a,nd . dissimilarity between Hippolytos and ·Phaedra appears to be ..mos.t ambiguous in Phaedra's central prediction for Hippolytos . "tn~ v&aou o~ .; ti\a6l µoc. xoc.vfh l.IEtaax~v owcp·povetv µa-&rto£tac." (73d-7. 31) ·~ . . . . Judging from the correlation of the .s cenes. dire·c tly · surrounding this prediction, the sickness alluded to seems to be Hippolytos' misjudgement of Phaedra, followed by Theseus' misjudge.. ment of Hippolytos • . Both .involve a self-contradiction: Phaedra contradicting her love with hate, Hippolytos contradicting his hate with love, though the one is a true, the ' othei:- ori:l,.y an alleged self-contradiction. The question which carries over into the sec.a nd ,E>art of the play is,· way Phaedra•s :prediction "a(l)cppov£tv wh~ther µa.e~attac." and in ·What 1 will come to be fulfilled. The discovery of Phaedra's note drives Theseus into ·blind and unrelenting accusation of Hippolytos (790-1101). Theseus' conviction of Hippolytos' guilt, in full support of Phaedra's charge, springs from his knowledge of young men in general (967-970), from the knowledge that they are ruled by passions, letting their passions be served by reason (920, 926, 936, 951, 957). This misjudgement of Hippolytos uses against him the same argument (916-920) he himself had used in his misjudgement of Phaedra (616-668, cf. 921-922, 79..:.91): the impossibility of teacl)ing anyone to think aright and be, "awcppw\1 11 who �-27\ is by nature "xaMos;" (94.2 , 945, 949, 959, 980). Hippolytos' attempt to clear himself . from. . guilt (933 cf. · 73l) ' and to . . Lute Theseus by demonstrating that he is sup~rior re- not only . to· the · ways of young men, .but to the ways of ·men .i n general (994-: 1001), makes him even more· suspect in the :eyes of Theseus. A man, who claims to be a companion of the gods and a,t tpe . same time rejects the most natural and sacred ways of men · (to have '. . .. . . a family and to participate in political· society), has to be suspect (949), or else the gods or the most natural .and sacred ways of men, s anctione~ by the gods, would be suspect. This however is a thought Theseus is not willing to embark on (951). Hippolytos' desire to be first in the "ay~v" rather th. n in a the "lt~AH" (1016-1017) shows a lack of commitment that reminds one of his .recomntendation . to buy one's ch_ldren in . tlw, temples • i of the gods r~ther than to depend on women for the con.tin~ation of the human race (618-624). Both instances could be .excused by the fact that Hippolytos is the son of an Amazon and therefore by nature averse to Aphrodite and family life, and the son of an Amazon by Theseus before The's eus' marriage to Phaedra and therefore by convention excluded from political ieadership. Yet, far from excusing himself, Hippolytos judges his lack of commitment to the most natural and sacred ways of men to prove his freedom from all human passions, which in his view are nothing but all too human. The reason why his acclaimed bei.n g "a~q>pCA>v" (994-1001) - (by hipiself and by Artemis) - is accused as being "µlya cppovwv" - (by Aphrodite and in one or the other �-28- form by all characters of the play) - can be found most openly in his boasting about it (73-87, 102, 994-1001, 1100, 1364..,. .. 1365), as if · it were something to be recko.n ed t,o· himself rather than to nature and fortune or to · nature and god-:~Jiven fate,· as he himself professes (78-81). The difference in judgement . . be~ . tween the goddesse$ provides the frame for a deeper search into the meaning of "T~ owcppove:tv"~ provoked by thecenter line "ow1ppovti:v µa-&nae:ta tos~ L", which seems ·t o contradict not only Hippoly.,.. understanding of himself but also his understanding Of llippolytos• understanding ~f himself apparently remains the same throughout the whole play.: he sees himself as 11 th~ rrios:t: ow1ppwv" of all mortals (994-1001). Afte.I'.. being banned from his homeland,. and ready to' depart from it with his horses (which at the beginning of the play he had ordered to be prepared for exer- · cise) (110-112), Hippolytos appeals to Zeus as witness of his innocence: " ZtD, · ~ µ11M£T • ttnv • • xoxos \ £L i l 9ux • avnp ••• " • ' c1 1 91- · , · 1193). In the following account of his .death, which might be understood as Zeus' answer, one aspect comes to be pointed out as most tetrible: that Hippolytos, t ~o was so familiar with horses (1219-1220); cf. 110-112), should have been killed by his own _horses, frightened by the appearance of the godsent bull out of the sea (1204, 1218, 1229, 1240). Even in the last scene, in the presenc~ of Artemis and Theseus, the fatal race of his horses rouses Hippolytos to a more heartre·nding ·1ament (1355-J..357) than the fatal curse of his father (1348-1349, �-29- .1362-1363, 1378). The self- defending reappeal to Zeus, which refers to his being · outstandingly "ot:·µvoi;", "~£o<H~1tTwp" and "owcppoalSvt1 nav"ta& uitt:pox~v" (1365-1366) . reminds . one of the early scene with the old servant who exhorted Hippolytos to behave more in accordance with the "voµos" of men and . gods. The analysis of Hippolytos' i=ejection of the "voµos" of "&6•poonyop(a" and of his natural and bonventional disposition towards such rejection will receive decisive clue.s from considering the circumstances of his death. Hippoly.tos' confrontation with the bull recails Theseus' encounter with the Minotaur .':'he significant difference between the two events can be seen in the nature of the man as well as in the nature of the beast. Theseus, on the one hand, represents himself, l1is family and his city. He is lead through the labyrinth with the help of Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him and had given him the famous thread of Daedalus. The beast, Theseus finally conquers, is a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Hippolytos, on the other hand, is without responsibility for either family or city, the one by nature, the other by convention. In addition to that, he is banned from his homeland and therefore represents solely himself. The lack of experience in family and political life results in a lack of judgement about man and human nature. This lack of judgement made him spurn the thread he could have received from Phaedra, had he learned to be "owqipwv" , in other words had he learned to have respect for the labyrinth �-30- of human nature. The symmetry of the play, with Aphrodite and Artemis providing the frame and Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos the center, suggests not only, as mentioned earlier, the correspondence of the scenes between the nurse and Hippolytos, and Hippolytos and Theseus, but also the correspondence of the scenes between Phaedra and the nurse and the description of Hippolytos' encounter with the bull. The development of the scenes between Phaedra and the nurse from a mad alternating between the passions and reason (198-266) to a clear account of reason and the passions as warring powers in man's soul (373-430), is answered in the description of Hippolytos' encounter with the bull by a development from self-control to a complete loss of control; in other words, to a complete getting lost irt the labyrinth of human nature. Unaccustomed to that labyrinth and to the hidden crossways between and the deviations of the rassions and reason, the beast Hippolytos is finally, though indirectly, conquered by is not a monster, half beast, half man, but wholly beast, ·Lhough of monstrous size 25 • Hippolytos' complete rejection of the passions, which he thinks renders himself above man and human nature, results in a complete ignorance about then and ., therefore in an extreme vulnerability with respect to them. The fact that he was not killed by the bull, but by his own horses 26 , frightened by the bull, shows a lack in his understanding of himself as a man, a failure to appreciate the interrelation of the powers that make up human nature. The picture of Hippolytos in his chariot 27 , losing control over his horses, frightened by the bull, reminds one of the picture Plato paints of the �-31human soul Hippolytos, as charioteer, represents the con- trolli~g elern~nt of reason; the horses, tied to the chariot, represent the spirited element, in the case of Hippolytos usually under control, but able to be swayed either by reason or the passions; the bull, rising out of the sea, represents the passions, frightening the spirited elemeni and finally overriding the control of reason. The·fact that the bull comes out of the sea, the element always and everywhere in flux, · might be a symbol for the difficulty of understanding the nature of the passions. The fact that Hippolytos' horses, frightened by the appearance .of the bull out of the sea, race across the land and throw their master against the rocks, the hardest form of the firm element, the earth, might be a symbol for Hippolytos' uncompromising rigour. The circumstances of ~ippolytos' death bear out the implications that contradicted the explicit statement of the thematic passage about "t~ awcppovc~v" in the beginning of the play: The fulfillment of natural potentialities, implicit in the example of the bee, visiting, and the image of "at6ws", gardening the ~acred meadow, together with the ambiguity about the connection between "a.t.S~s" and "t~ awcppove:i:\I", between the natural presupposition of ' "aw,poadvn" and "awcppoadvn" itself, suggested that Hippolytos' explicit statement about "t~ . awcppove:tv", its not being taught or to be taught, but being allotted to one in his nature, was highly questionable. The circumstances of Hippolytos' death seem to reaffirm the questionability of that statement. The �-32- complexity of human nature, represented by the complex of charioteer, horses and bull, would suggest that virtue has its origin not simply in nature but also in training and teaching. Hippolytos' rejection of the two latter stages of development and the wish for concord between the beginning and the end of his life means a rejection of the natural weapons towards "qip&vna1.s;" and "apE-r~" (Aristotle, Pol., 1253a 34-35) and results somehow in remaining "avoa1.1hcnos; xai ayp 1.chatos; &.veu ap £Ti\s;" (Aristotle, Pol., 1253a 35-36) I rather than fulfilling human nature and becoming truly "autapx~s;" (Aristotle, Pol., 1253a 1, 25-29). In terms of the thematic passage at the beginning of the play this would mean that Hippol.y tos posses!R.s"a l 6ws;", the natural presupposition of "t~ owq>pov&tv", but b~cause he rejects training and teaching~ does not possess "t~ owqipovetv", as he claims. His overestimating the divine makes him underestimate the human, a trait that marks both his way of life and his notions about life. A reason for that seems to be his awareness of the fact that where\{er human affairs are concerned, there is rarely the possibility to adhere to principles, but more often the necessity to concede to compromises. This awareness, one could say, of the difference between Physis and Nomos, distinguishes Hippolytos from most men; yet it is this distinction from most men which illudes him about himself and what it means to be a man. The fact that Hippolytos is killed in the end without �-33- ever having acknowledged the presence of any flaw in his nature (a fact that contrasts strikingly with Phaedra's recognition of her guilt followed by suicide) raises centna.1.ll.ne "owqipovttv µa-&~atta1." a question about the which acts like the fulcrum of a balance, both parts of the play representing the s. ales c in correspondence to each other. One aspect to be accounted for in this context is the discrepancy between Hippolytos and Phaedra in their connecting or disconnecting "aw1ppoa~vn 11 with either teaching or learning2 8 • The question which arises from this discrepancy is whether Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos 11 awqip ovt t v JJa.&tfat ta 1. 11 (731} is in contradiction to his own understanding of "t~ owqipovttv" as something not taught or not to be taught, in other words whether his denial of teaching allows nevertheless for learning. Learning without teaching would take place, if Hippolytos, out of his own nature 29 , were capable of developing his natural potentialities to the actuality ·of being fully a man, in which case the "tl>.os:" of his life would be, as he wished for, truly in concord with its beginning. Yet Hippolytos' repeated selfappraisai 30 as the most "awqipwv" among mortals reminds one rather of Aristotl~'s description of those that by talking and philosophizing about "acucppoa\1vn" believe that they are "awcppwv", while they resemble the sick that only listen to the physician without following his precepts (N.E., llOSb 918). Hippolytos' life, which is spent in the concern for the hunt and in the company of horses, dogs, a small circle of �-34friends and supp'?sedly the goddess of the hunt, seems to leave little room for learning, in the sense of comprehending the nature of man. Yet the disillusionment with his .. horses, followed by the disillusionment with his _goddess, ~t the end 31 of the play , opens up the possibility for a final fulfillment of Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos. The disillusionment with his goddess (1440 ff.) significantly is expressed in terms that resemble the earlier description of Hippolytos' companionship with Artemis (85-86). There Hippolytos spoke of exchanging 11 A&yo1." with the goddess, here of obeying her ">i.&yo1.", there he spoke of hearing the voice but not seeing the eye of the goddess, here of darkness touching his eyes an indication that his believing himself in the friendship of Artemis was, at least from a final point of view, an illusion. The problem of a friendship, either with beasts or gods, arises out of the difference of their natures with respect to man 32 • Beast as well as god, the one unable to share in a companionship which is based on the possession of ">.c!yo!;"; the other not in need of it on account of his "a \n dp XE:" a" 3 3, are fixed in their natures (cf. 13, "itlcpuxa") below and above man and therefore no fitting partners for human friendship. Human friendship, on the other hand, flourishing most and most ,stable where it is based on equality, has as its highest goal the perfection of the friends through each others company, though the perfection has to stay within the limits of remaining human. Hippolytos' death in the company of his father, after �-35beasts as well as gods have deserted him, might be understood as a fulfillment of Phaedra's prediction: "awqipov£tv µaa~ottai". His pity for and forgiveness of his father 34 seem to be motivated by respect for human suffering (1405, 1407, 1409) and therefore to display a "awq>poo~vn" that is much broader then the one Hippolytos prided himself on throughout the play, a "owq>poothn" which was to be understood exclusively in terros of his devotion to Artemis. Nevertheless, the fact that his forgiveness occurs only after the appearance of Artemis and . in obedience to her (1435-1436, 1442-1443, 1449, 1451), makes one wonder whether a 11 au1cppoouvn" ordered by divine intervention can be truly regarded as "owqipoouvn". In Aeschylus' words: it makes one wonder whether Hippolytos' "awqipov£tv" at the end of the play not only comes to .o ne who is unwilling to accept it, but also comes as (Aischylos, ~-' 11 lta-&c1. µciao!;" and therefore as "xapc.~ l3L'a1.o~" 174-183). The question left at the end of this analysis concerns the divergence of judgement between the goddesses, "irlya cppovwv" by Aphrodite, "crwcppovwv" by Artemis, con- ••t cerns the exact meaning of Aphrodite's 6" Et, (µ' (21), which accounts for Hippolytos' violent death ~µapt~xe" ("tLiawp~ooµaL 'I111to>.otov f:.v tij6' TJJJEP'}", 21-22). VII ' · Racine, in his preface to his "Phedre", justifies changes he made in the character of Hirpolytos with the fact that already the ancients had reproached Euripides for having presented Hippolytos 11 commc un philosophe exempt de toute imper.- fection: ce qui faisait que la mort de ce jeune prince causait �-36- beaucoup plus d'indignation que de piti~" Cf4). This charac- terization of the Euripidean Hippolytos seems to be .at the same time right. and wrong. Like a philosopher, HippQlytos does not feel himself bound by a particular, commonly accepted "vdµo!;", the worship of Aphrodite. The philosopher's reason for feeling himself superior to any par~icular "vdµos", is. the recognition, that all particular "vdµoi.", compared to the ground they stem from, compared to "qnfo 1. s", are only t'fa.n s~eht ~~ct, depend in their coming into and going out of being on accidents of time and place. Nevertheless, the philospher recognizes the inherent necessity in man's nature to develop particular "v&µo1.", that is he recognizes the necessary connection between "qnfo 1. s;" and "v&iro s" 35 • Unlike a philosopher, Hippolytos rejects the worship of Aphrodite in the name of the worship of Artemis, which means merely to supplant one particular, commonly accepted "v&iros" by another particular, though uncommonly accepted "v&µo!;". The rejection of the worship of Aphrodite in the name of the worship of Artemis seems, at first sight, to be a rejection of the passions in the name of something purer. The ways, in which the worship of Artemis expresses itself, by ~Lre, on the other hand, certainly tainted passion: chasing and killing animals as a hunter does not attest to a nature that would be divested of all animalistic feelings. In Racine's opinion not being tempted by Aphrodite was enough ground for having Hippolytos resemble a philosopher, cxempt from all imperfection. He consequently not only changed �-37\ the title of his play to "Phedre", but also believed that he should give Hippolytos nquelque faiblesse" (~4), meaning "la passion qu'il ressent malgr~ lui pour Aricie" (§4) •. Thus Racine, in a Christian rather than classical spirit, takes away the rea~ son for Hippolytos' only flaw: his feeling of superiority over all human beings on the basis of being . by nature not tempted by Aphrodite. The more radical "faiblesse" Hippolytos suffers from in Euripides' play is, that he does not recognize that his by natu: and convention being predisposed to live a life dedicated to the worship of Artemis and therefore not being tempted by Aphrodite, is in itself not enough reason for being better than all men. His understanding of "owq>poauvn" as something allotted to one in his nature leads him to restrict its meaning mainly to chastity (87) and therefore to mistake what man is by nature potentially for what man is by nature actually. The fact that man is an animal, but an animal which has 11 >.ciyo'" and is political, ne- cessitates the perfection of human nature through the development of "ldyoE" in the society of other men, which means a perfection on the basis of nature through training and teaching, the latter two more or less depending on the former. The basic flaw in Hippolytos' understanding of himself and man in general seems to consist in his failure to recognize that in the case of man "vdµo, 11 , through ~hich expresses itself the . development of ">. oyo s;", is as indispensollle an end for "qnfo1.!:" as "qnfo1.!;" .is .=\n indispensable ground for "v&µos;", that "cpuol.!; 11 provides the potentialities, "voµo!;" the actuality �-38- of man, and that therefore "vo1.1os" comes to be the key to a final understanding of man's 11 ,~aLs 1136 • It is for this failure that Hippolytos is not a philosopher but a tragic hero. Seen in the light of Phaedra's prediction: "awqipovti:v 1.1aencre:TaL", his constant failure to recognize any flaw in his nature (1455) makes his death fall short of being truly a "nd8e:L µdOos", of representing a "xaPLS SCcuos" rather than mere "BCa" without "xapLs". This aspect of the play, and of Euripidean plays in general, is demonstrated most harshly through the presence of gods, that if they are gods, ought to be wiser than men, but that far from it, only set and clear the stage of human tragedy without ever redeeming it. What Goethe in his Song of the Harper expresses unambiguously: "You"-meaning . the "heavenly forces:r __ "into life lead us ahead, You let the wretched become guilty, Then you deliver him to grief, For all guilt is revenged on earth" ) this feeling of the tragic situation of man, Euripides expresses ambiguously with the Deus ex machina, with immortals apparently solving conflicts, which for mortals remain unsolved and unsolvable. This, I think, is part of what Aristotle (Poetics, 1453a 29-30) 37 means, when he speaks of Euripides as the most tragic of the poets. �-39- NOTES 1. For the symbolism, involved in the image of the bee cf. 'Knox, "The Hippolytos of Euripides Yale Classical Studies, 13, 1952, p.28. It might be interesting to compare F. Bacon, Novum Organum, I, Aph. 95,. and its elaboration in J. Swift, The Battle of the Books, Prose Writings of Swift~ ed. w. Lewin, London, 1886, · p. 178. · B~M.W. 11 , 2. For the philological controversy over 11. 78-81 cf. w.s. Barrett, Euripides, Hippolytos, Oxford, 1964, pp. 172-175. tnv "lv.ae:v 11a\ owQlpocnSvn'J TOUT,., ltpooayoptlSoµ"£Vti;i 0v6µat1., w~ o~i;ovoav 't~V fP0\11'\0I.'#." 3. cf. Aristotle, N.E., VI, 1140b 11-12 4. H. North's ("Sophrosyne, Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature", Cornell Studies in Classical Philolo , Vol. XXXV, Ithaca, N.Y •., 9 , pp. .assertion: wit regard to the origin of vJ.rtue, ·inclqding sophrosyne, Euripides is firmly of opinion that physis plays the chief role" disr~gards the fact that the one pronouncing the theory in question . is killed at the end of the tragedy. Euripidean fra9ments like Fr. 807 (Nauck) "µly1.otO\I °!p' 7iv ;, rpuo1.s;•t~ Y~P Max~v ouot\s; tplcpwv xpncnav &v ~e:Cn ltott" do not have to be interpreted with H. North, following E.R. Dodds ("Euripides the Irrationalist", The Classical Review, 43, 1929, p. 99) as attesting to the "moral impotence of reason", but can be understood as a claim to nature as a necessary but not necessarily sufficient source of virtue. The fact that in the case of man reason is a part of nature makes the claim to nature as chief source of virtue rather ambiguous. Dodds' (op. cit., p. 99} "Euripides• characters do not merely enunciate these principles, they also illustrate them", meaning "the victory of irrational impulse· over reason in a noble but unstable being" ought to make one cautious in separating them out as "their authors thoughts" (op. cit., p. 98; cf. "The At6~~ of Phaedra and the Meaning of the Hippolytos", The Classical Review, 39, 1925, p. 103), expressing "systematic irrationalism" ("Euripides the Irrationali~t", p. 103), opposed to "Socratic intellectualism" ("The At6ws; of Phaedra", p. 103). · co 5. cf. 1004-1005; for an elaboration on the distinction between hearing and seeing with respect to "the quest for the first things" cf. L. Strauss, Natural . Right and Historl, Chicago, 1953, Ch. III, "The Origin of the Idea of Natura Right" pp. 86-89. . 6. For a discussion of the different meanings of "awrppoo~v11" in Euripidean tra,gedy cf. H. North, op.cit., pp. 68-84. �-40- 7. Plato's Euthyphro explores this question with respect to "&6crletLa": The original definition of "t~ oaLov" as "t~ ~&ocpi.>.b;" (7a) appears to be insufficient on the basis of differences among the gods as to their likes and dislikes (7b~ Se). The amendment of· this insufficient definition to "t~ · !aLov" as "t &v ~dvtts o~ ~to\ cpLAoOaLv" (9e) is o~ly an intermediary step on the way towards a more fundamental inquiry into the nature of "T~ oaLov". The follow up of the crucial question, '/Jhether "t~ oaLov" is 11 001.ov" because it is "-&toqi1.>.~s" or whether it is "-&tocpL>..~s" because it is "001.ov", in the discussion of "t~ 001.ov" a~ "µlpos Toi) . 61.xa(ouft (12a-e) points to a more universal definition which goes beyond the scope of th~ dialogue. 8. cf. H. North, op.cit., pp. 153-158. 9. For a comparable relationship between "ato~~" and "owcppoo'1vl'l" cf. Xenophon,~, II, 1, 22, and H. North, op.cit., p. 92. 10. cf. F. Dirlmeier, Aristoteles, Mikomachische Ethik,Darmstadt, 1969, note 138, 9, pp. 471-472 and "Der cpJotL - Charakter der Arete" in "Die Oikeiosislehre Theophrasts", Philologus, Suppl. 30, l, Leipzig, 1937, pp. 39-46. 11. Therefore, "owcppooi1vn" does not seem to me to be synonymous with "ato~~", as H. North, op.cit. p. 87, claims. 12. For the same disjunctive question cf. Aristotle, N.E., ll79b 20 ff.; Pol., 1332a 38-b 11 and H. North, op.ci~p. 208; related to "tu&cuµov(a" on the basis of "aptTn", cf. Aristotle, N.E., 1099b 9-llOOa 9, E.E., 1214a 14 ff •• For a discussion of acquisition and loss()f""11 crwq>poovvn" cf. Xenophon, Mem., I, 2, 21-23; Cyl., VII, 5, 75 and H. North, op.cit., pp. 123-132, especial y p.131, with the discussion of Cyr., III, 1, 16-17, the problem of "ow,poavwn" as "na.enµa" or "µa-&niia". 13. For the exclusion of the lower animals and the gods from considerations of virtue cf. Aristotle, N.E., ll49b 27-llSOa 1, ll78b 8-18 and H. North, op.cit., p. 2'05andnote 30 ibid •• 14. For a harmonious view of "v&µos" and "'tcri.:.!;" cf. Euripides, Bacchae, 11. 890-896 and E.R. Dodds, Conunentary, adhuc, 2. ed., Oxford, · 1960, pp. 189-190; Ion, 11. 642-644; cf. Philemon, fr. B7(K). - 15. Ironically enough, Hippolytos' notion of a fixed nature is answered with fatal revenge by a goddess> the only k~nc;L of beLnq,. to whom it truly applies. Of course, the judgement "xaxLoTnv O oaLµovwv", with its implicit hybris of mortal judgement over immortal nature, carries more weight than the otherwise true notion of a fixed nature in the case of gods. �-41- 16. Comparably, the nurse changes her usual address to Phaedra from "'lat" or "tlxvov" to "6la1to1.v''~ where Phaedra has shown moral strength (433) or at least moral indignation (695). \ 17. For the ambiguity 9f 11 a£µvoc" as epithet of Aphrodite as well as Hippolytos cf. w.s. Barrett, op.cit., p·. 187. 18. Cf,; B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 22. 19. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.~i t., p. 28. 20. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit~, P• 29. 21. I doubt whether this is simply a "good sententious peroration", cf. w.s. Barrett, op.cit., p. 286. 22. cf. Philemon, fr. 87(K}: "t( ioTt Ilpoµnitds, ~v Alyoua' ~µas 1tAdaa1. xal ~!Ala 1tdvta . tlat Tot £ µ~v enp(oi.s l6wx' £xdat~ xat~ ylvo~ µ(av ~~01.v; &1tavT£S ot Alovtls tta~v &Ax1.µ01., 6c1.1ol 1tdA1.v £tns 1dvtcs tto~v oL Aayw. • • • • ' , • \ • _f OUM EOT QAWltn~ n µEV £1.pWV Tij ~u0£1. no' au~lxaatos, aAl' edv Tpi.aµup(as &A~ltcxds TLS auvaydy~, uCav ~oai.v a~ata1aowv · S~cta1. tpditov e' lva • • p \ \ , \ • \ nµwv 6' oaa xai. Ta awµaT • • \ Tov api.~µov EOTL xa~· £vds, 1ooodtou5 loti. xa\ 1pd1ous t6ttv." ' \ . 23. cf. E.R. Dodds, "The At6ws of Phaedra", p. 103. 24. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 15 "The fact that the moral alternatives are represented by r-ilence and speech is not merely a brilliant device which connects and contrasts the situations of the different characters, it is also an emphatic statement of the universality of the action. It makes the play an ironical comment on a fundamental idea, the idea that man's power of speech, \.'hi ch distinguishes him from the other animals, is the faculty which gives him the conception and power of moral choice in the first place." 25. For the significance of the bull in Greek mythology cf. E.R. Dodds, Euripides, "Bacchae", 2. ed., Oxford, 1960, p. XX; ll. 920-922 and note pp. 193-194. · 26. cf. the etymology of the name Hippolytos, either to be analyzed as "Breaking in horses" or as "Broken by horses". 27. For the symbolism involved in the image of the charioteer cf. H. North, op.cit . , pp. 380-381, especially note 3. �-4228. cf. Plato, Meno, 70a. 29. cf. Xenophon, On Hunting, I, 11; XII; XIII, 4, lSff •• For great parts of it, this treatis~ oi Xenophon :3oun<ls like a · commentary on Euripides' Hippolytos, attempting . to demonstrate that hunting is the best preparation for "awq>pocn5vnn and that it is best to be taught "itap~ aihns; Ti'i' q?lfo&ws;" (XIII, 4). 30. cf. F. Bacon's interpretation of a similar myth in The Wisdom of the Ancients, IV, "Narcissus 11 or "Self-Love", The Works of F. Bacon, ud. Spedding, Ellis, Heath, Vol. VI, pp. 705-706. 31. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 22, referring to Euripides, Hippolytos 11. 141, 1451. 32. cf. Homer, Od., IX, 105-566; both,the Cyclops and Hippolytos, are representatives of the same phenomenon, the "choA1.s;", though the Cyclops on the side of the beast, Hippolytos on the side of the god. 33. cf. Aristotle~ Pol., 1253a 28 with N.E., 1158b 29-1159a 12; E.E., 1238b 18;27; l24'4b 1-22; 1245b 14=rg-and F. Dirlmeier, op.cit., note 180, 3, pp. 520-521; cf. Plato, Lysis, 214e215c; Euthyphro, 14e 9-15a 10. 34. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p.31. "The play ends with a human act which is at last a free and meaningful choice, a choice made for the first time in full knowledge of the nature of human life and divine government, an act which does not frustrate its purpose. It is an act of forgiveness, something possible only for human beings, not for gods but for their tragic victims. It is man's noblest declaration of independence and it is made possible by man's tragic position in the world. Hippolytos' forgiveness of his father is an affirmation of purely human values in an inhuman universe." 35. cf. Leo Strauss, op.cit., pp. 151-153. 36. cf. Leo Strauss, op cit., p. 145. "In the language of Aristotle, one could say that the relation of virtue to human nature is comparable to that of act and potency, and the act cannot be determined by starting from the potency, but, on the contrary, the potency becomes known by looking back to it from the act." 37. cf. G.E. Lessing' s remark in the "4.9·th-· piece of.. the "Hamburgische Dramaturgie": "Aristoteles hatte unstreitig mehrere Eigenschaf ten im Sinne, welchen zu Folqe er ihm diesen Charakter erteilte", and his speculations about the passage in question. � 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. 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Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 42 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 Berns, Gisela N. Title A name given to the resource Nomos and physis: an interpretation of Euripides' Hippolytus Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-03-05 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on March 5, 1971 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 52998 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/4b69435d438d653a0ba63dd6ebc2da9a.pdf 6130864e91b296ec861c4f34541e8682 PDF Text Text GRATITUDE, NATURE, AND PIETY IN KING LEAR LA.tJRENCE BERNS Revised VersionOf AFomal Lectlll"e Delivered At St John.'s: College �27 GRATITUDE, NATURE, AND PIETY IN KING LEAR LAURENCE BERNS And they go to trial on a charge on account of which men hate each other most, but go to trial about least, that is, ingratitude. And him who they know to be able to return a favor, but does not return it, they also punish severely. For they think that the ungrateful would also be most neglectful about gods, about parents, about country, and about friends; and what seems to follow upon ingratitude most of all is shamelessness, and it is this indeed which seems to be the greatest leader towards every baseness. -Xenophon, Cyropaedeia [1.2.7] I In the fourth act of King Lear the cruelly blinded Duke of Gloucester is saved and guided by a man disguised as a mad beggar. The strangeness of beggar guiding duke is compounded by the fact that Gloucester's unknown guide is his son Edgar, who had assumed this wretched disguise to escape the sentence wrongfully laid upon him by his gullible father. Edgar serves not only as his father's eyes, he becomes his provider, the nurse of his broken spirit, his teacher, and the saviour of his life. He saves him from Oswald's murderous attack and from a more formidable foe, despair. He concocts what for Gloucester is a divine miracle, to arouse within him the strength to live ; and he preaches the lessons that enable Gloucester to avail himself of that strength. Edgar fulfills parental offices, and more, for his father. The once masterful father, helpless as a babe, is, as it were, fathered , sustained, and educated by his own son. This unsettling reversal of normal stations is pitiful and thought-provoking.1 Small debts of gratitude can be paid without much difficulty. But what recompense can be made to those who are the very sources of one's being? Does not every recompense fall short, is not every recompense simply disproportionate to what is owed? Since one is always in their debt, the command "Honor thy father and thy mother" can be invoked almost without any reservations.2 Although this debt of gratitude is normally impossible to discharge, Edgar either did discharge it or came as close This article is a revised version of a lecture presented at St. John's College, Annapolis, May 1969. Laurence Berns is a Tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. l Oedipus in a questionable way assumes his father's position through violence. Shakespeare's Edgar behaves as a father to his father with perfect justice. Cp. the beginning of this scene, 4.6, with Matt. 4.5-11, and with Prospero's "miracles~· in The Tempest. 1 Cf. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1161a 20 and 1163b 12-29. �28 Interpretation Q.J;;;_ I 'I 'T «, to doing so as any man could. The story of Edgar and his father seems to have been designed to show what would be required for such a debt to be paid in full. The mercantile aspect of the language of gratitude~ebts, payments, owing-is vaguely offensive, but apparently unavoidable. Lear, raging in the storm, calls out: ... Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: I tax you not, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, You owe me no subscription: .. . [3 .2.14-181. The hunted Edgar, consoling himself with the thought that "The lowest and most dejected thing of Fortune/Stands still in esperance," goes on to say: .. . Welcome. then, Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace: The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst Owes nothing to thy blasts [4.1.3-9]. Nothing good received, nothing owed.3 But what i(just being itself is good? Although we prosecute and punish those who buy or borrow and do not pay, such offenses do not evoke the gravest condemnations. But "sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." And ingratitude is a "marble-hearted fiend, more hideous when thou showest thee in a child than the sea-monster." The seriousness of the wrong can also be reckoned roughly by its effect. Kent speaks of "how unnatural and bemadding a sorrow" is the filial ingratitude that Lear suffers. When that sorrow has nearly done its work, Gloucester addresses Lear as "O ruin'd piece of nature." Gratitude is akin to grace and graciousness, as their etymologies indicate. 4 Capacities or incapacities for gratitude seem to be direct reflections of character; the obligation when regarded as genuine is self-incurred. It becomes suspect when external compulsion is in the background, when it does not "come from the heart." To pay one's bills grudgingly is not gracious but does not violate the spirit of commerce. Can gratitude be paid grudgingly? Coming from within, it seems to be a natural movement in the sense of the Aristotelian distinction.5 In this way it is akin to love. Gratitude might be thought of as being between justice and love. Like a Cf. 2.4.179 ff. and .252, 3.4.20, and Regan's (!) morally indignant words to Gloucester, "Ingrateful fox" (3.7.28). She probably means that he is ungrateful to his country: he is referred to as a traitor twelve times. All line numbers are from the Arden Ed., ed. Kenneth Muir, Harvard, 1959. ' Cf. Aristotle Rhetoric 1385a 16-b 11, Cope ed., Vol. II, pp. 87-93. 6 Cf. Aristotle Physics 192b 7-23. Cf. 215a 1-5, 230a 19 ff., and 254b 12 ff. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 29 commutative justice, which seeks arithmetic equality in exchanges of goods and services, gratitude involves an element of calculation. 6 Gratitude should be proportionate to benefits or favors bestowed. 7 But unlike the demands of commutative justice, these obligations are unenforceable, at least by any human court. Unlike commercial and contractual obligations, here there is no explicit promise to return an equal value for what has been received. s What occurs depends entirely upon the grace of the benefactor. The beneficiary cannot be forced to pay this kind of debt, which is also a debt that he was in no way responsible for incurring. Whether he pays or not depends upon the kind of man he is. Is he to be held responsible for the kind of man he is? Gratitude then, in so far as its payment is unenforceable, in so far as it must be rendered willingly, and in so far as it reflects the character of those engaged in it, is like love. Where benefits causing- gratitude and where love depend essentially on the personal merits of the benefactor or the beloved, distributive justice, which concerns itself with the proportionality of rewards to personal merit, comes into consideration.9 Despite their connections or parallelism, gratitude and love, at least noble love, may be distinguished. Lear's failure to appreciate this difference seems to have been an important part of what led to his downfall.to II Lear introduces what has been called his love test with the following words: Tell me, my daughters, (Since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state) Which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge11 [1.1.48-53]. 8 Xenophon's Socrates defines ingratitude as a certain kind of pure injustice: Memorabilia 2.2.3. See also King Lear 1.1.183. 1 Cf. Aristotle NE 1163a 10-24. s In circumstances where either rejection or acceptance is possible, acceptance could in some contexts be understood as implying such a promise. 9 Cf. Aristotle NE 1160b 23-62a 9, 1163a 24-63b 27, 1167a 15-22, 1167b 16-68a 27. The subject abounds in difficulties. Cp., for example, 116la 20-23 and 1162a 4-9 (where it is shown why, in accordance with justice, children, like subjects in relation to their kings, should love parents more than parents should love children), with 116lb 18-30 and 1167b 16-68a 27 (where it is shown why, generally speaking, parents love chil.dren more than. children love parents). Cf. Eudemian Ethics 124la 35-b 11; and Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica 1-11, Q. 100, A. 5, ad 4. Cf. also Plato Republic 330c, 457c end-458b, 462a-e, 463c-465c, 472b 3-6. 1° Cp. Kent's love for Lear with Cordelia's. The love between Kent and Lear seems inseparable from "service." Cf. 1.4.4-7 and 1.4.92-93. 11 The last line is difficult. Nature here could refer to filial or to paternal affection; merit correspondingly could refer to good deeds, that is, obedience and �Interpretation 30 He will give most, he says, to that daughter that loves him most, and the implication is, each daughter will receive a share of bounty proportionate to her love for her father. If Lear intended to test or to measure the amounts of his daughters' loves by their speeches, he would have waited till each daughter had spoken and each speech could have been compared with the others before making his distribution. But after each speech, before hearing those remaining, he disposes of a share in accordance with what appears to be and is once explicitly referred to by him as a prearranged plan (1.1.37-38). Moreover, the plan, which had been discussed with, or at least presented to, his advisors and council, seems to have been a sagacious one.12 The love test then may first have been thought of by Lear as a mere formality, staged for the sake of a public ratification of a well-thought-out succession scheme. The question as to why this form was used still remains. It is through Cordelia's actions that the love test becomes decisive for Lear and for the play as a whole : For Cordelia's love and being sure of her love were, more than he knew, overwhelmingly important for Lear. Cordelia's experience in scene 1, in important respects, prefigures Lear's. The Duke of Burgundy and the King of France are in Lear's court to sue for the hand of Cordelia, Lear's favorite daughter. When Lear strips Cordelia of all her inheritance, of her dowry, and of his paternal favor , the difference between Burgundy's and France's loves becomes plain. Burgundy will take Cordelia only with the portion first proposed by Lear. Lear says: . . . Sir, there she stands: If aught within that little-seeming substance, Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd. And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace, She's there, and she is yours. Burgundy replies, "I know no answer." Lear intensifies his condemnation and urges France not even to consider his former suit. France wonders what Cordelia's offense could have been. She replies; and he addresses himself to Burgundy: ... My Lord of Burgundy, What say you to the lady? Love's not love conformity in ratification of the settlement Lear here proclaims, or simply love of Lear. According to Muir, nature means "'paternal affection' and merit, in the context, means 'filial affection' " (Arden Ed., p. 6). u 1.1.3-7. Cordelia and her consort, with Lear so long as he is alive, are to occupy the larger strategic center, balancing Goneril and Albany on the north and Regan and Cornwall on the south. Cf. Harry V. Jaffa, "The Limits of Politics: King Lear, Act One, Scene One," in Shakespeare's Politics, Allan Bloom and Harry V. Jaffa, Basic Books, 1964, pp. 118 ff. This present essay is, in a number of important respects, an attempt to develop points first stated by Harry Jaffa. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 31 When it is mingled with regards that stand Aloof from th' entire point. Will you have her? She is herself a dowry. After Burgundy applies to Lear again for her dowry, is rejected, and withdraws his suit, Cordelia says: Peace be with Burgundy! Since that respect and fortunes are his love, I shall not be his wife [1.1.247-49]. France speaks again: Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon: Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away. Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect My love should kindle to inflam'd respect. "Inflam' d respect" might well serve to characterize noble love.13 After being stripped of the accoutrements of power, wealth, and favor, Cordelia does learn who loves her for herself, for herself and her virtues, as France puts it, and who loves her for what she possesses, whose love "is mingled with regards that stand/ Aloof from th' entire point." The dismantling of "so many folds of favor," including the favor of gods and fortune, not only reveals the qualities of her suitors' loves, but, more importantly, reveals what she is herself, reveals her lovability. France, as Kent conjectures (3.1.28-29), may have some political reasons for wanting to marry Cordelia: these, however, need not be incompatible with those manifest reasons that lead him to love her for her own sake. To believe that she could have deserved the condemnation she received from Lear, France says, "Must be a faith that reason without miracle/Should never plant in me." Positively put, reason without miracle confirms Cordelia's virtue and her lovability. France's love then could be described as a kind of rational faith based on what he has learned about her character. It is not easy for a king, a princess, or anyone with large and evident powers to bestow benefits and ills, to learn what people truly think of them. Lear finally learns who loves him and what those about him think of him, but like Cordelia, he must be stripped and must strip himself of the trappings of majesty first.14 u In Cordelia's speech (1.1.248) respect probably means "looking again" or "looking back," respectare, to something else beside herself, to her fortune, that is, comparison and calculation. In France's speech (1.1.255) the word means honoring or esteem, but also involves an element of "looking," .of calculation, or estimation, of personal worth. The sense of distance suggested by the admiration, estimation, and deference usually associated with "respect" makes the unusual conjunction with "inflam'd" all the more poignant. Cf. also 2.4.24. 14 Cf. 4.1.19-21, and n. to I. 20, Arden Ed., K. Muir, ed. �32 Interpretation III Private and public interfere with each other for Lear: The very proposing of a love test evidences a certain confusion about the properly public and the properly private. To command public declarations or testimony in the execution of one's office is certainly appropriate for a judge, magistrate, or king; but Lear seems to have tried, as it were, to absorb the private into the public, to have confused what can be demanded and enforced by right of law and majesty with what can only arise naturally, what is beyond all external command or control. 15 However one conceives of the Lear of the love test, 1 6 his vulnerability with respect to Cordelia is crucial. Lear deserved gratitude from his daughters, perhaps especially from Cordelia. And gratitude, or thankfulness, should be proportionate to how much one has to be thankful for. But Lear demands professions of love. He fails to appreciate how demeaning it would be for Cordelia to allow her love to seem to be proportionate to the magnitude of the fortune he bestows on her. The preciousness of her love is tied necessarily to its proud independence from mercenary influences or threats. It cannot be bought, not with fortune, power, sensual pleasure, protection, or anything else less than virtue . Cordelia's refusal 15 See notes S and 9 above. Cf. Immanuel Kant, "The End of All Things," in On History, ed. Lewis W. Beck, Library of Liberal Arts. 1963, pp. 81 -84. Ausgewiihlte kleine Schriften. Taschenausgaben der Philosophischen Bibliothek, pp. 89-92. [The end of the second paragraph, p. 82, Beck ed., should read: "for it is a contradiction to command someone not just to do something but also that he should like to do it" (auch gem tun solle).] Should not the "love" referred to by Kant, p. 84, 1.5, be, more strictly, gratitude? 19 There is great division among the commentators. We may distinguish four alternatives: 1) Lear is a weak, senile, old man in his dotage. Can this be reconciled with the deep and powerful Lear of the rest of the play, with the man whose favorites had been Kent and Cordelia, who wisely favored Albany over Cornwall, who killed the man (probably a captain, 5.3.27) hanging Cordelia? 2) Lear is a sagacious, though not a wise, king. He is not altogether incognizant of his elder daughters' characters and hypocrisy : he never accuses them of violating their love oaths. He could have regarded the love test at first as primarily a ceremony to ratify and to sanctify the succession; but being particularly vulnerable in relation to Cordelia, he allowed "her most small fault" to wrench his "frame of nature from the fixed place." It was this vulnerability, he rebukes himself, "that let thy folly in, and thy dear judgement out." Why then did Lear in Act 2 seem to think that he could rely on his elder daughters? 3) Shakespeare sim_ ly took over the old story and did not concern himself with p consistency here. 4) There is no inconsistency: A man can be .a weak, foolish dotard and under great suffering reveal heretofore untapped great depths of passion and powers of insight. The argument of this essay is most compatible with the second of these alternatives. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 33 to participate in Lear's ceremony, her disobedience (and Kent's also), is correctly diagnosed by Lear as rooted in pride.1 7 Lear, however, fails to see how that pride with its occasionally offensive honesty, necessarily goes along with the Jove for which he craves. In its critical pride such a Jove reflects the lover's estimate of the intrinsic merits of the beloved.is If Lear had succeeded in humbling Cordelia, he might have destroyed what he loved most. Lear never accuses Cordelia, as he does his other daughters, of ingratitude. Her love, or certain evidence of her l~ve, is what he wants. He loved her most, he says, as if this gave him the right to command her to love him most. But even if love, or noble love, could be deserved, it cannot be commanded. There does not seem to be any court competent io grant compensation for the "pangs of dispriz'd love."19 Lear, it seems, needs Cordelia's love because it would be evidence for himself (and for others) of his own excellence. If he were a wise man or a philosopher, he would "know himself" and perhaps not need such confirmation.20 But Lear is not a philosopher. Regan is not the best witness, but she is not entirely wrong when she says of Lear, "He hath ever but slenderly known himself" (1.1.294, cf. 1.4.238 and .260). In commanding, or expecting love where he could only rightly expect gratitude, in thinking that he could simply disclaim "Propinquity and property of blood," in expecting full honors of kingship, after having relinquished power and responsibility, Lear presumes upon an intrinsic authority and self-sufficiency that he does not, and perhaps no man could, possess.21 IV "In none of the fifty or sixty versions of the Lear story in existence before Shakespeare's play does the old king go mad."22 Gloucester and Lear suffer most in this play. Reflecting on the madness of the king, Gloucester says to himself: Better I were distract: So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs, And woes by wrong imaginations lose The knowledge of themselves. It may be that her fault is "small" only when compared with ingratitude, for, as Don Quixote says, "There are those who will tell you that one of the greatest sins man can commit is pride, but I maintain that ingratitude is worse." Part 2, ch. 58, Putnam trans., Viking, p. 889. See also Ulrici, in Variorum Ed., ed. Furness, p. 456. 18 Cf. Aristotle NE 1159a 22-25, 1167a II 21, 1170b 8-14, 1172a 10 14. tt Cf. Don Quixote, Part I, ch. 14. 20 Aristotle NE II 77a 12-79a 32; and Jaffa, op. cit., pp. 133 ff. r1 Jaffa suggests that "In proclaiming love of himself as the principle of distributive justice," Lear was "pretending to the attributes of divinity," op. cit., pp. 132 and 133. Cf. George Anastaplo, The Constitutionalist: Notes on the First Amendment, Southern Methodist University Press, 1971, p. 791; and 2.4.252. " Kenneth Muir, Arden Ed., Introduction, p. xliii, n. 1. 17 �Interpretation 34 And yet the contrast between the two shows rather how much more pathetic Lear's suffering in the mind is:23 The loss of eyes-the wayfinders for physical movement, the conditions for independent actionis not so pathetic as losing the light of reason, the intellectual guide that lets us grasp the general meanings of things.24 There is a connection, it has been observed, between pride and madness.25 Proud men do not like to justify and explain themselves. Their rectitude, they feel, should be taken for granted. They balk at the inferiority, or equality, implicit in being required to explain themselves, for example, Lear before Albany, Kent before Cornwall, Gloucester and Regan, and Cordelia before the court (1.4.248 ff., 2.2.61 ff., and 1.1.87 ff.). The proud see or feel themselves to be within a definite hierarchical order. They prize their place within the order and, accordingly, the order itself. They are most sensitive to insult and most prone to the passion most consequent upon insult, anger. Anger, unlike grief, contains within itself a desire to strike back. And, most importantly for our argument, the desire to strike back for most men, if not for all men, exists even when there is nothing to strike back against. Men derive relief from cursing the table or bench they have knocked against. When loved ones suffer some grave and irremediable illness or misfortune, men can speak, not of misfortune, but of "affliction," thus, as it were, striking back in speech against the causes of the suffering. All the affections of what is poetically · called the "heart"26 may tend to personify, and thus obscure, the difference between the living and the dead, but anger seems peculiarly prone to personification. Something similar often happens in love. It seems that men desire what they love, or what they think they love, to love them in return, whether such love is capable of being returned or not. Hope rises from desire. Hope and desire find fulfillment in fact or in fantasy. Cf. 3.4.6-25. Cf. 4.1.27-28 . u Cf. Thomas Hobbes, Leviarhan, ch. 8, Everyman's Library Ed., p. 59, and Elements of Law, ch. I0.9-11; and G . W. F. Hegel, Enzyk/opiidie d .p.W., III. Die Philosophie des Geistes, § 408, Zusatz, fJfJ), "die eigentliche Narrheit." Cf. inter a/ia, Sophocles Ajax; and Euripides Herakles. ze The word heart occurs rather often in King Lear (about fifty times). In general it seems to refer to what is responsible for coordinating men's appetites, passions, desires, thoughts and wills, their loves and hates. Cp. Dante's "animo" in Purgatorio, Canto I 7. The word heart enters into Thomas Aquinas' discussion in the Summa Theo/ogica, usually when citations from the Bible or Church authorities need explication. Sometimes he interprets it as practical reason or conscience (e.g., II-I Q. 94, A.6. Cf. A.5 ad I, A.2, and I, Q. 24, A.I) and frequently as will (e.g., 11-1, Q. 4, A.4; Q. 6, A.4 ad I; Q. I9, A.8 ad I, A.IO ad 1 sed con; Q. 24, A.3). Nonmetaphorically he speaks of the heart as that organ that initiates all bodily, all vital movement, the "instrument of the soul's passions" (e.g., I, Q. 20, A.l ad l; 11-1, Q. 17, A.9 ad 2; Q. 37, A.4 ; Q. 38, A.5 ad 3; Q. 40, A.6; Q. 44, A.I ad l; Q 48, A.2-4). Cf. Plato Republic, the discussion of E>uµo~ 439e-442d; and Timaeus 69d end-72c 1. {L 'lt.~L+-_'.,_ '"L ~~ 1:J .......___ J 1.18 -J.~. 13 u s-. q .. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 35 In some of its extreme forms this personification is what is called madness. Lear insists that it must have been the unkindness of Poor Tom's nonexistent daughters that brought him to such lowness (3.4.48 ff.). He will take a joint-stool for his daughter and Poor Tom and the Fool for Justices, if that is the only way he has to bring his daughters before the bar of justice (3.6.20 ff.). Lear's pride, his self-respect, his sense of where he belongs in the hierarchical order of things, is, so to speak, the point of origin for his orientation in the world. As his self-respect is assailed, he finds it increasingly difficult to be objective, as Edgar says to Gloucester, to "Bear free and patient thoughts," that is, thoughts free from the presumption that everything that happens in the world has been personally directed with a view to its effect upon himself. His pride and his love of justice lead him to refuse to accept the existence of the world where his worth is denied. He will try to see the world as it is only if the world makes place for his pride. And yet one of the measures of his worth is the intensity with which he struggles to save his sanity. lf his pride did not have some basis in truth, even his own love of truth and justice, his madness could not be as significant as it is. v In the early acts of the play Lear swears by those specific divinities, the sun, the night, Hecate, Apollo, and Jupiter; he also calls on the heavens and calls nature goddess. He seems to see himself and his kingdom as part of one grand natural and divine order, a just hierarchical order, with the heavenly powers, the gods, especially Jupi~er, at the summit of the cosmic hierarchy and himself correspondingly at the summit of that subordinate order, his kingdom. When his daughters, his ~ol, and his shame, the correlate of his pride, destroy his self-respect, "abuse," "subdue," "oppress," "ruin," and "bemad" his nature, what is bemadding is that at the same time they are destroying the basis of his orientation in the world, driving his soul into a storm of questions, doubts, and partial insights too heavy for his patience and judgment to bear.27 The disorder in the moral and political world is associated in Act 3 with tumult in the cosmic order, the rage in Lear's soul with the raging ! 7 Cf. Robert B. Heilman, This Great Stage, Image and Structure in King Lear, University of Washington, 1963, pp. 72-74. Cf. also Laurence Berns, "Aristotle's Poetics" in Ancients and Moderns, Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey, Basic Books, 1964, p. 82. In that essay the division on p. 82 should be marked "Epilogue"; part II begins on p. 72 and part III on p. 79; p. 70, last line, first paragraph, "man" should read "men" and "his" should read "their"; p. 72, eighth line from bottom, "Book" should read "chapter"; p. 80, 11.7 and 23 shonld each have a comma after "for the most part"; p. 85, n. 16, 1.6, "flow" should read "flaw"; p. 86, 1.14, in n. 16, "what lies bcnea:h" should be inserted between "civilizing" and "politics"; p. 86, n. 23, 1.2 "Politics" should read "Poetics." �36 Interpretation of the heavens. The gentleman who meets Kent speaks of how the "impetuous blasts with eyeless rage" catch Lear's white hair in their fury. But for Lear lightnings are "thought-executing fires," and the elements are addressed as seeing and thinking beings. At first he bids them, "Let fall your horrible pleasure." They owe him no subscription. However, that soon changes: But yet I call you servile ministers, That will with two pernicious daughters join Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head So old and white as this. 0, ho! 'tis foul. His outrage seems to tum toward the gods themselves.. But his faith is not yet entirely destroyed. He realizes that patience is what he needs. Perhaps his suffering is some divine affliction, later to be redeemed? He calls out as if the storm were herald to a day of judgment when justice and honesty will prevail and he will be revealed as a man more sinned against than sinning. Let the great Gods, That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of Justice; hide thee, thou bloody hand, Thou perjur'd, and thou simular of virtue That art incestuous; caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Has practis'd on man's life; close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man More sinn'd against than sinning 28 (3.2.49-59] . Later, after he has agreed to enter a nearby hovel, he says, "I'll pray and then 111 sleep." But he does not pray, if praying means addressing divinities.29 He directs his words not to the high, to the gods, but to the poor, the wretched and the low: Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O! I have ta'en Too little care of this. Take physic, Pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, . And show the Heavens more just [3.4.27-36). zs Cf. Kent's speech preceding and Mark, 13, esp. 13.12; see Variorum Ed., ed. Furness, p. 339; cf. Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus, 11.266-67. n Cf. 1.5.47-48, 2.4.192, and 2.4.273-80. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety m King Lear 37 Like thoughts are expressed later by Gloucester, as he gives a purse to the man he believes to be Poor Tom: Here, take this purse, thou whom the heav'ns' plagues Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched Makes thee the happier: Heavens, deal so still! Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, That slaves your ordinance, that will not see Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly; So distribution should undo excess, And each man have enough [4.1.64-71). Lear's statement goes further: The very justice of the heavens is called into question. 30 The decisive point in this process is reached when Lear strips off his royal garments, after he has encountered Poor Tom, the exemplar of human wretchedness in the extreme.31 Gratitude, its bonds, its cosmic and divine implications, have proved snares and delusions for Lear. Here, with Poor Tom as his model, undeceived by a groundless reliance on gratitude and the flattery of pomp and majesty, he thinks that he can see the truly fundamental situation of man. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume .. .. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off you )endings! Come; unbutton here [3.4.105-12]. 3 ! Tom owes the worm no silk because he has no silk, the sheep no wool because he has no wool. Lear takes Tom, the unaccommodated man, as the "natural man." But does Tom have nothing? He has his life and he has his misery; and as gratitude is one of the chief roots of natural piety, so fear and wretchedness can theologize and moralize as well. Tom has his catechism: Take heed o' th' foul fiend. Obey thy parents; keep thy word's justice; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array [3.4.80-83]. Each of these six commandments corresponds to one of the Bible's Ten Commandments: the last most tenuously to the Bible's Tenth, Tom's fifth to the Bible's Seventh, his fourth to the Bible's Third, his third to the Bible's Ninth, and his second to the Bible's Fifth.33 Lear has proclaimed ao "And show the Heavens more just" is the last line Lear speaks before madness overcomes him. See 3.4.48. In Aristotelian terms this is the point at which the reversal, or peripety, occurs in King Lear; Poetics 1452a 21-52b 13. Cf. also Laurence Berns, op. cit., n. 27 above, pp. 75 and 82. 11 The extreme must include madness. at Cf. 2.3.7-9. 11 Tom's replacement of the Fifth Commandment's "Honor thy father and thy mother" by "Obey" corresponds to a replacement of gratitude by fear. �38 Interpretation twice in this play that "nothing can be made out of nothing."34 If nothing comes from nothing, everything that does come to be must come from something, something which itself does not come to be, that is, is unchanging. It is not altogether unreasonable for Poor Tom and anyone who would take him as the man himself to regard what most men call God, the ultimate source of his misery, as a foul fiend. Tom's first commandment corresponds to the Bible's First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."35 The question about filial gratitude, about what children owe to their parents, to the sources of their being, is here extended to the limit: What is owed, or due, to the guiding principle, or principles, of life as a whole, to the sources, or source, of all being? When Lear strips himself of his royal garments, those "\endings," he tries to strip himself of every vestige of royalty. When Kent asks him, "How fares your Grace?" he does not even acknowledge that the term could be meaningful and replies, "What's he?" His divestment of his royal garments is the outer sign of his soul's divestment of its former protections and supports, of those beliefs and convictions that heretofore had sustained and guided his activity in the world. He thinks that now he is in a position to come to know man, to know himself, to philosophize (1.4.238 and .259). But the conditions required to make him want to philosophize are those that he declared earlier would make a truly human life impossible. "O! reason not the need," he replies to his daughters' questioning his need for attendants of his own: our basest beggars Are in the poorest thing superfluous: Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady; If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need.You Heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!-38 (2.4.266-73]. Not only does Poor Tom become the representative of humanity for Lear, but because he of all men is least likely to have been blinded by gratitude or flattery, he becomes after Lear's divestment the philosopher for Lear_ "First," before accepting fire, food, and shelter, "let me talk u See 1.4.134-39, 1.1.90, and 1.2.31-35. Shakespeare's presentation of the "Angstphanomen," Lear's "eye of anguish" (4.4.15), seems to have been unnoticed by Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit , Niemeyer, 1957, p. 190; cf. n. on 199. 35 Exodus 20.1-17, Deuteronomy 5.6-21, and King Lear, 3.4.80-83. The statement following the Second Commandment tells of God visiting the iniquity of fathers upon their children; Shakespeare, less mysteriously with a view to considerations of justice, visits the iniquity of children upon fathers. See 3.4.74-75. Cf. A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy, Macmillan, London, 1961, pp. 222 ff_ 18 Cf. 3.6.4-5. Edith Sitwell suggests that these lines were written under the .infh1ence of Plato's Phaedo 64d-e 1; A Notebook on William Shakespeare, Macmillan, 1965, pp. 75-76. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 39 with this philosopher," he says. His first question is: "What is the cause of thunder?" Shortly before divesting, he apparently had no doubts about the cause of thunder, that is, Jupiter. I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove [2.4.229-30]. But now such questions have become open. He never addresses a god by a personal name again. During all the time of his madness he speaks of the divinities ("Gods," 4.6.128) only once. Lear seems now to be in a position to see deeper into the nature of things than he ever was before. The word nature and words with nature as their root are used fifty times in what has come to be the generally accepted text of King Lear. The word unnatural occurs seven times, more than twice as often as it occurs in any other play of Shakespeare. Lear uses words with nature as root more than twice as often as any other character in the play.37 These usages could be classified under five, not always clearly distinguishable, headings. Nature sometimes means (1) the general order of the social, political, and cosmic whole within which the activity of any one person or group can only be a part; (2) the constitution, or character, of an individual as a whole, that is, the unity arising from both endowment and habit; (3) the original endowment of an individual with the powers directed, though not necessarily compelled, toward definite ends, or purposes. This is the meaning expressed most often by Lear. Nature also means (4) the original endowment of an individual with powers supplied to be used howsoever their possessor wills. This is the meaning expressed most powerfully by Edmund. (5) Nature is twice personified as goddess: once by Lear conflating meanings 1 and 3, and once by Edmund conflating meanings 1 and 4. The play has often been understood as presenting the world as a great arena where the principles of ethical and unethical nature contest for dominion over the whole.38 The disagreements of the commentators are just one more reflection of the fact that Shakespeare has been far more explicit about raising the question of nature, Nineteen times. Gloucester is next with nine times. (Unnaturalness occurs once.) Cf. G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire, Meridian, p. 179; E. K. Chambers, Shakespeare: A Survey, Hill and Wang, pp. 240 ff. and esp. pp. 215-16; D. A. Traversi, An Approach to Shakespeare, Sands, revised and enlarged ed., p. 185; John F. Danby, Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature , A Study of King Lear, Faber & Faber, 1949, pp. 15-19; and esp. Robert B. Heilman, op. cit., n. 27 above, chs. 4 and 5, and pp. 115, 133-34, and 179-81. Heilman's careful work is a fundamental book, perhaps the fundamental book, for any serious study of King Lear. By carefully and searchingly tracing out and relating the amazingly intricate patterns of imagery in the play, Heilman lets Shakespeare's philosophy speak for itself. The book's deficiencies, deficiencies generally shared by critics of pre-nineteenth-century literature, stem from an insufficient understanding of certain key notions of classical philosophy, especially the notion of natural right (see Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, Chicago, 1953, chs. 3 and 4) and the notion of "intuitive reason," that is, nous (see Jacob Klein, 37 38 �40 Interpretation raising the question about the relation between nature and morality, than he has been about presenting any definite solution. There is more clarity, however, about who is wrong: The transgressions of Edmund, Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall lead ultimately to their own destruction. Nature repels simple viciousness. And about the meeting of Lear and Gloucester in Act 4, scene 6: "What could better point the transcendent issues Shakespeare has developed . . . than this encounter of the sensual man robbed of his eyes, with the wilful man, the light of his mind put out."39 Royal Lear's understanding of how morality is effected within nature is certainly not adequate. He conceives of the relation between morality and nature as being more organic than it is (3.4.14-16); he overestimates the power of law; he is insufficiently attentive to the limits set by nature to what authority and law can command. He relies overmuch on divine enforcement of nature's directives, and consequently is unaware of the extent to which the accomplishment of nature's purposes is left to chance and, on the basis of the conditions provided by nature and chance, to human prudence. In other words, the substitution of divine intervention for chance leads to an underestimation of the possibilities for evil and an insufficient awareness of the need for prudence. Lear's faith in the rightness of the divine and natural order is shattered by his suffering. But what does his shattering experience open him to? VI In his madness Lear becomes estranged, not only from the divinities he swore by before, but from nature as a whole, especially from nature as the source of generation.40 From the outset in Lear's mind the themes of generation, gratitude, and justice are intertwined. In his first great storm scene he bids the thunder, as if it were a divinity with authority and power over nature, to: Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world! Crack Nature's moulds, all germens spill at once That makes ingrateful man! [3 .2.7-9]. Destroy the world's pregnancy, he cries: Destroy nature's means for producing man, who shows by his failure to appreciate rightly the sources "Aristotle, An Introduction," Ancients and Moderns, Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey, Basic Books, 1964). Thus Heilman tends to identify · "reason" with calculation, so that insight and the perception of "value," that is, the good according to nature, are attributed to a "non-rational" imaginative awareness. See pp. 161, 170, and King Lear, 4.6.132-33, .177, n. 13, and pp. 30-31 above. at H. Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Shakespeare, quoted in Edith Sitwell, op. cit., n. 36 above, p. 47. In later editions Granville-Barker has apparently substituted, less aptly in our view, "despot" for "wilful man." .'° Cf. 4.6.115-16. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 41 of his being how undeserving he is of the gift of life. What Edmund can speak of as "the lusty stealth of nature" is, for Lear, associated with: hell . . . darkness, ... the sulphurous pit-burning, scalding, Stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, To sweeten my imagination [4.6.129-33). Mad Lear comes to a view of nature somewhat similar to Edmund's, nature as the primitive, undeveloped beginnings of things. But his anguish and revulsion indicate how much more he originally expected from nature: He feels and suffers the absence of what he can no longer believe in. Like Jesus he speaks against the Old Testament sentence for adultery.41 He goes to extremes and, as if all possibility of redemption were lost, declares: "Let copulation thrive." Jesus was more sober: After delivering the adulteress from condemnation, his last words to her were "go and sin no more" (John, 8.1-11). Lear, however, condemns women generally, confounding sex with Biblical, mostly New Testament, images of hell. In his condemnation of the world's justice, Lear cries: Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand! Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back; Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener [4.6.162-65). Again we are reminded of the New Testament: "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5.27-28) and "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8.7). Yet universal sainthood failing, decency requires that offenses be punished whether the intentions of the punishers be pure or not. Should thoughts and actions be equally punishable? Do men have as much control over their thoughts and desires as they do over their actions? Are others harmed by thoughts directed against themselves when those thoughts are neither divulged nor acted upon? If in the New Testament, as some would claim, these are deliberate rhetorical exaggerations, Lear seems to have lost the capacity to make the required qualifications. In a farmer's dog chasing a beggar, Lear says: There thou might'st behold The great image of Authority A dog's obey'd in office. Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; u Lev. 20.10. He "pardons" an adulterer rather than an adulteress. Cf. 2.4.12933 and .233-35. �42 Interpretation Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it. None does offend, none, I say, none; . .. If none does offend, and consequently none can rightly accuse, at least none who are not themselves spotless, perhaps none could ever rightly accuse: "Judge not, that ye be not judged."42 Edgar's commentary on this speech is: "O! matter and impertinency mix'd; I Reason in madness." An attempt should be made to separate some of the reason from the madness. The farmer's dog does often chase away the thief, but the dog cannot, unfortunately, distinguish between villainous and innocent, not to speak of undeserved, lowness. Authority and law are usually more rigorous with the poor and weak, partly because they are less capable of protecting themselves, and partly for less simple reasons. Wealth, power, and authority usually go together. And just as the unsuccessful can exaggerate the part played by chance and accident in human affairs, so the successful can flatter themselves by exaggerating the extent to which their good fortune is owed to their merits. By reasoning obversely about the misfortunes of others, they can allow themselves to become obtuse and callous to the miseries of the unfortunate, smothering charity in self-complacent rigor.43 Such is the man "that will not see I Because he does not feel . . ." When Gloucester in the fourth act asks the disguised Edgar who he is, Edgar replies: A most poor man made tame to Fortune's blows; Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows, Am pregnant to good pity. The sufferings of Lear, Gloucester, and Edgar would seem to be the remedy for this, the occupational disease of greatness. 44 Yet if suffering of such magnitude is required, the price of sufficiently educating authority in mercy or equity is hopelessly high. Few can do as much, perhaps, as the educator Shakespeare, who by his art, his presentations of feigned experiences, has made it possible for some to feel, without fully suffering, what they might need to feel in order to see. Lear's suffering, however, and the perspective he has come to adopt, have not prepared him for governing more responsibly, but rather ·for a renunciation of the "world." His suffering has completely destroyed him as a political man. Perhaps the most poignant expression of Lear's death as a political man is his reception of Kent in the last scene. Kent's affection for Lear is never severed from a political context. He always approaches Lear, even in defiance and in death, as servant to master, never simply as man to man. 45 At the end, although other explanations are possible, Lear's u Romans 3.1 -18; cp. 3.10-12 with Psalms 14; and Matt. 7.1-5. Lear is open to the charge the Apostle Paul said was made against himself, loc. cit. 3.8. " Cf. Laurence Berns, op. cit., n. 27 above, pp. 75-77. " For another approach to the problem see I Henry IV, 1.2 and 3.2; and Henry V, 4.1. " Cf. n. 10 above. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 43 cold reception of Kent indicates that Kent and what he stands for have faded into almost complete insignificance for Lear. Yet his renunciation of the world is not complete. The desire for vengeance remains: "And when I have stol'n upon these son-in-laws, I Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!" (4.6.188-89). VII When Lear awakes after his long sleep, "Our foster-nurse of Nature" (4.4.12), "the great rage," the doctor reports, " .. . is kill'd in him" (4.7.78-79). Clad in new garments, the images Lear uses are resurrection from the grave and entry into a new life, a life characterized by the interchange of blessing (from Lear) and forgiveness (from Cordelia) and mutual love.46 After the battle and their capture, Lear is given over almost entirely to love, the love of Cordelia. Come, let's away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh . •'\s if we were Gess spic1r aAd we'll wear e1d,ati~ ~, o-J... Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too, ~~~ Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; And take upon 's the mystery of things, As if we were God-s"sPies: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, pacts and sects of great ones That ebb and flow by the moon. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The Gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee? He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven, And fire us hence like foxes [5.3.8-23]. Lear seems to be perfectly fulfilled. He has no lingering regrets. The worth of being reconciled in love with Cordelia is beyond price: It cannot be measured by any of the measures Lear used in the first scene. No sacrifice, be it rule, extent of territory, honor, even freedom itself, seems too great, or even comparable with what Lear has gained. And with his love and the prospect of love's joy that he holds before himself has come patience. His patience and his love go together with his renunciation of the world. His desire for revenge is as dead as his pride. When Cordelia proudly says: For thee, oppressed King, I am cast down; Myself could else out-frown false Fortune's frown. Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters? Lear answers, "No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison." And at the •a Cf. also 4.6.33-80. �44 Interpretation moment of his death, with the dead Cordelia before him, it is clear that Lear can live no longer in the world where even these last hopes are dashed. He dies in a vision of reunion with Cordelia living once again. There has been extensive debate about whether these scenes are to be understood in a Christian sense or not.47 Was Lear's moment of joy at his death "based on an illusion"?4S Or, was it the triumphal culmination of his purgatorial, his redemptive suffering, a loving glimpse into that better world to come where all righteous hopes will be fulfilled? What we have been describing is the development of attitudes and a perspective that Shakespeare has presented in terms that are recognizably Christian. 49 This development in King Lear, however, is presented as a natural development. What was Shakespeare's perspective, as distinct from Lear's? The dramatic poet does not speak in his own name. His perspective can be inferred only from the play as a whole. "Hard were it for me, as if I were a god, to tell of all these things," says Homer.50 The poet stands as a god over the world of his play, but a god limited to what nature leaves to possibility and to chance: For nature, or the poet's understanding of nature, provides the framework. "ls there any cause in nature," Lear asks, "that makes these hard hearts?" (3.6. 78-79). Shakespeare seems to have asked: "ls there any cause in nature that makes these Christian hearts?" Nature, or the problem of nature, as articulated by classical philosophy, we suggest, provides the framework for King Lear.51 The major classical philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, of course, never elaborated an answer to what we suppose was Shakespeare's question. This could be due to historical accident. The serious question is: Are the principles and the framework they first articulated adequate to comprehend such an account? Must not the rise and triumph of Christianity be explained? Can the decision about the best way of life be compelling unless all fundamental alternatives have been examined? It is incumbent upon classical philosophy to try to see whether the revealed religions and the souls formed by them can be rendered intelligible to natural reason. Shakespeare seems to have been exploring this possibility, especially in King Lear. Yet, it could be argued, nature has its place also within the Christian 41 See K. Muir, Arden Ed., pp. Iv ff.; Barbara Everett, "The New King Lear," in Shakespeare: King Lear, Casebook Series, ed. F. Kermode, 1969, pp. 184 ff.; G. W. Knight, op. cit., pp. 187 ff.; and Susan Snyder, "King Lear and the Prodigal Son," Shakespeare Quarterly, Autumn 1966. 48 K. Muir, loc. cit., p. lix. " Cf. Heilman, op. cit., p. 78; n. 11, p. 309; and esp. n. 1, p. 331. '° Iliad XII, 1.176. 11 Aristotle NE 1134b 18-35. Cf. Leo Strauss, "The Law of Reason in the Kuzari," Persecution and the Art of Writing, Free Press, 1952, pp. 95-98; Allan Bloom, op. cit., 11- 12 above, Introduction; . and Howard B. White, Copp'd Hills Towards Heaven: Shakespeare's Classical Polity, Nijhoff, 1970. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 45 cosmos. Could not Shakespeare have been showing rather how God's invisible law might, "from the creation of the world," have been written by nature in men's hearts? Might he not have been showing what would have to be endured by a "natural man," that is, a man with no knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Bible, for that law to begin to become visible to him?52 If the issue were to be put in terms of the primacy of compassionate love as compared with the primacy of insight, Shakespeare may have provided a clue to his own opinion in Act 4 of King Lear. An unnamed gentleman describes Cordelia's tears while she reads of her father's sufferings as "pearls from diamonds dropped." "Tears of compassion are pearls; eyes are diamonds ... ": Tears of compassion are compared to rare and precious stones, but eyes, that is, insight, are more precious still. 53 "Hath not God," wrote the Apostle Paul, "made foolish the wisdom of this world?"54 For Paul the "foolish" of faith possess a wisdom far deeper than anything accessible to natural reason. Is this what Shakespeare suggests by echoing this language about wisdom and folly in his articulation of the problem of morality and justice in King Lear? The Fool tells Kent: That sir which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the storm. But I will tarry; the Fool will stay, And let the wise man fly: The knave turns Fool that runs away; The Fool no knave, perdy [2.4.78-85]. In this play the word fool moves through a range of meanings. The official Fool in motley is "foolish," funny, and privileged because he seems, or is licensed to pretend, not to know the most ordinary conventions. In general, a fool is a man who does not know what every man is expected to know. Somewhat less generally, assuming that in everything a man chooses to do, some benefit to himself is intended, a fool is a man who does things that harm himself, who lacks judgment about what benefits himself. This is the elementary meaning of the word in the play that is presupposed by the four meanings following. The honest fools, best exemplified by Gloucester and by Edgar of the Cf. Romans l.20, 2.14-15; and I Car. 2.14. Heilman, op. cit., pp. 155-56. Cf. King Lear, 5.3.189-90 and l. l.56. 5• I Car. 2.20 and ibid. chs. 1-4. But cp. A Midsummer Night's Dream, 4.1.1026: and cf. ibid., 4.1.218-21 with I Car. 2.9: ibid. l.2.22-99 with I Car. 9.22: ibid. 1.2.8,15; 3.1.1-81; 4.2.30-end with Galatians 2:11 ff.: also ibid. 5.1.195-96, 311, and 360-62. 52 53 �Interpretation 46 early scenes, are overtrusting and, as in Gloucester's case, overcredulous about heavenly influences on human actions. They fail to understand people unlike themselves, to understand vice and malice. They are easily gulled by those clever and unscrupulous enough to exploit and betray their trust. The loyal and dutiful are "moral fools ." So Albany is regarded by Goneril and Kent spoken of by the Fool. The same could be said of the servant who mortally wounds Cornwall and is killed by Regan. Lear in acting on the expectation that his elder daughters would be bound by filial gratitude and duty is another kind of "moral fool." The moral fools tend to act as if moral laws were as inviolable as natural laws, as if moral laws were natural laws. They are regarded as fools by the "worldly wise" for not appreciating sufficiently the arbitrary and conventional factors in morality, the bestial elements in human nature, and for not appreciating sufficiently how self-seeking usually masks itself in moral guises. For the worldly wise self-seeking is the only kind of seeking sanctioned by nature. What the moral fool senses or sees and the worldly wise are blind to is the extent to which the humanity of any one man's life is a function of the larger moral, social, and political orders of which that individual life can only be a part. Examples of what we might call the "noble fool" are France, the Fool, Edgar, Cordelia, and Lear: those capable of being touched and moved by noble love, by "inflam'd respect."55 By their willingness to risk themselves and everything that could be subject to calculations of worldly success, they exhibit their own conviction, and rouse admiration and hopes, in those capable of appreciating them, that mankind is capable of attaining states of being that are simply good in themselves. The worldly wise are blind to this possibility. In the light of what the moral fool and the noble fool see, the knavery of the worldly wise reveals itself as the final folly. By their blindness to what raises man above the beasts, the "wise" knaves finally bring themselves down with those whose justice they violate. By their blindness to what directs men toward the divine, to what is good in itself, they are deprived of nature's graces, the love and friendship of the noble. But do the love and insight that Lear and Gloucester attain fully redeem what they have suffered? What is to be inferred from the disproportion between their sins and their terrible suffering? "We glory in tribulations," wrote the Apostle Paul, knowing that tribulation work.eth patience; and patience experience; and experience, hope. And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. [Romans 5.3-5]. And from the Apostle James: Be patient therefore brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he 11 Cf. section II above. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 47 receive the earlier and the latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. It is Cordelia, her love, "The holy water from her heavenly eyes" (4.3 .31), that near the end sustain Lear's patience. The gentleman describes how she read Kent's letters recounting Lear's ordeal: Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence; And now and then an ample tear trill'd down Her delicate cheek; it seem'd she was a queen Over her passion; who, most rebel-like, Sought to be king o'er her. "O! then it mov'd her?" Kent asks. Not to a rage; patience and sorrow strove Who should express her goodliest. You have seen Sunshine and rain at once; her smile and tears Were like, a better way; those happy smilets That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence, As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief, Sorrow would be a rarity most belov"d, If all could so become it [4.3.12-24]. Later Cordelia prays: All bless'd secrets, All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth, Spring with my tears! he aidant and remediate In the good man's distress! [4.4.15-18]. In the reconciliation scene, Lear asks, "Be your tears wet?" He answers himself, "Yes, faith." These scenes too are often taken as argument that "King Lear is a Christian play about a Pagan world .... "56 Sunshine and rain, however, suggest natural growth, that Cordelia's smiles and tears were· nature·s means for curing Lear's abused heart. It does seem, however, to be a most Christianlike use of nature. But, unlike Lear, Cordelia, whose patience is so movingly described, is proud to the end. She never asks for forgiveness. She is prepared to "outfrown false Fortune's frown. " Is she prepared to live out her life "in a walled prison"? She has not renounced political life: She calls Lear king and queenlike puts down her rebel passions. She is ready to confront her sisters: "Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?" Yet what is perhaps most significant, though obvious, for the question of Christianity in King Lear is that there is no promise or expectation "for the coming of the Lord." The word patience is ambiguous. In the Christian sense it seems to mean bearing tribulations in the loving faith that their promised miraculous reversals will surely come to pass. In the classical, or stoic, sense of the 58 I. C . Maxwell, quoted in Muir, op. cit., p. lvi. �48 Interpretation word it seems to mean endurance: endurance that does not anticipate miraculous change, that accepts evil in the world as a necessity, that bases itself only on rational hopes and the conviction that what is itself good deserves loyalty whether that loyalty receives any other reward or not. The unforeseen mischances of the world that bring down the just and innocent too often with the guilty, in the classical view, engender the wish for particular providence at the same time that they constitute evidence for its absence. It is not incompatible with the love of truth to respect the love of justice that is the father to that wish. VIII Who is the paradigm of virtue m this play? The gentleman says, addressing himself to absent Lear: Thou hast one daughter, Who redeems nature from ·the general curse Which twain have brought her to.57 Why then was Cordelia killed? Cordelia's honesty, her proud refusal to join her sisters in their demeaning hypocrisy, precipitated the catastrophe of this play. Her death raises the question about what the moral limits of proud honesty in an imperfect world might be.58 Pisanio and Cornelius in Cymbeline avert tragedy by, as they put it, being false (to the bad) in order to be true (to the good) (1.5.43-44 and 4.3.42). In Sonnet 94 those "who rightly do inherit heaven's graces I And husband nature's riches from expense" are also those "that have pow'r to hurt and will do none, I That do not do the thing they most do show." This last line could never apply to Cordelia. Edgar is the character in King Lear who most of all does not do the thing he most does show. He successfully assumes six different guises in the play. During the play from a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty the practices of a confirmed villain ride easily, he develops into a model of virtue armed and resourceful. Edgar seems to be a mean between his father and his bastard brother. Their opinions about heavenly influences over human affairs are at opposite extremes. The father is overcredulous, Edmund undercredulous. 17 Does this indicate that ingratitude more than prideful disobedience is chiefly responsible for the "general curse"? See n. 17 above. 58 Cf. Ulrici, Variorum Ed., ed. Furness, pp. 456 57. See also Gervinus, ibid., pp. 459-60, on the significance of her leadership of the invading army for the question of her death. Cf. H. Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Shakespeare, Botsford, 1970, pp. 23-24 (277-78) and 51 (305) on Cordelia's silence. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 49 Both are perhaps equally at fault intellectually, but the moral fault is clearly more the son's.59 In Shakespeare's world he who scorns all idea of heavenly influence on human affairs rarely comes to much good. Edgar's speech to his dying brother gives the last word of the play on the adultery theme and constitutes an answer as well to Gloucester's "As flies to wanton boys, are we to th' Gods; I They kill us for their sport." The Gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us; The dark and vicious place where thee he got Cost him his eyes [5.3.170-73]. Edmund replies, "Th' hast spoken right, 'tis true. I The wheel is come full circle; I am here." Edgar spoke of the gods, but Edmund speaks of fortune 's wheel. Lear preaches to Gloucester, drawing lessons from man's beginnings: Thou must be patient; we came crying hither: Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air We wawl and cry . ... When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools• 0 [4.6.180-85]. Edgar preaches to his suicidal father on the same theme: Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all [5.2.911]. This sermon is more adequate because it is more comprehensive. It considers not only the beginnings but the middle and the end as welJ.61 Man's chief concern, the image suggests, should be not with what happens when the fruit falls and dies, nor especially the beginnings, but rather with coming to fullest maturity in the world. IX King Lear is based on two stories, the Lear story and the Gloucester story. Critics have long been concerned by the apparent lack of complete unity between them.62 The unity of King Lear comes to sight on the level of reflection, reflection on the one philosophic theme underlying both stories, of which both stories are necessary and complementary parts: 58 Cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Rea·on , B 857 58. All the world's a stage in Shakespeare for him who, like Lear, Jaques, and Antonio, is coming to feel himself to be an "exile in 'this' world." Macbeth (5.5.25) is a special case. 61 I am indebted for this observation to Hilail Gildin of Queens College, N .Y. 62 Cf. Bradley, op. cit., pp. 118 ff. ; Heilman, op. cit., p. 32 and n. 28, pp. 298-99; and "The Unity of King Lear" in op. cit., ed. Kermode, n. 47 above, pp. 169 ff. 60 �50 Interpretation namely, that nature, while constituting the ground and limits of convention and law, requires in man the cooperation of law and convention for its fulfillment. Lear in trying to command love and gratitude fails to see that the natural growths of noble love and gratitude are beyond the control of law and political authority. The Lear story illustrates the natural limits of legal and political authority and the tensions that arise between nature and law when those limits are not rightly observed.63 The Gloucester story, the adultery theme, and the stories of Lear's elder daughters illustrate the other side of the same coin: how certain natural passions and powers, most manifestly the power of procreation, need to be controlled by conventions, laws, and authority.64 Ordinary love and passion, not to speak of base love and passion, need to be controlled by law and authority. Being conceived outside the "order of law" (1.1.19), Edmund was banished from the family circle. He is, not altogether "unnaturally," devoid of family feeling. As the bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in, the dying Edmund exclaims, "Yet Edmund was belov'd: I The one the other poison'd for my sake, I And after slew herself." Goneril and Regan as well as Lear seem to have died for "love." How would nature and convention, or law, be related when cooperating harmoniously? Nature provides the materials, the human materials and powers, and ordains, or manifests to natural reason, what purposes and ends would perfect the materials and fulfill the powers. But the accomplishment of nature's purposes is left to chance and to men: On the basis of the conditions provided by nature and chance, the responsibility for forming the materials and developing the powers so as to function in accordance with those ends is left to men themselves through custom, habituation, training, law, art, and education .65 Human nature is so constituted as to require the formation of conventions and laws for its fulfillment. Edgar does represent the natural man in this play, not as the poor, bare, forked animal Lear saw, but as he is in himself, the man of many disguises, the educable man, whose heart does not enslave his mind and whose mind does not silence his heart,66 whose heart and mind remain sound no matter bow his outward trappings change. He is the natural man, not in that sense of nature that means only primitive beginnings, but where "nature" includes fulfillment, "ripeness."67 ea Cf. Jaffa, op. cit., p. 131. 14 The control is, of course, guided by other natural powers, such as reason and judgment. France, the king, acknowledges the law's authority even over his noble love for Cordelia (1.1.253). u Cf. Plato Meno, esp. beginning; and Aristotle NE Book ii, ch. 1. H Cf. Leo Strauss, in Jason Marvin Aronson, Three Funeral Addresses, University of Chicago, University College, December 6, 1961, p. 8. 17 Cf. Aristotle Physics Book. ii. �Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in lGng Lear 51 The same consummate irony that led him, correctly, but for the wrong reasons, to be called "the thing itself," that is, the natural man, by Lear may be at work also in his being called "philosopher."68 Edgar, though not the most tragic, nor the most pathetic, character in the play, is the true hero of patience in King Lear. es This is not contradicted by the fact that Edgar is the only major character in the play who never uses the word nature or any word with nature as its root. Cf. n. l, above. � 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 26 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 Berns, Laurence, 1928- Title A name given to the resource Gratitude, nature, and piety in King Lear Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-05 Description An account of the resource Revised version of a lecture delivered in May 1969 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 53000 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 has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Friday night lecture Tutors